First up, a little advanced warning for all of our dedicated players out there. Version 016, the next build for Sapphire Safari will be delayed for an extra month. The simple reason is that v016 is a super large patch for the game, and we need more time to work out everything before we put it in the hands of our community. The current ETA for v016 is in Early August.

With that outta the way, let's show off what we are doing.

v016 is the biggest we have made! The reason for the massive update is simple, we are moving to a fully open-world game. What exactly does that mean? The simple answer? It means a new map, new systems, a new user experience,  new menu systems, and new locomotion.

Sapphire Island

Previously we wanted small islands, each with its own biome. Now that system is pressed into one mega island, with 6 (so far) biomes. The island is being built to support a casual exploration system. It is still early days in terms of prop design and such, however, we are finalizing the final shape of the island itself along with the borders for the biomes.

For the next several patches we will be focused on the beach landing area, along with the new biome “The Plains”.

Within the plains, we will put in three of our existing Monster Girls, the Bunny (Bunbuns), the Deer (Rubii), and the Bat (Echo). 

Along with three new creatures. These include:

• A Sheep - This sheep will have a standard version and a chubby version. Along with various configurations of wool and colors.
• A Lizard - Scalies rejoice! The lizard is going to be our first cold-blooded animal.
• A Fox - The predator creature for the Plains, the fox is a human-sized Monster Girl. Her personality will be sly and feisty, looking for easy prey around the area.

Events, Quests, and the Map UX

The first major reason for the delay is creating a robust sandbox experience. The key to this is making a map tool for the player to set up their goals, track what's been done, and travel around the map quickly. Here are some examples of the objectives we have planned.

• Explore - The map is covered in a fog that unveils as the player finds campsites, once activated, the camps uncover the events, points of interest, hidden item completion values, and allow the player to upload photos from that region.
• Static Events - Until the player completes the event (by submitting photos documenting the unique event) there will be a note on the map saying something in the vicinity has yet to be discovered. These normally take place at points of interest. An example of this would be that Bats at night use this tree as a party spot. Visiting the same POI during any other time period would not have the event active.
• Vista Sites - Take vista shots of Sapphire Island by matching your photo to another, matching the time of day, direction, etc.
• Hidden Containers - These are chests left behind by the first exploration team on the island, within are cosmetics, attachments, “fun” tools, audio logs for narrative elements, camera upgrades, etc. These containers will be hidden under rocks, high in trees, inside rivers, and under bushes. So keep your eyes open for them.

Without a fantastic tool for this, it would be hard for the player to make their own objectives. How much we can add of the above to v016 is hard to say, but those are our plans.

UX and Flow changes

To better support a system where the player “never retires” back to the boat, several flow changes are already implemented. The first is the photo submission process. Our previous design had the player going back to the boat, submitting their photos for the monpedia, and having their top 10 photos count towards the total Research Level progression.

Here is the new flow.

1. Players now have a maximum photo capacity. This starts at 10, but items found around the world will increase it. Reaching the capacity stops the player from taking more photos.

2. As a photo is taken, it is scanned, and a score is calculated right there on the spot. The score also is shown on the image, along with a color grade border.

3. Pressing the submit button (this time it is “X”) will enter the submission panel. As long as you’re within wifi range of an activated camp you’ll be free to submit the photos you’ve collected.

4. Here the player will be presented with slots each photo can fill, the player only needs to “replace” the photo with a newer one. If the previous photo has less value the difference is added to the Research Level.

5. The new popups will showcase the changes to the player's progression.

Obviously, it goes without saying, the actual UI and UX are always subject to change, but this is how it is currently and likely how it will be in the next version. The Research Level is how progression will be unlocked for the player, so later biomes will require tools to access, these are awarded with Research Levels. Doing events, submitting photos, exploring, etc will all add to the Research Level.

Monster Girl scale system overhaul

Another system we were only slightly happy with. Some of you might have already noticed how “janky” the current doll system is. The reason for this is simply “math”. Each girl currently is scaled independently to each other, Bunbuns is this high, and the players are this high, so when the two interact using the animations each needs to be “manually” corrected with Inverse Kinematics. It is even more apparent when we take a large Monster Girl like Taiga and pair her with a small Monster Girl like Monkii. It just is a lot of work, prone to being broken, and the results are not as polished as we hoped.

So the answer is a scaling guide. All Monster Girls will now be reworked to fit into special sizes, which means a “Medium” creature will be the same size as other “Mediums”. You likely won’t notice it too much, the results mean all the animations will work better. Everyone wins! Here are the classifications we landed on.

• Enormous - A special class for one or two Monster Girls you won’t see roaming the lands.
• Large - Bigger than the player: Taiga, Skully.
• Medium - The default size: Player Characters, Most NPC Humans, Rubii, Fox.
• Small - Slightly smaller than the player: Monkii, Echo, Bunbuns, Sheep, Lizard.
• Tiny - A special class, these creatures will be your Shot Stacks.

The current animations we have for sex will mostly be used for the Medium and Small classifications. The Large and Tiny classifications will be getting their own animations.

Narrative and Dialogue systems

With the move to a fully open world and third-person animations, we now need a narrative system to support them. We will mostly be mimicking the great games that came before us, with the major inspiration being Mass Effect. The goal here is to bring in our custom-made Voice and Lipsync system called VLife.

The mixture of the two will let us start building the story of the island, why the player will need to investigate each section, and why everyone seems to be so thirsty!

Species AI and Monster behaviors

The other major goal of v016 is to start building a vastly more dynamic set of generic behaviors for the Monster Girls. These include searching states for investigating noises and sights, better responses to finding the player (other than running away), what they do after seeing sex, etc. 

Then we have species-specific behaviors. Examples of this are Monkii taunting the player after finding them, and chasing them around. Bothering them and alerting other Monsters. The sheep girls clumped together and moved around in groups. The predators hunt other Monsters for sexual urges. Getting this right will just take time, testing, and feedback.

Scoring and Testing environments

The last thing v016 will include is more backend tech for making sure our new works can be tested correctly. This means that we need to test all Monster Girl related poses and the tagging associated with them. We can only do this by building environments we can use to test everything correctly. If this can be accomplished you’ll never run into an issue of a pose or animation not giving you the rewards you need.

We will also be coupling this with a scoring overhaul to match the new systems. It means your photos will be graded a lot worse, making those perfect shots all that more important.

Okay, so that was a lot. As I mentioned in the intro, we will be using the next two months to build most of what you’ve read above. It will also likely carry over into v017 as well. We can see what we need to do more clearly than ever, and we are glad everything is finally coming together!