Monday, May 08, 2017

I am udderly tired of farm work...

So, the dairy cow ending is done too! I also properly implemented the system which allows you to milk yourself without having to go the barns each day, if you continue as an adventurer. Right now it simply asks in the morning what you want to do, but I might leave more freedom to the players in the future (that means I'll have to figure out some new mechanics, though, which might make things overly complicated). There is still more to do (I'll see how players like the endings, for example, and consider adding more content to them, and I want to add some "fun activities" around the farm with the workers), but at least all the basic features and the scenes are there. Expanding the idea much more would probably be overkill, but I figure the only problem with adding other scenes is avoiding repetitiveness (you can make a cow come from being milked only so many times before it starts to feel same-y).
 
Also, I am pleased to announce I got my hands on a new PC, finally! It was 10+ years since I bought the last one, so the improvements have me shocked. This might mean that I'll need people to report to me if the game's performance is suffering (I used to be sure the game wasn't a problem, as long as it ran on my system, but with the new hardware, that's likely always going to be the case, unless I really fuck it up). As long as the performance is more or less the same, that's fine (I could improve a bit, especially by using anti-lag systems), but I'd rather not mess with scripts unless there are serious issues.
 
For this last week prior to the release, I am unsure what I'll work on. I thought at first I was going to take a bit less to finish the cow path, so this leaves me with little time. I might just tackle some miscellaneous stuff, improving on minor things here and there.
 
Speaking of which, we have been floating around the 1200$ mark for a while now. Even if so far we never actually hit that when the payout happened (sometimes people might miss a payment, for example), I have already upped the monthly artwork to 2, as you'll have surely noticed if you follow my Patreon page. Now, I was trying to come up with a new goal, and since some people were talking about sound effects and voice acting (I assume just for the sex scenes), I wonder if that would be a worthwhile goal (hiring a VA to get some good quality sounds), but I have to be honest with you guys, I'd have no idea where to start, or how to audition for good "sex moaning" and other sound effects.
 
I am actually already experimenting with some of the few sound assets I already have. My main problem with it, is that mixing text and audio (like moaning) which don't match is underwhelming, and leaving the audio and the text completely separated means increasing the lenght of the scenes perhaps a little too much (I would be using the flashing screen and the audio, which means you need some time to let the audio play out, and then you'd get the descriptions).
 
Maybe I should leave a few sex scenes with audio as a test, so people can tell me if they prefer a quicker paced scene without audio, or a longer scene but with some sound effects.
 
Anyway, sorry for the rambling, I am trying to wrap my head around the new goal and how to better use audio in the game, and it's occupying a lot of my thoughts, because it's outside of my previous experience, so it's harder to figure it out.
 
Look forward to next week for the new release! ^_^

2 comments:

  1. Well if you are looking for suggestions I'd like more vampire lady fun.

    I don't know anything about getting voice actors, but I know that Cypress Z who did Overwhored uses them for his new Game Snow Daze. So maybe you could get in contact him with him and see if he can point you in the right direction?His email that's on his blog, https://overwhored.blogspot.com , CypressZeta@gmail.com is that.

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    1. As it is, I could open one map at random, and I would likely find something unfinished, so I have no lack of targets, but I might opt to add some of the features I have been researching and working on for a while (fast travel, picture gallery, new personal info window, etc).

      Thanks for letting me know, I might ask him a few questions, since I have 0 experience in the field.

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