The long wait

Hiyp!

I am beginning to understand very deeply why so many game projects get delayed, especially the indie kinds.

I am terribly sorry leading people to think the game might finish at any time. It's a gladiatorial battle between my IRL commitments, free time and porn game development. The game development is getting its share of love but code issues and general writing blocks kinda fracture the tiny time slots I can dedicate to the game.

I could probably spoil the general contents of the Demo/V 1.0 to give a better understanding of its size. I wont include any specifics about the character, guests or anything you'd like to find/learn yourself. Just statistics about the the content in the demo. (Number of characters, items, etc).

--Very mild spoilers below--

• The whole game takes place in the small peninsula that's been featured in the media for the game. A temperate, almost tropical beaches and sparse jungles.
• There's a single hub location that has multiple characters.
• There are few smaller "single screen locations" sprinkled around the demo area.
• The demo area is blocked off with obstacles that can be overcome when the game is expanded.
• 4 romanceable female characters.
• 2 romanceable male characters.
• 1 romanceable other/obscure/strange character.
• Total number of characters is 9 (you can romance 7/9 characters).
• Few of the romances have same sex interactions.
• 4 different mobs that have two genders each (4*2 = 8) that all have sex scenes.
• Very few items.
• Very few combat cards.
• Minimal character progression in terms of stats and itemization.
• A single more fleshed out "quest" that is partly linked to a specific romance.

*character: A character that talks in the game, something you could consider a person.
*mob: A character that does not talk, "a non-person", usually an animal.
*romanceable: A character that has romantic interactions with the player that features a sex scene.


QA

Q: Romanceable male characters? I thought this was hetero only game?
A: It never was. I am biased towards the hetero porn myself but I don't have rules against other kinds of sexual interaction.

Q: "Other" sex character? Is this a futa/transgender/etc?
A: It's a character that doesn't fit into female or male category. This sometimes happens when designing very alien characters. It is not a bait & switch encounter if you feel anxious about that.

Q: Only 2 romanceable male characters?
A: I admit a bias towards creating female characters over males but there will be more in the future. The content is mainly limited by my own motivation and time.

Q: Uh, lots of mobs you fool around with... You're sure this isn't a wildlife dicking simulator?
A: The amount of "Mobs" and sex scenes associated with them stems from a simple reason. They are far easier to create than full fledged characters because they are self contained and they have no "proper" dialogue. The actual text content is 100 to 1 against the mobs.

Q: Why no character progression/items/cards/etc?
A: The demo area is fairly conflict free place and there's really no appropriate context to attach the combat mechanics to. I intend to expand the combat and character progression experience greatly in the version after the demo. The demo mostly plays like a visual novel but does feature few fights that alter or bar progression in some instances.

Q: When is the game coming out?
A: I would tell you if I knew. Currently I'm editing and writing out the dialogue/quest content. I'm a very slow writer and I don't have much experience writing these kinds of stories or in this format. I've gotten better at it but it's still a pain for me. I could give a day but I can't gurantee it's any accurate than the other three I've completely blown past. I blame myself for some dumb decisions I've made regarding the development. For example, I've added more content to make the game "worthier" of the extended development time. The irony of this is not lost on me. I also tried to juggle other content creators before the actual release and just murdered my productivity making the game.

A preview video

Video notes:

• Video spoils the very start of the game. (Like the first 20 seconds)
• The tone of the video is different from the actual game.
• The combat UI is a preliminary version that will feature in the first release. The final goal is to have actual cards with cool pictures in them and better feedback effects for the number stuff (damage, attack cost, etc).
• Exampla is not going to be in the game. She will be available as a tutorial character for writer's through the dev menu.
• The map movement is done via mouse clicks in the video for illustrating the map movement but the more reasonable way to move on the map is done by using the numpad keys.
• The dialogue can be hurried by clicking the screen. I avoid doing that in the video for demonstration purposes.
• The card deck: You can put any amount of cards into the deck but if it's less than the minimum (20 atm) all the empty spots will be random cards from your card inventory in combat.
• You can lock cards in combat to keep them for start of the next turn.
• Player has three weapon slots: Mainhand, offhand and sidearm.
• Items can give cards that will be added to the deck and are guaranteed for the first turn.
• The items in the inventory are not the starting items.
• The cards in the inventory are not the starting cards.
• Some UI art elements are unfinished.
• The color got little desaturated in the video, no idea why.
• Yes the Patreon button in the main menu is pretty obnoxious.
• Previewing teratophilia game with a anthropomorphic blue lizard was probably not the brightest idea.
• Sex scene is censored for the preview video because YouTube.
• I somehow forgot to add shoes to my inventory.
• God it looks like trash, So much time wasted.
• gg ez.

Oh no the sketches!

Help!

I slipped and a zip containing the 276 sketches I promised fell out of my pocket. Help me pick up this zip before someone downloads it.

Zip

Disclaimer: The sketches may contains non-insignificant amounts of the following ingredients.

• Cheese
• Rush
• Old
• Derivative
• Bad
• Boring

I will post the revised writer docs next.

WIP Writer docs

WIP writer docs:

Google folder

Let me have any feedback you have on the docs. You can write in the comments or send email to: meandraco.gamedev@gmail.com

I'll dump the sketches after I have addressed the critique/feedback on the writers docs. The revised writer docs will be included with the sketches.

Teraurge progress update

So I have this fear.

That when I release the Teraurge sketches, some dutiful xenophilia lover goes and uploads every single one of them to every porn image site and buries my lovingly rendered stuff under 276 monochrome sketches.

And it's gonna happen whether I like it or not. Pfft...

This is the first screenshot of Teraurge. It was a little different in 2013.

Progress update

So I noticed some harsh flaws in my scripting system that made scripting stuff unnecessarily complex and buggy. I really want the system be super easy to use so writers don't have pull their dicks/vaginas/other off to get stuff working. 

So I amended my scripting system to fix the flaws. This caused a chain reaction with stuff. I needed to update writer docs and slightly reformat the existing dialogue files to make everything work. I also have to re-test a lot of stuff.

Content wise, I'm trying to improve player stat based reactivity and ensure there's content for different kinds of characters. At the moment male characters have the content majority. I'm trying to improve the female side.

At the moment I'm plugging holes in the content so players can experience the game without the debug menu. It's looking good. Let me work on it some more.

This was Teraurge in 2014. The game had some issues with art style and with the art of speaking things that people speak.

What next

I'm going to release the WIP writer docs and ask feedback on them.

After I get some feedback, I'll revisit the docs and post the new versions along with the giant pile of sketches. After I've posted the docs and the sketches the actual release will not be far.

For realsies.

PS: Suggest a reliable file sharing site.

PSS: I put up my Patreon page. Don't pledge anything yet, please.

More delays!

So this thematically appropriate release date (14.02.2017) is gonna slide by as well. There's reasons, but I really don't want to fill this blog with whining how I can't get stuff done.

The game is looking nice but I can't release it yet.

I will keep at it. Assume release date as "Soon" for now. I will give you a heads up a few days before release.

I told you not to get too excited

So the release is getting delayed, again! For reasons.

I thought I'd announced this a little earlier this time, than two days from release. Welcome to amateur game development.

Less tentative release date: 14.02.2017 

Teraurge release date.

So this is what was supposed to happen:

• Dec 23th I'd release zip of 276 sketches and the writer documentation.
• Dec 24th I'd release Teraurge.

But that didn't happen.

I started crazy crunch on the game in december and surprisingly it didn't really work the way I wanted. Some of the pictures I had pegged for the picture calendar were unfinished so I spent several days working on those, when I was supposed to be working on the game, so that cut into the crunch time.

I managed make the demo perfectly playable but... The rushed content was extremely spotty. I wanted to make the content in the demo an example for the writers, so just slapping shit into a sandcastle seemed counterproductive.

Trying to crunch in December is pretty dumb idea in general. So I decided to just drop the release and concentrate on fixing shit in the demo. I've added a new character and other stuff. I've also found several bugs that would've been pretty embarrassing.

So those were the excuses. Tentative release date is now 31.1.2017. Don't get too exited.

I'll try release the sketches ahead of the game.

Exclusive screenshot of teraurge_janitor.exe (It's a writer tool)

Teraurge is a working game with stuff in it!