knightofsolace
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[Progress Report]: 14th of March
🕑 Added 2021-03-15 00:53:38 +0000 UTC
Hey everyone,
It's been a character heavy week! I've designed two brand new characters for the game, redesigned two others, and somehow managed to finish touch-ups on the first half of the game's introduction (this is everything before the hospital). Next week, I'll be tackling the latter half of the introduction (the hospital and tour) and then hopefully tackling Chrys' first two animations (the handjob and the clothing store scene).
Why all the extensive work on the early portion of the game? There are two main reasons. The first is that I want the revision work finished so I can focus all of my time on future developments of Superheroes Suck on brand new content. The second reason is because... I have to. How do I put this without spoilers... I'll tell you what, there is going to be a bolded headline further down on this post. Just skip to that if you don't want to read it. It's not a story spoiler, it's more of a technical thing. Okay. Ready? Are you gone? Is everyone who wanted to avoid the spoiler gone? I gave the hallways / corridors / entrance / of the Academy a face-lift. Better textures, color separation, some new functionality that was an absolute nightmare to code, the button navigation to leave rooms, it's all in. That was the 80 hour work week. The original Academy, before I knew how to use the tools, took a month to create. I think the newer version is a great improvement, and also finally fixes the far too dark renders in the beginning. I was going to keep this a surprise, but I was worried you all might think I was slacking off if I kept what I was doing too vague. I hope you all like it when you see it!
On the Game's Protagonist
Onto the non-spoiler news for this work week, I read everyone's post on the topic as it developed. I didn't want to respond to anyone in particular there because I didn't want to pollute the discussion. I wanted the feedback as clear as you guys could give it without my input. My original plan was to give the protagonist a much larger backstory, but after reading all of your suggestions, comments, and critiques, I realized that would just slow down the game and not add anything of real value. It's a little late in Superheroes Suck to make such a massive change to the central character of the story. If he were a rocket scientist or something in the beginning, inevitably the question would come up of, "hey, isn't he a rocket scientist? I wonder why he never did anything with that."
I used a very light touch for the changes to the first part of the Introduction - just reinforcing what's going on, and giving little hints of who the protagonist already is, and setting up story ideas down the line that have to do with the world and not necessarily the protagonist. For example, by now you all know that he is quite an emphatic character, and so there are a few lines here and there letting you know what kind of persona you'll be embodying during the play-through.
One of main reasons this is taking so long is music, because of the spoiler above, I need to go through the game from start to finishing making sure nothing breaks. As a result, since I'm already going through the game, I'm trying to fix the music and sound effects. I don't want to add too many tracks, since that would increase the file size by quite a bit, but I'm touching up things here and there to at least increase the variation.
But Solace, where are the characters?
There was a fairly big character redesign that absolutely no one will care about: the protagonist. He actually had the opposite of Harper's problem, where instead of too dark, he was too bright because his skin tone was highly translucent. If you look at him during the animations, you'll notice that his skin tone is never the same color: this is because his skin is so transparent that the warmth from the lighting has a much greater effect on him rather than the girls. This is also why his penis sometimes changes color... I did ultimately decide to keep his face in the introduction, mostly for nostalgia. They were some of the first renders I ever did, but I will be removing his countenance from the training renders in the Academy. The goal I have is kind of like a reverse Judge Dredd: you will sometimes see him from his nose and up, but never his entire face once you finish the intro.
The second character is another man. I know, I know. You'll be meeting him fairly soon, as he is the man that creates and fabricates everyone's super suits! To put any fears to rest, he's not a romantic rival. He's an older gentlemen married to his work.
Victoria received a couple of touch-ups, mostly just updating her to the current lighting standards, and then I did fully finish a brand new mystery character. Hey, I'm allowed some secrets, right? I already gave up one spoiler! You'll find out more about this unnamed character once Detective Keegan has been finalized. I can't have too many of these running around!
And yes, the Sumire MILF design is underway.
Thank you for all of your support,
~Solace
Comments
Whooli
Damn this is a lot! I'm glad you've been able to accomplish so much.
