Update on the things! (Patreon)

Hey everyone, I mentioned last month that I'd be posting releases more frequently, and that totally hasn't happened. I'm so sorry for leaving you all hanging! At the time, I thought I was at a good point to start cranking features out, but it turned out the game's foundation wasn't quite there yet. As I worked on it, I felt like I should wait to post a release until there was visible progress. 

I tend to get tunnel-vision while I'm working, and as a result I've been really quiet. This isn't ideal for a community-funded project, so I'm going to start doing weekly progress updates. Also, please feel free to poke me here or on Twitter (@Dai_Levy) if you're curious about progress on LC, or if you have other cloppy game-devvy questions :3

So! The good news is, it's been quiet because I've been silently working on LC, and getting the next version into a releasable state. Porting over to a real game engine has been a challenge, but the inner machinery of the game is WAY more solid. This means that it's easier for me to add in new features without breaking everything and having to rewrite half the codebase to make it work again.

I've only gotten to start working on actual "game" features in the last week or so, but it's already further along than previous versions. I've done in a week what it took me months to put together before. That makes me really happy, because it means the foundation is finally in a good spot. 

On the surface, the game might look like it's taken a step back in a couple places, but it's taken several steps forward in others.

In short, here's the progress made since my last post:

Moved to CitrusEngine and massively simplified the code structure, remade most of the previous stuff (boring, but yay it's done)

Gameplay- Just experimenting with different gameplay. You have less control over the stallions in this version, but there's a bit more to your goal than just "fill up" now.

Added four player Abilities- Clench/Relax, and Purity/Lewdness. These affect how quickly the player and her lovers reach orgasm, how she responds to oral/anal, and how well she keeps in collected cum. 

Added upgrades- certain things can be upgraded by spending the cum inside the player as currency. You can use this to unlock the Abilities and make them more effective, and also upgrade how much cum the player can hold in her uterus and stomach without it spilling out. 

Added mana- Active abilities drain mana per second. Orgasming replenishes mana and has other positive effects, but can make you spill.

Added Buildup mechanic- stallions have two meters to pay attention to- Pleasure and Buildup. Pleasure is how close they are to orgasm, and Buildup represents how big the orgasm will be. If you work them right (using the abilities), you can squeeze a lot more cum out of them. The execution is pretty simple at the moment.

Added sound- just a few slapping sound effects so far. But the sound system is all set up and it's simple to add more. Once I have a few days to put aside for recording and mixing, the audio will get more fleshed out. Currently, I'm just planning on non-vocal stuff. If anyone can point me toward a wet, squishy sexy sound effects pack that'd speed things up a bit :>

Added camera control- just the ability to zoom in and out right now. This is a good step in making the game more playable on more screen sizes.

Added simple UI- pixely buttons and meters. I over-engineered the UI before, so I'm keeping it simple until it's ready for polish.

And here's the stuff I'm working on finishing up for the next release:

Opening screens- gonna be super simple until I'm ready to start putting in the story (there actually is a story xD)

Lure ability- as part of the progression, you upgrade your ability to lure in more stallions at once, and with better stats.

Collection animation- working on this one right now. The fluid physics I showed off earlier are helping this out a lot. It'll be some form of bucket for the player to push all the collected cum out into.

Scoring / win condition- gonna be basic for now. Collect X amount of cum to "win". This'll play into the larger game progression later on.

Tweaks/cleanup- some buttons and assets need to be added, and the numbers need to be tweaked for the gameplay to work. 

I'm hoping this will take a few days. Usually my time estimates are way off, though, so I'll keep you all updated on how it goes.

You might be wondering about:

More characters- not with this release :(. I made some changes recently that broke the Twi rig, but it's all for the best- that was just a boring recolor of the AJ rig. An interesting part of the new code structure is that it allows me to potentially make each character have a wildly different pose. I really, really like this idea for the Mane 6 at least. Thing is, it takes time (I draw really slowly), so I have a few potential artists I'm looking into that might make this go faster, and improve the art quality significantly.

Lastly, on time and money:

Ideally, I want to work on this stuff 8 hours a day, and stream all of it. Right now I still have to prioritize surviving with my day job. I'm putting the hours I can spare each day into LC. I think with this next release I might be able to hit my first Patron goal, and be able to allocate more time to lewd ponies.

Thank you so much to my patrons for making this possible! <3