Friday 30 September 2016

Progress

Just working on writing today...

  • Story
    • - Writing main story.
  • Sex
    • - Writing sex scenes.

    Thursday 29 September 2016

    Version 0.1.0 delayed

    Version 0.1.0 will not be released tomorrow

    I don't think anyone is actually reading this blog at the moment, as I haven't posted any information about this game anywhere but here. As a result, I don't feel too bad for delaying the release for another 2 weeks. (But if some of those page hits aren't from web crawlers, and you're reading this now, then I'm sorry for the delay!)

    The reason I'm choosing to delay the release is that the game currently isn't up to the standard that I'd like to set. There are bugs to be fixed, a lack of content, and UI issues that need to be addressed. I will need at least 2 more weeks to get the game into a state that's ready for initial release.

    Future release targets

    In future, I will present release dates as 'target dates'. The problem with being a sole developer for a project like this is that even if a small problem occurs (like the computer problems I had for the last week and a half), all development on the game is affected. Unforeseen problems may arise during development, so I need to be more flexible with release dates. I will always do my best to meet the release date target, but sometimes it won't be possible.

    New release target

    The new target for release is Friday 14th October.

    Sorry for the delay!

    Wednesday 28 September 2016

    Progress & release information

    I only managed to do a little writing today, due to the ongoing computer problems that I mentioned in a previous post.

  • Story
    • - Writing main story.
  • Sex
    • - Writing sex scenes.

    Release information

    First of all, the game will still be released on Friday, but I need to give a warning as to it's current state. Due to computer problems over the last 8 or 9 days, I haven't been able to spend as much time developing the game as I anticipated. As a result, the game is going to be very short on content at release. The computer problem has now been definitively solved, so, starting tomorrow, I should be able to get on with developing at a normal pace.

    So, due to the game's very early 'pre-alpha' state, I'm not going to announce this release anywhere. Once version 0.1.1 is released (which will solely focus on polishing & adding content), then I'll announce this project, but until then, version 0.1.0 will be a stealth release.

    Progress

    Another short post today, and much the same as yesterday!

  • Inventory
    • - Fixed some bugs in the inventory system.
  • Story
    • - Writing main story.
  • Sex
    • - Writing sex scenes.

    Monday 26 September 2016

    Progress

    I just did writing today. (What a short post!)

  • Story
    • - Writing main story.
  • Sex
    • - Writing sex scenes.

    Day off & the week ahead

    As per usual for a Sunday, I took it easy for most of the day. I got some minor bugs fixed here and there, and did some work on gender calculations.

    Magic

    I know I said I'd make a big post about magic, but as I was writing it out, I realised that it isn't quite finished yet, so you'll have to wait until release before finding out how it works. Which brings me on to the main part of this post...


    The state of the game at release

    I'll make a big post containing version 0.1.0's release notes on the day of release (this Friday!), but I'll give a quick overview of what sort of state the game will be in. It's going to be in a very early alpha/demo state, so there's going to be a low amount of content, the possibility of (and high likelihood of) encountering bugs, spelling mistakes (though there shouldn't be many), and everything else associated with early alpha games. It's important to see version 0.1.0 as a demo of what's to come, and as I add more content and features over the next few months, the game will become what I had originally envisioned.

    The two or three weeks following release will be spent polishing content and fixing bugs. I have a complete plan from version 0.1.0 up to 1.0.0, so I know exactly where the story is headed and all the content that I want to see in the game at it's final release.

    The game download will most likely be hosted on mega.nz, and I'll make a post on TFGamesSite.com on the day of release.


    The week ahead

    Most of the week will be spent trying to avoid panicking as I realise that I only have a few days left until launch.

  • Finish all writing.
  • Finish fixing the most game-breaking bugs.
  • Panic anyway!
  • Saturday 24 September 2016

    Progress

    I just did some general fixes and more writing today. I'll make the large post about the state of the game tomorrow.

  • UI
    • - Improved UI information display.
      - Added UI map/inventory title.
      - Added UI progress bar for world generation.
  • Misc.
    • - Fixed saving and loading bugs.
      - Adjusted some colour values.
  • Story
    • - Writing.

    Friday 23 September 2016

    Progress (1 week to release)

    Some technical problems prevented me from getting as much done today as I'd have liked. I still managed to make progress on a few things, but a lot of time was spent troubleshooting some other computer issues. I'll make a large post tomorrow or on Sunday concerning magic and the state the game will be in for version 0.1.0 release. There's now 1 week left until the deadline!

  • Combat
    • - Fixed some miscellaneous bugs.
  • NPCs
    • - Refined NPC classes.
  • Sex
    • - More writing for sex scenes.
      - Fixed bugs in Sex engine.
  • Misc.
    • - Improved method of rendering Inventory, Journal and Map.

    Thursday 22 September 2016

    Progress

    Most of the day was spent writing dialogues for encounters in Dominion (the name of the starting city). To go along with the encounters, I made several NPC classes, and created the framework to support them. I also finished re-writing all of the non-racial transformation descriptions, but even though they're likely to remain untouched before version 0.1.0 release, I'm still considering them to be drafts. (I'm starting to feel the time pressure!)

  • Story
    • - Finished re-writing non-racial transformation descriptions.
      - Writing Dominion encounters.
  • NPCs
    • - Created new NPCs for Dominion.
      - Created associated classes to support NPCs.

    Wednesday 21 September 2016

    Progress

    I did some work on re-writing transformation descriptions today, as well as working on the main story.

  • Transformations
    • - Refined transformation mechanics.
      - Re-wrote most of the non-racial transformation descriptions (and will re-write the rest tomorrow).
      - Optimised a lot of transformation calculations.
  • Story
    • - Wrote more of the main story.

    Tuesday 20 September 2016

    Progress

    Again, I just spent most of the day writing and adding items to the game.

  • Items
    • - Added 8 story-based non-racial transformation consumables.
      - Added 10 generic non-racial transformation consumables.
  • Story
    • - Writing main story.

    Monday 19 September 2016

    Progress

    I spent most of the day writing content for the main story. As I don't want to reveal any spoilers, there isn't much to put in today's post. Once the game has been released, these progress posts will reference in-game content (e.g. Added 4 new dialogue options for Vicky), but for now, I'll keep them vague.

  • Story
    • - Writing Introduction.
      - Writing item descriptions.
      - Writing options for missionary sex scene.

    Sunday 18 September 2016

    Sex & The week ahead

    I didn't do much technical work today. Instead I focused on writing the story and encounters for the initial release (in 12 days).

    Sex

    As with everything in this early stage of development, the sex mechanics outlined below may change before or after release.

    How sex fits into the game

    As I was writing this, I realised that I haven't talked about magic yet, so I'll make a post this week detailing how magic works in the game. For now, all you need to know is that Lilith's magic has saturated the world, and has caused everyone to have an extremely heightened libido. This constant background flow of demonic magic is commonly referred to as Lilith's lust. Whenever someone is weakened or exhausted, Lilith's lust seeps into their mind and body, causing them to become incredibly aroused. Within moments, it gets to the point where all they can think of is having sex, or, lacking a partner, masturbating right there on the spot.

    This relates to game-play, as if you are victorious in combat, your opponent will be overcome with Lilith's lust, and you can choose to have dominant or submissive sex with your defeated opponent. On the flip side, if you are defeated in combat, your opponent may (and usually will) decide to have dominant sex with you. You can also engage in sex scenes with recurring characters once you've built up enough trust with them.

    How it works

    Sex scenes in Lilith's Throne, much like combat, are turn based, with a list of actions you can take each turn. One person will take the role of the dom, and the other will be the sub. You usually start sex with both you and your partner standing, and can move into different positions over the course of having sex. The dominant partner can choose to give the sub freedom to use their own initiative, or forbid them from moving into positions on their own, allowing the dominant partner to have complete control over how sex plays out.

    Each action you can take will increase both your and your partner's arousal by a certain amount. For example, kissing your partner will increase the arousal of both of you by a small amount, whereas fingering your partner will increase their arousal by a medium amount, and yours by a small amount. When arousal reaches 100, that person will orgasm. Sex will only end once the dominant partner has reached orgasm (perks to be added in the future will allow you to orgasm multiple times before ending sex).

    Once sex has ended, the submissive partner will gain corruption from Lilith's lust, the amount of which depends on how many times they orgasmed. The dominant partner can choose to let Lilith's lust reward them, increasing the value of a random attribute, but if they do, they will also gain a small amount of corruption.


    The week ahead

    I want to get everything finished for version 0.1.0 release by the end of this week, leaving me with 5 days to polish content and fix unexpected bugs.

  • Finish writing generic sex scenes.
  • Finish writing all content for 0.1.0.
  • Fix bugs.
  • Saturday 17 September 2016

    Progress

  • UI
    • - Added resume button in main menu.
  • Sex engine
    • - Removed willpower drain mechanic.
      - Modified several other mechanics.
      - Changed arousal increase values.
      - Writing generic missionary scene.
  • Story
    • - Writing.
  • Misc
    • - Fixed bugs related to saving & loading.

    Almost the end of another week

    Tomorrow I'll write a large post about how sex works in Lilith's Throne.

    Friday 16 September 2016

    Progress

  • UI
    • - Added buttons for options, inventory, journal and map zoom.
      - Implemented options menu.
      - Multiple UI engine improvements.
  • Story
    • Writing (most of the day).

    Thursday 15 September 2016

    Progress

  • UI
    • - Refined tooltip content.
  • Clothing
    • - Added a lot more colours for clothing & applied new colours to clothing.
      - Changed skater dress's picture and descriptions.
      - Refined Maid's sleeves picture.
      - Refined Maid's stockings picture.
      - Improved clothing access and sorting in cells.
  • Story
    • Writing main story.

    Wednesday 14 September 2016

    Progress

  • Sex engine
    • - Fixed bug in clothing removal during sex.
  • UI
    • - Minor changes to inventory UI.
      - UI main menu, save & load dialogues implemented.
      - Improved tooltip rendering.
      - Improved attribute tooltip information.
  • Misc
    • - Implemented saving & loading.
      - Moved all game-related methods out of MainController and into Game class.
      - Moved attribute icons into Attribute class.

    Tuesday 13 September 2016

    Progress

  • Sex engine
    • - Fixed displacing clothing description bug.
      - Tweaked arousal increases.
      - Added arousal indicators.
      - Changed a lot of sex-engine mechanics (took most of the day).

    Monday 12 September 2016

    Working on sex-engine, new post format

    Today I've been working on polishing the sex-engine. I don't want to make a big post about how it works just yet, as it's currently being changed and refined day-by-day.

    Changing post style

    Apart from the way the game handles sex, I've covered all the main topics I wanted to cover in large blog posts. I've left a lot of details intentionally vague, as everything is subject to change prior to version 0.1.0 release. From now up until the end of this month (the release date), blog posts will be a bit more technical and outline exactly what I've done that day. You can expect the big post about the sex-engine at the end of this week.

    Starting tomorrow, posts will be in a new technical progress format. I'll continue to expand on details where necessary, but I'd like to leave the majority of the game for you to discover as you play.

    Sunday 11 September 2016

    The week ahead

    Today I finished drafting all 0.1.0 content. I didn't get started on the sex-engine work, but that's what I'm mainly going to focus on this week.

    As I said yesterday, I'm taking it easy today, so I'll make this a short post.


    The week ahead


  • Finish sex-related engine work and core scenes.
  • Write up all encounters and main quests for 0.1.0.
  • Fully implement saving and loading games.
  • Work on fixing bugs.
  • Saturday 10 September 2016

    Finished weapons

    Today I finished the weapons that will be in the game in version 0.1.0. There are only 6 weapons in the game at the moment (and they are quite similar), but they have the same sort of enchantments as clothing, which, when combined with their quality level, makes for a lot of random variation. Weapons are one of the areas that will be expanded on shortly after release.


    Combat

    I'll give a brief introduction to how combat works in Lilith's Throne. Like most text games, Lilith's Throne uses a turn-based combat system. You, as the player, get to perform an action, and then your opponent does the same. In each turn, you (and your opponent) can choose one of several actions:

  • Melee attack
    • Your melee weapon determines damage done and damage type.
      More reliable than a ranged attack, but less damage.
      No cost.
  • Ranged attack
    • Your ranged weapon determines damage done and damage type.
      Less reliable than a melee attack, but more damage.
      No cost.
  • Special attack
    • Special attacks are gained from certain body parts.
      Special attacks usually apply status effects.
      Costs stamina or willpower, depending on the attack.
  • Seduction
    • Deals willpower damage.
      No cost.
  • Cast a spell
    • Deals damage based on spell type.
      Spells can apply extremely powerful status effects.
      Costs willpower. The stronger the spell, the higher the cost.
  • Use an item
    • You can use an item or change your weapon in combat, but you can't change clothing.
      No cost.
  • Surrender
    • Usually a bad idea.
  • Escape
    • Success chance is based primarily on your fitness versus theirs.
      Costs stamina.

    Game over man, game over!

    There are three combat resources that you and your opponent have; health, willpower, and stamina. Each of them can cause you to lose a fight when they reach 0.

  • Health
    • Attacks from your opponent will drain your health (like almost every RPG ever).
      When you run out of health, you lose the fight!
  • Willpower
    • Willpower is used to cast spells and resist your opponent's attempts at seduction.
      When you run out of willpower, you get a powerful debuff.
      If you continue to cast spells, or if your opponent seduces you a few more times, you will submit to them and lose the fight!
  • Stamina
    • Stamina is used to cast special attacks and for attempting an escape.
      When you run out of stamina, you get a powerful debuff.
      If you continue to use stamina, you will collapse from exhaustion and lose the fight!

    Tomorrow

    I need at least one day a week where I take it a bit easy, so tomorrow I'll just be polishing the sex-engine and finishing the draft work for all content that's in 0.1.0. There isn't much to do on either of those fronts, so I'll have plenty of time to think about next week's plan!

    Friday 9 September 2016

    Slow day

    Most of today was spent fixing bugs in the clothing system. I did get started on weapons, but it's still about a day's worth of work until they're completed. Over the weekend I'll finish the targets I set at the start of the week.

    Game flow

    I was going to make a webm of the gameplay, but I quickly discovered that footage of text-based games is a very poor medium to express how they feel to play. Instead, I'm going to leave it until release 0.1.0 to let everyone find out what it's like to play.

    Story

    I haven't spoken much about the story yet, and while I don't want to reveal any spoilers, I can still say what the general background to the game is.

    The game is set in the present-day, three years after Lilith and her army of demons invaded Earth. You play as one of the residents of Lilith's self-proclaimed capital city, Dominion, and over the course of the game you try to find a way to defeat her.

    Along the way, there are side quests and repeatable events that you can discover and interact with. There are also recurring NPCs that you will be able to romance, but I'll talk more about that at another time.

    As I want to avoid spoilers, all I can say about the main quest is that it revolves heavily around Lilith's use of transformations and sexual desires. Every transformation and sex scene in the game is avoidable, so long as you never lose a fight!

    Bad ends

    There are bad ends in the game, but there will never be a "game over" screen. Instead, you can continue to play through the bad end in whatever state you're left in. The main game itself will be over, but you will still get choices to make as you live out whatever life you're left with!

    Tomorrow

    Tomorrow I'll finish weapons and get started on sex-engine work. I've pretty much completed the sex-engine, but there are still some minor issues to address.

    Clothing enchantments

    I finished the last pieces of clothing today, but then, as I was playtesting it, I felt that I quickly discovered everything, and there wasn't much to do other than find different colours for clothing. I decided that in order to make clothing a more interesting aspect of the game, I would implement a randomly generated enchantment system!

    Enchantments

    So, the way I've implemented it is that there are no pre-set rare clothing items in the game. Instead, all clothing that isn't part of a clothing set is tagged as common rarity, and has the chance to spawn with a random enchantment (which bumps it's rarity up from common to rare). Like other RPGs, you'll need to get the clothing identified before you know exactly what it does. Clothing can have positive enchantments as well as negative ones. Items with negative enchantments are labelled with the rarity jinxed, and are pretty much useless to the player.

    Punishing instant-identification

    I wanted to give the player an option to bypass the identification stage, as they might be out of money or they don't want to make the journey back to an identifier. However, there must be a drawback to this, or else there would be no point in identifiers (and I wanted to keep them as a money-sink). So, I needed to give the player a risk when bypassing identification.

    I toyed with the idea of destroying the item on failure, but it felt extremely anticlimactic to have a mysterious item suddenly disappear. I also thought of making a failed identification result in a higher cost at the established identifier, but that didn't feel punishing enough (and I soon felt like it was always worth trying instant-identification).

    After a few failed ideas like these, I played with the idea of using the generic locking method that I originally designed for chastity and restraining devices. I implemented instant-identification by having the player equip the mysterious item to identify it. As the player doesn't know beforehand if the enchantment is good or bad, I could then lock clothing with bad enchantments onto the player, forcing them to find or buy an unlocking charm.

    This system feels far better than the previous iterations. There is a decent punishment for the player if the item is jinxed, it offers instant feedback as to what's happened, and there's no awkward destruction or removal of items. At the end of all this, there is now an extra aspect to clothing, which makes the game more fun and varied as you try to find items with better enchantments.

    Jinxed! (lore considerations)

    All of this is able to happen due to the demon's magic (yeah, yeah, I know, the old "a wizard did it" cop-out). The game uses a high fantasy style of magic, so having items being enchanted and jinxed fits in with the rest of the game world.

    A word on progress

    The enchantment work (along with some frustrating bugs after I optimised some rendering code (reducing rendering times by a factor of almost 200)) took most of the day, so I still haven't started on weapons. I anticipated the danger of feature creep and have set aside 7 "free" days, and after today, I have 6 left... Tomorrow I'll be finishing and polishing the enchantment code and getting started on weapons! (For real this time!)

    Wednesday 7 September 2016

    Almost finished clothing

    With the exception of two more shoe variants, all the images for the clothing in version 0.1.0 are done. I quickly threw together a first look at what the common items look like (the image excludes 12 items that are part of epic-rarity clothing sets). Please note that all the colours for the clothing were randomly generated, and may not be available in the actual release. Several images are also in a rough state and will be touched up before release. Anyway, without further ado, here's the image:


    Final words on clothing

    There are so many different clothes that I want to add to the game, that I could probably spend at least two weeks doing nothing but making clothing. However, with the release date being the end of this month, there just isn't enough time to add everything I want to. I'm calling this the end of clothing creation for version 0.1.0, but rest assured, there will be plenty more clothing added in the future!

    I also realise that some people would prefer me to use real-life images for clothing, but I just can't find a reliable source of copyright-free images. At some point in the future, many releases ahead, I'll add modding support, which will allow you to use custom image packs.

    Tomorrow I'll be putting some final touches to the clothing and moving on to create weapons. There will probably be about 5-10 different weapons at release (as apposed to the 76 items of clothing!), so it won't take me long to create their images and descriptions. Once that's done, it only seems logical to finish polishing the combat system. All that should be completed by the end of tomorrow, which will leave me 3 days in which to finish the sex-related engine work and story drafting.

    More clothing

    Although I made a lot of new clothing today, I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped. I've brought the total number of clothes up to 58, but I've yet to do legwear, socks and shoes. This means that the collage of items will have to wait until tomorrow (or worse-case scenario, Thursday).

    My head's spinning from making so many images, so I'll skip making a detailed post today. Instead, I'll simply say that work continues on making clothing, and I hope to post the clothing collage by Thursday at the very latest!

    Tuesday 6 September 2016

    Clothing progress

    Today I finished polishing the inventory system and made a lot of new clothes. There are currently 40 pieces of clothing in the game, but I still have more to make tomorrow. In total, there will probably be around 60 items of clothing in the game at launch. The most time-consuming part of making new clothes is creating the image to be used in the inventory UI. I'm using .svg files to display clothing, so I'm able to easily re-colour the image at runtime. All of the images will be in a semi-placeholder state for the first few releases. Hopefully somewhere down the line I can hire an artist to create some professional-looking images.

    A little more on clothing (and a wall of text, I got a bit carried away)

    Seeing as I'm already talking about clothing, I'll add some details about how clothing works in the engine (don't worry, I won't get into technical details concerning the code). Basically, each piece of clothing has a few sets of information that tell it how it should behave. It knows what other areas it's incompatible with (e.g. a swimsuit can't be worn with panties or a bra), how it needs to be displaced or removed in order to get access to areas it's blocking (e.g. a T-shirt will need to be pulled up or removed before you can do things to your bra/breasts), and what clothing needs to be removed in order to equip/unequip it (e.g. when equipping the swimsuit, any clothing in your legs, torso or chest slot will need to be removed first). Now, removing all those clothes manually each time you want to equip/unequip an item soon gets quite tedious, so I made the inventory do it all for you, making it display a description based on how you equipped your item.

    I'll give you an example of what clothing management looks like without an automatic system. Once again, I'll use the swimsuit as an example. (I'm sure you can guess what piece of clothing is used the most in testing.)

  • You want to equip the swimsuit, but you need to get access first.
    • Navigate to and unequip your crop top.
      Navigate to and unequip your miniskirt.
      Navigate to and unequip your corset.
      Navigate to and unequip your thong. (This is taking some time...)
  • You now are able to equip the swimsuit.
    • Equip swimsuit into it's slot (chest slot), automatically replacing your bra.
  • Now you have to manually replace all 4 pieces of clothing.
    • Navigate to and equip your thong.
      Navigate to and equip your corset. (Pretty bored of doing this by now...)
      Navigate to and equip your miniskirt.
      Navigate to and equip your crop top.
  • Finally done!

  • A better way

    When I first made the inventory system, I found that this method provides a lot of interaction, but the continuous management soon got annoying. I decided to make a method that could carry out all the steps automatically, and deliver a detailed description at the end. In this way, you still get all the same information, but with far less button-pressing and inventory navigation to do. Due to the ability of some clothing being able to be locked (like chastity cages and belts), I assumed that at some point in the future I would want the ability to lock absolutely any piece of clothing, not just ones on the bottom layer. This led to the problem that some clothing may be indirectly blocked from being unequipped. Consider the following:

  • You want to unequip your swimsuit.
  • In order to do this, you will need to remove your skirt.
  • The skirt is blocked by another piece of clothing (that somehow isn't directly blocking the swimsuit).
  • The automatic removal method returns "You can't unequip your swimsuit, as your skirt is being blocked by xxx".
  • The automatic removal method will detect and inform you exactly why you can't equip/unequip clothing. It's then up to you to find a way to unlock the clothing that's blocking you. In the event that there is no clothing blocking your way, the method will prioritise displacing clothing before removing it when creating the generated description (e.g. you'll pull up your skirt to remove your panties instead of taking your entire skirt off). Using the automatic method, equipping the swimsuit can now be done with one button press, and the interface will update with this description:

    You remove your crop top by pulling it up and over your head.
    You wriggle your hips as you pull down your miniskirt, stepping out of it once it's around your ankles.
    You untie the laces holding your corset together, and remove it from your stomach.
    You take hold of your thong and slide it down and off your legs.
    You step into the swimsuit, pulling it up to cover your torso before sliding your arms through the holes.
    Having equipped your swimsuit, you re-equip your corset, miniskirt and crop top.
    Your thong was added to your inventory.


    Tomorrow's plan

    So that's basically how the inventory is dealing with clothes right now. As I mentioned at the start of this post, tomorrow I'll be finishing the creation of all clothing for version 0.1.0. In tomorrow's post, I'll post a collage of icons for all common and rare clothing that will be in the game at release. (I'll keep epics and legendaries as a surprise, minus the Maid's outfit that I've already revealed.)

    Monday 5 September 2016

    UI, gameflow & the week ahead

    As mentioned yesterday, in today's post I'll briefly talk about the UI and game flow. Please note that even though this is going to be pretty close to how the game will appear in 0.1.0, I may make some minor changes between now and release day. In fact, as I was proof-reading this post, I noticed at least 2 minor UI elements that are definitely going to be changed.

    UI

    As promised, first I'll show you a couple of screenshots of the UI in action. The first screenshot shows the initial dialogue when you open your inventory. At the bottom left, your inventory is shown. The second screenshot shows the tooltip that appears when hovering over items in your inventory (the mouse isn't shown in the picture, but it's hovering over the Maid's dress icon).

    Inventory first look
    Inventory first look

    As you can see in the UI's text panel, the game uses a choice selection system to progress from scene to scene. In the screenshots above, there are 4 choices you can make, each with a corresponding number. One of the core concepts in this engine is that every action must be accessible if the player is using only a mouse or only a keyboard. The choices can therefore be selected by pressing the corresponding number key on the keyboard, or by clicking on them. The information shown in the tooltip can be accessed by keyboard users by choosing "View equipped items"->"Examine your Maid's dress". In this way, the player can use whatever input device they prefer (or a mixture of both).

    Game flow

    As I was typing this up, I realised that the best way to show game flow would be to create a .webm or .gif. I'll do that some time this week, and talk more about how the game is played when I post them. For now, the very basic premise is as follows:

  • Move around the randomly-generated world map (to explore or to visit places).
    • Chance for an encounter in each tile (different tiles have different encounters):
      • Encounter results in combat. Resolve combat (and post-combat sex scenes).
      • Encounter results in event (such as finding an item). Resolve event.
    • Visit a place on the world map
      • Each place has unique options that can lead to quests, combat, sex, or events.
      • For now, places are a series of dialogue options. Interior maps will be implemented in a later release.

    The week ahead

    This week I'm going to:

  • Finish creating all 0.1.0 clothing and weapons, and polish related descriptions and dialogue.
  • Finish sex-related engine work and core scenes. (I'll describe how it all works soon.)
  • Apply final polish to combat-related engine work.
  • Complete all drafts related to the main story and all major quest chains.
  • Work on the list of bugs that have been accumulating over the past 3-4 weeks.
  • Sunday 4 September 2016

    Inventory

    Since Lilith's invasion, traditional ideas concerning modesty have been rapidly eroded. Led by the demon's example, it's now common to see people wearing all sorts of fetish clothing, and sometimes, nothing at all...

    As I mentioned yesterday, I've recently been putting the finishing touches to the inventory system. The inventory is split into three main categories; generic items, weapons, and clothing. Every item has a rarity (common, rare, epic or legendary), which, along with it's stats, affect it's value. Items can be obtained from defeating enemies or by purchasing them from shops. Legendary items are unique and can only be obtained from quests. I'll briefly run through each type of item.

    Generic Items

    Generic items encompass anything that can't be equipped. Most of these are consumables, which can cause transformations, replenish health, willpower and stamina, or apply special effects. (I'll talk about health and other attributes in a future post.)

    Weapons

    Weapons come in two different varieties; melee or ranged. You can have one melee and one ranged weapon equipped at the same time (I'll talk more about this in the upcoming combat post). Every weapon has a base amount of damage as well as a damage type. For example, a baton currently does 6-10 physical damage. Each weapon also has a quality (average, fine, exceptional or masterpiece) that affects it's base damage. I'm still tweaking weapon values and how quality works.

    Clothing

    Clothing is the most complicated of the item types. Each piece of clothing fits into one of 15 inventory slots, and can be covered in sexual fluids, be locked (i.e. for chastity belts & cages), be too feminine or masculine for you to be comfortable wearing, and be part of a clothing set (e.g. Maid's outfit). Clothing provides physical resistance, and can also provide other attribute modifiers. Every piece of clothing can be found in specific colours (e.g. bras can be found in over 10 different colours, but each piece of the Maid's outfit is only available in black or pink). The clothing slots (and some examples) are:

  • Head (Maid's headpiece)
  • Eye (aviators)
  • Mouth (ballgag)
  • Neck (delicate necklace)
  • Torso (t-shirt)
  • Chest (bra)
  • Stomach (corset)
  • Hand (elbow-length gloves)
  • Wrist (gold bracelet)
  • Finger (trashy rings)
  • Leg (miniskirt)
  • Groin (panties)
  • Foot (heels)
  • Calf (knee-high socks)
  • Ankle (ankle restraints)
  • There will also be 8 slots for different piercings at release.

  • To give you a better idea of how the inventory works, tomorrow's post will include some screenshots of it in action. I'll also talk about the UI and game flow.

    Friday 2 September 2016

    Transformations

    Lilith has unleashed her demonic magic upon the world, which, amongst other things, has caused people to undergo strange transformations. Things that once would have been physically impossible are now a reality...

    Today I finished writing transformation descriptions for the 9 races that will be in the game at launch. (I also did a lot of work on the inventory system, but I'll probably talk about that tomorrow.) I don't want to go too far into the details concerning races and transformation sources, as I'd rather leave you to discover them within the game. For now, I'll give a brief overview of how transformations affect a person's body in Lilith's Throne. Please note that anything here may change slightly before release.

    There are 3 different strengths of racial transformation in the game, as well as other types of transformation that don't affect your race. Most of the NPCs in the early game will either be human or lesser racial-morphs. As the game progresses, certain actions that you can take will influence how much the human population is transformed. I'll finish this post with some non-exhaustive lists of what each transformation type can affect.

    Lesser transformation

  • Ears
  • Eyes
  • Hair
  • Horns
  • Tail
  • Wings
  • Greater transformation

  • Arms
  • Legs
  • Ass
  • Breasts
  • Penis(es)
  • Vagina
  • Complete transformation

  • Skin
  • Face
  • Non-racial transformation

  • Height
  • Femininity
  • Breast size
  • Number of breast rows
  • Lactation rate
  • Penis size
  • Testicle size
  • Cum production
  • Vagina capacity
  • Vagina wetness
  • And a lot more...
  • Thursday 1 September 2016

    Hello world

    Well, here's the first post of my development blog for Lilith's Throne. I'll briefly explain what this is all about in a short Q&A format.

    What is Lilith's Throne?

    Lilith's Throne is a game that I've been working on for the last seven months or so. It's a fictional, text-based, erotic RPG in which you, as the protagonist, try to find out a way to defeat Lilith, the queen of a demonic invasion.

    Like other RPGs, you can fight enemies, level up, equip different clothing and weapons, find items to use, encounter friendly NPCs, and complete quests. This being an erotic game, a lot of the content involves sex (of all kinds) and transformations (sexual and otherwise). Please read the disclaimer for information about the sexual content found within the game.

    Lilith's Throne has been made completely from scratch by myself using java. It uses a custom-built engine and doesn't rely upon or use any third party libraries. It will be released as a .jar file and will require your computer to have java installed to be able to run. I will support android releases in future, but for the first few versions, I will only be working on the desktop version.

    Where can I play it?

    Like so many games of this nature, "it's still in development". To try and counter any sceptical thoughts you might have at hearing this news, I can tell you that the cut-off date of September 30th 23:59:59 GMT is the absolute latest time at which the first release of the game will be out, no matter what state it may be in.

    Why announce the game without anything to show?

    There's a few reasons for this. One, this blog will initially serve as a method for keeping track of the progress I make. Up until now, I've only had internal notes to keep track of what I've changed and accomplished. By putting change logs up on this blog throughout development, I'll have a public place where I can show my rate of progress.

    Two, I set myself the target of getting this blog set up by the end of this week, and every target must be met.

    Finally, I will be making more posts over the next few days and weeks leading up to release, and in those posts I'll put more information about the game (with screenshots). I'm making this blog now so that I have a foundation upon which I can release details concerning gameplay and development progress.

    The next post will be sometime tomorrow, so see you then!