Unity port tease/progress update

So since I'm back from my long ass hiatus (more details here), I figured I might as well tease you guys with some progress updates. I'll occasionally update this post with new stuff, so check back frequently. On the other hand, I usually post these things on the Discord channel first, so if you absolutely can't wait to see progress updates, go there.

Do note that these are not the final product since they still need more tweaks. This post is more about what you can vaguely expect to see in the game. So assume things will be different in one way or another in the final implementation.

How busts look
(Fucked up resizing the left bust, ignore the white artifacts pl0x)

Expressions for the busts.
(Frown is technically displeased in this case but I'm obviously very fluent in English.)

Expression sketches of Ryugami.

WIP CG for Imps.

Guess what time it is?

No, not update time unfortunately. I just wanna make the title of this post relevant to its content. But worry not! I am slowly chucking away at it. In fact, I've just rewritten the time system entirely from the ground up with pure eventing. I know I'm an narcissistic asshole who likes self-deprecating humor (if you haven't figure that out by now), but I'm honestly REALLY impressed with myself this time. Technical stuff below, but other than that, I'm also brainstorming a way to keep track of NPC locations so if you say, enter a building, the NPCs outside will "keep moving," and when you go outside again, the NPCs will remember how long it has passed since you entered a building and be properly adjusted to a distance based on that info. Yeah, once again, complicated. Because NPCs in RPG Makers aren't built to be kept track of like NPCs in Harvest Moons, Rune Factories and Stardew Valley. (An excuse for me to mention Stardew Valley. The characters isn't as fun as Harvest Moons' or Rune Factory's, but still a great game. Give it a try if you like Harvest Moon or Rune Factory.)

So, on to the technical stuff. The time system I previously used is a 3rd party plugin by Moghunter/Atelier Rgss. It has several problems with it and since I can't program, I can't make edits myself. So I looked into another plugin, and this one's from Hudell. But just like Moghunter's, it has its own share of problems. Namely, Moghunter's hour hand in the clock HUD doesn't move. Yes. It bothers me (that being said, I've decided to not include an analog clock HUD anyway). It also doesn't properly fix overflowing values, but I haven't checked Hudell's to see if it does the same. And Hudell's is also written in a way that keeps the clock running despite tabbing out of the game. Which as you might guess, is kind of a problem. So, it's obvious that some sort of change is needed (insert political joke here). And the result is me completely rewriting the system that's fully tailored to the game's needs. Okay, it's a time system. There's not much features you can add to a time system. But the idea is that it runs independently from the other systems, and if some other event make changes to the time, the time system itself will make the proper adjustments if something went wrong. Like auto correcting overflowing values! If say, I'm doing something stupid like adding 323 minutes instead of 5 hours and 23 minutes, the system will be smart enough to do the calculations to determine 323 minutes = 5 hours and 23 minutes, and adds the values properly. With a system like this, I don't have to add a conditional branch to fix overflowing values every time I manipulate some other time value. Generally speaking, it just makes events cleaner for me to manage and write.

The system sounds like it's very complicated, but truthfully, it's a very elegantly written solution. I've optimized it to all hell and made sure it doesn't do unnecessary calculations and waste computing power. If only I could say the same for the other existing systems in place... The animated text windows is made up of 8 fucking common events and choice boxes is made up of 4 fucking ones. Like, what the hell? So yeah, that's about it for today I guess. See you guys later!

Classes, how do they work?!

No, I don't mean school. I'm that one guy who doesn't go to school. I'm referring to the classes of the game. But anyway, I'm done with designing the classes for the game (emphasis on designed, not implemented). I've had a rough idea of how it works in the conceptual stage of the game, but I've now only been able to finally give it a proper look and refine the concept. A lot of research went into these classes. Making sure the names have some sort of context to their skillset and so on. I've also had to make sure none of the classes' names are the same as another game(s) so people can't say I ripped them off (though I'm pretty sure you can't exactly rip off an idea).

Now the way classes work in Captivity and its in-universe MMO is for all intents and purposes, mostly for roleplaying and narrative purposes. You probably noticed some of these classes crosses another archetype. And that's because they are for creating specialized roles and allowing some unique dialogues depending on which class you are. With the branching setup of this monstrosity, the idea is that the 3rd advancement classes, whether or not the skillset is vastly different and/or contradictory, will still have some sort of semblance and relevance to its preceding advancement class.

Since Captivity is more of turn-based tactical combat system and not an actual action RPG, the in-universe explanation is that a class - and weapons, but that's a topic for another day - system like this encourages players to setup their skills in a way that suit their playstyles, creating unique roles for themselves and giving them a degree of customization. For example, say someone chose to be a Sniper, and they want to continue playing as a Sniper late-game without bothering much with Enforcer's skills. They can do that by putting mainly Sniper skills and perhaps some of Enforcer's buffs and passives into their hotbar, they are now a Sniper "main." (Look it up if you don't know what a main means.) But the other guy, he wants to be more of a close-mid ranged Enforcer, he does that by just putting Enforcer skills in his hotbar (and also Sniper buffs and passives), and bam. They're now a Enforcer main. There's also Sniper/Enforcer hybrids. Which is just a person putting both Sniper and Enforcer skills into their hotbar for versatility but sacrificing some skills since you can only put so much skills into a hotbar, you'd have to pick and choose. Of course, none of this matters in Captivity, since Captivity is turn based combat. This just simply allow for some unique personalities and characters to exist for roleplaying and narrative purpose.

This also may or may not be a system I came up with in my MapleStory days as a kid who wants to be a game designer growing up (granted I was 15, but I'm pretty sure 15's still considered a kid). I've only got the chance now to actually refine it to something that's plausible and makes fucking sense. I'm breaking up this post after the picture since it'd be too long to be in the main page. Click read more to read the class descriptions (Will actually start writing after I take a break). One of the notable changes I made while revamping this system is changing the 2nd advancement level from 40 to 30 and merging Marksman into Sniper. Because I can't think of 2 more unique class that could be advanced from a crossbow for Marksman and rifle for Sniper, I just merge the two together and split them in the 3rd advancement. Unless someone can come up with a better idea than me, consider this class tree final.

Dynamic weather system

Ohai. I've been working on a weather system. It's just a proof of concept right now. There's still lots of values needed to be tweaked and tested and the event itself still need some more optimization before pushing it into the main build. Lots of math involved here, but the way it works is something like this, for every 60 frames or every second, a value will be randomly added or subtracted to what I call a rain threshold. When the rain threshold exceed a certain value (and increasing threshold level), the game will start calculating a rain chance. If the rain chance doesn't proc, the rain threshold will keep increasing or decreasing until it reaches another threshold level. The higher the rain threshold, the heavier the rain will be and the longer it'll continue to rain. If and when the rain chance procs, it'll start raining, and the rain threshold will start decreasing at a random value. If the rain proc'd at threshold level 4 for example, it'll keep decreasing and when it reaches level 3, the rain will grow lighter and lighter. Once it goes down below threshold level 1, there's another chance for it to stop immediately or until the rain threshold reaches 0.

This means that the rain value and rain chance is almost completely RNG based and fully dynamic. Since it calculates every 60 frames, save scumming will either be a hindrance or a benefit to you. And as I said, it's still a proof of concept. I still need to tweak the values so it doesn't either rain too quickly, rain chance proc too consistently or whatever. I also need to work thunderstorms, cloudy weather and fog into this system. So there's still lots of math involved.

Are there any other kinds of weather you'd like to see? Maybe an extremely sunny weather? That'll probably work well during the summer. But yeah, lemme know if there's any other kinds of weather you'd like to see in the comments! (Oh also, I disabled anonymous comments until the character submissions event is over to prevent spam. Check that out if you haven't yet.)

Pushing my buttons

Hi guys, quick news update. I wanna get the update out soon, so no sketches like I promised 2 posts ago. I'm still in the middle of implementing the buttons.


Yep. That's it. That's the news for today. The rest of this post is just me talking about some technical stuff and rant about RPG Maker. So read on if you're interested.


One of the improvements I've made to it since the last video I posts is that I animated it. I'm not gonna make a video about it because it's not a change significant enough to warrant me making one. The reason you'll want to animate UI elements is to provide more of a visual feedback to the player to let them know "oh hey, you pressed this". These tiny effects aren't really noticeable for the most part. But if you REALLY pay attention to any digital buttons you see (in apps, browsers, games or whatever), you'll notice the buttons will linger for a couple of frames, change colors or plays a special effect when pressed. If any of this info doesn't concern you, don't worry. It's mostly targeted for those interested in game design/development. I'm sure there's a couple of you in here.

So anyway, the buttons I'm implementing still has a lot of troubleshooting to be done. One of the problem I'm running into is the text bubble not appearing while the buttons is fading away. Since every text bubbles is activated by a common event to play the animation (yep, even the text bubbles are animated), both events are conflicting with each other and thus either the text bubble disappear entirely or the buttons fail to fade out properly. Which I blame RPG Maker. It has problems with running show picture commands from multiple events simultaneously. So I'm trying to find a workaround, which irritates me quite a bit. WHY DO YOU HAVE SO MANY PROBLEMS, RPG MAKER?! I'm pretty sure I'm not to blame for trying to do some advanced stuff with your engine. Your motto is "Simple enough for a child; Powerful enough for a developer." SO WHY?!

But yeah, that's really it for today. I'll update this post when I fixed it or something. And then I can move on to completing CGs 2.


UPDATE: Okay, I'm pretty sure I fixed the damn thing now. Turns out it's just a dirty edit related to a post image cleanup common event I've set up. As for the buttons failing to fade out, surprise! It's another dirty edit that's causing it. I fixed that too so everything is working as intended now. I strucked out the rant I've made because that's clearly my fault and not RPG Maker's. That's right, I'm not afraid to admit my own mistakes. Be right back while I cry in a corner out of embarrassment.

muh immersion

Ohai there. A little progress update for you guys today. I know you guys are dying for more progress updates and especially actual updates! Welp, I can tell you it's coming along nicely. If you're a Patron you can tell I've done a little more since the previous post. The changelog IS live, after all. Anyhow, I can't give you guys an ETA yet. I know I've said I wanted to just get the update out as soon as possible, but I REALLY don't want to rush anything when it comes to art. Remember the last time I rushed a sketch? Yeah, didn't look good, did it? By the way, here's the newer sketch for comparison. So yeah, I've mainly been taking my time with the CG.

Also, I've been toying around in a separate testing RPG Maker project file to test and set up a custom main menu/title screen. REALLY, REALLY advanced stuff. Lots of eventing and script calls involved. I could've downloaded some 3rd party plugins for this, but meh. I feel like those are too limiting in terms of customization. Honestly though, you'd be really surprised with what RPG Maker can do even without using plugins or scripts. In any case, I could probably set up something pretty to look at with animated grasses and shit. I'm talking about this CG, by the way. So the main menu will look more MMO-esque for maximum immersion! :D

much eventing
such scripting
wow

Future UI changes

Yeah, I can't think of any punny titles now. Here's a fun fact! The first post I made on this blog is titled "Hello, World!" It's basically the first program most programmers write and it's like saying, "hey! I did it! I made something work!" The fact that I titled my first post "Hello, World!," if not smart, is at least poetic. Most posts since then I've tried coming up with something smart or punny too, but that didn't last long, did it?

Hmm? Why am I telling you all these? Well, it may or may not have something to do with how people in the game will have silly little quips and conversations like these. One thing I really like when it comes to RPGs and mostly JRPGs is that they're full of silly conversations like these. And with games like Harvest Moon and Rune Factory, they have something new to say every single time. If you're not into this, then I dunno. You can ignore these conversations you can have with others and their character, world and/or story exposition and get off to the porn instead. I'm such an asshole.

But, let's talk about something that has to do with the title itself. Here's a mock up of the UI. I'm not gonna implement this anytime soon until I have something concrete though. And as you can see, it's currently anything but that. As always, let me know what you think!

The HUD is for the most part done. The Menu Screen isn't.

Oh, also, I've decided to change the as-of-yet-unimplement-patreon-perk of the 20$ tier's ambiguous "special polls" to "scene polls" where I give you a list of h-scenes for you to choose for me to prioritize on making. Yay for no more ambiguity!

Defeated by monsters h-scenes

Yes, I know. There's probably a shorter term than "defeated by monsters h-scenes." I have no idea why I feel the need to be specific with the term. Mayhaps there be planned consensual monsters h-scenes? Hoho, what is this? More foreshadowing? In any case, I'll talk a little bit about how defeated by monsters H-scenes will work today since you guys are tired of me talking about gameplay mechanics and actual legit game design. Which is pretty odd. Considering this is a game. Captivity isn't just about the porn. The thing that always bugged me with this hentai games business is that if you're not going to put gameplay in it, why make it a game at all?

Alright, enough ranting. So how will defeated by monsters h-scenes work? First of all, I'm still working out the technical stuffs in this design, so it may or may not still be the same when actual combat and monsters h-scenes are implemented, so keep that in mind. Now, I also haven't worked out how party combat will come in play to these h-scenes, so I'll just be talking about single person combat and its h-scenes this time.

So, to activate these scenes, you either have to have a high lust, or have the RNG decide whether or not the monsters is horny enough to rape you. In either case, when your HP is at or below 10%, the monsters will use a skill to subdue/rape you. And in both cases (when your lust is high or monsters is horny), the monsters will try not to kill you, they'll only take you down to 1 HP. Not all monsters will be able to rape, and there are probably gonna be other ways to access the h-scenes without combat.

Early slime scene concept sketch

Here's a concept sketch I suppose. The first monster you'll encounter will most probably be a slime, so yeah. Slime sex. Do note that this is an "concept sketch." So I'll very likely re-sketch and re-illustrate this scene. Also, I'm that one guy who doesn't use guidelines. If I were smarter I'd use them so I can get the angle right. But who am I kidding? I'm an asshole.

UI vote

I've been tweaking the UI for awhile now, but I'm not sure which one is better. Type 1 is ultra minimalistic, while Type 2 is pretty much the same one as before but with a purple motif. So here you go, you can vote for one of these right now on the LoK forums thread. If you don't have an account, go make one.

Type 1

Type 2

New title screen CG!

Since I've launched my Patreon 2 days ago, I figured I'd post something to show you guys what I've been doing.

What you're seeing here is a WIP of the new title screen CG I mentioned in the post I made on Easter. Which is like, what? Last month? But yeah, still in the middle of it. The shady black and green lines is the sketch layer. Everything else is painted on their own separate layer. So yes, leave your thoughts and/or feedback if you have any. 

Psst. These pillar looking things may or may not play a rather large role in the game.

UI changes - Choice boxes

Did this today. What is it, you ask? It's VN styled choice boxes. Unfortunately, I can't add spaces between the boxes. There's no option to do so in the plugin/script's setting (it's by Galv in case you wanted to look it up) and since I cannot program, I have no way to implement it myself. So we'll just have to live with this until a better solution/plugin comes along or something. That's all the news for today.

UI changes - Message boxes

Message box WIP

Ohai there. Didn't do too much with Captivity lately. Not being paid means less motivation. To be fair, it's technically because I've mostly been working on things OTHER than Captivity. But what little I've done with Captivity today is a new message box graphic. I'm doing away with the standard RPG Maker look while keeping the minimalistic light and dark motif I've been going for since the beginning. It doesn't look good/contrast well against things in the background right now so I'll be tweaking that further. But for now, this is the general look of it. I'll also be changing the entire look of the UI before v0.1, I'm just starting with the message box for now.

Still slowly tackling away at the busts. Who knew busts were so time consuming to make?

Why RPG Maker MV?

Alright, I'll admit. I don't have much done for the past few days. Designing clothing for characters is certainly not easy. I had to draw, erase, draw and then erase and rinse and repeat for a couple more times before I'm kinda satisfied with it. As a result, I feel rather burned out. Note: I have no intention to abandon this project. Work is just coming slowly. So since I haven't made a new post for a few days, I might as well make one now and talk about why I'm using MV instead of VX or VX Ace. This might not interest the average person at all, but if you're an aspiring creator that's still bouncing back and forth between choosing VX/Ace or MV, this post might interest you. Also, I'll be ranting in italics like this one.


In hentai games like these, it all basically comes down to resolution size. MV games by default is in 816 x 624 while VX Ace is in 544×416. In most hentai games that portrays sex visually (A.K.A CGs. I'm just trying to sound smarter than I actually am.) like these, having a high resolution is highly recommended if not needed. I'm not talking about retro, pixel or purposefully pixelated artworks. Those have their own place and not the point I'm trying to get across. Now if you've played Despair Labyrinth before, you'd realize that it has some rather pixelated CGs. Though that might be because of the rendering, I'm not sure. While compared to Captivity, the CGs are crisp and clean looking. But if you play in a maximized window or fullscreen it's still going to look somewhat pixelated. And while I could very well bump the resolution up to 720p or even 1080p if I wanted to (this is something you can do easily with MV), doing so brings a whole slew of its own problem. Mostly regarding to map size, tiles and problems within the creator itself. And I can't be assed to circumvent the problems that shouldn't have been there to begin with.

The second thing would probably the increase count of more items, weapons, and variables and stuff. IIRC, everything that has a count of 999 in the previous RPG Makers have been increased up to 2000. That's twice as much. While I'm probably never going to use all of it, it does provide more leeway. But why did they impose an arbitrary limit of 2000 instead of just making it 9999 regardless of whether or not people will actually use them all in this day and age is beyond me.

Finally, the switch from Ruby/RGSS3 to JavaScript. Now I'm personally not a programmer so this doesn't affect me much. But if you're well versed in the arcane arts of computer magic, this is something you might want to look out for.

There's also a couple more changes to MV, but that's basically the gist of it. Now then, time to frustrate myself more with clothing designs.

Planned erotic content

Warning: wall of text inbound. tl;dr at bottom.

A few days ago I said I was resuming work. I lied. Kinda. Chinese New Year is taking up more of my time than I initially thought. But since I haven't been able to get anything done for the past few days like I promised, I decided to take some time to collect my thoughts and write down what kind of erotic content I have planned. Things I will include in future updates and what will never make it into the game.

So first of all, rape. Content regarding rape or non-consensual sex will obviously be in the game. If you've played what little there is of the game right now, you're literally raped within the first 10 minutes of the game. Some other content I have planned are masturbation, multiple partners/orgies, double & triple penetration, femdom, semi-shota, yuri, yaoi, bestiality, monsters, bdsm and exhibitionism just to name a few. If any of these are not your thing, fear not! You can choose what kind of scenes you want and do not want to play (certain content are still forced like rape) by choosing dialogue choices when you can and limiting your inhibition to a certain level. For example, if you do not want to be given the choice to get fucked by a wolf, don't get your inhibition level to below 30.

Things that will never be in the game will be loli, futa(?), furry, scat and guro/gore. These are the things I have planned NOT to include in the game for various reasons. Loli, scat and guro content will never be in the game is simply because I do not find them at all arousing, but actually rather disturbing. Futa and furry is just because of lore reasons. There are humans, dwarfs, elves and monsters in the lore and universe of DragonSong. But there are no anthropomorphic animals. Futa is rather uncertain depending on whether or not I'm willing to bullshit a temporary dick growing potion or something into the game.

If there's any content I didn't mention, feel free to leave a comment and ask about it.

tl;dr:

Erotic content planned to be in game:
- Rape
- Masturbation
- Multiple partners/orgies
- Double & Triple penetration
- Femdom
- Semi-shota
- Semi-loli
- Yuri
- Yaoi
- Bestiality
- Monster
- BDSM
- Exhibitionism

Erotic content planned to NEVER be in game:
- Shota
- Loli
- Futa (unsure)
- Furry
- Scat
- Guro/Gore

EDIT: The ones in italics is newly added.

Skills and Trainers

If you've been playing around with the battle system in its current state, you might've noticed that you have no skills. I mean, sure, I just haven't implemented them yet. But it IS intentional that you do not have any skills at the start of the game. It will be eventually explained in the game that everyone's skills are wiped and had to be relearned after The Transference. And in order to learn new skills, you have to visit a trainer and spend some money and time to learn them. Each class has a specific trainer. While you can talk to every trainer, you can only learn skills from your class specific trainer. Every trainer will eventually be sexable (I know sexable isn't a word, but I'm going to use it anyway because it sounds stupid and funny), but I haven't worked out the specifics yet.

Sketch of the mage's trainer's bust. Once again, please provide your feedback.

Sorry, no puns or stupid pick up lines this time

Not much to talk about today. I pretty much completed the intro, its h-scenes (not the CGs just to be clear) and also added an orgasm stat.

And even with my non-existent programming skills, I managed to fix a problem with the time system script I'm using and jury rigged it to allow me to utilize minutes and seconds (previously only able to use hours and not the other two units). And with that I did some really convoluted eventing to make lust increase PRECISELY once the clock hits an hour. I could also make lust increase in any other time interval, but for now, I'll leave it at an hour and see about tweaking/balancing it in the future.

Is that a sword in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

So, I've just setup a lust system. What this lust system does is it effectively makes you require sex or masturbation once in awhile. If you let your lust get out of hand, you'll find it hard (heh) to resist sexual advances and talk properly. Since, you know, you're constantly thinking about sex.


Eventually I'd like to implement perks or traits. These perks/traits will affect how much lust you gain, dialogue during sex and what sort of h-scenes you can do. Right now, I have masochism, dominance, submissiveness and nymphomaniac in the list. Once again. if you have any other suggestions, feel free to bombard me with them.


For some technical details on the system -- every passing hour will increase your lust. In other words, every 11AM, 12PM, 1PM and etc will bump up your lust by some amount. Technically it only increases 1 second after the clock hits an hour because I have zero programming skills whatsoever and had to find a workaround for it. It's not noticeable during gameplay unless you REALLY want to just spam check your lust every time the clock hits an hour (please don't be that guy).

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that a new pre-build will be released within a week.

EDIT 2: Added a pic. If you look closely, you can see the finished clock behind the UI.

Time (heh) for some new features!

Remember when I said that an odd feature or two will be implemented? No?

This is one of them.

I'm still working on it and re-positioning the hud elements, so expect it to look different in the final product.

And yes, it is in the next pre-build so you can play around with it when it comes out.

What's gonna be in v0.1.0?

You might have noticed that so far I've named my releases with the prefix "pre" and suffix "build x." What exactly does it mean? It essentially mean that until v0.1.0, these "pre-builds," as I like to call them, will be released periodically. These pre-builds for the most part is composed of unfinished content, which is why I named them pre-builds instead of a actual numbered build. Once the game hits v0.1.0, any subsequent updates will only have completed content. Now that doesn't mean that I won't revisit said content for whatever reason (be it bug fixes or whatever). It'll only mean that all updates since then will be numbered v0.1.1, v0.1.2 and so on. So, what EXACTLY will be in v0.1.0?

EDIT: Just to be clear, when I say that "any subsequent updates will only have completed content," it means it'll be mostly completed. That doesn't mean I won't be using placeholders of any sort. Art assets is the single, most time consuming thing to be done in a game. So there are likely gonna be placeholders at places here and there.


-A completed Estal City.
(Or at least a mostly completed one...) It's where you're gonna to spend most of your time in, after all.

-A house for the player.
Now without spoiling too much, you will eventually be able to upgrade your house into a mansion. But you're just gonna have to deal with having a small house for now.

-Custom/original sprites for almost everyone.
I said almost because there's still going to be a scene when you first enter Estal City, which has tons more NPCs. But yeah, almost. For the moment however, I will only be drawing these sprites in their usual chibi style. I plan to replace them entirely with taller (2 tiles high) sprites a la Chrono Trigger in the future.

-Busts!
No, not the kind that protrudes from a woman's chest. Go to the debug room and interact with the pink haired sleeping/dead dude. That's the kind of busts I'm talking about.

-Complete the 2 sets of CGs.
It's pretty much half way done by now, and if you missed my first post, I essentially finished the lineart of the first CG set and is currently painting them.

-Complete the intro
This one's pretty self explanatory.


This is just a vague list of things I want to have done in v0.1.0, but you can expect an odd feature or two to be implemented in the pre-builds. With all that being said, if you'd like to see a piece of content or feature to be in the game, suggest it! If I think it fits in the game, it'll likely be done. So go ahead and bombard me with your suggestions!

Hello, World!

First of all, welcome! This is where I'll be posting progress updates and artworks on the game and other shits and giggles. And just a heads up, the blog will likely see occasional changes as I fiddle around with things. And if you haven't noticed by now I'm a sucker for tidiness. It's kinda like having OCD but instead of actually having OCD I just like my stuff neat and tidy.

In other news, the lineart for scene 1's CGs is completed and is being painted right now, so look forward to that.