Sapphire Safari (Early Access)
Christmas Update v010
Merry Christmas explorers! We have a very festive update for you all, just in time for the holidays, our gift to everyone for a fantastic year of development.
Where to start though? We have a lot to go through, so how about the content that took us the longest to build?
Judging and Score
The first version of our photo scoring system took a long time to get right, we had a lot to build to ensure players were making lovely photos and rewarding players playing well. We do this by measuring visibility, how much of the girl is seen, and focus or clarity. Next, we look at the framing of the subject in the photo, are they following the 2/3 rule or center framing? Finally, we add in bonuses for the nudity visible and additional points for photos submitted to the monpedia.
After a score is given for a photo a letter number is assigned to the photo, this will help players determine how well received a photo is.
Processing Photos
With the new 5.1 Unreal Engine upgrade, we managed to get a starting version of our ideal photo process system in place. Previously it was saving to the HDD a massive photo that would actually pause the game to process all the effects on the photo, if you have a slower hard drive in your PC this can sometimes take a second or two PER PHOTO. Unacceptable, it also pushed a full notification on the desktop about a screenshot being taken, also unacceptable. Our new system builds the photos in the engine much much faster and eliminates the need for post-processing burden on the CPU. The next step is building far more lens effects into the system so we do not need to rely on the cinematic system (as it's quite heavy).
Not only that we now have a much more pretty animation for snapping photos! A new UI for the camera is coming soon as well, so this whole focus should feel and play really nicely within the next few updates.
Nippy Wallows Island and new Monsters
The big new content update for v010 is the snow biome island called Nippy Wallows! This is the first version of the map, so things feel a little simple right now, but we have massive plans for the space!
“An almost impossible snowscape formed around a slow-moving glacier, the depth of which has yet to be confirmed. The landmass is the host to several undocumented species of monsters seemingly unaffected by their extreme isolation.”
We also have two new Monster Girls to photograph!
From left to right:
Snubuns: A natural evolution of the Bunny Monster found on another island. Snubuns have evolved extra thick padding around its body to insulate them from the cold and natural tufts of fur stop snow from reaching their torso while it moves around.
Rubee: It is not unusual to see these creatures gathered together attempting to shelter one another from the cold and likely predators. Its personality is quite skittish with all attempts at interaction ending in failure. Occasionally you’ll see a variation with a bright red nose.
These two girls are exclusive to Nippy Wallow!
Research Level
The last massive addition to the game which is just a little buggy right now is our Research Level mechanic. Within this new system, playing the game, getting photos judged, applying new content to the monpedia, everything increases your Research Level. Growing to new levels unlocks new content!
For the sake of showcase, in order to unlock the new island Nippy Wallow and the two new girls Rubee and Snubuns you need to level up your Research Level to level 2.
Changelog v010
- Added new island Nippy Wallow
- Added Rubee monster girl on Nippy Wallow
- Added Snubuns monster girl on Nippy Wallow
- Added v1 Photo scoring system
- Added v1 Retirement Level system
- Added additional props to Moana Tropic
- Updated Depart screen on boat menu
- Heavily optimized photo-saving system
We didn’t manage to finish our AI system overhaul this patch, and the state we had it in at the end of the development time (if we wanted to launch before Christmas that is) broke the whole game. So the next build should be a nice update as well.
We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, our team is going to take a nice break and come back super fresh for 2023! We hope you join us!
Cheers,
Kinky
Comments
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13 dollars for a game I don't even know what the quality is? Srry no thanks, love the concept though... Really wish there was a demo to sell me on buying it.
It's cool, purchase only when you feel it's worth it and not before. We are still in early development so a demo won't happen until we have all in it we feel will demonstrate the game best.
if we buy will we have to buy any future updates or when the full game is made?
Purchasing gets you all updates and all free post-release updates. The exception there are any expansions or DLC we make, not that we have any planned. But you never know.
bout'a bury my face in Snubuns thighs <3 now we just need a system that allows us to adopt a girl back to the boat to play with at leisure as well as to pet and bathe.
petting and bathing is coming for sure. I dunno about the idea of adopting or training them. Maybe. Not sure how that would work.
That is a must have, along with them playing and mating. We could also play with them with "toys", wink wink nudge nudge
Toys are planned to come.
perhaps you can mark a specific girl as a favourite so when going to a location her species can go to it will always spawn her exact look/personality and she'll act familiar to you, as if you have gained her trust before. interact with the same girl enough times in different locations/times of day and maybe she'll follow you 'home'. you could get little accessories like ribbons or chokers and maybe send them out to explore for items or send her looking for specific monster gals to give a bonus boost to finding rarer ones.. and perhaps you can come across her in the location you sent her to for multigirl play... all just spitballin' ideas of course.
I am mostly worried about user flow and how players will get to that point. We have a system for girls getting more familiar with the players. So how we would go from that to what you want is the question.
Well perhaps a caertain level of familiarity is required to favourite someone And then your favourite has their own levels of bond until they can be a pet. Again, you don't have to worry too much about my wants, I just like throwing out ideas I like and see what makes sense for you~
perhaps. I never really saw this game as a "trainer" type game. We will see what happens, nothing is ever truely set in stone.
How early along are you for your photo scoring, and is there somewhere you would like player feedback on them such as providing examples? I ask as right now I am finding that while some photos make perfect sense, I find just as many that do not. I've seen photos of a critter standing there count as them fleeing, sprinting, and roaming. I've also seen photos with high scores where the critter in question is completely different than the one being scored.
What you're talking about here is the ai system along with those ai actions tied to tags. It is not on the new system yet (the focus for next patch) so it would feel like it is not working correctly. Also the nudity of the monster is not being scored correctly as well. But if you wanna give more feedback we are always open to it!
That actually answer my question exactly. I figured it was just early in development but just wanted you to be aware of it, which you already are so all is good. Look forward to the next patch then. As a follow up on development, you have a steam release date for midyear 2023. Is that when you are actually expecting to be done, or just when feel you'll be in a more Beta vs Alpha phase?
It's actually incorrect on the steam site as their upcoming games information is broken. Having said that we are looking to maybe do an early access late alpha in maybe q3 2023. Depends how quickly we get to the finish line.
is your research level at 2?
I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matt
okay?
So cute that reindeer, good work!! ⊂(´･◡･⊂ )∘˚˳°
Glad you like her!
cant access new island. i am level 2 i tried reinstalling to no change.
Do you have the depart screen with a second island in the middle? If so click that.
can not interact with with the second island on the depart screen. i wonder if the problem is i was level 2 before the update. this may have caused the game to skip the unlock.
Anyone else have this problem?
If that is the case just start a new save. Going forward we will be versioning our save files to stop things like this from happening.
alright i hope no one else has this problem.
after new game i can access the new island.
Fantastic