ACT Patreon Active [Anon42] Crisis Point: Extinction

[Anon42]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

It may be stressful to keep in tabs with a hired artist, so I definitely encourage focus on Anon's abilities as a gameplay designer and sprite artist.

In case you haven't visited, here are some stuff I've done so far.

http://www.ulmf.org/bbs/picture.php?albumid=977&pictureid=14499

http://www.ulmf.org/bbs/picture.php?albumid=977&pictureid=14505

If you're serious about CGs, sometimes you better not take good artworks for granted, primarily because of the time spent on each artwork. Looking around, though, I'm not sure if you have affiliates who you have been in contact for a long time. A lot of times, you wouldn't know how long it took (or how much effort it required) for someone to make an amazing CG.

Simply out of curiosity, I'm gonna try to complete the H-CG. I'd like to know what your demand looks like.

Looking great, man. My only possible complaint is that her breasts could rest a bit more naturally in both pictures, but that's a pretty small complaint in the long run. Seeing her fully colored and with a fleshed-out design is incredible. It's great to see how well her outfit makes the transition from sprite to full-blown CG. I also never got to see the messed up hand, since you fixed it before I even logged in today

As far as the amount of time it takes to make CG - I may not be an artist in the traditional sense of the word, but I do make sprite art, and I have some experience in many different forms of creative work. That, and about half of my family makes art in some form or another. I appreciate the advice, as I wouldn't want to alienate a CG artist by expecting too much out of them, but I don't think there's much to worry about with my perception of the time it takes to make CG.


@Everyone talking about gameplay<=>H content - I think this thread is a pretty good example of the incredible amount of diversity in opinions when it comes to this subject. It's pretty safe to say there's no one right way to make an H-game - however, I'd be more likely to say that in most situations, gameplay takes precedence, especially if you can mix H and gameplay in a natural, meaningful way.

Kyrieru's games are some of the most popular around, and they have a much higher focus on gameplay than H. Hell, in Eroico, there was literally an option to turn the adult content off. If that's not a sign of where it's focused, I don't know what is. Despite that, he maintains a popularity level nearly unrivaled in the H-game scene.

The entire point of a game is to be an interactive product. As many have said already, if the interactivity is so bland that you just want a complete save-game to stare at the gallery, then.. there's not much of a point to the game part existing, is there? Might as well just be a downloadable CG set.

The penultimate goal for an H-game, one which I unfortunately didn't have in mind during the early days of Crisis Point, is to seamlessly mesh gameplay and H, so neither of them are more or less important than the other. It's a mark Crisis Point will be unable to reach fully, as the game's design is already too cemented to make any drastic changes now, but there's still plenty of time for me to merge them in ways, whether through the story, the environment, enemy design, or anything else. I have high hopes this game will be able to meet all of your expectations, if not exceed them.

 

[LustFire]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

Ah, if you claim to have some experience, then maybe you can pressure your artist for color direction. I'm still kinda learning that. I'm figuring that the saturation/lightness difference between the shades depend on the mix of the light source and the background color. Lately, I've mostly been drawing background-less PNG-file CGs.

If you have a suggestion with color, don't hesitate. All of these colors are in their layers (so I can pixel lock and replace the colors). Once I'm satisfied, I can move on to the CGing.

http://www.ulmf.org/bbs/picture.php?albumid=977&pictureid=14506

 

[FoxhoundOH]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

If you're looking for some help with colors, there is a handy little tool called

You must be registered to see the links

that can help you chose things like complementary or analogous colors. It's a bit limited due to only having 5 swatches at a time (I would prefer 16-32) but there is hex and RGB selection which is quite useful for building larger palettes. It can certainly help with hue shifting.

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

Where my opinion differs from YummyTiger's or Textbook's is that I don't necessarily care about things like stories or adhering strictly to H content. Those that are shackled to H content find themselves working on those animations or CG's rather than focusing on more important aspects of an interactive product. This leads me back to Dark Star; as mentioned previously it's an atrocious game with fantastic H...

I could make the same argument that games shackled by a gameplay first mentality suffer from limited or pointless H. I would say the game I probably played the most of was Eushully's Kamidori Alchemy Meister. That had great gameplay, but pretty bland H. For as much time as I put in it, I should have found something erotic, but didn't. Do I think the game is bad? No, but man, what a game it could have been. The most erotic part of that game, in my opinion, was the clothing tearing of the final outfits...

I think Dark Star is a poor example, in that I don't believe it has fantastic H, it has fantastic drawings, but those drawings have little to no context within the game itself. Princess Sacrifice is a better example of fantastic H, because the H is actually integrated into the game. The game features are designed with the H in mind. This is what I mean.

I use the game I am working on as my final example, as I have given these issues a ton of thought. I could add maze maps, challenging battles, an extensive skill tree, numerous side quests, and overall improve the RPG experience, but how would that ultimately improve my H-game? Now, if I take the mindset of H first, I do away with the fluff maps, I build a battle system where monster attacks disrobe the character and skills are tied to sex appeal (teasing with breasts, flashing panties, etc.). I limit or remove quests that have no H, and make certain that nearly each quest has at least one outcome where the character ends up naked (or another character). My game still has battles, skills, character advancement, etc., but all of them are related to the H experience.

Now, I know Metroidvania games are more reliant on gameplay, but that does not mean you cannot still keep the H as the primary focus. For example, I firmly believe Anon would be better off spending the time to add clothing ripping, or some form of nudity attacks, than a new gun or jump move--at least from a h-game market perspective.

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text. I promise to not derail this thread anymore. I just love to see English developers and get too passionate about their games

 

[Anon42]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

I could make the same argument that games shackled by a gameplay first mentality suffer from limited or pointless H. I would say the game I probably played the most of was Eushully's Kamidori Alchemy Meister. That had great gameplay, but pretty bland H. For as much time as I put in it, I should have found something erotic, but didn't. Do I think the game is bad? No, but man, what a game it could have been. The most erotic part of that game, in my opinion, was the clothing tearing of the final outfits...

I think Dark Star is a poor example, in that I don't believe it has fantastic H, it has fantastic drawings, but those drawings have little to no context within the game itself. Princess Sacrifice is a better example of fantastic H, because the H is actually integrated into the game. The game features are designed with the H in mind. This is what I mean.

I use the game I am working on as my final example, as I have given these issues a ton of thought. I could add maze maps, challenging battles, an extensive skill tree, numerous side quests, and overall improve the RPG experience, but how would that ultimately improve my H-game? Now, if I take the mindset of H first, I do away with the fluff maps, I build a battle system where monster attacks disrobe the character and skills are tied to sex appeal (teasing with breasts, flashing panties, etc.). I limit or remove quests that have no H, and make certain that nearly each quest has at least one outcome where the character ends up naked (or another character). My game still has battles, skills, character advancement, etc., but all of them are related to the H experience.

Now, I know Metroidvania games are more reliant on gameplay, but that does not mean you cannot still keep the H as the primary focus. For example, I firmly believe Anon would be better off spending the time to add clothing ripping, or some form of nudity attacks, than a new gun or jump move--at least from a h-game market perspective.

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text. I promise to not derail this thread anymore. I just love to see English developers and get too passionate about their games

Sounds like the H-games you're into tend to be of the BF variety. Personally, I think it feels a bit cheesy/forced when every element of a game, even the character's attacks, are centered around sex. It's definitely not what Crisis Point is going to be. Alicia's goal in gameplay is not to be sexed, with the enemies being the ones sexing her up and sometimes using sex-related attacks. Not all the time, though. Their main arsenals are relatively normal.

It's a little hypocritical of me, since I was very against the idea of H being a thing you try to avoid in an H game, but I've learned to see the merit in the idea. That and it gives more relevance to my plan of two separate endings, one H-based and one not. In terms of story and environment, the H is very much an integral part of Crisis Point, but its application in gameplay is largely focused on the sex appeal of being dominated and raped by enemies that get the leg up on you, even though the H doesn't necessarily lead to death.

@LustFire - You seem to have a pretty good mix going, so far. There are only two changes I would make; the blue guys' saturation is lower than it should be (it's about halfway up and a bit brighter than what you're using), and Alicia's nipples are a bit darker and redder in her sprite. I've always liked nipples that stand out a bit more rather than being very close to the skin color. Other than that though, it looks fantastic! Would it be right to call this fan art, or is it something else?

 

[LustFire]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

I'm going to maintain high quality, just in case you want to reference me for future development. You seem to have some time in your hand before you consider CGs at all.

 

[Slam Sector]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

Oh, it's not always SO bad when you have to let yourself be damaged/defeated to get the H-content to happen, it's just a bit like being a jobber in pro wrestling. The protagonist's pointedly sarcastic banter with Crate Dude seems to touch on that, a little.

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

Sounds like the H-games you're into tend to be of the BF variety. Personally, I think it feels a bit cheesy/forced when every element of a game, even the character's attacks, are centered around sex. It's definitely not what Crisis Point is going to be. Alicia's goal in gameplay is not to be sexed, with the enemies being the ones sexing her up and sometimes using sex-related attacks. Not all the time, though. Their main arsenals are relatively normal.

It's a little hypocritical of me, since I was very against the idea of H being a thing you try to avoid in an H game, but I've learned to see the merit in the idea. That and it gives more relevance to my plan of two separate endings, one H-based and one not. In terms of story and environment, the H is very much an integral part of Crisis Point, but its application in gameplay is largely focused on the sex appeal of being dominated and raped by enemies that get the leg up on you, even though the H doesn't necessarily lead to death.

I like H that is integrated into games, plain and simple. Whether that is BF (as I used in my example), CG that actually makes sense in the story, or sprite animations as part of a heroine's corruption. And it is only cheesy/forced if that H is not implemented well.

Alicia's goal can absolutely be to not get sexed. Yet, if you have H that does not lead to death, then you could implement a corruption system. Corruption seems to be consistently one of the most requested features (in polls and discussions I have seen). The more she is exploited, the more daring she becomes in terms of sex options. At the onset, no way would she flash her breasts to distract an enemy, but after being corrupted, she might do so. This necessitates having normal skills (for the pure run) and more erotic skills (for a corrupt run). I don't see this as cheesy/forced, and it shows a system that was built with H in mind.

Or, if you want nothing to do with any form of sex appeal attacks, you could have her sex animations change slightly as she gets exploited more often. So, she fights tooth and nail the first few times, she gets into it more in later times. Again, this is adding a feature related to H that I would see as far more effective than another standard gameplay feature.

 

[Anon42]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

I like H that is integrated into games, plain and simple. Whether that is BF (as I used in my example), CG that actually makes sense in the story, or sprite animations as part of a heroine's corruption. And it is only cheesy/forced if that H is not implemented well.

Alicia's goal can absolutely be to not get sexed. Yet, if you have H that does not lead to death, then you could implement a corruption system. Corruption seems to be consistently one of the most requested features (in polls and discussions I have seen). The more she is exploited, the more daring she becomes in terms of sex options. At the onset, no way would she flash her breasts to distract an enemy, but after being corrupted, she might do so. This necessitates having normal skills (for the pure run) and more erotic skills (for a corrupt run). I don't see this as cheesy/forced, and it shows a system that was built with H in mind.

Or, if you want nothing to do with any form of sex appeal attacks, you could have her sex animations change slightly as she gets exploited more often. So, she fights tooth and nail the first few times, she gets into it more in later times. Again, this is adding a feature related to H that I would see as far more effective than another standard gameplay feature.

Might be pushing a bit hard, man. You have some good ideas, and I get that you don't want to be disappointed in this game, but try to tone it down a tad?

I've thought about a lot of the stuff you mentioned, but the problem comes down to what I focus on in development. I'm making this game with a two man team - and one guy is purely doing background art, everything else lies on my shoulders. It takes a lot of time to implement any particular feature, even just H-animations.

If I did something like you said, and made her sex scenes change depending on if she liked or disliked it, that's a large amount of time taken away from other things, like adding more H-scenes. Personally, I'd rather see 15 different H scenes with different enemies than 5 different scenes with a couple variations on each one. This might be a different story if Crisis Point was just a collection of H-scenes, but it's also a video game - and I both need and want to work on the gameplay, too. I'm not sacrificing gameplay for H, but neither am I sacrificing H for gameplay.

The ideas you had are good, don't get me wrong, and they're things I could certainly bring in to a game I make in the future. Adding a corruption system or different skills based on how often you get raped are huge decisions though, and Crisis Point is simply too far into development for me to feel comfortable making a massive change like that.





Alright.. With that out of the way, I'm currently prepping to leave on a Thanksgiving trip, so it's time to release v.05!

You must be registered to see the links

UPDATE v.05 CHANGES
-Add in melee attack [Fully implemented, not fully animated]
-Add in a non-knockdown "taking damage" animation
-Design, animate, and prep enemies for combat (Warped Soldier) [Most animations missing minor details, no melee attack yet]
-More sex animations (Warped Soldier)
-Begin designing first boss [Mostly planned out, partially coded, not yet sprited]
-Implement customizable controls
-Finish HUD
-Finish retiling areas
-Create more content (areas) - Introducing the Summit!


Because of the craziness of last month, I had to move a few things to the next update, because of a lack of time - mostly animation work. Now, for v.06, I'm focusing on things that will be relatively easy to do, in the hopes of giving myself some time to catch up. That doesn't mean there won't be a good amount of new content, though!


UPDATE v.06 GOALS
-Finish kick animation + Warped Soldier detail
-Update crouching pose again
-Begin work on cumming animations
-Work on first boss more, hopefully finish and fully implement (unlikely)
-Re-code collision engine
-Design more of game map
-Plan out environmental hazards, perhaps implement?
-Create more content (areas)



Now that v.05 is out, I'm gonna be offline for the next week or so, so don't expect much from me until then. Hope you guys enjoy it!
-A42

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

Might be pushing a bit hard, man. You have some good ideas, and I get that you don't want to be disappointed in this game, but try to tone it down a tad?

Wasn't pushing at all (at least did not intend to be), simply offering examples of having an h-first mentality when developing an h-game and adding features. I tried to tailor the examples to your game to make that point.

That said, I've definitely posted quite a bit in this thread. I found the discussion itself interesting, especially in regards to a metriodvania-style game. I get that it may take things off-topic a bit. I'll refrain from posting.

Good luck on your game.

 

[azurezero]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

can anyone think of a word for a linear metroidvania? i know thats a contradiction of terms but im sick of having to refer to my rika game as linear sidescrolling action adventure

 

[FoxhoundOH]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

Just call it an adventure game. I don't know when everyone wanted to come up with buzzword names for everything. If you're going on an adventure its an adventure game.

 

[azurezero]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

Just call it an adventure game. I don't know when everyone wanted to come up with buzzword names for everything. If you're going on an adventure its an adventure game.

twould be nice to have a term that describes the gameplay though, essentially a platformer though

 

[FoxhoundOH]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

@Azurezero

Call it an adventure game. Think of the actual content of the game to be like telling a joke. People get the joke, they laugh, end of joke. If you have to explain it to them then its not a joke. Describing a game is the same thing, show it to them, they'll get it, end of description. We do not need to make up cutesy terms for every product, I already shudder at the term 'metroid-vania.'

@Anon42

Once again, thank you for making the newest build public Anon42. I was able to actually sit down and play it this evening and I would like to share my current thoughts.

Last time I talked about things which I felt needed improvement; this time I would like to talk about the things that I enjoyed from my time with the latest build.

The new enemy is a refreshing addition, one that poses a threat without being too difficult to attack. I was pleased to see he was clever enough to shoot lower once I ducked under his shots. The H scene was appropriately aggressive as well. I hope to see enemies' complexity improve on this current curve as development continues.

The force shot continues to be my favorite weapon in both function and visuals. While I'm not necessarily a fan of the 'effect' of the animation (I would prefer the chunkier visuals of a solid sprite animation) It's pleasing to see the projectile spin outwards and detonate.

Alicia controls very well, I spent a lot of time putting her through the paces on my trusty x360 controller with xpadder. While I couldn't get the in game custom controls to work; setting it up through xpadder made my experience much more enjoyable and was a fair enough simulation of the custom controls. One thing that bothers me is the slide control, is there a reason why it's assigned to a separate button from jump?

I suspect the new area is still very barebones, so I will not be commenting on the visual aspect this time. The jumping section available here was by far my favorite in the current build. I'm ashamed to say I missed the farthest jump more than once, which I feel is an improvement in the topographical difficulty. I was also impressed to see more looping sections appear in the previous areas, this inclusion does make the game more exploratory.

I am impressed with the progress that is being made on the mechanics of the game, keep up the good work.

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

One thing I'd like to see in each new version would be a debug function that lets us skip to where we were before in the previous version, if possible

 

[Vinceras]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

One thing I'd like to see in each new version would be a debug function that lets us skip to where we were before in the previous version, if possible

Pretty rare to find that kind of thing in a demo...especially if they are using the player base as testers. If you are able to skip to the new stuff, then what if something Anon added in this last version vastly screwed something up in an earlier part of the game? Yeah there would still be some that would play all the way through, but the sample would be much smaller and a higher chance it could slip out into release.

Also, at this point in development, it only takes like 5 minutes to run through the entire game anyway.

 

[Anon42]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

Wasn't pushing at all (at least did not intend to be), simply offering examples of having an h-first mentality when developing an h-game and adding features. I tried to tailor the examples to your game to make that point.

That said, I've definitely posted quite a bit in this thread. I found the discussion itself interesting, especially in regards to a metriodvania-style game. I get that it may take things off-topic a bit. I'll refrain from posting.

Good luck on your game.

I had no intention of asking you to stop posting, my apologies if it came across that way. Again, you had good ideas and I liked them, just not for Crisis Point - and I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't going to be making any massive design changes this far in. I don't mind you discussing it at all, as long as it's done without expectations of me changing the game I'm currently working on.

@FoxhoundOH - Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the additions, particularly the Warped Soldier. I'm very happy with his design.

I'm curious why you weren't able to get custom controls to work, though. Were you trying to set them up on gamepad buttons? If that's the case, that would explain why - I don't have gamepad support programmed in yet. It's something on the eventual to-do list, but for now it's purely keyboard.

The slide control, yes, there is a reason for it. When standing on a ghost (thin) platform, you can use down+jump to jump through it. I didn't want there to be any confusion between functions, or situations where the player intends to slide but jumps down through a platform - or vice versa. So I opted to add the slide function on to the melee key, effectively killing two birds with one stone. It may not be the way slide actions are normally done, but it simplifies the controls.

You'd be right that the new area is pretty bare. Most of the graphical effort has gone into the interiors, which aren't really shown off in this build. There will be more of them to see in the next one, and hopefully we'll be able to focus on the exterior artwork soon, like getting some parallax scrolling in there. I agree with you though, the little platforming section is a nice change of pace. I intend on every area having its own approach to level design, in some form or another. The Summit is going to be a fun one to work with.

In any case, I'm definitely glad you enjoyed the changes. The artwork is something that will gradually improve, of course, but I'm very happy that I'm finally able to start showing off the design of the actual game - things like the looping environments and encounter design. Thanks for taking the time to 'review' it!

@HentaiWriter - Pretty much what Vinceras said. If this was a straight A-B action game, I would definitely be doing something like that, but the problem is that areas are often changing (enemy placement changes, level design is altered, etc), or new areas that used to be closed are opened up once I design them. Those are things the player could easily miss if you could skip ahead to where the last demo ended. There's even a boss fight room that doesn't have its boss yet, but the demo ends beyond that, so the player could miss it by skipping ahead.

I'll be adding in a save function eventually, but it's not at the top of my to-do list for those reasons. Thank you for the suggestion though, and I hope you continue to enjoy the game regardless.



EDIT: oh yeah, and I'm back from my vacation. Hi.

 

[Vinceras]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

Welcome back mate, hope the vacay was good!

 

[Slam Sector]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

If the slide has some kind of melee function, even a dodge or non-damaging knockback, having it mapped to the same button as melee will be a completely intuitive and natural choice.

That's over and above having platform drop-through take logical priority in what is, in part, a platforming game. I already agree with your thinking on that basis, alone.

 

[saviliana]

Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NEW PUBLIC UPDATE! (Oct. 25th)

EDIT: oh yeah, and I'm back from my vacation. Hi.

So...No Nov25th Release? Then I shall wait for the Xmas release.