Hey everyone! Sorry for not posting in a while. I got super immersed in this and got a LOT done. I’m gonna try doing dev logs twice a week, because I got a lot done this week and there’s a lot to update about.

The past week or so I’ve been spending most of the day either making stuff or figuring stuff out. I haven’t done anything horny yet because I wanted to figure out the aesthetic and game worlds, and then also get a good workflow going before starting on any of the spicy stuff.

TLDR:

• Got a lot of models done, figured out a good process for making models
• Figured out doors & stairs
• Figured out using 2D sprites to make faux 3D objects
• Figured out animated objects
• Figured out lighting & fixed camera angles
• Implemented a loading screen & splitting up areas to prevent lag
• Designed food area, sasha’s room, and began on the library

Starting off with the rooms (Anything with a bright solid or checkered pattern still needs to get textured) I split the food area into 2 rooms: A diner and a Japanese style convenience store (konbini)

Let’s start with the diner Originally I was gonna do a fast food place. While I was designing it I realized doing a diner might be a better option, after all when you think of cartoon restaurants that people chill in you think of a diner.

While designing it I realized it looked really empty and sad; so something cool I want to do is as you progress through the game, NPCs start coming in and hanging out there that you and your party members can interact with.

The fans also spin which is cool, but I wanna offset the animations so they don’t spin in unison lol. I need to finish up the counter area to look nicer too.

Moving onto the konbini For this I referenced a few different Japanese convenience stores to figure out what sort of vibe I should go for. I realized you could go on google maps and look up reference images via peoples’ reviews lol

I also figured out on accident how normals worked for models (TLDR one side of every polygon is visible and one side is invisible), so the current placeholder image will eventually be replaced with a Japanese city area to emphasize the fact you’re in a dream. The side going into the konbini will be textured so that it looks like an exit door.

Speaking of doors, they automatically open & close. It took a lot of effort to figure it out. However, it is possible to break the doors so they keep sliding, but reloading the room returns them to their original position.

Moving onto Sasha’s room Working on fleshing out her room still. I’ve already got a bunch of furniture in, and am starting to work on wall decorations like posters and other miscellaneous things. Gonna also do a new wall texture because it’s currently just the library walls.

Also I decided as you play through the game and get more party members, when you come back into the room all of them are gonna be chilling in the room. This is something I remembered they did in the Knights of the Old Republic games that would work really well. At the halfway point her closet is probably gonna open up and turn into a larger hangout space.

Here’s a closer look at the furniture. The bed’s frame is a modified version of the table I made earlier. I made the nightstand, then used the nightstand to make the dresser and a little cabinet. Altering models to make new ones has sped up the time it takes me to make new ones by quite a bit, and it also helps keep the style more consistent.

So for the TV and console I decided to give Sasha a CRT and PS2 that used to belong to her grandma. Game takes place in 2060, so her grandparents would’ve been born in the 90’s. It’d be really fun if eventually I could actually have it so you could play mini games on it. Considering that you can do first person mode, and then there’s also plugins with ranged attacks; in theory I could make a version of DOOM for the meme, but that wouldn’t happen for a long time and it’d be when I have time. It’d essentially be me making a bunch of game demos. It’s also low on the priority list because there’s a LOT I need to do, but if I end up being able to do this as my full time job and I’m going at it for a year or so with no issues I don’t see why not.

This TV / console model is the biggest model in the game, specifically the controllers. I don’t know what drove me to modelling the controller down to the cross indentation for the buttons lmfao. A SINGLE controller has 1076 polygons and the entire TV cabinet model has 2386 polygons, so the 2 controllers take up about 90% of the model polygonwise lmfao. My second biggest model is the lamp at 600 polygons. The engine doesn’t have any issues with the much bigger model, so I don’t either.

Onto the library I started working on the library last night. I’ve still gotta fill the shelves with books, but I think the library’s coming out nicely. It’s really cool how I’m more or less recreating the demo I made, but way more fleshed out and closer to my original vision.

With the plant I figured out how to make a fake 3D object with 4 different sections. The plate and dirt are both a flat plane, the pot is a sprite that follows you, and the plant is an 8cross shape. I’ll probably fix the size & offset so that it doesn’t clip into other objects. The couch is also really fun. I can’t wait to texture it.

I love being able to use the 3D plugin to offset stuff so everything feels more varied. I can rotate, slide, and lift stuff up so the maps don’t feel static. It’s really nice.

Now onto the other miscellaneous things I figured out. One of the first head scratchers I figured out was how to make stairs that go to a different floor, specifically figuring out how the railing works. Pretty much you walk up past the middle part and then you automatically walk up the rest of the stairs and it fades out, then fades back in.

I figured out how to have it so you walk up to the door, hit the action button, then the door opens and you walk in before it fades to black and transfers you to another map. It looks nice and it’ll probably look way better when I texture the doors.

I also figured out how to have the camera go to a fixed angle for specific dialog.

Originally, the diner and konbini were in one map and it made the lighting lag, so I split them up and made a placeholder loading graphic for when you go to a different map that isn’t through a door. Loading the lighting also makes the game lag for a second or two, so I could just have the light loading happen when the loading graphic is still up, and it doesn’t feel that jarring.

I probably missed some stuff, but I did A LOT. The next things on the agenda are doing the hallway between the rooms, finishing the maps, texturing stuff, and then figuring out the battle system. I’ve got an idea in mind for what I’m going for, but I might just do a 2D side battle to start out.

It’s actually wild that this is all in RPG Maker.

Anyway that’s it for now, I’ll keep at it and try posting another update on Monday or Tuesday.