Month: October 2016

April & Violet

April & Violet – Part 1 has now been released. Despite it only being Part 1, I am very happy to say that it still ended up at close to 1000 images. Members can now download it or play online via the members section. Here’s the link to the previews and the free demo : http://www.vdg-offsite.com/aprilandviolet.html

If you can’t see the game, remember refresh your browser.

I hope everyone enjoys it. It’s been a lot of fun to make this game.

Future games

My next game will be April & Violet Part 2, and I think I’ve released some final decisions on what the game after that will be.

Sienna/Leanna is still 100% happening, but I’m still learning when it comes to rendering with daz studio and IRAY. As a result, I don’t feel that I can accurately predict when I will finish the game. I can be optimistic and just say “Oh, I’ll aim to finish it for February”, but it doesn’t feel very responsible. For all I know, it might take until Christmas 2017 to finish.

To give an example, the preview image of Sienna I added to the blog last week took around 5 minutes to render, but earlier this week, I rendered an image of her at home, and thanks to the details, glass and reflections, it took around 3 hours to render.

So, I think the professional, responsible thing to do is work on it when I can and say, “It’ll be finished when it’s finished”, with no real exceptions of a release date. I’ll be very surprised if it isn’t released in 2017, but I can’t be more accurate than that at this moment.

Long term followers of my blog will be aware that I’ve been determined to complete my Crystal trilogy for a while now. I think I’m finally inspired to do it.

Earlier in the week, I took some time to experiment with shader scripts in Poser, and managed to get Crystal looking like this…

I’m really happy with the results, so, finally, it looks like Crystal Part 3 is happening.

It certainly makes sense to use her next. My long term plan is to be using the newer Genesis based characters and IRAY for all of my games, which would make Crystal Part 3 the last game I make with the older V4. Considering Crystal Part 1 was my first game, it seems very appropriate.

I’ll get into details at a later date, but here’s the basic premise of the game…

As established in earlier games, Crystal is a very keen swimmer. She has gotten so good at it that, that she is now competing professionally. This is great for her career, but it has been a strain on your relationship. You haven’t even seen her for six months as she travels the world to compete in competitions. Now though, she is returning home, though only for a week. You have seven days to rekindle the romance and save your relationship.

What I particularly like about this idea is that, to be blunt, it will mean a lot of sex. I’m very proud of my games like Betsy, but there isn’t much erotic content until you get towards the end. With this premise, you can have sex every day of the week, including near the start.

After slightly awkwardly rediscovering your feelings towards each other on the first day, you make a pact with Crystal to have as much fun this week as possible. Basically, the whole thing turns into a week long dare game that get’s crazier every day. Working title was ‘Crystal Part 3 – The Wild Week’. Expect lots of public sex in very daring places. I will also probably be integrating the character of Mia into this.

So, to summarize, the schedule for the site looks something like this :

April and Violet – Part 1 : Now (released today)

Academy Part 3 : End of November/early December

April & Violet – Part 2 : Late December/Early January

Crystal – Part 3 : Probably early February

Sienna/Leanna/whatever I end up calling it : Later 2017, maybe May, but possibly later, or even earlier.

And yes, Crystal Part 3, will be free! As I suggested in a earlier blog post though, I may give it to members a week early.

Tumblr

Something I’ve been planning to do for a while. A comment of the blog earlier in the week finally spurred me to do it.

I’ve set up a tumblr account. You can find the page here : http://vdategames.tumblr.com/

I’ll be adding the occasional image. I’m frequently making lighting tests or WIP images for new characters, so I think this’ll be a nice place to post them.

There is also a link to it on the site’s front page, next to “coming soon.”.

Poll

Having trouble thinking of a poll, so how about this for today – Who’s your favorite out of Betsy, Violet and April?

Next week (and for the weeks following), you’ll be hearing from dsp3000 and the progress with this new game, The academy : Part 3.

Just a small update today.

Many people were disappointed with the idea of the April & Violet game just having one sex scene at the end with both of them together. So, I floated the idea in the comments section that I could still include the two solo sex scenes, but release the game in two parts. This seemed to be a very popular idea, so that’s what I’m going to do!

The plot was already designed so that it could work this way anyway. I started the game with the intention of using new Genesis base figures and rendering everything in IRAY, and since I didn’t have much experience with them, I didn’t know how long it would take to make a game. So, in preparation, I setup the plot so it could be released in 2, 3 or 4 parts. The 2 part plan is what I’m going with here.

So, part 1 will include the sex scenes with Dylan and Violet, and Part 2 will include April’s sex scene and the groupsex at the end.

Since this won’t mean I have much work to do before I finish, I will be releasing Part 1 this week, on Friday the 28th.

Following that , the schedule for the site will probably be dsp3000’s Academy Part 3, and the April and Violet Part 2 all before Christmas.

Bonus

As a quick bonus, here’s a nice image of my next main lady when I’m done after April & Violet. Looks like I might be officially naming her Sienna, but I’ll have to think about it. I think my subconscious mind was thinking that Sienna work as a newcaster’s name because of CNN. CNN-a. Get it? I’ll deal with ti later though. Sienna’s still a nice name.

April & Violet

Progress is going very well, and I feel like I’m nearing the end of production. At this speed, I think a release date of November 4th is very likely, but I’ll refrain from saying it’s official until I’m more certain, which will probably be next Friday.

Since I refrained from it last week, today I also have lots of pictures to share with you.

After spending the night at the motel, April discovers that her car has been drained of gas…

After discovering you are all stranded there, both April and Violet change into something better suited for the heat…

April takes charge figuring out your options, while Dylan tries to help, and Violet nurses a hangover…

Violet and the player investigate a nearby town only to find it deserted…

Finally, you find some gas….

…but it may be too good to be true, as April spots something disturbing in her mirror!

Since it is supposed to me a mystery what’s going on, I don’t want to get into too many details about what’s happening, but that should be enough to start you guessing for now.

I also have a bit of an update on the sexual content. In earlier posts, I stated that there would be one ‘solo’ sex scene for each of the three women, then one orgy at the end. Sadly, (or not) I’ve decided to change that.

There were a few aspects about it that were bugging me. I think the biggest issue though was the pacing. Since it’s only a medium sized game, having four separate sex scenes makes the sex too frequent. By comparison, Betsy is about 2.5 times the size of what this will be, and that only has three.

So, instead, I decided to demote the solo April and Violet sex scenes to just nude scenes, but on the more more positive side, this means I’ve decided to expand the epilogue sex scene with them both involved. The sex with them at the end of Betsy was a little brief, so this should more than make up for it. Doing it this way should also mean I finish it a bit quicker.

It also makes a bit more sense with them being in a relationship. I was going to have them make a rule where they’re allowed to sleep with you because of a deal they’d made, but having an epilogue scene where you all just agree to get naughty in a hotel room after the main plot makes much more sense. Also, inspired by comments on the blog, I will be having a ‘titty-fuck’ with Violet and deepthroat blowjob with April as part of that scene!

Leanna

Last week, I added a note to the blog say that, although I love Leanna’s look, I was having some trouble with her face. I don’t know what it is about her face, but it’s really, really difficult to get her smiling and not have it look weird. It’s like the rest of the face doesn’t shift with her lips properly.

You can see what I mean by these images…

So, I started working on a new face. Bit of a character change, but I’d rather do it now when I’m so early into production. This is what I’ve come up with. Everything else is the same, it’s just the face I changed….

I like it! She somehow looks a bit more like a news anchor to me. More mature, but not necessarily older. Slightly sterner face too, which fits with the ‘bitchy’ personality.

This is how her smile looks now…

Which looks much, much better to me. It’s probably still tweak it a bit over the next week, but this’ll be pretty close to what I use.

Very interested in what everyone thinks about the upgrade. Leave your thoughts below if you have any.

This weeks poll

I’ve decided I really like having polls on the blog here. It’s a good way to get feedback, and to to see how many people are reading it. So, I think I’m going to try having a poll every week, even if it’s for something frivolous.

This week, Leanna’s name. Since I’m changing her face, I’m also very tempted to change her name. I’ve been leaning towards Sienna instead. Her surname is Marseilles, and I feel “Sienna Marseilles” sounds a bit more news anchor than “Leanna Marseilles”. So, what do you think? Here’s both names with a pile of others I could live with…

Feel free to add any of your own suggestions below too. If people like them, I may do another poll next week with this week’s most popular, plus those. Sort of a ’round 2′.

Comics

Finally, last weeks poll concerned me making the occasional comic for the site. Opinions were mixed, but since making a comic would consume time I could be working on a game instead, they decided they’d rather just have the games.

I think my brain may need the occasional break from just doing games, but I’l see how I feel as time progresses. One possibility I’m considering is making a short comic to go with the advent calendar this year. I normally try to aim for something a bit special for the final day, and I think this could fit well.

Progress on April & Violet is going well. I’m still aiming for an end of October/start of November release. Currently, I’m going through the Violet sex scene, having finished Dylan’s last week.

However, since it’s supposed to be a mystery game, I don’t really want to post too much about it before release. Therefore, this week, I’m mostly going to talk about Leanna.

But first…

Last week I posted a demo of what I was considering using for the new games. In principal, I think it’s a good idea, but there’s clearly some bugs and issues to work out for it. Around 16% of people who tried couldn’t use it. That’s too high for me.

So, I’m just going to use the regular game style until I figure out how to make the new version work for everyone.

Leanna

As I said in earlier blog posts, Leanna is a TV journalist. She has an hour long morning show on a local TV channel.

I’m also keeping the theme that the player character is a photographer in this one, though I’m leaving it open enough so that you’re not necessarily the same character from The Photographer games, or Maddison, or any of dsp3000’s games.

Way back in February (I think), I floated the idea of taking inspiration from an episode of American Dad. In it, two main characters (Stan and Roger), go on a game show where the aim is to answer questions based on the other. For instance, “What is Roger’s favorite movie?”, then Stan has to correctly guess that it’s Millers Crossing. The main aim of this game is go on a game show like this with Leanna and win.

Initially, she intends to take part in the quiz with Kristen, her personal assistant. Leanna however, is not the nicest of people, and the two have a row, after which Kristen quits and leaves.

The player happens to be there at the time (they’ve been hired to take some promo shots of her), and soon finds out that Leanna doesn’t actually have any other friends. It is then that you can offer to go on the quiz with her instead.

The main body of the plot is the time that you and Leanna spend with each other in preparation for the quiz. You have to get to know as much about the other as possible. You also visit multiple places together and take lots of photos in order to fake your friendship. Obviously, I’m still at the start of production, but locations and scenarios include roller skating, horse riding, a party, and hiking.

Along the way, the player will have many opportunities to improve Leanna’s karma. Initially, she is not a very nice person, and the only reason the player agrees to help her is pity (though I may add some options for the motivation). Make the right choices, and she can gradually become a much nicer and caring person. It’s similar to improving Betsy’s confidence.

If you choose to however, you can also sabotage her ‘karma’, encouraging her mean behavior. Depending on how much you improve or lower her karma, you can get very different endings.

Obviously, April and Violet are the priority right now, so this game isn’t too far along (currently 42 images). I really wanted spend time getting the most of of using IRAY renders. I think I’ve finally nailed it in these image I rendered this week.

EDIT : I’m having some reservations about her face though. With this specific face morph, It’s really hard not to get her face looking weird when she smiles. I may change her face for the final game. Since I’m only 42 images into it (and she isn’t in 12), it wouldn’t be too much work.

I also have the title card up in the coming soon section now. Here’s the larger version if you want a closer look.

Hopefully, Leanna will be finished for Christmas, or very early in the new year.

This weeks poll

I’ve been thinking recently about the idea of doing some comics for the site. Basically just a series or rendered images with speech bubbles. It might mean it takes a week or two longer to create the games, as I will need to dedicate the occasional date to it, but it also means I get to do small, free (and maybe the occasionally paid) releases between. It could be using characters you already know from the games, or completely new ones.

What do you think?

EDIT : For instance, here’s an image from a comic I started working on a little while ago…

Tech stuff!

The sites have now been moved to a brand new dedicated server. This should mean everything loading a bit quicker, but more importantly no choking the bandwidth when there is a new release. If you were having trouble downloading games from the members section recently, I think this may have been the problem, so hopefully it should work for you now.

Final notes

While learning about the myriad things needed to get image looking good with daz studio and IRAY, I have now discovered the wonder of shaders. Particularly, how some of my older models can look with them. Here’s what crystal can look like with the new improvements.

I still need to do some more experiments with the setting, but I think it’s likely that Crystal Part 3 will be using something similar to this.

 

Right now, I’m working hard on the next members game, April and Violet. I’m happy to say that it is already about 300 images.

New engine

One thing I did not mention last week, was that I’ve slightly altered the game engine a little. Normally in my games, you hover over a hotspot on an image and a tooltip appears after a moment. This is fine on a desktop, but it can be a problem if playing on a tablet or phone.

Many, many more people are using using devices to play these games now. Compared to just 2 years ago when about 40% of players did, now it is up to a massive 97%. Here’s the full operating system list from the last 24 hours :

1.	Android	40,924	51.95%
2.	iOS	35,095	44.55%
3.	Windows	1,624	2.06%
4.	Windows Phone	707	0.90%
5.	Playstation Vita	209	0.27%
6.	BlackBerry	106	0.13%
7.	Nintendo 3DS	72	0.09%
8.	(not set)	21	0.03%
9.	Samsung	17	0.02%
10.	Bada	1	0.00%

For the new version of the game engine, I now have text that appears below the image. If you’re using a tablet or phone, just touch and hold your finger on the screen to find the hotspots, then tap to use it. Here’s the demo : www.vdategames.com/test/begin.html

Let me know any feedback below.

If your answer is no, please specify what went wrong below. Remember, if you don’t say what your problem was, I can’t fix it!

Extra stats

While I’m listing some statistics, here’s one more small set. While ago we were discussing which gender and ethnicity options were worth doing based on how many people use them. I never got around to posting them though, so here they are now :

White male – 63%

White female – 17%

Black male – 15%

Black female – 4.5%

So, white male is clearly the most popular option, but around 21.5% like playing as a female.

April and Violet will have all four options (for continuity if nowthing else), but it for Leanna, I’m going to try just white male and white female to save rendering time.

April and Violet

Not much to add for April and Violet. Progress is going well. The first sex scene (Dylan) is all done. Each of the three main women, April, Violet and Dylan, will be getting a sex scene where it’s just them and the player, with one final foursome scene at the end.

Leanna

As I progress quickly though that game, I’m also making slow progress through Leanna.

I won’t post too much of it until April and Violet are finished. Here’s an extra sample though, showing Kristen in her new role as Leanna’s personal assistant.

Anna downloads

As a final note, some people have contacted me saying that they are having issues downloading Anna. I’m not sure what could be causing the problem, but I’ve added a separate download option so that it is divided up into several smaller files. Your zip software should be able to join them together.