Game update (long post!)

It's been a minute but I've had my head down, making progress on the game thing... I feel like it's so close to an alpha that's mostly representative of the experience but yeah... there's still a lot left to do. I swear, this kind of game is deceptively complex, like it hasn't been the most difficult stuff I've programmed but there's so much stuff that has to interact with each other and lots of tiny things that you don't think about until you go to make an adventure game with life-sim elements. It sort of feels like I'm close to (or am currently in) the 80% done phase but the last 20% is now stuff like characters I need to model and animate, FMVs I need to make, a couple main menu GUIs I need to make, writing dialogue... basically all the stuff that makes it more of a "game" than a lame program with interactive stuff in it.

-Added giving things to characters

-Time speed up fully implemented (also that's been moved to R2)

-Time will return to normal speed during transition animations, walk to/returning from a needs interaction, if the player is passing out, that kind of stuff. (and then will be sped up if you're still holding the fast forward button)

-Added audio system stuff for daytime/nighttime/interior/exterior music/ambience (still buggy though... an audio system that does what I want has been surprisingly difficult to program >_>)

-Finished skill system (using objects that will give exp in a specific skill the longer you use it)

-Made musical stings for various things (one of my friends made one too! Resni! He did an awesome guitar riff. That's attached below!)
https://bsky.app/profile/resnijars.bsky.social

-Added a bunch of animations:

• -getting in/sleeping in/ getting out of bed

• -eating food

• -dancing

• -flexing in front of mirror

• -pantomime in front of mirror

• -A dumb animation for the TV when it's turned on

(here's the video on the tv, I quickly made this dumb, scribbly animation inspired by that CSI-glasses-yeah thing)

• -and more

-Improved the needs interaction system (means interactions can be complex, player will walk to/return from interaction hotspots if needed, interactions can have a begin, loop and exit animation, interactions can cost money, I think it has feature parity with the likes of the GBA Sims games)

-Needs objects now have a few more extra objects on them. An FX object (like the water from the shower head), a wall object (so the shower floor is below the player and the shower wall is above/behind depending on the player and object's depth). And a special extra interaction object that activates if the parent needs object is active (think being able to watch the TV from some distance in front of the TV as opposed to having to interact with the TV itself to watch it)

-Added a bunch of sound effects, some bought from audio jungle, some made with original recordings, some made with cc0 sounds from freesound.

• -Fridge open/close

• -Eating food loop

• -Shower knob squeak

• -Shower loop

• -Piss in toilet bowl loop

• -Piss on floor loop

• -Toilet flush

• -Enter/Exit conversation sounds

• -Time speed up/time is fast loop/end speed up sounds

• -Radio can play a song (it''s be "Ectoplasm (The Soloist)" by Spirit Loops)
  https://spiritloops.bandcamp.com/track/ectoplasm-the-soloist

-Finally have an actual buying things scenario for the buying/selling GUI (can buy food at the diner)

-Animated and rendered placeholder sprites for the diner guy (Bobby the bull). Model is by Wolke! You can find it here:
https://wolkehond.itch.io/bara-cow

-Added secret piss spots (little hidden spots that you can piss in and the game tells you you found one)

-Did a bit more work on backgrounds (but not much, the garage room is 99% done besides the door)

-Fixed a few weird problems you might have encountered in that old build I first posted:

-Sometimes the text in GUIs would be all weird and scrunched, it was due to objects being between pixels so if it's x or y had a .5 in it the text would render strangely, not sure why it does that and it was oddly difficult to figure out how to fix but it should be mostly fixed I hope)

-Sometimes you could walk on collision objects. The movement code previous allowed movement if you were stuck inside and NPC or a needs object but that accidentally let you move inside colliders. Now, if you get stuck on something the game nudges you to the closest available spot in a big circle. It was hard to like... figure out what I needed out of an algorithm for this so I started visualizing it first (the center of the circle is the input x/y and it checks coordinates going out from the center until it finds one that the instance it's trying to place can fit in without colliding with colliders (the blue squares) or other instances of itself)

I was going to post this as it was above but then I like, ended up working on more stuff, enough to where I should add to the post. I started a simple "npcs can react to things" system (NPCs now have "fetish" and "voyeur" traits, depending on what needs action you're doing and what their traits are they might react positively or negatively to what you're doing, like if you pee in front of them, shower in front of them, that kind of thing)

I also started rewriting Fregus' text for the first chapter. Since I've flesh out a lot of stuff in the demo and figured out more of what his character/personality is, I've scrapped most of the story related stuff he said. Now there's more exposition (and also some tutorial text where he explains stuff about the game for players who have never played the Sims GBA games)

And I added in a conversation-based lewd interaction with Fregus.

Also started a thread of lewd interaction with the bull guy (that probably won't be in the demo, not in a finished state anyway but it will be in there as some extra lewd dialogue you can have with him)

Oh also I tried making more stylish backgrounds for the conversations. Nothing fancy, just some scrolling images to give the illusion of something fancy going on. (also there'd be different backgrounds for stuff, like at some point each important character would have a unique background but for now it's just the blue/purple one. And a pink/yellow one for lewd interactions)

While working on the Fregus interactions it made it more clear about how I should use the different ways of portraying lewdness. The three ways lewd stuff can be seen in this game is on the field, in conversations and in FMVs, each one has their strengths and weaknesses. Like, lewd stuff on the field can be the most dynamic but it's the least detailed visually. Conversations aren't as dynamic but they have detailed renders of the characters. And FMV isn't interactive at all but it's all fully animated and voice acted and stuff.

I figure field stuff could be for interactions that might be quite difficult to make an FMV of (such as 5 characters all stroking it at the same time), conversations could be good for characters getting undressed (since jeez it's tough animating characters taking off clothing) and FMV could be good for short bits to accent the stuff that was happening on the field and in conversations (such climax, stuff involving fluid, etc...)

I'll attach a video below! It doesn't showcase everything but it shows off stuff I was working on today and a couple previous days.

I spent too much time working on this though instead of like... some animation. I was trying to settle on a simple idea, like an animation that would be used for a "fap" option when you go to use a bed. I think that's prooobably the most reasonable thing to finish before the end of the month... I was originally thinking about the Fregus/Rinzo stroking FMV (that plays at the end of the lewd conversation interaction with Fregus) but that one is a bit more complex and idk if it's doable on time.

(oh also I gave Rinzo 5 fingers. Since most people who make characters that I could use as a base to modify/rework into a custom character use 5 fingers I added another finger to his hands to keep things consistent, it's easier to add a finger to one character vs. remove a finger from a multiple characters!)

Oh also! I did way more fluid tests on that WS animation with pumped Fregus. Idk if that'll go anywhere... but I did figure out some ways to get some nicer looking fluid spilling/clinging to a puffy opening around a hole.

Sorry for not posting sooner! I just kind of kept adding stuff and finishing features and procrastinating writing anything...