MipDev

Dev Update 07/03/2020

Update time!

This week was massive! Not only did I manage to get through more than half of the intro implementation, I also managed to find a replacement composer (last one did the internet thing and went poof). Revionbel got a rather complicated commission from me and delivered extremely quick. Much faster than I thought they would, so I had to scramble a bit to build up my music support earlier than expected. Which brings us to the attached video.

What you're seeing there is the...

Dev Update 29/02/2020

Update time!

Damn these weeks are flying by! I managed to implement two more pages of the intro script this week. Those pages required that I add support for full screen "blocking" CGs (as in, ones you need to click through) as well as sound effects and a simple swipe transition. These are important building blocks that will be used repeatedly through the game so getting them working right is a small step with large implications.

On the art side Phoenix and I are working together ...

Dev Update 21/02/2020

Update time!

Another week went by, man these things fly. I spent the week building up the engines capabilities. You may not have noticed, but one of the limitations Bell Master had, was a rather massive one. I could not use any variable values in dialogues. That meant I couldn't allow for name changes, couldn't refer to any current stat values, and was limited to more general statements. I'm happy to report this is now improved for Body Language. You will have control over the name of t...

Dev Update 15/02/2020

Update time!

This was a fairly busy week. It started with a mild Corona scare that turned out to be just a very annoying flu. Continued with Bell Master getting streamed on Gooshi.com (holy fuck that was cool to watch! ). And ended with more progress on the implementation of the intro for Body Language than I thought I'd manage. 

I st...

Dev Update 07/02/2020

Update time!

Good news everyone, my game engine is no longer on fire. It's been a bit of a slog but the engine refactor turned out well and the result is a much stronger, more capable dialogue system. Now I can do super fancy things like fade in and out of scenes (or really any complex transition). Interject minigames in the middle of dialogues, have the dialogue wait for an animation or sound effect to play out, and basically have strict control over how dialogue behaves with regards t...

Dev Update 01/02/2020

Update time!

So the Gif above is a rather accurate representation of this week for me. I've found a serious flaw in my dialogue system design and have been completely focused on fixing it for the last few days. I won't bore you too much with the tech stuff, just that it has to do with the way dialogue triggers work (triggers are what I use to do things like start an animation, show a sprite on screen, play a sound etc). I'm still working on it and it'll continue into next week as well.&...

Dev Update 25/01/2020

Update time!

Vacation was a blast, but it's nice to get back into a working rhythm. I'm still dealing with some leftover jet lag, but it's getting better and I've managed to be productive regardless. As I mentioned before, I came back buzzing with ideas. I basically took a large chunk of the games intro and rewrote it. I added a lot more details and some character interactions that should help set the general atmosphere for the game. I'm about 2.5k words in now and I think it turned out...

(no) Dev Update 18/01/2020

Alright, last no dev update for a while. I'm writing this on the plane back to my super secret dev bunker. Thailand was cool. But now I'm rather exhausted and would very much like to get home, get some sleep, and then get back to working on the game. Inspiration without outlet gets... jittery.

See you all next week for a real dev update :)

(no) Dev Update 10/01/2020

It's been a cool week, from tree top ziplines, to river rafting, to a few days of poolside chill, this vacation is going well. Like most countries, Thailand has its own unique weirdness, but the people are nice and the mangos are sweet :)



I've brought a notebook with me and have been jotting down some cool ideas to add to the game when I get back. But mostly I've just been recharging and en...

Dev Update 02/01/2020

Update time!

Quick and early update this week since in 4 hours I'll be on the way to my vacation.

Phoenix has completed the concept art for the games MC:

She'll  work on the friend character while I'm away. This will fill out all of the main cast for the game. And will finally allow us to move forward with images that are more... fun :)

I've done some minor tech work this...

Dev Update 28/12/2019

Update time!

This week was very productive. I've managed to get a whole lot of tech work done. Mostly around modeling the games data in a way that will make saving and loading as quick as possible. This is a prerequisite for my current goal of implementing rollback in Unity. Basically, rollback is nothing more than a quick transparent load. There's still more work to be done before I'm happy with it, but major progress has been made to the point where I can finally see a clear structure...

January vacation - billing paused

A quick heads up to patrons. I will be going on a (much delayed) honeymoon to Thailand for most of January. Since I won't be working on the game and may not even be able to provide my weekly updates during the trip, I've paused billing for this month. This means you should not be charged on January 1st.
Usual work and charging will resume on February.

Dev Update 14/12/2019

Update time!

As you may have seen, the patreon page got a bit different today, that is to celebrate the official reveal of Body Language!

Body Language is a game about communication, verbal and otherwise. Join a friend for a backpacking adventure in a foreign city. See the sights, meet new people, and grow as a person. Also there are some hot women and jokes and stuff. Have fun!

Cho...

Dev Update 14/12/2019

Update time!

And we're back to productive weeks, finally! As expected, this week was spent tinkering with tech. I've hammered out the basics of my new dialogue system. I've taken lessons from Bell Masters very basic dialogue system and from the parts of Fungus I actually liked and I'm working towards a happy middle ground where I get both the nice tool visualization and easy editing that comes with it, as well as the power and flexibility of a low level simple solution that I can extend...

Dev Update 06/12/2019

Update time!

While I spent my time this week doing tech stuff, Phoenix has been working their ass off. I now have basic color versions of all 3 girls. And, since many of you (including myself) wanted to see some shading on "ballet girl", well, here's that version:

Once Phoenix is done with shading and detailing I'll set up a little ensemble reveal post with actual character names so we do...

Dev Update 30/11/2019

Update time!

Following last week's update, I spent most of my time this week designing a replacement mechanic for the scrapped language barrier one. I think I'm on the right track with a new idea. It's somewhat simple for now but with potential to grow as development time allows. It's still not fully set so I will continue to work on it next week, but I think this will eventually only cause a two week delay to the roadmap. I'll keep you posted as usual.

With the rest of my (admitt...

Dev Update 23/11/2019

Update time!

This week was... rough. After spending a long while trying to force an idea I liked to work, the time has come for me to realize it's holding the game back. Putting this in writing will pretty much force my hand to find a better alternative, so here's what it could have been, but will not be: 

I wanted to have a language barrier serve as a major mechanic in the game, with the player slowly learning the girls languages to progress. Problem is, no matter how I spun...

Dev Update 15/11/2019

Update time!

This week was spent primarily on engine tinkering. I'm still laying the tech groundwork I need to be able to develop the game faster in the later stages. It's slow "invisible" work, but it does pay off in the end. Thanks to some kind advice from other devs, I've integrated some tools that should help make the build process less of a tedious chore. I'm still exploring if and how I can force fungus to support the save anytime feature that everyone (including me) likes so much...

Artist search poll results

The poll is over and we have a clear winner! I know some of you have voiced concerns about anatomy, shading, and breast sizes (all equally valid :) ) and I will take them all into account when working with this artist. However, I happen to know this artist is capable of delivering good results because, well, she already did for Bell Master. Yup, this lovely image was drawn by Phoenix, who is feeling better and ready to draw some sexy pictures again.

2019-11-10 21:12:43 +0000 UTC View Post

Dev Update 08/11/2019

Update time!

This week we're going to do something different, I spent most of my week focused on the artist search. Among a lot of... results, I got three pieces that I consider to be not terrible. And I'd like your input as to which you prefer. I'm not going to tell you what the commission details were since I'm only interested on your aesthetic opinion. Due to Patreon rules I can only show the SFW versions, so I had to edit some of the works a little. I'm also keeping the artist name...

Dev Update 01/11/2019

Update time!

This was a productive week. I got a very promising artist going on the character concept art commission. I got in touch with a composer discussing my somewhat ambitious plans for music in the new game. I've also finally found the time to sit down and get fungus (the 3rd party dialogue engine I'm trying out) to play nice with other game systems.

What you're seeing in the video is a technical test case, not a representation of how the game will look or play. The main...

Dev Update 25/10/2019

Update time!

As you may have seen, I've started the week by finally finishing and publishing the postmortem for Bell Master. It took a few introspective days but it's proven itself immensely valuable. I've already made a few tweaks to the story and task plan for the new game based on some of the more salient conclusions. I also did another Bell Master related task but I'm keeping that one to mysel...

Bell Master postmortem

A game postmortem is all about figuring out what worked and what didn't during the development of the game. The goal of this document isn't to list things that could be improved in terms of design or specific features in Bell Master, but rather to focus on processes and decisions that can be adopted or improved going forward into the next game.

This document is going to be painfully honest, which means a lot of negativity. Since the goal is to learn and improve, it's acceptable. Also, I...

Dev Update 18/10/2019

Update time!

I'm going to spend this update laying out the roadmap for the new game. Only partially because this is a thing and I've been mostly useless this week. Bell Master 1.0.1 is out and is as robust and bug free as I could make it. I'm super happy with the way it turned out and 2019-10-18 15:53:52 +0000 UTC View Post

Version 1.0.1 is out!

Version 1.0.1 is out!

This is a bugfix version. If you've played 1.0.0 without issue you can skip this one.

Windows 64, Windows 32, Mac, 2019-10-13 19:51:13 +0000 UTC View Post

Dev Update 11/10/2019

Update time!

As you know I've released version 1.0.0. I'd hoped that would be a bug free version of the game, but a rather large bug was reported since then, so another bugfix version is on my agenda for the coming week. If there's anything you've noticed and hadn't reported yet (from bugs to typos) now is the time to do so.

My next large task is writing up a post mortem for Bell Master. With everything I did right, everything I did wrong etc. This is mostly for my own benefit as ...

Bell Master version 1.0.0 is out!

Version 1.0.0 is out!

This version fixes a few issues from version 0.13.0. If you've played that version with no problems, you can skip this release.

Windows 64, Windows 32, 2019-10-09 08:20:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Dev Update 04/10/2019

Update time!

So the ending is out. I know it's been a bit divisive for some. But hopefully you all had fun with it nonetheless. I'd like to take this chance to thank everyone who shared their thoughts and feedback. It means a lot to me to know that people are engaged enough with the game to care strongly in either direction. If you have a take on it and you haven't shared it yet, please do! I can only get better at this whole writing thing if I know what works and wha...

Bell Master gallery unlock guide

I figured I may as well make a complete list once instead of answering individual questions, feel free to link anyone asking how to unlock a certain image to this post.

And obviously, spoilers.

Stat Training 

Send nudes - arousal 1 training

Isn't that flashy - arousal 2 training 

Can't ever be too sure - arousal 2 training 

Make love to the camera - arousal 2 training 

Meetings can be boring - arousal 3 ...

Dev Update 28/09/2019

Update time!

First off, Phoenix delivered the last piece of art yesterday and the game is now officially in final testing. I'd like to take this chance to thank AWolfe again for volunteering his time and skills in making sure you get a less buggy game. Your help has been consistent and invaluable, thank you.

In addition to integrating all of the endings art. I've also added a few new outfits to the wife's dynamic roster, and a really minor random event of the wife in her new PJs. ...