Q&A #3 (Patreon)

This is it! The third Q&A! It's been around a year since the last one, so here we go! Sorry for my usual wall of text. It's... a long read.

Here's the link for the first Q&A and here's the link for the second one! (And here is the extra powerscaling Q&A stuff)

Q = Question // E = Elinniel (Me! Hi!)

Q- As a huge Boo fan, are you planning much more content for her? Any chance of maybe an event/ending similar to Peach's getting the protagonist pregnant?

E: Boo is a bit of an odd character that I fear I sidelined too much. Originally I wanted to make a bit more buildup before she would get any scenes, but Hildegard stole her update and ended up getting a full romance storyline on the following update, while poor Boo got the little sister treatment and a somewhat rushed continuous scene(I really love that scene, but it really could've been longer for the sake of Boo's character growth).So, uh... maybe? I really like writing Boo’s dialogues. She is a really funny character to write. I even had a little note written during the Basement on a Hildegard/Boo threesome scene.Don’t get your hopes up for a pregnant protagonist, though. Boo has no such magic. She is very magically talented, but unlike Peach, Boo has no real training or practice in magic.

Q- Hiya! I wanted to know how you settled on our six main girls and what factored into the decision, whether it was their importance to the story/setting, the archetype they fill, the kinks they have, etc…

E: At first, it was only Lamir who was planned as a character, who is the childhood friend archetype. When we decided to expand the game beyond the first version(which was just the Lamir intro scene), I wanted to add a few characters to liven up the city! Those characters were Elinnie, Maribel, Clarine, Illyana, and Lene.

For these new characters, I wanted a few things:Two short girls, two medium girls(Protagonist sized, or as I like to say, one Lamir tall), and two tall girls. (I kinda used this for a lot of stuff. Two big tits, two medium, two small. Two small feet, two medium feet, etc...)

Originally, it was Elinnie and Maribel as the two shorties, Clarine and Lamir as the mid-height, and Illyana and Lene as the very tall. In the end, things kinda got swapped around.

As for archetypes, these are the character pitches for each, and not really how they turned out, but...

-Lamir was the childhood friend

-Elinnie was the sleazy merchant/clown

-Lene was a grumpy “smell ya later” type rival

-Illyana was an over the top tsundere

-Clarine was always meant to be the “Bro”. (she kinda still is)

-Maribel was the sweet and romantic doctor

Each of them would have a very clear kink they’d follow. This kinda went to the wayside pretty early on, but some of them still have their special kinks:

-Lamir is the “Anything goes”

-Elinnie is anal sex

-Lene, y’know, has a dick

-Illyana is foot fetish

-Clarine is exhibitionism

-And Maribel was supposed to be “romance”. Maribel wasn’t going to have a questline like the others, and instead, you’d take her out on dates and properly court her. (The crazy personality stuff was added because Zehmun thought Maribel was too boring, and being “sweet romance” wasn’t going to work in the game’s setting, considering you’d need to drag yourself across her entire dating thing to bed her.)

Note that in the original concept, some characters would only reciprocate some advances. Maribel would dislike it if the protagonist were too submissive towards, Lene would always refuse if the protagonist tried to dominate her, and Elinne wouldn’t want any romantic stuff coming her way. That would make Lamir’s “anything goes” thing more exclusive. She’d be the only one who would always accept whatever the player picked.

Honestly, looking back, I kinda wish I had spent more time planning the Sex Valley main cast before I put them into the game. I think some of them don’t have much going for them and need something extra. Clarine 100% should’ve been an adventurer instead of a fisherman. You can feel how Clarine never appears on content that isn’t hers or Maribel’s(And a lot of the time when she isn't with Maribel, she is just “the Lamir friend”), and that is because of how limiting her character is. Instead, Lene, Illyana, Elinnie, and Maribel always pop up on many quests because they are important to the city as a whole, and Lamir is just everyone’s friend, so she is always around and...

Oh boy, I’m going down the rabbit hole here. Let me calm down, or I'll start a Clarine rant.

Q- Are there plans for less futa content? Specifically asking for the polls, I feel like even if theres just one Futa Option it always dominates them. I feel like there should be a seperate poll for just futa options.

E: That’s a hard thing to answer. You see, I work on Sex Valley by myself, right? I do art, writing, and coding. Because I want to spoil you guys a bit, I do the suggestion polls every month! However, the only real issue is that any suggestion poll I make takes my time away from working on the game.So yeah, there's usually only one poll, mostly because I don’t have time to make two polls every month. When I feel like I’ll have extra time in the month I do two polls, and there’s usually a “no futa” poll! (Like this month, for example!)

Q- When is the game expected to be finished?

E: My current estimation is three months from now.I am, however, notoriously bad at estimations. When Zehmun handed me over the game project I decided I’d wrap up the game in three updates! (One for me to learn how to use rpgmaker, the Kiria quest, and the ending), and... well, it’s been two years. "Hey, let me finish giving designs for the generic villagers: Adds Sophie, Eris and Nameless and stay around 3 updates on them" "Hey, the tutorial sucks! Let's rework it: Add Bum-Bum and the whole Spirits stuff into the game and lose around 6 updates just on Spirits and farm stuff"

And when I say “finished” here I mean more as a “stop making quest or large updates”. I’d still make a few scenes and bug fixing while I’m starting work on the ELUSIVE SIDE PROJECT!

Q- What's your favorite monster girl?

E: Hard question... uhhh........Either dragon, demon, or bunny girl depending on the day.

Q- Who's your favorite Sex Valley character, now?

E: The yearly question! Right now, it is probably Blazing Soul! I absolutely adore her design!From the normal fantasy classes, I always had a huge thing for the martial artist, and there’s the martial artist character! Her also being a comically over-the-top tsundere is another thing that I really like!Runner-ups are the same suspects as always, Sophie, Hildegard, Maribel, Hapi...

Q-Is there any Sex Valley character you dislike?

E: Tricky question to answer. I will ignore Eris for this question, as I wrote her in a way to be disliked, even by me. (She hot though)Let’s see... is there really anyone I actively dislike? I don’t think so. Even some of the more elusive characters like Alessia(also written to be disliked, but I think she is so over the top she is funny, so she gets a pass) or fucking Badger, who doesn’t even have a drawing are fine... uhh... maybe the pirate captain from Clarine’s quest is the only one I don’t really like much? Mostly because I think her art looks off.

Q- What's your favorite type ? Mommies, baddies, gyarus, doomers, goths, tomboys, etc... Or a mix of some?

E: I like mommy and big sis types the best. If I could just... get a hug... 

Q- I've always been curious, how exactly did Lene get that picture of Lamir she uses to masturbate? And for that matter how does the pictures work in the lore? It's described as a crystal in the scene, is it like a magical Polaroid?

E: This is a funny question. I never did go into details on it, huh? I think during the second Bum-Bum quest she does give a bit more context on the picture stuff, but that’s all we really get on those.

The setting Sex Valley takes place isn’t as medieval and ancient as presented. It’s just that the whole story takes place in a little village in the middle of nowhere.The pictures are taken using a special magic crystal that preserves light and saves images from it. The crystal isn’t actually a polaroid. It doesn’t regurgitate a picture, instead it saves it and the images can be transcribed from the crystal to paper,It’s an expensive magic item, so very few people have them!

Q- anything you regret not implementing in the game?

E: I wish I had done something with the passage of time before throwing that concept away and just going with the “time is convoluted” excuse. Maybe kill off Therese from old age in the second year, give some characters different designs(I will not go over Sophie's cut daughter again here)... The passage of time is my current pet peeve, honestly!

Q- You don't have to get specific, but curious if there are any foundational/character/etc lessons you've learned from working on Sex Valley (Specifically on things that changed/developed since its start) that you want to carry on or further develop in any future projects you may have (Elusive side project included).

E: Some of you guys who have been around for a while probably know, but Zehmun was supposed to be the one taking care of writing the game, and I’d only do the art/character design. And while I kinda took over writing before the first update was ever released, the game’s setting was his creation. And... I’d say the entire foundation Sex Valley is built over is boring. I personally don’t think it was interesting at all at the beginning. Everything can be described as a “mildly fantasy/medieval setting where there’s only one guy for reasons”, and while that can be excused as a “it’s a silly porn game”, it really pisses me off.

Everything, EVERYTHING was built upon that foundation. I’m not going to say it’s as bland now, but a lot of stuff was added later because I thought the setting was boring. The whole caves subplot wasn’t supposed to be a thing early on. Kiria was added so the protagonist had a motivation to explore the caves, the Goddess was added to explain why there’s only one dude around, Bum-Bum was added to better develop the farm stuff, the spirits to explain the magic system...Still, because a lot of these things weren’t decided at the beginning, it can be a bit of a mess, which I believe might even have some plot holes.

I can also kinda go into a self critique of myself on how I used to create characters early on. Almost every early single Sex Valley character was made in a vacuum. They are simple, somewhat one-dimensional characters, who sometimes have one or two character traits that set them apart and are written ONLY to interact with the protagonist and not with each other. The only characters who were planned to have strong feelings for each other is the one sided anger Lamir has for Illyana. Even the Lene crushing over Lamir was me being sneaky~

And don’t let me get started on how characters never interact with each other, or straight up don’t have relationships with anyone. 

So, uh, yeah... A lesson I really want to take to the ELUSIVE SIDE PROJECT is putting more thought on who a character is and how they bounce off of other characters, instead of focusing only on “looks and personality” and calling it a day. And of course, making a good in-depth setting that can actually support stories to be written upon.

Q-What’s been the biggest struggle for making Sex Valley? Making characters? Planning out quests?

E: In my files, Sex Valley is still named “Project2k19”. The name meant it was a project to be finished by the end of 2019, and... well, look where I still am, huh?

I’d point towards three massive struggles I faced:The first is how the quests are huge! You know, I always hated fetch quests. I hate when you play a game and talk to a character and they go “Yo, go grab that flower for me, thx”, so when I started writing the character quests they got so unbelievably bloated for the simple fact that I didn’t want the quest to feel hollow or “fetch quest-y”. If I truly wanted, I think I could cut over half of every single quest that is wasted on the characters just chatting. (Still, I think it humanizes the characters)

My second major struggle is... exposition.Inside me there are two wolves. One wants to write down obscure lore, suggest its existence, and never confirm or deny it, so it can be left for the player's imagination. And then, there is the wolf who wants to tell everything and just go into long ass exposition dumps. 

Honestly, I don’t think there are any big issues with that, but because the game has such a basic foundation and I don’t plan more than 3 updates in advance, some stuff is never mentioned or kept too vague before I have to use it. The biggest examples are the Basement Quest and the Ending Quest. A third of both of these quests are just exposition on the experiments and on how the spirits work! The last huge issue is my obvious inability to prevent the content creep from happening. I WAN to expand the crow stuff, I WANT to make a Boo Quest, I really, REALLY want to make a romance storyline for Hapi and make her a love interest. Will I do it? I dunno, but if I did it'd just be me, once again failing to control myself.

Q- I’m not sure if it was ever mentioned in-game, but why the twins are able to open a weird-ass dimension during Illyana's quest?

E: ...The vague wolf won’t allow me to say. It’s heavily alluded to in-game. If you know you can say, but you won’t hear it from me!But this one whole Mia and Nia were something I wanted to explore and sadly got murdered together with the Adventurer's Guild Expansion.

Q-Do you having fun Making illust and Game RN?

E: In fact I do have fun making the game! Although my messages are usually pretty pitiful and mostly are me complaining, I am naturally a person who complains a lot, so a lot of times things are just peachy, but I still want to complain.

Things aren’t always cheerful happiness, though, so when I’m not having fun or feeling extra miserable, I’ve been switching over to plan the ELUSIVE SIDE PROJECT, which has been a smidge more fun to work on. I'd argue it's the difference between playing with soft clay and concrete. I can still mold the Elusive Side project stuff, while Sex Valley I have to work around its content.

Q- Gallery when?

E: Gallery, huh? Well, that’s something that has kept me awake at night for years. I’ll say that after I finish the ending I’ll consider it. The game wasn’t made with a gallery in mind. If it is a simple image gallery I guess I can do, but I’m pretty sure people would prefer a scene gallery, and that... would be horrible to make. Still, it’s possible after I’m done with the Ending update!

Q-NTR Valley when?

E: Not the right type of game for that. The most you’re getting is a girl stealing the protagonist away from the others. (I still kinda wanna do the Hildegard x Hapi scene, though...)

Q-Are we able to commission art of a character? If so, how can we?

E: I do take commissions from time to time! You can see from time to time that I post commissions I make! I even have some already done I'll likely post soon-ish.

Just send me a message if you’re interested, and we can talk!

Q- Is there something specific you want to get better at this year ?

E: I’ve been trying to get better in a few areas I’m not the best at.

I’ve been trying to get better at drawing breasts, but I’ve been thinking I’ve been making them look too saggy, and I might be going over the top with the boob squish lately. And there's my whole small titties training arc I've been going through lately.

“cute” faces are something else I’m trying to get better at! Y’know, rounder faces with the eyes lower? I tended to draw a very slender face for a long time, so I'm trying to do so, but a lot of the time I feel like I'm making the characters end up with a massive 5head.

Q- What kind of story will you make for the ELUSIVE SIDE PROJECT ?

E: Hmm, still not going to get into details until I start to directly work on it, as I like the freedom to change stuff if I want to, but I want to do an ensemble cast with a bickering found family theme. I’ll think I'll tone down a bit on romance compared to Sex Valley.

Q-Now that Sex Valley is almost finished, what would you like to change/add in the game? Whether it's story, gameplay or characters.

E: I’m not saying I WILL change anything, but there’s always things one would like to change when dealing with a project for as long as I’ve dealt with Sex Valley.

Lemme think... If I had the patience and conviction, I’d like for characters to interact with other characters during quests. The issue is ALWAYS the "I don't know where the player's relationship with this character currently is, so I cannot write as I'd like". For example, Lene hates Maribel, but it's never explained why, and it never has a resolution, even if after the third quest Lene could probably talk and forgive Maribel. Why? Because many interactions spread through the game have Lene being a bitch to Maribel.Over time, I kinda got around this issue by just locking content behind completing "x quest and y quest"(Something I really didn't want to do at the start), but by then things were already too far into development for me to go back and fix that.

And looking back, I think I was too much of a coward by not making Hildegard and Peach more "evil". Both were initially thought to be evil characters and in both cases I just couldn't go through. If I could go back I'd make them a smidge more evil just because there's barely any "evil" characters. (I mean, what do we even have as evil characters? Ayla? Eris? Alessia?)

Q- Did becoming a dev change your view and how you engage with media/games?

E: Yes! It's kinda silly when you think about it, but when you're doing game dev you see something you like in a game, stop, stare and mull over, "Wow, why did I feel like that?", and you try to understand silly things.

Q- Any games you've been into lately?

E: Oh, this year I've decided I would go back to playing games when I'm feeling down or tired, so I'm playing some stuff, yeah. Lately I've replayed Elden Ring for the millionth time, played Dredge and Still Wakes the Deep, and am currently going through Expedition 33! I feel like playing a more narratively focused rpg. I tried playing Metaphor: Refantazio, but it just didn't click for me for some reason.

Q- When you started the project, did you think that the characters futa would be so popular? XD

E: Not really, no. I kinda wanted to add at least one, even if she is kinda going against the game's initial premise, and why there's a whole convoluted backstory on why she even exists.I always wondered, is Lene popular because she has a dick, because she has a fun personality, because of her design, or because of all three? Would, for example, someone unpopular like Maribel be at Lene's place as the most popular character if she had a third leg too? I dunno. Maybe?

Q-Can you update the powerscale with the new characters?

E: Okay. Since the last Q&A we only had the spirits as new characters added. I’ll keep the rules as we had last time, ok? If you need a refresher, just take a look at last year’s powerscaling stuff here.

The Spirit of Hatred, Cynthia is above the Protagonist and below Kiria. She is one of the strongest spirits.There’s a pretty huge gap between Kiria and the Protagonist. He IS the strongest mortal character(at the end of the game). Cynthia is somewhere in that gap.

The Spirit of the Blazing Soul is right under the Protagonist and above Obscuria. While she is the weakest spirit we have, she is the only one with real fighting training

The Spirit of Tide and Breeze are around just below Peach/Boo and above the Dragons. (If you want to be funny, you can consider a “Breeze with prep time” around the Protagonist power level)

Bum-Bum is a wild card. She can be anywhere depending on context. She does sucks at fighting and is a coward and is more likely to run away than fight even if she could theoretically win, so let's say she is around Mia and Nia's individual power or lower.