dev blog #18 - the road ahead

techDemo 0.4 is released for early access patrons for some days now and I started to think about what's going to come in the next update.

while I have a list of things and ideas I want to put into the game it is nothing I would share online because it's unorganized and full of comments for myself.
that's why I decided to setup a public roadmap for the game so you guys can check anytime what's getting worked on and what's going to come later.

find the roadmap here on trello
there is also a link on the top right menu of my blog.

this roadmap is a general overview of things that I plan to put in the game and things that get worked on. you can filter the list for things like "game engine", "explicit content", etc or even the game version of the game, like "techDemo 0.4", "techDemo 0.5" and so on.
it is by far not a complete list so expect things to be added frequently.

other than that I already finished an advanced text display engine that will power the dialogs and scene texts and all major text blocks in the game from now on.
It allows for "formatted" text to be displayed as the GameMaker Studio text engine is not that versatile regarding multiple formats in one text.

here is a screenshot of what that means (oh and it's a preview for the new scene of 0.4):

until now there was only text with the same style for the dialogs and scenes but as you can see in the image: mikes "thoughts" are now displayed in italic font and the text can even have different colors in the same sentence.

so what else am I planning to add for 0.5?

well here is a quick summary of what you can expect for the next update that will be released near the end of December:

• Character selection - play as Mike or Lena
• more character background story/info
• +1 hardcore scene from Lena's POV
• "random conversation" upgrade to the dialog engine
• working skill system (level your skills by attending different school classes)
• +1 new map: school (in a very temporary layout for now)
   

this is going to be a bigger update to the game so I'll take more time for it than the last ones.

of course I already got some feedback from my early access Patrons regarding some bugs.
Bug hunting will be a big part of this update cycle again so expect things to get fixed too.

dev blog #17 - new techDemo 0.4

and here it is!
the next techDemo version is finally presentable

Twin Star - techDemo 0.4

the new major features are:

• Skill Menu
  
  
  
  the latest addition to the Journal menu is the skill menu that gives you an overview over your characters skill levels (duh)
  there is no background functionality to it yet other than a display function
  the effects of the skills are still temporary but probably won't change much in the future so you can already see where I'm going with them.
   
• Map Changer
  
  in order to travel around in the game world and visit other areas the "map changer" takes control of transition between the different areas that will be in the game.
  
  In addition I also expanded the house by another floor, the "Groundfloor" that you can reach by going downstairs over the newly added staircase next to the bathroom
  
  
  
  
  now that there is a "front door" you can also leave the house at "morning" on weekdays to go to school (not really, but it's a placeholder for the next update)
   
• new hardcore scene
  
  as already announced in some previews this update includes another new hardcore scene!
  
  
  
  
  for testing purpose this scene is available every "morning" at the bathroom door, just check it out.
   
• 'install-free'
  I changed the way the game gets deployed so from now on you don't need to install it anymore in the usual way!
  It comes as an extractable ZIP with 'pre-installed' game files and all you have to do is extract it anywhere you like (your external encrypted porn stache if you have one) and run the games .exe file
   

there have been of course many minor tweaks and a lot of bugfixes. for a more detailed overview check out the changelog page

Early Access

all qualified Patrons will get the download link in a PM in the next hour.
If you want to know more about early access check out the early access page

Public Release
the public release for the techDemo 0.4 will happen in two weeks from now on 4th of December!

dev blog #16

after the very successful public release of the techDemo 0.3 (over 3000 downloads in 2 days)  I'm happy to say that the release for 0.4 is almost here too!

Patrons can expect to get the early access by the end of next weekend (19-20 Nov) and then the public release for 0.4 will follow 14 days later.

so what happened lately in development?
well I hunted down many more bugs that popped up while implementing new functions for several reasons. the main bug infection came from code that was not very optimized from previous versions so it bugged out when I added new stuff.
But that's how it usually works, you fix a bug and add 3 new in the process!

Right now I'm busy furnishing the new area of the house "ground floor".
Transition from upstairs to ground floor is working very well already meaning that the "map changer" is ready. so there will be a new area in the update that comes after this one too (most likely the school).

here you can get a glimpse of the (yet unfinished) new area

that's all there is to show for now as I have previewed the other new function (skill menu) in the last dev blog post

Twin Star - techDemo 0.3 - public release

it's finally here for the public!

get it from the download link

if you haven't already checked it, find more details in the previous blog post here

dev blog #15 - bugs ahoi

so the public release for 0.3 is right around the corner and I got reports of several game crashing bugs that you can avoid until they get fixed in 0.4:

• "Continue" crashes the game:
  well, there was a bug in the way the game checks for the "last save" so if you never saved a game yet your game will crash when you select "continue" in the start menu.
  
  workaround:
  don't select "continue" when you have never saved yet
  
  STATUS:
  fixed in 0.4
   
• "Quest" menu crashes the game:
  somehow I forgot to "remove" the scrollbar of the textbox in the "Quest" menu which crashes the game if you click it after closing the menu
  
  workaround:
  don't open the "Quest" menu in the journal, there is nothing game related there anyway
  
  STATUS:
  fixed in 0.4
   
• using "Lena's Bed" crashes the game:
  only happens if you use her bed in "debug mode" (F1) due to several conditions I never considered of which one is you playing in that ugly "debug mode" :P
  
  workaround:
  don't play in "debug mode" !
  
  STATUS:
  fixed in 0.4
   

so what's going on besides hunting down bugs?
well, before I started the bug hunt I finished the new "Skills" menu which you can see here live in action

like the "People" menu the "Skill" menu is only a layout for now with no working functions

dev blog #14 - what's cooking

so in my last blog update on the new techDemo release I did not mention anything about what's coming next.
That's because I could not decide back then if I want to add new functionality first or start to fine tune what's there already.

But to be realistic: there is not much "there already" so the decision was made to add more features first before I can start fine tuning stuff.

so what's on the list next:

• new area
  hanging out on the upper floor is all nice n shit but more areas to go to would be nice!
  so along side the new "ground floor" area I can implement the "map changing" functionality which handles transition between different parts of the game world.
   
• school
  in addition to the "map change" function the school will be added in a temporary form.
  Means that there is no actual "school area" for now but a form of "time advancement" that simulates you going to school in the morning.
  In the long run the school will be the place where you can train your skills by attending different classes which will advance time to afternoon or even evening (depending on the class you pick for that day) on week days (MO-FR)
   
• skills
  the skill overview will be added to the journal. I'm not done yet deciding which skills and in what form they will be used but that makes no difference for the design and layout of the menu.
  Skills can be trained in school (and maybe other ways too, we will see... books?) by increasing the skill points of certain skills.
  Once the points reach a defined amount your skill level will increase by 1 giving you boni depending on the skill.
  One of these boni could be that you need to hit less "targets" in the scene minigame and stuff like this but that's not final yet.
   

besides coding all this I'm also toying around in DAZ to render the next scene which will be a stealth voyeurism scene in the bathroom (Mike peeping on Lena) but the concept for it is not quite done yet.