Purple Dream: Wardrobe System Part 1 (Early Look)

A quick early look at the wardrobe system.

I'll be posting a small video about it over on X/Twitter, as uploading videos of 18+ stuff is a bit of a pain here on Patreon.

Link to the video: Link

Friendly reminder that this is an early look. The UI is nothing but placeholders. The general layout is the only thing that is likely to remain. The important thing right now is to finish the systems, and get them up and running. The only real UI assets here are the two camera icons. I'll have a lot more assets done by the time the second part of the wardrobe showcase happens.

Texturing for the clothing is also non-existent for the time being. Right now the clothing models only have the base color on them. Textures are really delicate, and once they are made, you risk ruining them anytime you do any tweaks to the models, which is why I decided to leave them for last, as that way, I'll be able to freely make changes and improvements to the models without the risk of burning a bunch of work by ruining the textures. I had already made a few textures for Aika's shirts, but after tweaks to the models, they became unusable. I'll just be leaving that for last. The system is already implemented with the capability of taking in textures, so there is no additional work there, it's just a matter of making them when the time comes.

Anyhow, the wardrobe is a hub where you can fully customize and modify your attire for each individual POI. The gameplay of the system is very simple. You have a list of POIs, some of them are the POI itself, and some of them are container POIs that when they are clicked, they open up a new list of POIs that are contained within that POI. The home POI is a simple one that just opens the home POI, while the school POI is a container that when clicked, opens and shows the various POIs that are within the school. When opening a POI, you simply choose the garment category you want to modify, and that opens up a list of available clothing. Very straightforward.

You also get a cool set of buttons:

• A toggle button to hide certain clothing layers when modifying other layers, such as the top clothing layers becoming hidden when changing underwear

• A button to rotate the camera around the character to either show the front, or the back

• A toggle button for enabling/disabling the camera zooming in and focusing on the general area that is being customized

You modify your appearance in the wardrobe, your clothing choices are saved, and are then placed on Aika the next time you enter that POI.

Another thing to note, each POI has some differences and uniqueness within the system. Some only have certain garment categories available, and the clothing available varies from POI to POI. Some clothing is shared across some POIs, while some other is exclusive to a certain POI.

This small showcase is missing essentially all POIs and all clothing options in the game. This was just to show the base system. The system has been built in a way where adding the rest of the POIs and clothing is simple and fast.

For the most part, that is it for the base wardrobe system's functionality. There are only two things that are really missing here that I haven't completed yet.

• First, something I am calling clothing styles. These are variants of a clothing piece that some clothing have, and its a whole subject and post of its own to be honest. To put it into perspective, the shirt Aika is wearing here, as well as the short sleeve one in the video, have 5 different styles each, which have visual implications, as they are all completely different models, and there are also gameplay implications for each of them. It's a really cool system on its own, but it needs to cook longer. More on this at a later date.

• Second, the clothing info. I am working on a tab that you can make appear that gives you more details on the clothing, such as the stat implications, the gameplay implications, clothing unlock criteria, and some other things. I am keeping that as a separate thing that you can open when right clicking on a clothing piece. It's a separate thing for the sake of keeping the base UI clean.

There is more to show at a later time, including those two things, hence this being a part 1, but those things do extend beyond the wardrobe itself and overlap with the subject that is the clothing system as a whole, which is its own can of worms, as the clothing system isn't just there for aesthetics and visuals. Clothing greatly changes gameplay. There is a lot going on with it.

Now, time for the ugly part. The actual development of the system.

There's a lot more going on than what it may seem at a glance. When it comes to wardrobe systems, there's levels to them. They start simple on the lower end, to then grow into something exponentially more complex the higher you go. It's the reason a bunch of games in the H genre don't even bother with a clothing system at all. It's a mess to make one.

Most games of the games that do add one tend to stick to something simple with preset outfits. Blooming Flower falls in that level. You enter an activity, and there is a preset outfit the game puts on you. There is no customization on the side of the player or anything. It's a preset outfit. Fairly simple and easy to implement. Some games do allow players to choose the preset outfit, and allow you to change outfits on the go, but almost none make that have any value past the visual of having a different outfit on.

Some games do have customization, and allow you to mix and match clothing and accessories, but a limitation that I've seen in them though, is that the appearance generally doesn't particularly matter much in those games, as the situations don't care about appearance, nor does the appearance affect gameplay.

The weight of these levels is real. That's why even though there are games that do have systems that reach for a level beyond just the simple rudimentary one, very few manage to make it have any impact on the game, as it's a lot of work to pull that off, and thus, they don't get it right.

With Purple Dream, the situations do care about appearance. You can't just go to the beach with Aika's teacher attire, nor can she teach class with her bikini, so this isn't the kind of system where you customize the character and clear the rest of the game with that appearance. The beach POI as well as the school/class POI, both have their own respective outfits that you can customize and modify, and that saved outfit is then automatically given to Aika when entering that POI.

That is where the level really starts to become heavy development-wise. Not only does the wardrobe system allow you to customize your appearance, but it also allows you to customize a separate appearance for almost every single POI. That alone adds a whole other layer of complexity to it.

To make things better for the game, but harder for development, there is an additional layer of complexity to this, which is Shizumi. Both Shizumi and Aika have their own wardrobe systems and separate clothing for all POIs. Aika is the one in this showcase, but everything shown and talked about here applies to Shizumi as well.

And I haven't even talked about clothing styles, which is yet another whole layer of complexity to add on top, but that is a subject for another time.

Overall, putting together this seemingly simple system has been... a lot. Fortunately, it is getting there. But, as I mentioned earlier, past the visuals, getting the system as a whole right is a whole issue in itself. The customization doesn't mean much if you don't get it right with the gameplay and how the characters and setting react to the appearance. I am trying to make an attempt at getting it right. More on this whenever I make the posts for the dialogue/event systems.

This post came later than I intended. I ended up getting caught up with a couple of side quests. First, just general polish of the wardrobe system. With the level of complexity it has, the general polish took a bit longer than expected. Second, the save system. I originally intended to only show the school POI in the wardrobe system, but I decided to also add the home POI, and finish the implementation of the home outfit being the default while at the home hub. I was having issues with the data saving of the various outfits of the various POIs, as it was being saved in a not so great way. I intended to address that later, but ended up just going for it now. So, now the game has a proper save system. A way better system than what I did for Blooming Flower. It manages all of the data for the clothing of all POIs very cleanly, as well as stats. I still need to plug the traits and event stuff/flags into it though, but I'll get that at another time. Those were my two side quests, general polish of the wardrobe, and somehow ending up making the save system.

Long post. Forgive me for any mistakes that slipped, I'm tired.

Part 1 of Frail Flower will come out within the next few days. I'll try to get it done this weekend and and push it out Sunday/Monday, but keep in mind, it could take a couple more days than that if enough unexpected life interruptions and distractions happen. The schedule was pushed back a little bit due to the side quests I mentioned, but I'll get it out in these next few days.

Thank you for supporting the development of Purple Dream and Hana Exposure!