Roy's August 2022 Mailbag - Answer Time (Patreon)

Let's get to the mailbag and answer some questions. My thanks to everyone who submitted these. I've selected those I can easily answer, and I had to narrow it down to just a few. My apologies if your question did not get answered this time, but there will be future mailbags, I think. I'm keeping these questions saved in a file. Who knows? Maybe a question might get answered in a future dev update. Now, to your questions!

Some questions have been edited for clarity.

Will there be any chance of the girls becoming pregnant? - Ace

I have thought a lot about this. The issue becomes that some players really don't want this, which means I have to render two sets of renders for awhile, along with pose adjustments that go with it. Not to mention the story changes that are needed also. At the very end, as an epilogue, we might see it. It will not be included before then, if at all.

How linear is the game going to be with other respects than the choice of relationships with women. Will there be different paths and different endings (other than game over which I hate of course). Will there be some difficult moral decisions to be made? - Kuokaman

There are already a ton of branches. I'm sure more will open up, but I'm trying to avoid this getting too out of hand (well, more than it already is with 12 love interests, other paths, a kingdom spanning saga, etc.). A recent scene had 8 different branches that had to be accounted for, which is a bit much. I really would love to do something very deep with moral choices, but I'd be developing this on my own for many more years, if I did that. My view of history, especially from this period, will certainly play into how you do things. Sometimes there are no good choices - just different bad options. But as far as anything like "Save Kaylan" vs "Save Aelinia," that won't be happening. To Be A King has developed into something much more than the light and easy harem fuckfest that I originally planned, but I still want to keep it where you feel better after having played it. There is enough depressing stuff in the world. I'll let other developers make you depressed (looking at you, Naughty Dog).

There will be more meaningful choices, but I am trying to avoid anything that is an obvious good/bad choice from here on out. If I get to that point, I will rewrite the choice or scrap it. I'm still learning more of the research on game choices and how to present them, and I can say that I think you'll see more choice improvements with Chapter 10 onward. As far as any sweeping epic where you could replay it 4+ times and get a totally different story each time, I don't see that in the cards.

In regards to efficiency, what have been your most important development process improvements this year? - Rune

Presets. I'm still improving them, but narrowing down my options with my own custom presets that are setup how I want has been invaluable. It's saved my brain from fatigue, greatly shortened development time & stress, and helped me focus on other areas of the render. Lighting & postwork is second, but that is always a journey to improve. I've even brought presets and scripting into my postwork process, which has yielded amazing benefits there with the last two chapters. There's much more I want to do here, but the hours I spent in developing my own presets have already saved more time than they took, and I'm only two chapters into using them (with some getting their first use in Chapter 9's development). A lot of these presets can translate to other projects, as well.

Why don't you use animations in your game? - Somberzeke

A fantastic question here, and one I've gotten privately quite a bit. There are three main reasons To Be A King lacks these. Firstly, Daz's animation tools are utterly terrible. I spent 2 hours on a Blender animation tutorial, and I was able to create a much better animation there than I did in 3-4 months of work in Daz.

The second reason is related to the first. The animations I've done, and if you want to see them, check out the first episode of Last Call, are not good. I've tried since then, but they look unnatural. Studying excellent animations (not to mention real life) shows you how much the little things add up to what looks natural. Breathing, small movements, etc. To get all that in Daz takes a lot of skill and practice.

Finally, there is the time component. Even a very short lewd animation takes me a long time to setup. Now, spending a LOT more time in Daz working on animations might fix this, but then we have the render times for animations. Every second of animation is 30 individual renders. I'd say 3 seconds is really the minimum for most animations, so 90 renders right there, and you've got to look at every frame for clipping, weird Daz imposed changes, etc.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I'd prefer a game without poor animations to one with them. I can count on one hand the games I've played that had good animations that added to the story. Two of those were done in Blender.

If Daz ever improves its tools, I switch what 3D software I use to render, or I find out the secret to consistently good Daz animations, I'll start including them. Could I use Blender to do the animations? Sure, but then I have to get things exported over there, try and get my textures & lighting to match, etc. With my limited development time, I've just focused on other areas to improve the game. I do promise that I am regularly checking for new tutorials and methods. Animations, when done well, can certainly enhance a story. I've got big dreams for them, but, as of this moment, the results look like a two year old's finger painting by comparison.

Ever thought of translate the game in other languages? - Luis Batista

Actually I have! I am very open to this, especially for Volume 1. There is a lot to translate. If you are interested in doing this, please email me with the language you'd like to translate it into, along with any relevant experience. Thanks for the question!

Thank you all for the questions! Would you like to see me do something like this again? Let me know in the comments.