Month: February 2017

So, sadly a bit of bad news today. It looks like the release of Leanna is going to get pushed back by a fairly significant amount. Now that I’ve been rendering IRAY images in larger groups for while, I’m seeing all of the problems as they are, from a tech view, and then from an artistic one.

The tech view

Firstly, batch rending things overnight is good, but it isn’t as great as I thought it would be. Using the graphics cards for so long wears it down a little so that the next image takes longer. So, say you have 20 images which will take 30 minutes each to render. The first 8 will take about 30 mins, but then they will start to take 40, then 50. By the time you get to image 15, they are taking about 2 hours each to render. The issue is solved by simply restarting the computer, but it’s not really an option at 3am.

About a third of the time, there’s also normally another issue. Maybe the scene is too dark, maybe there’s weird reflection from a character’s eyes that makes them look possessed. Maybe, as occurred earlier this week for an entire set of ten I rendered overnight, Kristen will be super shiny for some reason and I’ll have to re-render the entire set, but first of all do about 7 test renders to find what the problem was.

So, I was generalizing and optimistically saying that I could render 150 images per week – and that would be true if everything worked flawlessly the first time. But it doesn’t. This week I’ve only been able to add about 30 new images to the game. There may be some weeks when I’m on a roll and get 100 images plus rendered, but I think they’re going to be the rare ones.

I’m rendering what I can during the daytime, but the another problem with that is it’s interfering with my work a little. I have a ‘main’ job away from this site and I do a lot of it from home. Some of the softwares I use for the job require a graphics card, so I can’t really render anything using IRAY while I’m doing that.

The artistic view

Some things have been starting to bug me about Leanna from an artistic view too. As it is, the game is more linear than I’d like.

The game structure of Betsy goes something like this :

• Linear day 1
• Choice of 3 dates
• Linear day 2
• Choice of 3 dates
• Linear day 3
• Choice of 3 photoshoot locations
• Linear series of ending sequences (though with different scenes and consequences depending on earlier choices)

Leanna by comparison, goes like this :

• Linear day 1
• Choice of 2 activities
• Linear day 2
• Linear day 3
• Linear day 4
• Linear day 5
• Choice of 2 activities
• Linear day 6
• End sequences

As you can see, there’s much less choice in this game, and it’s been really starting to bug me. I made things a little more linear in order to reduce the amount of work, but I don’t know if it’s worth it. As much as I could at the time, I’ve always tried to make these games have the most amount of choice possible.

So, what I intend to do is expand the game, even if it means more work. I want to do this game right more than I want to do it quickly. So, that’s what I’m going to do!

I need at least one more day in there with three choices. I also need to expand the times you have a choice of 2 activities and make it three.

I am also going to include the choice of selecting ethnicity! I know according to the stats that only (I think) 25% of people play as black characters, but that’s still a pretty significant amount. Having that option has been a hallmark of my games ever since Maddison too. It’s only right that it’s there.

So, what is happening?

I’ve been pushing to finish this one as soon as possible, but my normal schedule is to release two big game per year – one around January/February, and one around July/August. Maybe that should have been the reasonably expectation this whole time.

I’m going to continue working on Leanna as much as I can, but I don’t expect it to be finished until late May. It may even be longer, so be prepared! It is possible the game may not see a release until October (ish). If it looks like game production will take that long, I will probably start another game with the intention of a summer release. Most likely Crystal Part 3, but another possibility is the Girl Group game I was floating the idea of last week. Either way, it’ll be rendered with Poser, but IRAY.

To make up for the delay a little though, here a picture of Leanna doing her best Marilyn Monroe impression.

Free game

So, that means it’s time to release a free game! Since it’s been a while, it needs to be a big one too. I was going to have a poll to decide which one, but let’s face it ; it’s going to be Photographer Part 2. So, that’s what I’m doing.

Photographer Part 2 will be released for free two weeks today, March 10th.

Members game

It hasn’t been too long since there was a members game, plus it shouldn’t be too long until Academy Part 4 is there, but I still kinda want to do something small for the members section.

The short story I did for the advent calendar was quite popular. It was also easy to do for me. Since I already had all of the characters and the scene of Betsy’s bedroom setup, It only took me 2 days to complete.

I think maybe a pack of short stories similar to that might be a good way to go. Call it ‘VDate stories’, and have it be 5 or so images series of a little episodes in various characters lives.

I’m not sure though. I’ll think about it.

 

Leanna

Pretty much just more of the same to report this week. Progress is continuing, images are being rendered and content is being written.

I did some math yesterday, and it’s possible Leanna will be finished in about a months’s time. It also looks like the game might have slightly less images than, say, Betsy. I think this game will have around a thousand when I’m done (unlike Betsy’s massive 1600 ish), but I won’t know for certain until later in development.

One thing I’d like to draw attention to is the title, which some of you many have seen in the coming soon section. The full title will be ‘Leanna : Fading the Facade’.  I think I’m going to start formatting all titles like this – the name, a colon, then a subtitle. Standardizing it like that will mean people know which series and creator it comes from, as opposed to just having it be a name, which is kind of vague.

A casual conversation with Leanna in her dressing room.

Two images from the yoga class you can share together.

Random extra

Earlier this week I had an idea for a game I quite liked and would like to share with you.

How about a game where you are helping a ‘girl group’, that is a group of female singers? A sort of Pseudo Spice Girls. There could be five of them each with their own personalities and looks. I could make sure there’s at least one blond, one brunette and one redhead. I could have a variety of body shapes, some skinny, some more voluptuous. I could even have some variety in breast size, from large to very small.

It’s not a full premise yet, but I like the idea of a game where it’s centered around a group of women rather than just one. A bit like pool party, but with 5 brand new characters instead.

Let me know what you think below.

Poll

How do you like the sound of game idea above?

Leanna

Progress on Leanna, the upcoming new and free game, is still going steady. There’s actually not too much to report on the game beyond that. Hopefully, we’ll see a release date sometime in March, but it’s still not something I want to commit to yet.

Leanna takes the player to a roller disco to prove how totally fun she is. It doesn’t go well.

The player relaxes at home for a minute from the optional third person camera angle. Both male and female variants are shown. Note how the Male PC’s face is obscured.

This week I’ve also decided to remove one of the 13 sequences from the game. The hiking chapter wasn’t really adding anything to the plot that couldn’t be done elsewhere, so I’ve just decided to cut it and probably use it in Crystal Part 3 instead.

The Academy

For those worried from my comments last week that dsp3000 had disappeared, don’t worry too much. We’ve been in contact, all is well, and he is diligently working on Academy Part 4. There is not a scheduled release just yet, but it’s assumed he’ll be releasing it either April or May.

Polls

Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll last week. I’ve finally decided on a setup which serves a similar purpose to photoshoots, but also works very differently. It’s basically a sort of striptease, role playing scenario with the occasional photo. I won’t give away all of the details, but maybe this test render will give you a few clues.

For the poll this week, a bit of a random question. Do you have a preference on what the woman should be wearing during sex? Heels during sex are pretty common (either in my games or porn), but do you prefer barefoot? Does it even matter to you? Let’s find out.

A fairly long series of small things to get through this week, rather than anything large.

Before I start though, a quick message for dsp3000. I’ve been having trouble sending you emails recently. Judging by the automated email I get in response, I think maybe your inbox might be full. If not, could you email me an alternative email address I could use to contact you?

Now, onto the rest.

Tutorials

First thing – I want to bring your attention to is the tutorials sections. A few people have been asking about this recently and didn’t realize it was there, so I want to bring a little emphasis to it.

A few years ago, I thought it would be a good idea to write a complete guide on how to make these games, so I spent several weeks doing just that. I assume it worked well as these are the tutorials that Dsp3000 and MrStomper used to learn how to create games.

So, if you’re interested in making games like these, or maybe just the images, see the tutorials section to learn how.

http://www.vdategames.com/tutorial.html

Leanna

Progress is continuing. The biggest thing to report this week is that I’ve decided to add an extra variable to the game.

Although the player is interacting with either Leanna or Kristen for most of the game, there are some scenes where neither are there. This means that dialog responses and other choices, actually made no real difference and were just there superficially.

So, what I’ve done is added a ‘personality’ variable. Different responses add to several different secondary variables, such as ‘nice’, ‘aggressive’ or ‘rude’. After these values become distinct, your personality will develop a statement, such as ‘Perfect human being’ or at the other extreme, ‘Total dick’.

The personality type you develop won’t make a major difference to gameplay, but I’ll add some subtle ones such as small bonus scenes. It’ll also be fun to see which personality types you can get, and give some relevance to the scenes without Leanna or Kristen.

The other good thing to report is that I’ve found a plugin which allows me to batch render IRAY images overnight, so hopefully the game production will progress quicker now. I should be able to get up to an extra 70 images rendered a week this way.

ArianeB

On Tumblr, I posted an image including ArianeB, Betsy and Violet, and some people were asking if it means anything.

Nothing special, I’m afraid. ArianeB’s creator just posted up the list of resources she used to create the character, so I was able to create my own version or the character. I don’t think she’ll be appearing in any of my games though as I don’t want to do anything with the character the original author wouldn’t agree with. I suppose some sort or future collaboration might be possible though, with both of us writing and myself mainly doing the images.

Tech

I’ve been informed by my server host that the site may be down for around 45 minutes on February 8th for maintenance, so if it is, that’s why.

Poll

I’m having trouble deciding on the exact scenario for how you should see Leanna naked for the first time in her game. I have a few possibilities that could work, one just isn’t that hot (more ‘romantic’ instead), and the other basically has the player just watching for a long series of images instead of making choices, which I don’t like (I prefer it when the player is always making choices as often as possible).

The third option is one that works the best, but the problem is it’s a photoshoot, and I have already done a massive amount of these in my previous games. But is that a bad thing? They are hot. There’s a reason they turn up so often.

So, the question is, are you tired of seeing photoshoot scenes, or are you still always excited to experience a new one (as long as it works a little differently this time, of course).