We Want YOU! (Progress Update)
At the moment Sunset is in his cel- I mean, studio - getting balls deep into 2.1.9’s development, Locke is sewing up the Scooby game for its impending 2018 release onto Newgrounds, and Smoke is making sure GG is not going broke while also planning for the foreseeable future. We’re all pretty much in stick-your-head-down-and-work mode.
We’re aware the Roadmap has yet to have been updated and there’s a reason for that. Once Sunset has had more time to get a solid handle on how much work “completion updates” are likely to take, we plan to create a new and improved Roadmap that’s going to be a bit different from the roadmaps you’re used to seeing from us.
Your Thoughts on the OC (Original Content) Game
Every so often over the last couple months we’ve gotten together to work on the OC project’s preproduction, which is going quite well. Locke’s eager to get Scooby out so he can start prototyping and tool building for the project. (Which also means he gets to upgrade from Unity 2017, and apparently that’s a big deal? It has him excited at least.)
It’s still way too early to share anything solid, but titles like X-COM are being thrown around for potential feature examples and we’re definitely looking to add much more gameplay to the OC title than what many of you are used to for SU. Before some of you freak out, no, we’re not talking about building an SRPG combat system. One of our primary goals for the OC project is to keep the scope in check and make sure we don’t wind up with another 3-5+ years-long project on our hands.
That being said, we’d be happy to hear some of your ideas/concerns on the topic. What would you like to see in an OC game from us? What would you like for us to avoid? What type of NSFW game would excite you most?
Any and all responses/feedback would be greatly appreciated. ^^
Comments (40)
So is there a link for v2.1.8?
You need to subbed at the $5.00 level.
i would say for the OC do a more in depth mystery game like the others have said just for the first one to see how good it goes then expand from there also i have found from personal experience of just making my own games on the side for fun that having a big overarching project is good but when you get worn down on it switch over and make some smaller ones on the side while not working on the big one this allows you to work on multiple titles while also keeping yourself interested and engaged in your work. Of course take this with a grain of salt,
I agree with Alexandar04, I definitely respect wanting to make a porn game with awesome gameplay like X-COM, but i think there's a pretty big risk with that being that you're probably going to be leaning over to one side too much with either a focus on the porn aspect or the gameplay aspect. The gameplay i think needs to be simple and fun, but not with a large difficulty curve with a focus on the porn since that is the types of games you make. Something like a mystery i think would be good because it'll allow you to develop an interesting story while including some unique gameplay elements also allowing the player to enjoy the porn elements without being too stressed about feeling rushed or anything. Anyway i know its a lot to read just felt like i should give my 2 cents either way i'm more then willing to give whatever you decide to develop a shot.
It literally states in the post "Before some of you freak out, no, we’re not talking about building an SRPG combat system." Didn't say anything about XCOM gameplay.
So I would be careful. While it's a good thing to expand on your game's non-adult content, I highly recommend not biting off more than you can chew or you can end up like the adult game Aching Dreams 3. In case you're not familiar Aching Dreams 2 was an OC adult game that became pretty popular due to both its adult content and strategic stat balancing elements. While very basic and a little cheap by today's standards back then it was a big success and Aching Dreams 2 improved on many areas of the game and I recommend you check it out for a fun time. Aching Dreams 3 though was a train wreck. While many factors can be blamed for this game's failure, one of the biggest was the creator's attempt at adding in an X-COM style battle system. To say it didn't work would be an understatement. The game became unreasonably difficult for a porn game and left many fans very frustrated.
I'd recommend you try a mystery game for your next style of porn game. An extended mystery game that further develops your characters can work well in a porn game (especially if an element of the mystery involves learning about which kinks your leads like and dislike) plus it's better suited to allow you to scale the difficulty code/writing wise. Do you want an easy experience, then you can set it up like a standard Python CYOA story with real branching paths and endings (NOT TELLTALE endings). Want to up the ante? Add in an actual inventory/clue system which you can still reasonably scale depending upon how many clues/ending paths you want to add. And finally if you want a hard challenge, add in a battle system. In a mystery setting there won't be as much pressure to make it this super great thing, and you'll gain valuable coding/writing experience if you want to continue to pursue this style of game for the future rather than having to learn it all in one attempt.
For the XCOM idea: Would we be playing the aliens, dominating humans, or the human forces capturing and 'studying' aliens? :P
There's no "XCOM idea", many people are misreading what was meant.
X-COM sounds like an absolutely brilliant idea.
I'm a big fan of super-heroines. Maybe you guys are sick of the genre, but you also don't have much competition.
I think Original Content is a fantastic idea. I think perhaps making your own super-heroines and villainesses would be right up my alley. The protagonist is a young super hero joining a Justice Squad that has many gorgeous super-heroines, that you try to romance. I also think the Fantasy and Scifi genres are excellent as well, but your team has an amazing understanding of what makes super heroines sexy. Perhaps even consider a female protagonist, and have the story unfold from the point of view of a female super heroine or villainess.
Also wanted to add that Star Trek Timelines is an interesting model for profitability. I think people are willing to pay to play and do freemium, if it means a large supply of gorgeous artwork of females from the genres of comic book, fantasy, scifi, and fetish costumed.
A 2d pixel and sprite game where more detailed drawings are shown during dialogue and cutscenes? So they gameplay would resemble an rpgmaker game or undertale? Because when you’ve figured out the game engine it would be a lot simpler to make the assets put them to use, wouldn’t even have to be pixelated if you have another artistic choice in mind. Or perhaps something like princess trainer?
Sunset is going to be the artist and we're using Unity. I'll be coding it in C# from scratch.
that x-com management style sounds marvelous, that kind of combat , properly done, would be even better, but i guess that would take way too much time, i read someone mentioned a sengoku rance 6 style which somehow is similar, to be honest i think is a great idea, but i think the main point would be in what want you to focus ,management , interaction, combat… you know what, lets get the ideas in the oven and lets see what comes out.
Now that it's been some time I can respond to some of these comments in a bit more detail without everyone seeing them. ^^ I REALLY want to do a turn-based SRPG combat system. I have some ideas I'd really like to attempt for an NSFW style game like that and 2 fairly fleshed out story ideas that would lend themselves well to it. The problem sort of arose when I sat down and started learning the fundamentals of the system. I quickly ran into higher concept/complex ideas like graph theory that would be needed to properly create even some of the simplest bits of such a system. So it quickly became evident that - at least if I wanted to do it right and not make something crude/overly simplistic - creating such a system with only 2 people would be quite the undertaking. There's also more to factor into the game we decide to make than simply asking ourselves, "What do we want to make most?" We're trying to grow a business and a studio, grow our careers, not just make a pet project on the side while continuing our regular day jobs. I have a Souls-like idea with a new form of progression that I REALLY want to make, but it'd take two of us years on years on years to do it justice and - to be frank/honest - my skills aren't at that level yet. What I'm getting at is that we're trying to progress ourselves and the company incrementally, trying to slowly become bigger and better over time rather than taking on more than we can chew and hoping we can figure it out mid development. (I am still working on learning how to build a fully-fleshed out tactics combat system, among other things, on the side though. So we can go bigger in subsequent titles. ^^)
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I'm being honest myself, I appreciate the time effort that may go into something versus what could potentially be rushed. SU's art style and writing is super fun and feels thematically appropriate for the universe that it's written in. If the project was intended to be shorter than a 3-5 year span then I would imagine we would have to see more frequent updates to feel we are getting our money's worth. Personally I'd hate to see writing and art style's rushed or left out just to meet a deadline. Any ideas are somewhat limited I imagine due to the time constraint you force yourself to fit within.
It's not so much a forced time constraint as it is simply learning from past mistakes. We have a better understanding of scope, the importance of solid preproduction and a more realistic outlook on how long many things take to develop when you have a very limited/small dev team. We're not limiting ourselves to an arbitrary time span. We're simply thinking critically about our options with our newfound experience. Something more along the lines of, "Yeah, that feature would be great, but it'd take us a year and some change to implement and flesh out, making development take substantially longer. So maybe we don't do that this time around."
Okay first I have to wonder... what happened to that old project after the stint of the legal problems by WB where IU became SU? I know I have been busy and out of the loop, but what happened? Also with the whole 'OC game' be careful. There are many ways this can go great, but even more ways that it can go south. I have seen you guys making games and content for over a year now and I know you guys can go far, but if you are going to make a brand new game make sure you pick your poison carefully. The first thing you need to figure out is what game mechanics you are going to use, will it be a dating sim, an rpg, a linear story, or a point and click. That should be the first thing you all figure out, no matter what theme you are going for. That being said... it’s a moot point on what kind of theme I will suggest, because like the justice league universe you can have the story sci-fi, medieval, or current day with a hint of magic and you guys will make it work. I will suggest though is that you could make a simple survival game (basics of food/water/sleep) or a simple business game (get rich and don't go broke) and the theme can go from any way you want it from post-apocalypse (fallout to mad max to waterworld), or sci-fi (xcom to borderlands to star wars), or go horror and add a little sanity challenge (lovecraft to silent hill), or go crazy with the theme like far cry and make it any way you want as long as you involve drugs in it somehow. Just amuse yourselves with the survival or business idea just because you can go any way you want on it. You can be a businessman in a post-apocalypse world that offers a special discount for woman in need of supplies for a ‘favor.’ Crash land on an alien plant and try to survive while getting to ‘know’ the locals. Or make it funny and be an arms dealer and sell powerful weapons and armor that leaves little to the imagination. But whatever way you guys go I will keep supporting you.
I'd be completely uninterested in girls that I have no reason to respect. I'm not interested in the whole degredation/break her down kind of games. I'd like whatever game is picked to at least support the avoidance of such things. The Five-Elements Trainer failed in this regard, for example. Some suggestions on general themes: Military-esque academy with plot-introduced erotic overtones Kingdom Hearts-esque universe hopping/collectable element Fantasy Genre semi-collectable I think that for collectable games, SU included, some of the interesting interactions are watered down due to the overabundance of girls. There are too many to care about any of them. I would rather be able to pick 2-4 and focus on their stories than just blindly keep collecting girls for the sake of completion rather than any interest.
Well 3-5 years is the normal scope when developing real industry standard quality games, why the aversion?
It's the industry standard for AAA titles with massive budgets and teams, not so much for indie devs who are struggling to keep the lights on from game to game and grow bit by bit.
I would say, dont go too far away from visual novel style and try to introduce something new in your OC project, example: A visual novel with various fetishes and a gameplay of card games. Use what you know best and try to add something new to gain xperience.
Wish i could help ya but it's like asking me how to save Itchy and Scratchy. But without question I think you should decide immediately if this game is a project that will be one and done and enjoyed for a few years or a consistent project that will be updated frequently. Given the team's current constraints and SR's current major project I'd recommend one and done - if nobody can keep up with two MMORPGs at once then nobody should be creating two at once either.
Please tell me how to move the save files.
Gargoyles
Obviously! How could we not?!
Well that's difficult to say I like Bondage Girl on girl but also tranformation Genre I also have some game ideas there, I think I will send them once per PM.
Loads of different fetishes, please.
Like what?
Any sort of a customizable character you play? A choice to be male or female?
An strategy game would be a good first OC, but you could try an action game, for an instance.
My initial idea was an SRPG actually, but the combat system alone sort of exponentially extended the scope of the game, so we chose to shelve the idea for the time being.
I try to think of Genres and Tropes, that aren't treaded very often in NSFW Games. Cyberpunk or Steampunk Games are not that often. A Steampunk Game would be interesting with Characters dressed in Victorian Dresses. As far as Tropes go. You are often a Relative, a College from Work or a teacher. So if sticking with a Steampunk Setting, then being the Butler, who secretly seduces the nobility and the handmaidens could work. (Although Handmaidens would still fall into the Work College Category) Pirates or Vikings raiding and plundering could also be an interesting Theme, that is not used often. As for Gameplay I would suggest a Dating Sim approach rather than a Visual Novel with branching Storylines through Choices.
We're looking to go a bit more involved than a simple VN or Dating Sim, but we are looking at branching storylines and how to best implement them without the scope of a game running rampant.
Original game sounds pretty cool.
I still think the panic Path of Kings prototype was kinda cool.
Maybe after SU?