Alright, let’s talk about where this thing’s at and where’s it’s going!
Past: When I first started Altarune’s Patreon I had just created a vertical slice. This meant providing a playable demo build featuring the absolute bare-bones gameplay features to give a sense of the game’s flow. You could walk through a randomly generated 2-floor dungeon with a standard Unitychan model, hit away at slimes that featured some very rudimentary AI, see and interact with dialog, place furniture in your house and enter a non-functional “play mode”.
I had also spent time creating a complex emotion and interaction system that wasn’t even visible and, as is to be expected, it didn’t gain much traction at all. It didn’t look pretty, it didn’t really communicate what the game would eventually look or feel like, and worst of all for an H-game, there was zero H-material. Nada.
As I needed some form of income I put the project on hiatus and focused on doing some freelance work and finishing a paid Unity asset instead.
Present: Enter Q4 2019 and I can resume work proper on the game! I contacted my 3D modeler and got the first character’s model finished. Right now I am completely focusing on the Play Mode portion of the game, making sure that at least some basic interactions look and feel good and representative of what is to come. A dedicated post for this will soon follow.
The story meanwhile has been fleshed out some more as well. I revisited my old notes and now have a rough idea of the overall direction that I want to take this in, and some of the major beats that I want to hit along the way.
Future: I will continue to work on Play Mode for now, making sure to get the basics right before adding more complexity in over time. I will still try my best to future-proof my designs, but the main focus will be on getting some H-content in, and working on different sections of the game piece-meal rather than all at once. I want everyone to see I can follow through on a single system first, and get a clear idea of where the finished product will be going. Once I have a decent enough representation of the Play Mode I will move on to creating a full multi-level dungeon, followed by the much less important Building mode.
The public Game Design Document will be updated to reflect all this at some point, but right now I want to work on the actual game and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Words are nice, but demos are nicer.
Once all the main mechanics are in place I will be adding more and more varied content over time.
The general roadmap looks something like this:
- Play Mode: Basic interactions on Nekome. Petting, undressing, inserting tools and feeding food will all be possible, with Nekome responding and having some functional state and emotions dictating how she reacts.
- Dungeoneering: Basic 5-floor Plains-themed procedural dungeon. Slime and Hellflower enemies will be functional, with Hellflower getting a dedicated “captured” scenario.
- HQ Building: Add some proper furniture, walls, etc. and create a proper UI. Functionally this is ok, it just needs a little visual and usability make-over.
- A save system that is forward-compatible for future releases as much as possible. ‘t Is not a sexy todo, but an important one none-the-less.
- The first story arc: Nekome’s beginning on the Plains, a Slime boss, various alternate outfit options and a few discoverables.
- The next arc/ girl of the game: This is so far off I don’t even want to think about it yet.
I hope this clears at least a few things up and gives a general idea of how Altarune will be developed, broadly speaking. Thank you for sticking around and I’ll catch you in the next one!
-Tomato out