Progress Update- Motion and p*netration~ (Patreon)

I gots the movement anchors working! The gif I'm talking about and the uncensored post is on my Substar btw, which is my preferred platform! The attached gif shows the Anchoring system (explained below) and how it swaps a toy from the mouse to an animated path.

Now I'll explain what's going on here, what it means for the road to the first playable build, and what's coming next ^^

Also I have a coding stream starting now!

To new patrons: We’re in the middle of an absurdly-long update cycle. Here’s the summary and how to access content.

What's being worked on?

Alright crew. I want to give y'all a quick sense of what my process is, so you can put what you're seeing into context.

I go backwards-ish, one piece at a time, until the target mechanic is built. Currently I'm shooting for basic p*netration that I can build more complex mechanics on top of.

The current batch of tasks looks like this:

End goal: A mouse-controlled d*ldo p*netrates a stretchy p*ssy.

• Orifice can stretch to any size
• P*netrator can have size and shape
• Orifice can react to something with size/shape going inside based on how deep it is
• D*ldo can be picked up and freely moved around with mouse
• D*ldo can travel along an animated path (that takes it into the p*ssy)
• D*ldo can transfer from free-floating on the mouse to the animated path
• D*ldo's place in the path can be dynamically controlled
• P*ssy reacts to dildo's size/shape based on how deep it is
• D*ldo's place in the path can be moved by physics forces
• Player can apply physics forces by dragging with the mouse
• ~fin~

Bold is current task, italics are not done yet.

Anchors are done!

(the debugger tracking object positions)

A lot of the motion stuff up until now has been visuals-only, but not actually fully moving items' core x/y coordinates around. I've been waiting for the Anchors systems to be in place for that. They allow dynamic attaching and detaching of position to anything.

It sounds simplistic, but the part I'm proud of is that game objects define their own anchor points, which can change dynamically depending on how they're being used. If a character changes pose, and there's supposed to be a toy attached to the p*nis, the p*nis will supply a new anchor point based on the new pose. The toy itself won't even need to know anything changed.

It allows flexibility in the game engine. Stuff like this was a huge part of why the previous versions became too cumbersome- toy code and p*nis code and pose were all intertwined in the code and couldn't handle simple changes without serious reworks.

Transferring from mouse to animated path

There's actually some cool stuff here. The big thing is that the d*ldo here is never being erased and re-made when transferring between things. It's the same animation rig, with its movement anchor being traded from the mouse to the p*ssy path.

In previous versions, everything had to be unmade and re-made in place, cause the engine just couldn't handle transplanting a toy rig from one character's animation rig to the world, then to another character's rig, without completely breaking.

The player's Hand

Now that Anchors are working, I'm also doing the working backwards-ish approach on them and implementing the Player as a game object. The player's Hand (mouse) is its own little system that can act as an Anchor for things, and be used in different ways. 

Since it's a game object, we can also attach any mechanics we want to it, including graphics, animations, p*netration features, fluid piping, vibration, etc. If the Hand is gonna be something like unicorn magic, then having those mechanics could make sense! 

It's in its beginning phases right now, so I'll talk more about this later.

Hype vs reality

Indie game projects have a long history of over-promising and under-delivering. Here's a realistic sense of what to expect:

The game's first playable versions will be more like engine tests. Limited assets, characters, maybe some placeholder effects and whatnot. Over time, more complex and impressive mechanics will pile up on top of the engine, turning this into a game that surpasses previous versions of SHF3.

The first playable builds may feel like a downgrade, or feel similar to earlier versions. ~95% of the work is in rebuilding better foundations for the game's code. Movement, display, animation, etc.

That final 5% is the cool stuff we're all hyped AF to see- multiple p*netration, dynamic fluid piping, complex personalities, f*tish training, body modification, etc... and it's all built on top of the foundations. It'll come one feature at a time.

Also, this engine is flexible enough to build vastly different ad*lt games atop it E.g. Project Maple, which is a different genre of gameplay entirely. 

I'm incredibly excited for the future of this engine. I genuinely think it'll impress you. I also feel pretty insecure about releasing early builds and having long-time fans go "huh, that's it?" 

We still have one or two engine foundations to go (see my Trello linked below). Then you'll be able to play with the engine foundations. And then you'll see new features getting layered on top. That's the plan!

Sleep and IRL work ethic

So this week I (re)discovered that working is a lot easier and more efficient when you practice good sleep hygiene. Coding, motivation, creativity, and self improvement all suddenly become way more possible when I'm just... sleeping normally. 

I'm consistently embarrassed at how bad I am at basic life skills. 

But also... problems like sleep hygiene are never really solved, cause new bad habits or stresses always come in and wreck your previously working solutions. Then you gotta rebuild good habits again. It's just a constant maintenance cost you pay to stay running.

I write about stuff like this cause it has a direct impact on the game. I think y'all deserve to know what's behind the development. I don't wanna be anyone's life coach, but if you learn something from my silliness then yay~

As a reminder, here's the release checklist to track my progress!

... and that's all for now!

Thank you, everyone who follows me. The support for this project is incredible. Having a consistent ~400+ supporters between Substar and Patreon is a dream for most creators. Having that many people following during a long dev cycle like this is mind boggling. 

I'm putting my full effort into making that support pay off for everyone. So far, I feel optimistic about being able to accomplish that. 

Y'all are crazy and I love you <3