Ok, so I'm shitty at updates, I know, I know. Holidays, work, uncertainty, an infant and all the other excuses.

    The real reason I have been avoiding an update is because I've been struggling with a core feature of the game, the card system. Originally I thought using cards instead of buttons would add a unique way to mix up the simplistic combat you normally find in these games. Well, that and add another way to sneak dirty pictures into the game. The problem was they just ended up making everything more complicated. I'm not a big fan of repeatedly running into brick walls with my designs. I find it's better to reevaluate if you feel like you aren't getting anywhere. So after some rethinking I've come up with a combat system that splits the difference (not quite as cool as the cards but much simpler) and a way to add some simple pictures. This also solved some UI layout issues I was having as well.

    There isn't much in the way of progress to show at this point. I've made all the code changes to switch to the new system and remove all the old code for the cards. I also did a UI pass to simplify and pretty things up a bit. I'm not in love with the new look it but it's clean and cohesive and a fair step up from what I had before. System wise, all the buttons function accept for the special attacks simply because I haven't created any. You can attack the enemy and be attacked. I'll be done with the "combat over" screen within a few days or so. We are also working on getting the text done for the first encounter and nailing down our style/feel. Once we can get one down we won't be too far from releasing a tiny little proof of concept demo.

Stay tuned, I'll try to be better about these updates.
-Terrordoll

P.S. Here are a few screens of the new UI. Feel free to leave comments, thoughts, etc.

Location Screen: http://i.imgur.com/iD9OFKt.png
Combat Screen: http://i.imgur.com/XdClxXb.png

Late Update;

    I told myself I would stick to updates every few days or once a week at the latest. It's turned out to be not as easy as I had planned. I don't always have enough time to code and write an update and lately I've been choosing to get something done rather then post. No more excuses though, I'm going to be better about posting these, even if for no other reason than I said I would.

    On the positive side, I've been pretty busy. I created a few new controls from scratch which was a bunch of work up front but will save some time and add more flexibility down the road. I also got combat working in a rough state. The goal was to get the flow staked out so we can begin building on that functioning skeleton. So as of now you can draw a hand of cards, inspect those cards, choose a card to play and see the result of that card damage wise. I'm pretty happy with the progress so far.

  The goal for this week is to get the combat text working. In order to get this really working I'll need to implement sub-types into card suits. A punch would be a sub type of a physical attack. As of right now, you can only play a physical card as an attack. Once sub types come in you'll have a variance in physical card types you can choose to play. I'll also need to get in victory conditions in order to implement all the text. This needs to get done soon anyways so that you can actually explore.

  Hopefully I can have this all done by Friday if I don't get distracted. I'll hop back on when it's done and post an update. At some point I'll post more info about the game and figure out how to upload pictures so you can see the UI and the progress.

Until then!

Terrordoll

 

    We had a little scare this last week. Our one month old daughter had to spend a few days in the hospital due to a virus and an infection. Normally it wouldn't have been a big deal but since she was so young they kept her for a few days for observation. Needless to say it's been a stressful and scary few days. I hope none of you fathers ever have to watch your child go through a spinal tap, it was heart breaking. Everything is all good now and both mommy and baby are safe at home resting. So on to some better news!

    A friend of mine has jumped in to help with writing and brainstorming. In a few short days the combat system design is already much more fleshed out layered than before. We are headed in a good direction. 

    That being said, I haven't had much coding time lately. I've made some styling and formatting changes to the combat screen to buy some more real estate. I have cards appearing on screen that are actual generated objects from player stats and random rolls. When you select a card in your hand you get a detailed view and a set of button to continue or choose a different card. The next few days and likely the weekend will spent cleaning this up and likely getting damage calculations in. 

    We are still a few weeks out from having combat functioning in rounds with basic AI and win/defeat implemented. As we get closer I'll post a few more pics. 

-Terrordoll

Quick update:

    The text system is finished, or enough so that I'm content moving on. There is still some work to do updating button text and tool tips but the main story/conversation text now has a reliable system to display it. Combat is now the most in need of some love so that will be my new focus. I may have a few polls on system possibilities soon.

-Terrordoll

Time for quick update!

    Things have been progressing a bit more slowly than expected. That being said, I have accomplished a decent amount. I wrote my first 900 words and according to people who know (thanks Kaizer_Z), it doesn't suck. It may actually be good, we'll see. So I consider that the first major hurdle crossed. I haven't written anything in quite some time and was legitimately worried this whole endeavor wasn't going to work out beyond being a coding project. So bullet = dodged.

    Now that I have some text I've been working on a decent system to get it in game. I drastically underestimated how difficult this would be. I'm finishing up a prototype of the system now. I don't love it, but it's the method I hate the least. I should have it done in a day or so depending. Once that is done it's back to fixing up the UI. After that it's on to combat in earnest. I'll keep you all updated on my progress. Expect some more screens within a week.

    After a brief hiatus for the birth of my daughter, I'm back to programming! It was a much needed break and it has done wonders for my motivation. In addition to getting fully back into the swing of things, I've also decided to make some pretty major changes to the structure. Of course none of this will matter to you because I neglected to actually tell you about the game. I promise to get something up about it soon. I've been coding as much as I can, trying to take advantage of the momentum. Strike while the iron is hot and all that....

    The biggest change is an entire rewrite of the engine. I have started rebuilding it again using MVVM (it's in C# and WPF, MVVM is just a methodology) and it's worlds better than it was before. Everything is clean and decoupled. Adding new systems and features is a smoother process, saving me both time and hair, two increasingly limited resources. 

    I've also totally reworked the combat mechanics. It now uses two sets of bars, Pools and Defenses. Depleting a Pool bar defeats a foe and gives a small Essence (I'll go into this later) reward. This is the easiest to win an encounter. The other way to win is to attack a Defense bar which then opens up the Willpower bar. Reducing the Willpower bar represents your total defeat of a enemy and results in the highest amount of harvested Essence. I'm really happy with this change, it's going to give me much more flexibility designing progression, equipment and encounters. 

    Right now I have the base of the engine built and screen navigation functioning. Combat is pretty far along but the card system needs a decent amount of work. The location screens, the main game interface needs the most work. The buttons all function but the system to display the text and check variables hasn't been implemented. I plan on making decent headway into those systems over the next few weeks.

   As a teaser, here are two screenshots of my progress so far. The first image is the title screen and the second is combat. They are both very early in development so be gentle with me. I'm no artist and my eye for UI and colors isn't great. Feel free to comment and ask questions, I'll try to answer what I can

The second image is definitely not work safe. 

Title

http://imgur.com/7d3tC21

Combat

http://imgur.com/2GAISSk

Terrordoll

Hello World!

Welcome reader! 

    So if you have made it here I can assume one of two things. You are either unlucky, or a fan of erotic games. If you happen to be more of the first, feel free to stick around and we'll see if we can't make a #2 out of you. For those of you here for the thrills, feel free to poke around a bit and leave a comment!

    Since I don't have a dedicated section on the project or myself yet, I'd like do a brief overview here. This is (or will become) a standard development blog while I work my current project for which there is no name.Yup, not even a working title, but I'll throw something together soon. I also plan on cleaning this page and giving it a more lived in feel. Check back every few days and I should have new updates etc. 

    As for the game, all that exists right now is a combat prototype so there isn't much to tell you. What I would like it to become is an erotic RPG with a focus on harem collecting, slavery, possession and fortress building. I'll go into this all in more detail later, but its getting later and I really just wanted to get something down.

Thanks for stopping by!

Terrordoll