In-Game Features, Part 2: The Wardrobe

When i was building the main character’s bedroom, which is Level 2 in the game (oops, spoiler), i thought it would be nice to make it a clickable object. With a click on it, the avatar would change her outfit, depending on what is needed at that particular point in the story.

But quickly i felt that this simple one-click interaction wasn’t enough. VG is a Point&Clicker game after all, so give the people more stuff to interact with! I couldn’t get this thought out of my head…

On the other hand, a full wardrobe feature would be really terrifying to develop:

To give the player a way to choose between a number of outfits and change it permanently, well, that is simply impossible (with this game). I would need to create thousands of extra sprites and program all the optional outfits somehow… no way!

In the meantime i found a better way, one that adds some more gameplay without making it too complicated to realise…

How does the wardrobe feature work?

First of all, the player must finish some tasks in order to enable the wardrobe feature. Once it is enabled, a click on the wardrobe opens a nice menu that shows the stylized inside of the wardrobe.

In the top area there are 3 buttons with small preview pics of available outfits and the player must choose the right one. A click will open a bigger preview pic and another button confirms the choice and exits the menu.

In the demo and early game there will be only 2 options, to keep it simple. Later in game more variations and even a kind of mini game is possible.

So what about the third button?

Remember Venus Guild is an erotic game? So the third option will undress the character! Of course, the player needs to make some progress to receive this sexy option. And the character will only stay naked in the particular room.

But the exact functionality isn’t carved in stone yet. I just wanted to talk about it 🙂

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to leave a comment 😉

Venus Guild Game Features. Part 1: The Map

I’m still working on v0.07, the “Feature Update” of my game Venus Guild (venusguild.com). I’ve already told you that this update is very work-intense. Maybe it’s the right moment to tell you more about those features.

But not in only one post, that would be too much of a text wall 🙂

I will write a series of posts about the game features i’m working on. Maybe i can re-use some of the texts later again for documentation and tutorials.

I want Venus Guild to become a really cool Point & Click Adventure that stands out from all those erotic games out there. After playing with some of them it’s obvious that Venus Guild will follow a different path.

One thing that will give you a clue about the scale of the ingame world is…

…the Map!

The main character Luisa will not stay at home all the time. She needs to travel around to other locations. I think it will be neat to open the map and click on a destination. And it will be exciting to see new locations pop up over time when the player makes progress.

I have some screenshots for you! No spoilers, don’t worry 😉

This is the first version of the map:

Map of the city San Ricardo Valley in Venus Guild v0.0.7

I’ve created the landmass with the free map generator “Azgaar’s Fantasy Map Generator” and painted roads, forests, the city and other things on it.

It isn’t the most beautiful map yet, but imagine that the buttons to the playable locations are still not there. Those buttons will show small renders of the actual 3D Location, such like this:

Now you’re wondering where Fountain Lane is located on the map, right? 😀

Back to the topic, i already have plans for a new, more beautiful, map. Just discovered “Mapgen4” and it seems to be a very cool tool. We’ll see later, redesigning the map isn’t very important atm…

My top priority is to make the map work in a cool way. It’s tricky but everything is possible.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading!

What do you say? Do you like my map? Are you excited? Leave a comment below and/or contact me on twitter.

Stay tuned!

Venus Guild 0.0.6

Guys, i’ve been sick last week… but no excuses! I’ve integrated a basic map functionality and decided to go on to the next milestone and develop VG 0.0.7, the pre-alpha ‘Feature’ Update.

This is probably the most important milestone on the way to the first public pre-alpha build.

With 0.0.7 i will basically have the demo ready, with all features i’ve planned for the game and a storyline that introduces the main character and that will serve as a tutorial.

This update requires much work, i need to dive really deep into my code and figure out many things that could be put into cold storage earlier.

I hope i could seed a bit of interest in Venus Guild in you so far. Stay tuned and thanks for your support!

Venus Guild Game

I’ve promised to reveal the title and website of my game, once i’ve reached milestone 0.0.5…

Here we go!

Venus Guild Game Logo

Venus Guild is a 2D Point & Click Adventure for Adults. It contains classical P&C mechanics as well as visual novel elements. Everything’s visualized with original 3D Characters, Models and Graphics.

Please check out venusguild.com immediately for latest news.

Also note, that i dedicate all my free time to this project and everything else is still on hold. I even changed my main twitter address to @VenusGuild.

Good News, 0.04 is done

Only a few days after 0.03 i’ve finished the “Menu Update” Pre-Alpha 0.04.

This update includes a nice Start Screen and main Menu-Functionality like New Game, Continue, Quit, as well as in-game mechanics like switching between scenes without losing progress and score. And going back to the start screen from within the game.

When i write “nice Start Screen” it means nothing less than the face of the game, the first impression the player gets. So it’s a pretty important thing to do, but i think i came up with a cool logo and design. I’ve been working on it for a while.

Anyway, all of this may not sound too hard to make, but i also created the GUI with all its original buttons and icons. I can’t wait to show it to you!

And i feel sorry that i only post text walls since months… No new render, nothing. But this will change in a little while!

…because i’ve almost finished the website too!

It’s a mobile-first (the game won’t be perfect for mobile, tho) one-pager with all the important information right on the startpage. But i also want to add a FAQ-Section and put together a package for the press and content creators.

Last not least i need to update my patreon page in an appealing way before the game’s homepage goes online, so that everything fits nicely together.