Developer's Journal 3:11 (Patreon)

Hey everybody.  This week we are going to talk about Aghavni.

Aghavni is obviously a very important part of the story.  Her volunteer investigation is the catalyst for everything that happens.  She is passionate about getting justice for Amy, the murder victim, and has worked very hard to solve the case.  We've now had multiple evidences of her great detective instincts.  And although she did put the axe on her relationship with MC five years ago, she still cares for him.  If MC is able to trust her again, she can be a good friend and a support as he struggles to overcome the traumas of his past.

In short, Aghavni is a character who should be taken seriously for multiple reasons.

As the story for Leaving DNA only involves four Love Interests, I tried to include a variety of physical types for the four LI's so that the chances are better that each player will find someone who appeals to them physically.  There's a tall, muscular Latina.  There's a short, petite Blonde.  There's an adorable redhead (whose chest was intentionally made ample, although not oversized, in order to contrast sharply with the image of her as a child).  If I would have had more LI slots, I could have had more variety.  Someone taller than Malena.  Someone with very long hair.  A petite woman with glasses and a smaller butt than Emmeline.  An Asian LI.  A Black LI.  A tattooed LI.  A skater LI.  There's always something about the appearance of the models that will appeal to some players and not appeal to others, and there will always be players who wish something were there that isn't.

Aghavni's model was intentionally designed to appeal to the very large group of adult game players who like big boobs and big butts.  I did try to avoid going overboard with her dimensions, and I think that given the number of AVN models out there who literally have beach ball sized breasts, her dimensions aren't absurd.  But, because I was new to both character modeling and AVN's in general, what I didn't understand was that if I wanted a big boob/big butt model, I should have made her thicker all over.  Instead, I made a skinny model with an oversized chest and butt.

Since the game's first release, Aghavni's mismatched proportions have been much discussed, to the point where it has now become clear to me that her model design is a distraction from what I'm trying to create, i.e. a story to be taken seriously.  While I still want to have a model like Aghavni for the players who like that type of model, I don't want to have any model in the game that actually pulls players out of their immersion in the story.

I have therefore made a decision to make some very small, subtle changes to Aghavni's model.  I don't want to make fundamental changes because I want her to still be recognizable as Aghavni by returning players.  She's still thin and she's still got giant-sized cans.  But she has been slightly thickened to make the contrast between her thin frame and her large breasts slightly less jarring.  I've also taken off some of the excess "point" on her glutes.

Frankly, the changes are so small I considered not reporting them because I honestly think that if I hadn't then anyone resuming the game with Episode Three would not even have noticed that anything about Aghavni had changed.  Nevertheless, I do try to be open with my financial supporters and I think you always deserve to know what I'm spending my time on.

While I think these changes would have gone unnoticed by returning players who have already formed their opinion about Aghavni, I also believe that the newer version will be easier for newer players to accept and take seriously.  So that's why I'm doing it.

I'm not redoing all of Aghavni's renders from Episodes One and Two, but I am planning to redo all the ones where her frame is prominent, including her animations.  Based on the work I've done on this so far, I estimate that it will add six to seven days to the development time of Episode Three.

I don't expect this to be a popular decision.  Although the poll I ran earlier suggested that Aghavni is the least popular LI, she definitely has some fans.  And players who like Aghavni just the way she is won't want to see her changed.  Meanwhile, players who did complain about her proportions are going to say I'm wasting my time because I haven't gone far enough.

For those players who do like Aghavni just the way she is, I apologize to you.  It's not fair to give you a story where you get attached to a character and then change the character before the story is over.

Nevertheless, at this point Leaving DNA has reached only a very small fraction of its final audience, and I have to make whatever decisions I feel are best for the long term health of the game.  I firmly believe that new players will universally have a better experience with Leaving DNA if I incorporate this change.

If you want to see the old and new comparisons, check out the attached zip folder.  *WARNING: FULL NUDITY*

That's all for this week.  Thank you for your support!

--Monk