Game dev post (apologies for doing game dev again >_>)

Sorry for the lack of updates, lately I was feeling kind of depressed (the whole things-breaking-around-the-house-and-needing-to-be-fixed-which-costs-money thing and the whole payment processor/collective shout thing and then the various bills the US gov is trying to pass that would ban p0rn and/or make it more difficult to make p0rn...)

The threat to my livelihood and my passion has made me feel pretty bad. I don't like talking about that stuff because eh... I'd rather be posting about stuff I made/progress I'm making on things. So enough about that.

To make myself feel better I started doing a little game dev... I've been thinking about the Sims a lot (particularly the Sims games on GBA, the Sims Bustin out, the Urbz, etc...) and felt like taking a stab at prototyping something like that. So I did! I'll have a video below that shows various stages of it's prototyping. I got the major parts of the various systems for a faux rpg/life sim game like Bustin' Out.

Once I made the needs system, time of day and basic interacting with needs objects implemented, I brought in some stuff from the Gyra game (my controller manager and movement and collision stuff was quite good and there's no sense in remaking that stuff!). Then I started testing out character sprite proportions using a placeholder model I made for the Gyra game boss characters.

I did some sketches of what the main character might look like and I settled on a skinny zebra tw1nk guy.


I experimented with rabbit-like ears for him, thinking maybe all mammals in this world are the same species and thought the ears could be a good trait to tie it together but... meh. I think in universe, all mammals are the same species and all reptiles are the same species. (so a zebra guy could get a busty bunny babe pregnant as an example...)

I decided to stick to a more traditional zebra design. Then I drew over the sprite in a screenshot to figure out what the proportions of this guy would be in 3d form.


Btw I've also attached a timelapse video of the modeling process for the zebra! I used the metarig I made for the placeholder guy as a base so I was able to pretty quickly make something I could use to see how a real character would look walking around the world. I went back and added proper clothes to him and I'm quite happy with how he looks!


Then I refined the needs objects system, adding more features to them including hotspots for the player to walk up to before the interaction begins. That was kind of a pain to figure out, involved a lot of hardcoding values for where hotspots would be on needs object collision masks, their positions on all 4 diagonal orientations, which hotspots should be usable depending on the orientation of the object, etc...

This some visualizations I did to help me figure out the positions and stuff for the orientations.


After that I seemed to have the needs interaction system in place! And I made an animation of the mc using the urinal to use for testing changing sprites for needs interactions. I was going to write a post days ago but I didn't want to show off something ugly and bad looking... so I wanted to have most graphics looking okay (not final but good enough to give an idea of what the final look will look like). So I made animations and poses for the rabbit guy who's the zebra mc's bestie.


I just made a sleeker UI for everything! I think it looks pretty slick. I usually like a more maximalist/graphics and color heavy UI but I think something very simple works best here.



For some reason I felt like revisiting some older stuff I made forever ago... if you've followed my work for awhile you'd know I tried making some overly ambitious dating sims (they weren't even that ambitious I just couldn't figure out how to effectively make them...check out Gator or Zebra on itch, it sucks and I don't recommend playing it https://velocirection.itch.io/gator-or-zebra) (the reason I picked a zebra as MC also is a little reference towards Gator or Zebra- perhaps he's related to the zebra you try to date in that game!?)

There was something about having that, the Sims GBA and my dilemma of what to do with the gyra game swirling in my mind that made me realize... the Sims GBA format of a game is perfect for a lewd dating sim adventure game. And with the gyra game I wanted to focus on character interactions vs. being all about combat. I kind of lost the plot, trying to make the combat really good (it was never going to be super amazing... and I felt like if I can't make it really good then why even have the combat...) then trying to come up with some rpg story that was only there because it was an rpg in a fantasy-ish setting... but like who will care.

Like, I don't think I could make an action rpg game with interesting, thoughtful enough combat that would be worth playing...

The thing with a Sims-like game is that the game mechanics can be used for lewd storytelling/interaction. For example, maybe you can arrange what I call a "special moment" (as in, some kind of s3xual cutscene in the form of an FMV) with someone who's into watersports and in order to initiate it you have to have a full bladder. So you go find spots to drink water to make your bladder meter go down. Or if your hygiene meter is low, some characters might react in a lewd way, like maybe they'll only smash if you smell like a musky, h0rny zebra.

And having a modern setting that's supposed to be comical/whimsical like a Sims game lets me kind of do whatever. Like including existing characters (such as Nyro, I can reuse the bug alien monsters, I can have dragons, talking feral horses, the triceratops, raptor bros and their step bro could live in this town and you could talk to them, Gyra could be a character you can interact with...)

I even have a good name for the game- last month I was chatting with a friend and somehow I thought a good name for a lewd game would be "Freaky F^^^ers." It'd be about mischievous guys that like to f^^^ and are freaky. This was a lot of fun to make, I made it as gaudy and busy as possible and used all kinds of vintage textures...


The premise of this thing... I'm still not entirely sure of beyond the very beginning. But the idea is: you're a young adult who lived with his parents. However, you got caught doing something very lewd (you'd have a choice on what that is for your back story, stuff like "tea bagging a wedding cake" or something) and they use that as an excuse to kick you out of the house. Luckily your best friend is willing to help you get back on your feet! Now you're staying with him a small town called Frequefurt.

You hear about a special club some of the residents are members of... the Freaky F^^^ers- h0rny, big meat guys who are all about g00ning and finding hot people to breed. Your life's goal is now: establish a new life in Frequefurt and become a Freaky F^^^er.

Here's a gameplay video on youtube of the most current build:
https://youtu.be/yoxOrPvrqKk?si=RJ33X1R_kHbyPCzD

This ignited some much needed positive energy in me! So I've been feeling way better than I was about a week ago.

(I have been working on fluid sim stuff for the gator/mitch animation too, I'll be posting about that soon!)