Dev Update #2 - Further Plans (Patreon)

Hello everyone!  I know it's been a while since the last one, but I wanted to give an update about where I'm going with my "vore dating/visual novel". In the last update, I talked about playing some dating/simulator games to figure out the appeal, and what, if anything, I'd like to implement in my game. So far I've played through a couple, most specifically  VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action and Dream Daddy,  both of which were popular choices in the genre. Now, I have not yet finished either of them, but I was able to glean some helpful information regardless.

Here's what I've found (feel free to add as needed):

- The games create scenarios where interactions with characters yield interesting views into those character's personalities

- The games make a player feel what choices they make, or their actions, affect the story. For Valhalla for example, that's finding the right (or wrong) drink for the chosen patron. For Dream Daddy, it's much more direct (it's a dating game after all)

- They offer replayability based on the choices made

- These are all done with fun artwork and music (duh)

I've been brainstorming exactly how to apply any/all of this to my idea. My take away is that this is going to require a *lot* of writing, like, more than I initially realized. XD Even if Fomo and Forest are the main characters in this, the amount of dialogue needed is gonna take some doing, especially with branching paths, and for any sort of ending scenes/restarts based on reformation. Any side characters would take less effort, but even they will take some work.

I'm also getting a feel for just how much artwork will be needed!  There's gonna have to be a multitude of expressions for each character, and possibly poses, and while I don't want to do full body poses with animated breathing and whatnot, blinking at least might be possible to make them feel more "alive". I think if I can get a good template going, this shouldn't be too difficult. The ending scenes will definitely require the most work, as they'll be full blown vore sequences if things work well.

Mock-ups

Knowing all this, I think I'm getting a good idea in my head about how this would go. I wanted to include both dynamic status changes (updated name, pronouns, etc.), and allow a sort of user customization that would actually change the flow of the game. Kind of like how Valhalla has the drink system, I figure something like species/clothes/etc. would affect how certain characters respond to you!

This is real basic here, and I might want to include some limited clothing as well...For, example, after you "beat" the game, having the option to wear a "food" shirt that lets you skip a lot of the dialogue to just get to the ending. X3 Things like that!

I talked a lot about the pronoun use with a few people, which I think is important in a game like this (and in general), and decided that instead of trying to account for how many ways people choose to identify themselves and accidentally leaving someone out, I'd just let people add in their own terms! This might lead to people putting in "funny words" just to mess with the system, but I think that's a small price to pay for more control over how you appear in the game.

Tying into the above idea, I mocked up a dialogue scene to show how some of this might work.

I figure Fomo is the initial "date" target, but if you talk to him when Forest is about, you'll find that you'd have an easier time with him if you had something related to bunnies, or were a bunny yourself!  So I figure if you go back to your room and find something like that, or heck, just change your species, you open up a whole 'nother story branch.

Granted, this does complicate things a bit, and could end up really not as appealing as I imagine it in my head, but we'll have to see how it plays out, right? X3

In any case, I'll probably work on some more mock-ups, and the overall storyline, even if I have some ideas for it already. Let me know what you think so far! There's a lot more to this than I originally realized, haha.