Slut Royale: request for writers and image manipulators

Xionkana, the person whom I have handed creative control of Slut Royale over to, is looking for writers and image manipulators to help them with the project:

"Now, why do I need help? Because I'm a programmer, plain and simple. Xionkana's the name, and code is my game. My writing and photo manipulation skills are horrific, at best. So, at this stage, I'd like a (person/couple of people/few people) to bounce ideas off of, and drastically improve the quality of this game.

Now, a few things I want to say right away:

1. I will not be using any currently available engine software. (They simply will not do what I will need them to do. )
2. I will require some degree of secrecy from everyone involved while the project is in development. I want to bounce ideas (creative or technical) in confidence. Of course, after the project is released, I'd be more than happy to answer questions about how things have been done, but I will not be making this open source.

With everything said and done, if you're interested, please email me at xionkana@gmail.com with a sample of your work, and we can chat from there.

Cheers,

Xionkana "

I am still helping with this project in an editorial capacity, and possibly even the occasional bit of writing, but it would be really great if some people came forward and worked with Xionkana.

Games update

Slut Royale - I've been approached by someone who wants to take the game and develop it into their own ideas. Since this is going to be sitting on the shelf for a long time I've given them the permission to pick up the torch. I'm not going to give any further detail away as it is in a very early planning stage, but I will be providing some assistance with the project in a mostly editorial capacity.

Last part

I know that I originally said that it was going to be four parts but I decided that it worked better as three. However these two "friends" will return in another adventure soon! Enjoy the finally and I'll update you soon on what this blog is actually supposed to be about - the games!

Gameplayed myself into a corner

When I had my initial creative flare that resulted in this entire new game I inadvertently created a real nightmare of a situation with all of the possible dialogue surrounding the main focus of the chapter (Kiera) because I wanted there to be lots of options available to the player for corrupting her. In the back of my mind I knew that I'd done that and have been ignoring the problem for as long as possible by developing everything else around it. All of that is finished (bar some editorial work) so now I'm forced to face the inevitable.

The best way that I can untangle this mess is that once the player has chosen a corruption path they won't be able to flip to an alternative method (at least, not that easily). That creates a more rigid narrative structure but in order to make it interesting enough to be replayable the paths need to be more diverse once chosen. This has resulted in the creation of more characters, more locations, more objects and more scenes but I think in the long run it'll be less work to create the extra content. My writing is getting quicker the more I practice it and a creative writing course that I took recently has really helped me there as well. I actually enjoy doing the writing more nowadays and that can only be a good thing.

Anyways, here is the next part of the exclusive story I promised:

Game page updated

I made a lot of progress today so I decided that it was probably time to update the game page! It should give you a bit more of an idea of what the game is about and how some of the puzzles can be approached.

In other news, I'd like to say that I'm really excited about the impending release of H.C. and the Wizards Sacrifice over at H3N Comics. The artist is the person behind the amazing Fallen Star comic and is also co-written by one of my favourite artists on the Hypnopics Collective, jnightshade! It looks like it'll be out in the next week or two so be sure to check it out.

A treat for my followers

Progress on Souls of Gaia is slow but steady! I've written a lot more over the past month and have been doing a lot of alpha testing as the game becomes more playable as a result. I haven't encountered any bugs thus far but I have changed a few puzzles that I thought were more interesting than they actually were.

As a reward for being patient with me I'm posting an image story I've been working on recently. I normally post this sort of thing over on the Hypnopics Collective as a flash file but I thought you guys deserved an exclusive. It's going to be about 20 pages long (4 parts) which I'll post steadily over the next couple of weeks. Enjoy part 1 and feel free to leave any comments!

New dialog system up and running

The new dialogue system is up and running. It required a lot of debugging, but since then I've found adding new dialogue to be very easy. There is only one bug remaining, which technically shouldn't appear unless I create a dead end in a conversation tree (which is a bug in its own right), but if it does appear then it breaks the game with an infinite loop. I'm still working on a solution for it, but since it shouldn't occur if I do my job right in other places I don't think it's enough to scrap my new system.

There's not much more to report on right now. I need to focus on the written content for the game otherwise it'll never get finished. This is the period where the chances of the whole project collapsing is at its highest, so I'm going to limit myself to just a couple of hours each day. I'm hoping that I'll get two benefits from this approach: prevent myself from reaching burnout and work a lot more efficiently. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've set aside a day to work on a game and achieved practically nothing because I don't focus.

Edit: And in a moment of inspiration the fatal bug is fixed! Now, instead of a loop, if the conversation tree adds no options for the player to select a new option is added: [End Conversation]. That part seems obvious, and it was, but the inspiration was in how to execute it within RAGs. I'm very happy right now.

Development is back on!

I apologise for a general lack of updates since my 'brief' hiatus. I have had a complete internet outage this week, but that hardly explains the rest of this month!

Basically, I've been slacking off of development and been playing the Fallout series from the very start. It's the first time I've ever played games in that franchise and I must say that I'm absolutely loving them. I've completed Fallout 1 and 2 (twice - the replayability is amazing) and was going to start on Fallout 3 when, fortunately for you guys, my computer kept overheating. So it's back to development!

My break has definitely done me some good. Replaying the current content in the game has felt much clearer in what works and what doesn't. Most of it does work, but the dialog feels lame, especially after playing the Fallout games. I'm currently experimenting with a new way for the dialog to work in my game which, if it works, will be a lot easier to add conversation branches to and will hopefully get my writing to flow a little more freely.

That's it for now. I'll update next when I've finished experimenting with my new dialog system.

Brief break

I'm going to be away from all keyboards for a week so there won't be any updates for a short while. The writing has been coming along ok, but it will probably be another month before I start looking for beta testers. If I'm lucky I'll return to this project feeling refreshed and able to write more productively!

Screenshots

Below are three screenshots taken from Souls of Gaia. I'm providing these previews to show how the graphics are going to work in the game. One of the problems I find with RAGs games is that the images used for characters (when talking or examining) either have the script and room layout built around the background in those images (which is creatively restrictive), or the backgrounds are at odds with the room image (requiring a suspension of belief). Either way it's not an ideal situation.

What I've attempted to do with Souls of Gaia is use the overlay feature in RAGs to display items, headshots in conversations and scene overlays for encounters (read sex). All of the background images are 640x480 so there is a consistency in how everything is displayed. There was a risk of a huge file size being generated with the use of png images, but so far I have 162 images in the game and the file is only 17MB. I'm quite happy with the way it's looking, but there is still some issue with the background being at odds with the scene overlays. I think it's minimal though and won't pull the player out of the game, although the players will ultimately be the judge of that.

I should mention that it was the testing of this graphics style that led to the creation of this game. It was supposed to be a short game (couple of rooms and characters) and used to test the audience if this style works or not before I developed Slut Royale further, but my creative juices started to flow and I've just been running along with it since. So yeah, try to remember that when I finally release this game, because this is me thinking 'small'.

Examining an object

 

A cutscene

Talking to NPCs

Whoops!

Realised this morning that I had forgotten to set this blog as adult content. Doh! Fixed that now.

I had one of those horrible, sleepless nights last night. I don't even know what caused it. I hadn't had any caffeine, didn't have anything on my mind and was definitely feeling very tired. If I hadn't felt tired I wouldn't have been bothered and just would have gone to my study to work, but sadly that wasn't the case. Oh well.

I decided to redo the introduction scene today, mostly from a gameplay point of view. The story and images that I have in place I'm happy with, I just didn't like the initial player actions. I've fixed that now, and also added in a more subtle method for the player to choose between an initial perk in intelligence or willpower. Skipping the introduction brings the player straight to that point and Chapter 1 starts immediately afterwards so players can get straight on with the game if they don't care much for story.

Another good day

I'm very happy with the amount of work I've gotten done so far today and I think I should be able to work on the game for a couple more hours yet. The game is starting to feel more alive with nearly all of the item, character and room descriptions completed. I'm now focusing my writing on one of the more complicated spells in the game (in terms of its variable results and alternative texts) and then I get to write on the good stuff: the sex! There is a significant amount of sex text to write (which should come as no surprise to anyone who has ever looked at my gallery on the Hypnopics Collective), with lots of alternative scenes depending on how the player approaches their target.

I'm still debating the music issue. I'm currently leaning more towards not including it since I'm not telling a strictly linear story, so there is a risk the music will actually jar with the mood. Ambiotic sound would probably be better since the music was more for the location than the story but I haven't got anything suitable.

Anyways, back to work!

Good progress today

I managed to get a decent amount of writing accomplished today as well as sharpening up a few of the image features in the game. I discovered one bug that is proving to be a bit of a head scratcher, but fortunately it is only related to a minor programming feature that I can always do without if I can't find a reasonable solution.

The file size currently sits at 15MB with 147 images. I'm toying with the idea of adding music to the game (I found a couple of tracks that I think fits the general mood) but doing so would easily add another 10MB to the file size. I know in modern times that isn't very much, especially when compared to other RAGs games, but I kind of want to show that games don't need to be 100+MB if a little thought is put into 'art' design. I'll have to think about it for a while.

Play, write, play, write

I've started on some initial alpha testing to see how the game is playing at the moment and help me find all of the descriptions, dialogue, etc. that I need to complete. This is definitely the part I find most difficult for two reasons:

1. I am very slow at writing. I struggle to find the right words and the process just drags on forever. Many a project has been killed by my inability to get my writing to flow.

2. I have a really bad tendency, and I mean really bad tendency, to expand on my ideas exponentially. I 'accidently' added 5 more rooms a couple of days ago and when I tried to stop myself from getting so carried away the game felt empty without them.

Hopefully I can find the discipline to see myself through what is going to be a very tough couple of weeks to keep this game on track. I'll keep you all posted on how that goes!

New site... again

I've moved my blog to this new address since I'm no longer focusing on just Slut Royale. I need to add a few more things into the side bar and more details on Souls of Gaia, but otherwise the new blog is up and running. Comments are enabled for anonymous users now so feel free to say hello!

Another screen from the introduction to Souls of Gaia

Todays Target

My goal for today is to get all of the mechanics finished for Chapter 1 of Souls of Gaia. Once that is finished all I'll have left to do is a few more images and fleshing out the descriptions and dialogue. I have my coffee and a location where I can concentrate for several undistrubed hours. Let's do this!

Edit: Just had a major crash due to overheat. Fortunately I didn't lose anything in the RAGs file and appeared to have only corrupted one photoshop file. I think I need to invest in a laptop fan, but it's hard to find one that fits a wide laptop (I have a full dektop keyboard on my laptop, that's how wide it is).

Edit2: Making decent progress. Most of the mechanics are done. Just working on a tricky bit right now, and then I just have to implement the parts that trigger the end of the chapter. I have to stop for a while to get some other work done, but I should be back on this tonight.

Final Edit: Thanks to a power cut, I won't be finishing all of the mechanics today. I'm going to focus on finishing the remaning images and filling in some of the text tomorrow before I get back to working on RAGs logic again.

Souls of Gaia

I decided to create a new RAGs file to experiment with art styles (ie. overlays) and some new tricks with timers and setting variables in javascript to help get my creative juices flowing while I plan out the rest of Slut Royale. It worked. Sort of.

My creative juices have definitely started to flow. What started as an experiment has turned into 106 images (and counting), several characters, a plot and several methods of completing a single goal. In short, I have a new game on my hands. At the moment I'm calling it Souls of Gaia and I'll be changing this blog to reflect the development of both games. I haven't got anything ready for release just yet, but I will be looking for some beta testers in a few weeks. If you're interested then just let me know in the comments below.

An image from the intro to Souls of Gaia

I'm not sure if I should feel ashamed for losing focus on Slut Royale, or be happy that I've achieved so much in just a couple of weeks. Considering I'm doing all of this just for fun, I think I'll focus on the latter emotions.

Creative writing

I've been experimenting with RAGs logic/javascript, graphical overlays and writing over the past couple of weeks to help the creative juices flow. Of the three parts required to make a game in RAGs (excluding the 'optional' design part), I definitely find writing to be the most difficult part. I don't know what it is, but I've always struggled to write. Whether its creative writing, technical writing or basic communication I always agonise over the choice of my words and end up being very concise, which is the antithesis of descriptive writing!

I've been reading a book on creative writing to try and improve that area. The book talks a lot about identifying themes, character traits and so on which I understand very well. Unfortunately where I fall down is converting the concept into actual prose. I agonise over the sentence structure and word choices, never feeling confident about what I do manage to write down. My perfectionism ends up paralysing me because I have no idea if I'm even close to having something 'good'. I got top grades in English at school, but I'll be damned if I know a single thing about it.

See how this goes

Day 1 is almost completely planned out with days 2 and 3 outlined so I've decided to have a stab at writing some dialogue. I'm still testing the waters with this project so I need to make a reasonable amount of progress tonight to feel confident about being able to see the whole thing through. I'll report back in an hour with my progress.

Update: Managed to write half a page across 2 hours of very on/off writing. It was mostly legitimate distractions but still a little disappointing. I'll hopefully do better the next time I sit down to try this.

My other hobby

 A bit of a treat for anyone who discovers this new blog. This is a manip I did a while ago but haven't uploaded to my account at the Hypnopics Collective. Enjoy!

If you stumbled on this blog by accident and have no idea what this is about I'll explain. I started doing manips about women being turned into sluts by various nefarious means a couple of years ago over at the Hypnopics Collective. I was originally inspired by the works of Callidus but when I joined the Collective I found a great deal many more artists to admire and even discovered a wonderful collection of games made in the RAGS engine on their forum. After a while I decided to make my own attempt at making a RAGS game, but after releasing the demo I found myself struggling to progress the game without a proper design and went back to manipping.

My inspiration for manips has left me lately, and I find everything new that I try to make just has the same feel to all of my previous work. I took a break, looked back over my old RAGS project and started working on it again. Hopefully this time I can finish the project!

There can be only one

I've made a significant decision today. There will no longer be a choice of characters for the player at the start of the game. The game is going to focus on Ginger (Shuya) who already has multiple story branches plotted out. This significantly simplifies the workload, in particular the various dialogue alts that would have been required to include Malisha as a playable character.

I still intend to have additional player characters (in particular Malisha), just no longer as a part of the initial release of Slut Royale. If the making of Slut Royale goes well and the reception of the final release is good then I will embark on making an expansion pack. Since this is a part of the plan I can design the variables and timers within RAGS to accomodate the possibility of future expansions without delving into the complexities of the storytelling now.

Edit: Damn I'm glad of this decision. I'm working through the timeline for Ginger and there are so many alts because of my decision to make a few of the NPCs move around. Still, the design is coming together now and that makes me happy.

Books of Knowledge

I received a couple of books about game design and writing for Christmas and I've been steadily reading those to get a better understanding of what I'm trying to do with my own game. Hence the reason for no measurable progress in the past couple of weeks. I doubt there will be much for a few more weeks as I'm quite a slow reader.

I noticed a dialogue test screen by a person called kivik on the Hypnopics Collective for his/her Rags game and it reminded me of the Ultima 7 interface for talking to NPCs, which I rather liked. A big part of the re-design for Slut Royale includes the use of overlays, so I will probably use the idea for head shots myself. Thanks kivik!