Hello explorers! Man, what a month, our projections had put us releasing v016 much earlier in August than we initially believed. The TLDR is that we are still working on implementing the overhaul of the sex system we are introducing. The reason is a lot of code debt, meaning we have revised the system too many times, it needed to be cleaned out of the game before it caused issues in the future.

We are close. Really close. I would not want you all to wait any longer without any updates from us regarding the progress.

Those of you on our Discord might have already seen more on this system, but it is something we are quite proud of. We had a huge task ahead of us, making an open-world game that captures the feeling of exploration without relying on combat systems to fill the gaps. We have a couple of methods we are building for Sapphire Safari.

Activating Radio Towers

Yeah, this is a take from early Far Cry games, the system is great for our needs, so we have unashamedly taken cues from it. As you explore Sapphire Island your ability to upload photos are limited by the radio beacon coverage you’ve activated. Turning on a tower means climbing a natural formation of Rock and Tree, mixed with a quickly erected man-made support structure. The tools you’ll need to scale these towers will come from the shop after some progress has been made on your research level. For version 016 you’ll just be able to climb and activate them as we have yet to build the shop system out.

Also unveiling the map, showing off all the unexplored POIs in the new region. Progress!

Narrative Tools and Loot

The narrative for Sapphire Safari is broken down into two areas. Main Quests and Loot Crates. Quests are easy, you follow a breadcrumb system looking for clues on the whereabouts of the original science team that has gone missing. The quests are the present, the story is relayed with a mixture of in-person conversations and hologram phone calls.

The second narrative option is the Loot Crates, these give the player a couple of things, currency, some give costumes for the players, but all will give the player an audio log, that once all collected tell the story of how each member of the science team ended up lost in the first place. We are working with a very highly regarded author to create the full narrative experience in Sapphire Safari and our goal is to have everything voiced. Here is a sample of one of the audio logs.

Sarah (matter of fact): So, this particular site I have been investigating paints a more interesting picture of the natives. As I guessed before, they have a language. From my personal observations, I believe I have discovered their word for 'dick'. They repeat it over and over near this rock.

Sarah (curious): I wonder what significance this site has in their culture? And since they have culture, how does the culture differentiate from species to species? Do the other species on the island have sites of religious significance too? Do they all speak the same language, or are there distinct dialects among different groups?

Sarah (sheepish): ...Yeah, sorry. I tend to ramble a bit. I just have so many questions.

(A sound of Sarah fumbling with the recorder. There is a noticeable thud in the audio as she catches it before it hits the ground.)

Sarah (shocked): Shit, nearly dropped the recorder!

(Several cries from the bunbuns as they run away)

Sarah (annoyed): God damn it, I spooked them! Why do I have to be so damn clumsy?!

Sarah (defeated): Oh well... Guess I can come back later.

The loot and 95% of the narrative will come in a later patch for the game. But v016 will have a new “temp” intro that will show off some of the new dialogue tech the game has.

Spawning Systems and Stealth

The new system for monster spawning is finally inside Sapphire Safari, monster girls are spread out across the plains with Prey being far more regular than Predators. The girls are far more attentive to their surroundings, but also their AI has been softened to allow more of a chance to react to them. The new Stealth system also reinforces this, running around, and generally making noise will get them to stop what they are doing and search for the sound. If they visually spot you, they do a reaction and then move away from you. In the full version, you can follow them if you like as they shouldn’t disappear from view unless you leave the area they are in. Crouching will not alert any girls around you unless you step on a branch or something of the like.

Sex System Overhaul

Our white whale it turns out is this blasted sex system. We had a lot of issues getting our (on paper) amazing system off the ground without issues. It either worked and was not that appealing, or it was appealing and didn’t fit into the system we wanted. The new one is a little more focused on what we want to achieve while also being much easier to build amazing sex animations for.

Basically, it flows like this: Monster gets horny enough to start masturbating > creatures around get curious and begin to watch/masturbate themselves > one of the observers joins in and plaps away > others also join in (up to five participants) > as they orgasm they leave.

Previously we would have attempted to make transition animations and try to make the task of adding another monster to the mix look natural, now we just puff some smoke and choose one of the animations that match the sizes of participants and the number of participants. Version 016 will only go as high as threesomes though, we will have like 20ish animations for the system that are simple loops. These will be expanded on later.

Bugs and Fixes

Naturally, there were a lot of old bugs and such we have fixed since moving over to v016 and half the team has a bit more time to focus on fixing these things. Stuff like, blurry characters in the locomotion, the camera being blurry when you’re not focusing on monster girls, girls disappearing, etc.

We also had a bit of time to work on UI presentation and giving the player better throwing animations, along with a camera hip holster and such.

Conclusion

We are still working very hard on all of this, it is a massive sweeping patch, that changes just about everything about Sapphire Safari. It is worth pointing out now, that version 016 will have some things missing until we get to focus on those systems again. The major one is the Monpedia, in its place, will be a system we are calling bounties. Monpedia will be back, we just need more time to correctly implement the system along with a testing environment to make sure there are no unexpected behaviors.

As a final treat, I have included the next official collection of screenshots we will be using after v016 drops. I hope you all enjoy the sneak peek of what we have going on!