Weekly Update: 11/5/22

Accomplished:
-New Clara Assets Done
-New Alex Assets Done
-New Ricky R Assets Done
-Part 1 and Two Maps have been converted over
-More rooms were built using the 3 new designs

Future:
-Push ahead with more character updates. Jamie is next. After him I'll do a few like Ricky that have 1 body and a few expressions such as the chef, Manager, Nessie, etc.
-Work on converting more maps over
-Work on converting more dialogue over on the back end. Thankfully it can mostly be done with find and replace but will take time.

Other
-It will be a bit before you all see a new build of part 1. As part of the game update, I'm redoing the way dialogue is structured on the back end. Currently, dialogue uses a "Show Image" call followed by a "Show Text call. When you click the text to move on, the process repeats for the next character with the new images overriding old ones.
The new system is "Set Expression variable to X", then "Call Common Event character", followed by a "Show Text call. These new common events are on a per-character basis and do a couple of things. First they check what the body state is (0, 1, 2, etc). Some, like Ricky, only have body 0 (clothed), while others like Clara, have bodies in various stages of undress or bondage. Second, it checks if the character is gagged, then checks their expression. It then pops out two images at the same time, one body and one head. It looks the same as the old system on your end. So you might be wondering, why redo it at all? Several reasons some of which will change gameplay in an exiting way.
1) It makes fixing assets or catching errors easier. If I need to fix a body I now only have to change a single image as opposed to every single expression. If an asset is misnamed (thank you zip files) I only have to fix the name in the common event.
2) It uses fewer images. Ten expressions and two body states using the old system would require 20 images. The new one requires only 12.
3) Most of the characters were drawn using the RPG Maker sizing, which is far smaller than I'm used to. This was limiting on my end but I did it assuming it would look better. It did not. It looks far better to scale down bigger images. Since the new system requires the head and bodies to be separated, I'm redrawing everyone as opposed to wasting time trying to retro-fit the old models. This will take time, but so far they've been of higher quality, at least to me.
4) I can standardize the expression names. When we started this it was mostly a free for all, then recurring ones shared names, now there's a proper scheme with expressions 1-10 being universal across all characters.
5) This is the big one. Uncoupling the head and body means that it is now piss easy to leave characters in various stages of undress or have tied-up characters do more. An example would be, if I wanted to give you the option of leaving Veleno unclothed, I'd need to code an if-then into every event every time he talks. Now I just need to set a single variable one time. Same goes for other characters. With this new system, you could theoretically played with some characters undressed or partially tied for the rest of the game.

-And lastly, while I have plenty of plans for new interactions or ways of going about things, I'm open to suggestions, especially for part 1 which I'll be working on first.