Thursday, 21 December 2017

Blog 24 - Development and Distribution Platform

Hey everyone!
So I've been busy not dying, in and out of hospital and all the fun stuff but doing better now. Just a bit of an update on whats going on and things are happening soon!

Development

I'm finally making some progress on a project that I hope to get a version out soon for everyone to try, its a step away in what I think is a good way from my main project 'Island of Passion' and going for a more of a spin off game. More details on that soon when I'm ready to properly announce it but I plan on having plenty gameplay for everyone to enjoy when it is.

Distribution and Donations

So one of the biggest issues I've been fumbling around with for a while now is Donations/Money. Finding a platform that doesn't want to tax me through the roof as if I'm running a business and not just as a random low key hobbyist is extremely annoying. So I've got my sights on Itch.io, the games will be completely free and always will be. However if you do enjoy the games I make, you can donate by paying what you like for the game which supports me and will help make more content and games in the future.


Sunday, 24 September 2017

Development Blog 23 - New Name!

Changing the tile of After Hours: Island to Island of Passion.
Changing of the game's title felt like a necessary step, while "After Hours" did originally make sense for the game at first, Island of Passion sounds more open ended and better represents what the game is about now.

Origin Story of After Hours Island:
After Hours Island was originally a simple glory hole game that took place 'After Hours' in the back of club/bar/party toilet, although it was hard to tell. The idea of the game was to start in the toilet and build up to your own After Hours club with lots of sexual activities, this was one of my first experiences working with Unity so I started small. I never really got it off the ground but I wanted to do something with the idea of a sex based game with open ended customisation.

So then I started After Hours Island a while later, being a kind of 'next step' in the story & gameplay from After Hours as if the character from the previous game had worked their way up to owning an island as a kind of vacation spot for sexploitation. Which brought us to After Hours Island releases, primarily just getting the base gameplay down and ideas being developed ever since.

Island of Passion:
I still want to keep the core ideas from After Hours Island and its Glory Hole game 'After Hours', Island of Passion is much broader and can easily encompass After Hours Island but not be restricted to that original idea.

The game will be as open ended as feasibly possible, I've gone into details in previous posts but the core concept will be:

  • Controlling a character of your design.
  • A world filled with characters you & others create.
  • Building relationships with these characters.
  • Dynamic relationships through occupation and games.
  • Progression in Sexual Encounters.
  • Progression in the world, building your characters wealth.

Quick Developer Notes:
While I have a passion to work on this game, its hard to find the time for it and development has been very slow as of late because of it. I've been looking into solutions such as Patreon and other various donation methods which would alleviate some financial stress allowing me to work more but its not easy as all systems require going through the US tax system which is too much extra workload for little gain. Ideally I want a donation system that rewards those who donate without the hassle.

Additional Notes:
While Island of Passion is a sexual based game, I hope to make in depth and engaging content for this genre, I've seen a lot of games rely on tedious monotony to bridge their sexual content. Personally I feel like if you've gone through the trouble of developing a game in the first place you might try to design some gameplay to make the experience more engaging. I hope to avoid grinding or at least give an option to by pass time consuming tasks such as a 'job'.

As just as an example of this, for an idea of the gameplay in a job in Island of Passion is you might work at a cafe. Instead of a traditional click all the things mini-game to clean or serve etc. I may have a option when serving customers that you can converse and build your relationship with said customers while you work as they would be the characters in your world. Alternatively and possibly as a kind of progression in your job, you then can start messing with people or do more sexually oriented tasks. For example you work your way up the staff chain then be able to set the staff's uniforms, maybe even turn the Cafe into a maid or sex cafe. I cannot promise anything specifically yet but this is within the realm of possibilities with the already developed character creator and clothes systems.

Saturday, 12 August 2017

Development Blog 22 - Redo!

So its been a while since I've posted and progress as per usual is a bit slow and all over the place. Finding the time isn't easy, but I'll get there. Few new major changes in the works for the better.

Redo?
I decided I needed to overhaul the whole game... well not entirely... I've learnt so much in the time I started this project, I already have dozen new approaches to half the content to the game. More waiting time? In short yes, but it was already going to take a while and I hope to shortcut a lot of work this time. I'm trying to condense my work as much as possible while still retaining a high fidelity of customisation in the game.

What will be new?
  • Unisex Body
    Unisex is about the best word I can think of to describe the new work in progress body, rather than having separate Female and Male bodies as originally planned, I'm taking a risk and going for a body that allows you to choose your characters body genitalia and gender shape (In theory). The new method for the body should allow for much more diverse visual differences. The idea again to condense my workload in having all the clothing and body parts work as one. And to answer your genitalia question your options will likely include Male/Female/Futanari(Hermaphrodite)/None. There will be options to change the overall look to a female figure or a male. Allowing for character combinations such as super buff male looking character with boobs if so desired.
  • Gender-less Approach
    So before I was going to 'code' gender into the game, but with this new unisex body gender is kind of a null factor and wouldn't really do anything to improve the experience. The focus is now on feminine and masculine personalities and looks. Even the in-between will possible allowing for a whole new range of character potential. Its not about the gender, its about the genitalia.

  • Area Builder (Name to be decided)
    The Area Builder is a new feature that allows you to construct your own world areas, from building interiors to household object placement. Areas will be saved as a module piece you can use in the World Builder. While this seems complicated it actually saves me a lot of time taking the world design out of my hands and into the players.
  • World Builder
    The world builder will be a tool used in conjunction with the Area Builder, the world builder ties "areas" together to create your own designed world for you and your characters to interact in. Area's are modular which allows you to connect them how you see fit in the world builder connecting doorways to other areas.
  • Customisation
    One of the core features of this game has always been the customisation, with that in mind the aim will be to allow players to bring their own content to the game in any practical way possible, from body and clothing textures to custom created accessorises in the character creator. And possibly in the future, customised furniture creator may be possible that allow you to make your own chair/tables/beds/prop.
  • New Game Name
    A new name hasn't been decided yet, the reason for a name change is because it no longer follows the original game idea much anymore and has evolved beyond a singular world and story. Hope to keep it simple and to the point, this blog should still remain. After Hours After All.
I hope those of you who do read this look forward to the new approach, there is still a lot to do and I know I keep skimming over doing sex scenes, I will make it a priority once the logistics of the rest of the game are sorted. Animating scenes takes a long while and I would like to try to find a solution that will allow for huge diversity of scenes and fetishes without hundreds of hours of work.

Side Note, Help Mama Out! has been put on the back burner for now, if progress picks up in the main game it may be included as a playable mode.

Thursday, 8 June 2017

Help Mama Out! 01 - New small game


About
Help Mama Out! is a small game about a mother who becomes intrigued with large insertion after watching a nature show on TV. Create your desired mama and gather objects around the house to help stretch Mama out and collect her juices daily to sell online to fund her new venture.


Download
Help Mama Out! - Alpha 0.1 (Incomplete)

Version Notes
Alpha 0.1: Incredibly bare bones, hardly works. There is no game mechanics in it yet and very little to do. Super buggy.

Development Roadmap:
  • Gameplay Progress - Collect breast milk, vaginal discharge, urine and faeces daily to sell for money.
  • Online Store - Place you can buy dildos.
  • Stretching - Build Mama's tolerance to larger objects by stretching her out with slightly larger objects.
  • Item Stats - Toys have an effect on Mama and interact differently.

Developer notes:
I'd love some quick feedback if you've got a second: http://www.strawpoll.me/13133947

After Hours Island has been taking a long while to work on, on top of that with my life being hectic I've decided to aim for a small scale game that I could do quickly... Unfortunately I've got a deadline to meet which came up about half way through development of Help Mama Out! so I rushed a version together to function so people could at least give it ago and start giving me feedback on it.

Saturday, 25 March 2017

Development Blog 21 - Unexpected progress

Locations!
So I've mangled some time together and did a heap of work, cleaned up a ton of code, fixed heap of bugs and added some new nifty things. Added functional locations to the game, while I want to focus on a single location(level) for now we can now select locations from the new game menu and the location will appear next to the world name in the load menu. I added this so I could have a developers location as well as one I will work on over time called "Island".

New location options!

New folder layout!
I've now officially and permanently moved the Content/Languages/Saves folders to inside the After Hours Island game data folder (Instead of the root folder). I was getting some nasty bugs before this change and was having to spend a lot of extra time hunting them down constantly, this will make for a less buggy experience and keep everything in one location.

New Thumbnail previews!
Several new features I've added (0.3.0) and neglected to mention in previous updates, one of which is the new thumbnail previews for outfits, characters and clothing pieces. When you select your desired object from the list you get a neat little preview on the top right!


Uniform Female clothing!
I've decided to make all the female clothing (where possible) share the same texture space, what this means is that if you use a full body suit in the Character Creator you can choose to use a bra texture on it and it will properly align, this allows for way more dynamic sets of clothing for specific needs and halves the amount of texturing work.

Additional Notes
Conversing is making progress, its still very early days and not overly functional yet. The complicated nature of having such a dynamic system where essentially the characters have free will, desires and needs gets complicated very quickly. I'm trying to simplify where possible but without the cost of that personal experience. I'm looking into a small one time payment for complete future access to developer builds of the game.

Friday, 24 March 2017

Development Blog 20

Quick update!

"Awful Pink Dress" Outfit

Managed to sneak in some development time, made several new "Shirts" for female characters, worked on the interaction with other characters stuff, you can now increase friendship and love stats although no visual feedback as of yet. If I'm honest the game is super buggy at the moment, having to do a lot of fixing around the edges and the features I'm developing are super complicated, then getting even more complicated with time. Finding the time to even fix the female clothing model and then do scene animations is going to take some time.

I might need to do some redesign to make this game more practical to make, I'm making progress but I rather have a more complete game sooner than later if I can help it.

Wednesday, 15 March 2017

Development Blog 19

Quick update!

Very little progress has been made since the last Blog update. Have very little time at the moment to work on this as much as I would like to, on top of being very sick. The project isn't dead or completely stopped, just incredibly slow moving. I aim to get some major features complete first so people can start expanding on the game with their custom clothes etc.

Sunday, 29 January 2017

Development Blog 18

Quick update!

Just to let people know, development is still happening and lots of progress has been made. Unfortunately nothing visual to show yet!


Reworked Interaction System
The interaction system in 0.3.0 was crude and just barely functioned, now the rework system is getting the proper attention it needed. Now when you click on objects you have the option to "use" it, this allows you to sit at tables, interact with the environment and open doorways etc. This new interface also includes the option to have a "Sex Scene" at certain locations if available and the new Chat function to talk with characters in your world!

Which ties into...

Social System
Social system allows you to talk to your characters and build relationships with them, which leads into more sex scene options and options of things to do with them. Its still early days yet and may be a bit primitive on release.

New Character AI
Previous versions had characters simply walk to sex locations and begin masturbating after a certain amount of time, it was mostly for testing purposes and a demonstration of whats to come. Now Characters have schedules! Schedules are one of the biggest fundamental core features to characters, they now visit locations at certain times of the day and perform certain actions during that time. Once "jobs" are implemented you'll start seeing Characters head to work in the morning and go to social places at night, they'll even start earning money and go shopping for clothes occasionally! As you develop your relationships with the characters they'll begin to add you to their schedules and make time to come visit you and hangout.

Future Development
As always features will likely be underdeveloped and not very flexible on first release. When it comes to things like the AI buying clothes, I hope to develop a character personality chart system where they'd go for clothes that meets their personality than random pieces of clothes. Same for what the AI's do with their schedules, have them go to area's more suited to their personalities.

I've also got the sex scene system listed under rework, while it did work how it was supposed to, it was very robust and adding new scenes to it was a bit of a pain.

Wednesday, 21 December 2016

After Hours Island - 0.3.0 Release

0.3.0


New Features:
* Added Accessories to outfits
* Added new hairs
* Added more clothing options
* Additional body sliders
* New Bra support option
* New High Heel option
* New world to explore (WIP)
* Bots Masturbating
* Improved sex scene options
* Added options menu
* Moved all Content and Saves to the After Hours Island folder
* New internal game browser for clothing and saving
* Language Options (Still need proper translations)

Download
Download 0.3.0 (Mirror MediaFire)

Notes:
This update is before the sex scene overhaul, a lot is going to be changed, added and improved from this version. The next update take some time so I figured I'd get a release out now before everything breaks.

Monday, 14 November 2016

Development Blog 17 - Relaunched Patreon

Just a quick update, had fun making a slime girl.


I've relaunched the Patreon Page, you can check it here. I figured I'd give it another shot, at least for a while unless it picks up momentum. Otherwise for me its not worth the extra effort.

So quick progress update, I'm getting close now to a 0.3.0 release, I just want to get several things down pat before I do as I won't get a chance to in the future (Like cleaning junk folders). I plan this version to be the first "continuing" version, meaning save files will be portable to future versions... I hope. The amount of changes from 0.2.0 to 0.3.0 is quick huge, so many fixes, improvements and new features. I am going to cut a few features from 0.3.0 so I can get it out sooner, some features may be lacking but new version sooner than later.

Monday, 24 October 2016

Development Blog 16 - New layers and Browser!

Mixing and matching accessories, newly added Layers to clothes.

New Accessories, I've created a few new accessories for the next update; Shirt collar as seen above as well as shoes! I plan on doing much more as the coding side calms down. Accessories is the most powerful customisation system in the character creator. Read more here. Its really exciting every time I add a new object to it and then having a flood of ideas how to use it to create even more outfits.

Clothing Layers! The creator now has + and - symbols on clothes tabs, these will make clothes appear on top of others (As shown above with the shirt over the skirt). Which again allows for some really fun mixing and matching of clothes and textures. You can have things like full body fish nets under (Or over) a outfit or wear underwear on your outside clothing... I mean if you want to but its possible now!

In-Game Browser, one thing I never noticed until after I had released 0.2.0 was the browser for choosing files outside of the game wouldn't work so well in fullscreen mode and would tab you out of the game. For the most part I work in windowed mode so I didn't realise this, however now I've developed an in game version that won't tab you out. It includes a thumbnail preview of the selected item so you can see which texture you're choosing before loading it.

I feel that the next version of After Hours Island will be soon at this rate.

Now I want to get into something a bit more developer related but some might find interesting...
I plan on migrating all save files into a readable format, so if you open a .outfit file in a text editor like Notepad, you'll be able to read the contents of the file. This will be useful for those who wish to tweak their game more. This will also include character files so if people truly desire to, they can increase body parts great than what the character creator supports.

Monday, 17 October 2016

Development Blog 15 - Normal Maps, Hair and Improved code

Normal maps are in!
(Click to enlarge)

If you don't know what a Normal map is, its a bump texture map that makes detail pop, in the screenshot above (You'll have to enlarge it to see it) you can see the skin pore bumpiness.

Its really simple to use, you have your diffuse texture for example Body_Nice.png, to add a bump map to be loaded with it we also have a normal map texture called Body_Nice_n.png and it'll automatically load with it. While I don't have the best examples for it now you can get some really nice visuals with it.

Since I haven't worked on my code in a while I've been going over it and fixing several bits and bobs, mostly just making everything run smoother. I'm getting close to finishing the basic character loading into the world functionality.

Last but not least, MORE HAIR CHOICES. It's been bugging me that there was only 1 hair piece, so I've done some work with other programs and now started to get more hair into the game.




Thursday, 13 October 2016

Blog 14 - Back in Action

Back again!

So I recently got diagnosed with a chronic illness, turns out I was very sick after all. I'm on the end of it greatly effecting me so I'm more or less back. I've had some recent developments as well which will mean I work less on this game compared to what I was doing before.

I haven't got a release schedule or even know when I'll be able to show more off but know that its still happening, just slowly.