Progress Log 10/26/21 - UI Work, Handheld Toys and Nai (Patreon)

Alright! It’s been a minute since our last progress log and this month has been packed with necessary work. Things like the revamp and the steam page ate up some time, but we still managed to get some stuff done.

Toybox in Crystal Road

Crystal Road has had a proper toybox implemented. This will work similarly to how it does in the cappuccino games, albeit with slight adjustments to the game mechanics.

The heart meter in the top left has replaced the bar that we had along the bottom of the screen and it indicates how much a character is enjoying the session. Actions on the right side can be used in conjunction with most toys.

Programming Handheld Toys in Cappuccino 2

Project Cappuccino 2 has received some attention and we’ve been working on getting handheld toys working properly. The original cappuccino had a very haphazard way of handling toys that follow the mouse cursor, and they’re being done in a much cleaner way now.

I got fed up with Unity’s New Input system and decided to not use it for Project Cappuccino 2. Instead, I’m using Rewired.

If you’ve ever messed with any Unity stuff, you probably know about the New Input System, which I personally think is garbage and full of holes at the moment. I’d rant more about it but I've wasted enough time with it. When I manage to get Rewired nice and clean in Capp 2, I’m probably going to remove Unity’s input from Crystal Road too.

(In this gif, the white squares are receivers that will be placed around the body to detect when a toy is used.)

Toys will function as expected when selecting one from the toybox, but they also have controller support this time around, meaning you can use most gamepads. The framework for handheld toys will also carry over to Crystal Road when we add this type of toy to that game.

We're also taking jiggle physics to the next level! Some toys will have a small reaction when used, while spanking will be more visible. The new bone system in the engine really allows us to make this kind of thing more interesting.

Completed Nai’s Dialogue Sprite

Dr.Nai now has a fully animated dialogue sprite.

It was a bit tricky to animate her wings but it’s good that we got practice since a lot of the new succubi girls have wings too. We still need to get her overworld sprite done, which Doku is currently working on.

While working on this, we also discovered a way of cutting down on a ton of development time by importing pre-assembled sprites.

The old method involved creating a sprite sheet, and then assembling it in the engine like a giant puzzle. It was tedious and time consuming.

The new method uses Photoshop PSB files. Boom. INSTANT.

Doku pre-assembles these herself when drawing them and then I simply drag them in and get started on rigging and animating. This saves about a day or two for characters and it's usable with pretty much anything that needs to be imported. In the long run, it's going to save weeks, or maybe even months of work.

Note for Next Month

Doku and I will be out of town for about a week during November. We are aiming to have a build release next month, but it may be a bit early or late depending on how much work we're able to get done. Thanks for understanding!

That’s all we got for now!

-Vanis & Doku