Author: Chaotic

Progress on Betsy is going well. Since I was already working on it while this blog was mainly talking about dsp3000’s last game, there are already hundreds of images finished. While I’m certainly not going to commit to a release date yet, here is a good chance it could be released by the end of May.

Besides Betsy in this game, there are two more notable female characters. The first is Betsy’s best friend, Violet. A big trouble maker at the school, she is mainly seen as a misbehaving rebel by everyone else. You may also consider her the ‘wilder’ character in this.

Initially, I wasn’t convinced that the least well behaved girl in the school would be best friends with the most well behaved, but now I really like it. Neither role is likely to make you too popular, so I like the idea of the two social outcasts joining forces when nobody else would really accept them.

The second character is April. I won’t spoil this character too much, but I will say that she starts off as more of a ‘bully’ character, but can be redeemed along the way.

As you may have noticed by the above images, the characters all go through a number of outfit changes in this game. Since everything is not set on a single night this time, I felt it made sense. Each of the three main characters have at least 4 costume changes. Here are Betsy’s three main outfits.

 

Next, something important I forgot to mention last week. I spent a long day going through the basic functions of the game engine and reading about the latest html possibilities. The result is that I’ve added a few upgrades and altered the layout. I’m now using ‘local variables’ rather than cookies. These can be more reliable, but more importantly, they should work online and offline with all browsers. So, you will be able to download and play Betsy offline using Chrome.

I’ve also decided to loose the bars on the left side of the screen. Previously, they only showed things to the nearest five, so they weren’t really that useful anyway, only serving as a very vague rating. For Betsy, I’m just going to use numbers. It should look something like this :

Another quick thing I forgot to mention last week. When deleting all of the adverts, I also updated any dead links on the site. All free games should now have three active filehosts for you to download them from.

Finally, a quick word about Patreon. Some of you were mentioning it as an option last week among the comments. It is certainly a possibility, but probably not the direction the site will be going in soon. I have been keeping an eye on, say, Tlaero and Mortzes patreon (https://www.patreon.com/tora), but while I’m not going to disclose exactly how much revenue the members section generates, it certainly looks like more than Patreon would provide. Needless to say, I make a sufficient amount from it that I can now produce the occasional game completely for free.

Next week, I will start talking about the content of the game, including the main plot.

Hello Everyone

Today, I am very happy to announce that the next game for the site will be Betsy. You may remember a couple of months ago, I had started work on Crystal Part 3, but my conviction towards it was waning. I think it might have been the format. The game followed the Jennifer template of picking many different activities and having more unlock unlock by making the right choices, but was just a bit too similar too that game. The plan is to have a large rethink about it, then maybe end up releasing it around Christmas.

This is mainly a blog post about Betsy though, so let’s move onto her.

Rachel’s slightly younger sister, Betsy is the shyer, nerdier member of the family. She loves studying, learning, and aspires to be an actress one day. In game, you will play as Betsy’s boyfriend/girlfriend (you will have the choice of both gender and ethnicity). Both of you are in your final year at school (though I am careful to note that you are both 18).

For the format of this game, I wanted to try something a little different. For these types of game (and perhaps games in general), there always seem to be a bit of debate between player freedom and story. A more linear game means you can spend more time constructing plot and you can build the characters, but the fact that you are usually forced down a specific path can make you feel a lot less ‘involved’ in the game. Greater freedom in game however, can make it feel much more like you are there and truly controlling what’s happening, but normally at the expense of character development.

Keeping all that in mind, I wanted to try a sort of hybrid game. The whole thing is divided into several sequences, which alternate between free and linear. Instead of one big date night, the player have Betsy and smaller dates in the evening, with more linear days at school in between. It’s my hope that having the more linear sequences in between will greatly help build the characters, but the choices presented in the evening will add lots of freedom and replayability.

One more thing I want to mention, because I know some of you will be thinking about it straight away, there will be no threesome with Betsy and Rachel in this. Both Betsy and the player are supposed to be fairly inexperienced when it come to sex (when you have sex in this game it’s supposed to be the first time either of you have ever done it), so it seemed like too much of an unrealistic leap to go from first time sex to threesome with your sister. It’s likely to be in a future game.

For this game, I also spent some of my time refining my image rendering skills. I might as well be honest about why – I had been looking at some of Mortze’s and felt a little intimated by how much better they looked than some of mind, so I decided to up my game. Hopefully, you’ll be seeing a leap in image quality for this one. 🙂

Finally, the big announcement about Betsy, this game…will be free!

It’s been too long since I made a new game free straight away, so I’ve decided it will be this one. Part of that is also going to be a little economic/social experiment. Obviously, in principal, I like it when my games are free. I’m an artist, and the more people who play my games and enjoy them, the happier I get. However, I do need a standard income from the members section. So, this time around, I’m going to try releasing the game for free, with an emphasis on signing up to the members section by choice, more like a donation where you get 15 games in exchange for it. If it works, this may be the first of many new games I make for free.

In addition to that, I also just want to quickly address the adverts on the site. You may have noticed they’ve gone. They’ve been annoying me for a while and the revenue from them wasn’t that high, so I just decided to remove them. I think the site looks much nicer now. 🙂

That’s all for this week. Next Friday I’ll be posting about all the other characters you’ll be seeing in this game.

Just a quick post today to bring attention to the fact that an updated version of ‘The academy : part 1’ is now available in the members section.

If you downloaded the original version and just want a patch, you can download that here.

Next week I’ll be starting posts on my next game, beginning with a rather large one.

The final post from dsp3000 on his game, The Academy Part 1…

I’m very happy to announce that my new game is finished and should now be in the members section.

‘The Academy: Part One’ is the first installment of what I intend to be a five part series.

This first episode is mostly about establishing the location, the characters and the storyline.

There are several tasks to complete on day one, but your main objective is not to get fired. This could be difficult considering the many ways you can be lead astray by a whole load of sexy girls.

Having played it through a few times, I can confirm that this game is much longer in duration than anything I’ve made before. Set aside at least an hour to play it.

Overall there are 997 images in the game plus another 18 end cards, and 25 profile shots.

This game should prove quite challenging. 12 of the game endings mean you get fired, but at least you can do it in style.

You can have a bit of fun during your first day in your new job and make it through to the end too though.

Have fun discovering all the endings!

EDIT – Here is the patch for those not wanting to download the whole things again : PATCH

Just drop all of it’s contents into the “game” folder, and replace the items if prompted.

From dsp3000 on his upcoming game…

Good news and bad news this week. I’ll start with the bad news…

I’m going to have to miss my self imposed deadline and release date. I had hope to release the game today but it isn’t quite finished.

Despite putting in some very intensive production sessions over the past couple of weeks it’s not quite there yet.

The good news is that, barring a catastrophe, it will be released next Friday 8th April.

Depending on your perspective, the other good news is the reason for the delay.

When planning out, this first installment (of what should become a five part saga), was originally going to have between 700 and 800 images.

Having now completed 963 images, and with just a handful left to create, this game will again exceed 1000 images. Along with writing, and coding the game, I probably average about 100 images per week so this explains why it’s running late.

You may ask yourselves why I don’t just stick to the original plan…?

Well sometimes some scenes end up requiring a few more images and a few more pages to properly tell the story. Getting the first part of this series right is really important for the continuity of the project.

An extra week also means I’ll be able to thoroughly test the game and iron out any glitches.

So… this week, here are a few more teaser images from the forthcoming and so very nearly completed game.

More from dsp3000 on his upcoming game…

“This week it’s time to introduce some of the students who you will meet in part one of ‘The Academy’ series.

Maria and Holly: You will know both of these girls from their roles in the Tara games.

Laura, Amy and Lola: Maria’s friends Amy and Lola were briefly introduced at the end of Tara part three. They are also friends with new character Laura.

Isabella, Annie and Genevieve: More new characters and another distinct friendship group at the Academy. You will find out what sort of girls these three are.

Megan: A bit of a loner who does her own thing. Watch out for her sarcastic wit.

So that’s very brief introduction to nine more of the characters who will feature in the new games. There are a few more who are planned for future games too. Revealing them now though could be considered a plot spoiler.

In terms of progress on The Academy: Day One; I’ve finished just under 700 images so far and I’m in the final stages of production. There is one large scene to complete plus a couple of linking scenes too. But still on target for completion and release at the end of March.

More details next time.”

More from dsp3000 on his next game…

Time to reveal some more details about my latest game.

This will be the first part in a series of games based in a college/university and will be called “The Academy”.

You will be working there as a consultant with a clear objective to complete. Of course there is always time to explore the college grounds, meet the staff and students and work on your own side projects too. Just try not to get fired…

I don’t want to give too much away about the plot, but it is something I’ve been working on for a quite a few months. It will hopefully be an interesting, engaging and most of all fun story to play your way through.

For this blog post I thought I’d introduce some of the staff who you will meet.

Bridgette is your primary point of contact at the Academy. She is responsible for managing you while you are working there.

Jodie is the Receptionist/Administrator. A useful woman to get to know.

Didi is the Principal’s assistant. She takes care of any statistics and logistical information you might require.

Principal Valentine. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of the Principal do you?

Sebastian is the Groundskeeper. He also has a somewhat dubious reputation amongst the female staff and students.

Next week I’ll be profiling the students.

This week, details from dsp3000 on his next game…

I’m happy to reveal that I am well over halfway through the production on my next game. The images will give you a few clues as to how this one will look.

This game will be the first part of a series where the endings from one part will carry over into the next.

I’ve spent a few months working on a pretty extensive plot for each part and I’ve also developed about 15 new characters, some of whom you can see for yourselves.

For continuity, Maria features in the new games, along with Holly, Amy, and Lola. These girls were introduced in the final installment of the Tara game. More details about the game will be released in future blog updates along with the names of all the new characters.

So far I’ve completed just under 400 images for part one, so I’m anticipating about 800 on completion. Hopefully this should be before the end of March.

As always, feedback is more than welcome

dsp3000

 

I think it’s time for another small survey for this site. I think it’s been at least two years since I had one.

Answer as many as you’d like to.

For more details on what I mean by a 3D game, see this post here.

In other games similar to mine, I often see the images switch to third person, especially during the sex scenes. I’ve always avoided it, as I feel switching from first person spoils the immersion, but would people like to see this? It would still have the ability to customize the player character though. The third person camera angles would probably be positioned so you can’t see their face.

 

 

 

Today I’m finally going to do something I’ve planned for a while – A blog post with a big pile of fun trivia for the site. I hope you enjoy it.

Characters and Places

• The original plan when I started making these games was to have first and surnames of all the characters alphabetical. This was a homage to arianeb, the game which inspired me to start making them. So, the list would go Ariane B, Crystal D, Erica F…and then I did Leilani and the whole thing fell apart. It’s probably for the best though as I would have ran out of letters on the 12th character.
• Crystal and Kelly were originally going to be sisters. This is why, if you look closely, their facial structures are almost identical. Check out this comparison of them without hair.
• Do you remember the Mysterious ‘Lady’ who owned the nightclub in my earlier games? Well, under the mask it was Rachel. It wasn’t something I intended to have as a twist reveal though, it was just the model I used. It was easier than creating a new character from scratch.
• In case you haven’t guessed it, Mr. Hughes is basically supposed to be Hugh Hefner.
• Jennifer was originally going to be an updated version of Crystal. Hence, they both seem to like dressing in black leather.
• The most commonly used character in these games is Rachel, appearing in far more rendered images than any other character.
• Before I learned how to do background images myself, I used screenshots from Hitman : Blood Money and Grand theft Auto 4. If you can, play them and see how many locations you can spot!
• Ellie was originally going to be an Elf in one of my fantasy games, alongside Naria as a warrior who helped her, and Maddison as the Princess who they were rescuing. I couldn’t come up with enough ideas to make me confident in it though, so I ended up transferring them all to Photographer. I still have all the models and outfits though.
• 
• While I’m talking about it, is there an interest in seeing this game finished? Looking through the files is making me feel all nostalgic about it.

Statistics

• Vdategames.com gets around 150,000 visitors per month. Sadly, though, less than one per cent sign up for the members section. 🙂
• About 68% of users use a windows desktop. 11% use an android smartphone or tablet, 9% use an IPhone or IPad, and 8% use a mac. 2.3% use a Linux.
• 65% of users are from the United states, 18% are from the UK, 14% are from Germany, 10% are from Canada, 9% from France, 5% from Italy, 5% from Russia, and 5% from Poland. We also have a very small amount of people accessing from places like Iran and China (you rebels!)
• The most played game on this site ever is Photographer Part 1.
• Vdategames.com has a global rank of 214,694. In other words, it is the 214,694th most popular website in the world.