So last we spoke, I needed a break from working on the Interp-Theory Mind, the new system for controlling how NPCs process what’s happening around them and make decisions. Project Wild One v0.08 introduced the first big chunk of that system, and so far I’ve been getting some positive feedback on it! But it was a pretty huge undertaking and I needed to work on something else for a while before I was ready to work on the next big chunk of it. When I announced the new release, I mentioned I wasn’t really sure what I’d be working on next, but I wanted something nice and different that I could hopefully put out as a quick and easy release.<\/p>\n
Since I started working on PWO, my mental list of things I’d like to add or change has only grown longer and longer with time– I always come up with ideas faster than I can implement them all properly, so there were tons of things I’d love to do with this time. But I know that, while in the long term the ITM system will make the game better for everyone, it doesn’t make for a very exciting or flashy update, and the game still doesn’t have a lot of appeal for new players as it stands. I wanted to find something that’s really going to draw in new players and raise the profile of the game, and when I was going down the list, I realized there was one thing that would do that better than anything else, and I’d just recently heard that it might be easier to do now than I’d ever thought it could be before.<\/p>\n
I started experimenting with it, and I was surprised how easy it was to get started and produce a decent result. But I knew that before I committed a lot of time and creative energy to full production, I’d need to go through and check the full pipeline, to make sure the final result would work well in Unity. I had to work through a lot of issues and experiment a lot with how to get better results, but after a month or so I managed to confirm it would work well enough I could be confident in the final product and start actual production.<\/p>\n
Since then, I’ve been learning the ropes in DaVinci Resolve to make my own basic animations for Project Wild One! In retrospect, this wasn’t the best choice for a fast update just because I have to develop a new skill set from scratch for all this, both for working in a new application and for making proper animations myself in general. For that matter, overcoming my own self-doubt and pushing through to finish the work is always hardest when it’s a new pursuit I haven’t proven myself in– it’s hard to really be confident about the end result. I’m still pretty anxious about how folks will like it, but I’m hoping that even if it’s not the highest quality, it’ll do a lot to punch up the visual aspect of the game.<\/p>\n
I’ve found in playing other erotic games that even the most rudimentary visual elements can do a lot to increase the “impact” or the “excitement” of particular moments, to let you confirm at a glance that certain things are happening before you read through all the prose and the details. I want to be able to capture some of that magic myself, and I’ve struggled a lot with how best to do that without sacrificing the flexibility and open-ended design of Project Wild One. I’m hoping the system I’ve landed on will manage to accomplish that with a somewhat abstracted but bright and colorful approach!<\/p>\n