Version 0.1.1 release

Version 0.1.1 is mainly an update to the back-end engine code and the way the UI looks. In fact, the content in 0.1.1 is even more broken that it was in 0.1.0! It is still very much in a prototype stage, with the first 'real' release slated for version 0.1.5. Here is the download link for version 0.1.1:

Download link: Google Drive

Lilith's Throne requires java to be installed on your computer.

Be aware: This version is a mess. There are game-breaking bugs, almost no content, and it has not been tested as an executable jar. I strongly advise waiting for release 0.1.5 before playing the game.

Patch notes:

Story

-Changed the main story slightly.

-Changed the prologue to fit into the updated main story.

Vicky (Aunt)

-Re-wrote most of her scenes to fit into the updated story structure

-Drafted her first three romance quests, not yet added though (total of five planned).

Quests

-Implemented framework for main, side and romance quests.

-Added quest tracking on phone screen.

-Quests reward you with experience when completed.

UI

-Complete re-vamp of response UI.

-Default resolution is now 1200x800. This has allowed better control over UI design.

-Adjusted font size, line spacing and maximum width of content for better readability.

-Refined phone screen menu (~50% done).

-Refined options menu.

-Slight update to combat UI.

-Can no longer highlight elements in outer UI.

-A lot of css changes to fix layout bugs.

-Improved inventory UI.

-Tidied up map (removed connectors and changed colours).

Bug fixes

-Fixed jinx removal bug.

-Fixed displaced descriptions in clothing tooltip.

Other

-Added more random names for character creation.

-Slightly altered some colour values.

You can see some of the UI changes in these comparison pictures. Please note that all of the text is a first draft placeholder, and will be changed before version 0.1.5.

Version 0.1.0:

Version 0.1.1:

Version 0.1.2

Version 0.1.2 will be released on November 1st. It will be mainly focused on adding story content, combat and sex scenes.

New Posting Style & How updates will be handled

So, up until now, I've been making one post every day to keep track of progress. Now that I've released the first version of the game, I feel like this posting style won't work as well any more, as anything important will be buried under lots of mini-update posts.

Therefore, I'm going to switch styles from making one post every day, to making a single, big post every time I release an update. I'll also make posts if I feel like I need to address something, but for the most part, there will be a single large post on each update day.

Updates will be released every week on a Tuesday. By this method, version 0.1.5 (the target for announcement on TFGamesSite), will be released on 22nd November.

I know I said I'd put up a java installation tutorial today, but I'm too tired at the moment, so it'll have to be either tomorrow or on Friday later.

Using this new posting style, my next major post will be on Tuesday 25th October.

Version 0.1.0 release

So, after I did some more work on the game today, I managed to break the way the .jar file was being exported, and it's taken me the last few hours to fix it. I'm still really not happy with the state version 0.1.0 is in, but I can't delay it any further, so here it is:

Download link: Google Drive

Lilith's Throne requires java to be installed on your computer. I will add instructions on how to install java in tomorrow's post!

Be aware: This version is a mess. There are game-breaking bugs, almost no content, and it has not been tested after I fixed the .jar issues. I strongly advise waiting for release 0.1.5 before playing the game.

Progress

Trading

- Added a trading system.

Misc.

- Fixed a few bugs.

- Several small adjustments to gameplay.

I'm going to include a generic disclaimer here. (So don't blame me if you somehow break your computer when trying to install java or something!)

Disclaimer

This software is provided 'as is' without warranty of any kind, either express or implied. In no event shall I be liable to you or any third parties for any special, punitive, incidental, indirect or consequential damages of any kind, or any damages whatsoever, including, without limitation, those resulting from loss of use, data or profits, and on any theory of liability, arising out of or in connection with the use of this software. The use of the software downloaded here is done at your own discretion and risk and with agreement that you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from such activities. No advice or information, obtained by you from me or this web site shall create any warranty for the software.

Progress

I did more work on the UI and fixed some bugs today.

I'm still planning on releasing the prototype version 0.1.0 tomorrow.

Progress

UI

- More UI refinements.

Misc.

- Fixed dialogue restore bugs.

- Several small adjustments to gameplay.

Day off

I spent most of the day doing other stuff, but still found some time to work on the UI and transformation mechanics.

Progress

UI

- Cleaning up UI methods.

Transformations

- Did a lot of refactoring and tidying up of transformation code.

The week ahead

Version 0.1.0 release on Tuesday. It's actually all ready to release now, but I'll do some final testing tomorrow and release it on Tuesday.

Fix issues with version 0.1.0.

Fixing deployment issues

I fixed most of the problems I had with deployment today. I also did some work on fixing the most game-breaking bugs and improving the tooltip UI.

Progress

Deployment

- Fixed several issues with .jar file not running correctly.

UI

- Huge improvements to tooltips.

Misc.

- A couple of game-breaking bugs were fixed.

Slight delay... Again...

I ran into some problems when compiling my code into a .jar file today. I've just now managed to get it into a runnable .jar, but I still need to test it to make sure everything works. I also need to find a place to host the file. As a result, I'm going to delay the release until Tuesday. This will give me enough time to get everything sorted.

As I said last time, I'm not sure if anyone has even seen this blog before (I'm sure the views I get are just from webcrawlers), so I don't feel too bad about delaying it again. If there is someone out there reading this, then once again I'm sorry. This is my first time creating something like this, and I keep running into problems I never foresaw.

Release tomorrow

Today I worked on the combat system, magic, and weapons. There's still a lot more to do before I feel comfortable releasing the game, however, I'm still going to go ahead and release 0.1.0 tomorrow. I'm not going to announce the release anywhere except on this blog, as I don't really want people to play it in it's current state. There will be a full blog post detailing what's in version 0.1.0 tomorrow, where I'll also announce a change to the way I make blog posts.

Progress

Combat

- Improved item use in combat.

- Multiple improvements to weapons and general combat.

- A lot of work on spells.

Misc.

- Fixed a few random bugs.

Progress

I did a lot of work on refactoring the sex engine and writing the prologue sex scene today. Version 0.1.0 is still going to be released this Friday, and tomorrow's post will explain what to expect in this first release.

Progress

Writing

- Writing prologue sex scene.

Sex Engine

- Huge amount of refactoring.

Progress

Today I finished writing the prologue. I also did some work on the sex engine and prologue sex scene.

Progress

Writing

- Finished writing prologue.

- Writing prologue sex scene.

Sex Engine

- Bug fixes.

Progress

Today I just did a lot of writing for the prologue. Not much else to say really...

Progress

Writing

- Writing prologue.

Progress & release week

I'll release version 0.1.0 this Friday, no matter what state it's in. I don't think I'll announce the release anywhere just yet though, as it will still be in a very rough state. I'll post an announcement on TFGamesSite when version 0.1.1 is released (which should be by the end of October).

Progress

Writing

- Writing main story.

Clothing

- Unidentified enchantments on clothing now work properly.

Misc.

- Clothing rendering optimisation.

- Fixed bugs related to save/load game.

The week ahead

Get everything into format for release.

Finish writing main story & sex scenes.

Fix most game-breaking bugs.

Lazy day

I didn't make any progress today, but tomorrow I plan to do a lot of writing.

Progress

I spent most of the day working on the UI again.

Progress

UI

- Main menu improvements.

- Large amount of work on combat UI.

- Lots of small UI improvements.

- Implemented new inventory system for when in combat and sex.

Misc.

- Fixed minor item bugs.

Inventory & UI updates

New inventory screen

I found the old inventory menu to be extremely slow to navigate, and after a while it would become tedious having to click through numerous menus before finally finding the action I wanted. To fix this, I decided to completely re-work the way the player interacts with the UI, as well as revamp the inventory menu. As I promised yesterday, I've included some screenshots below, but please note that the UI layout needs polishing and may change before release.

This is the general inventory menu screen:

You can hover the mouse over any item to get a description and information. Please note that the descriptions are just placeholders!

The inventory at the bottom left of the screen shows your currently equipped items. Hovering over them will display a similar tooltip.

You can click on any of the items to progress to this screen, where you will be presented with all the options related to that item. Once you select an option, you are returned to the main inventory menu (the first picture), and the text at the top will update to give you a description of how you carried out the action.

A move towards the mouse

As I also said yesterday, I've decided to move towards a mouse-based system for UI interaction. The keyboard shortcuts still work, but not everything can be done with just a keyboard any more.

The reason I chose to do this is that I found myself being extremely limited by having to support every action on the keyboard. Before the inventory update, I was having to use keyboard shortcuts from 0-9 to support every single option. That meant that if you had 20 items in your inventory, and you wanted to select the last one, you had to press: 9 (next page) -> 9 (next page) -> 9 (next page) -> 4 (select item). While doing that, you had to scan every option to see if the item you wanted was on that page. This was, as I'm sure you'll agree, a terrible design, and I had to change it.

I know there are good solutions to keyboard-based inventory UI's (such as those found in many roguelikes), but I felt as though I could make the inventory so much more responsive and user-friendly if I decided to move to a mouse-based system. Every single action in the game can be accessed with just a mouse (except for typing in your name and save-game file names), so, as is often the requirement for games of this nature, you can still play one-handed.

Progress

UI

- Finished inventory menu revamp.

Misc.

- Fixed large bug with rendering clothing colours.

- Optimised clothing rendering.

- Fixed some tooltip bugs.

Progress

I did a lot more work on changing the UI today. I changed the way the inventory interface works, and I'll post some screenshots of it tomorrow. I've decided to move to a mouse-based system for the UI. I'll explain that decision in tomorrow's post.

Progress

UI

- Finished UI response layout changes.

- UI refactoring to support new layout.

- Fixed minor UI bugs.

- Started massive inventory UI overhaul.

Map

- Map tiles adjacent to player's tile now get revealed.

- Improved map display.

Writing

- Vicky's apartment writing.

Misc.

- Fixed minor inventory bugs.

Progress

Today I got carried away with changing how the UI works. I'm moving towards the controls being mouse-oriented, as it allows for much faster and more intuitive UI interaction. Everything can still be accessed with only a keyboard, but that might change before release...

Progress

UI

- UI tooltip fixes

- Large UI changes

Progress

I mainly did work on fixing bugs and improving the UI today.

Progress

Writing

- Writing encounters

UI

- UI attribute window improvements

- UI map movement improvement

Misc.

- Fixed bugs related to inventory weight

- Minor bug fixes.

Ready for another week

I feel well rested and ready to get started tomorrow for the final push to version 0.1.0!

The week ahead

Finish all sex scenes.

Fix the major bugs.

Continue writing main story.

Weekend break

I didn't get around to doing much today. After spending so much time fixing technical issues this last week, I feel as though I need to take a break for this weekend. I still got around to doing a little bit of writing, but I don't expect to get much done until Monday.

Story

- Writing main story.

Sex

- Writing sex scenes.