Demon Lands - Devlog 7 (Pixiv Fanbox)

Hey everyone!

It's been a while since I've done one of these. Since most of my updates the past few months have been working on the game's art, I figured it would be good to post some of the other work I've done recently.

New CG and Event Viewer

The Event viewer room has been updated with a new feature I've been wanting to add since the beginning, but never got around to.

In addition to being able to view discovered events, you can also view the still images associated with those events. When you select a CG to view, you can scroll back and forth through the images, and leave at any time.

This also lets me add non-event images to the game, and allow the player to view them at any time. For example, during the game you might come across a boy petrified as a statue. There would be no dialouge or event associated with it, so you couldn't "recall" the event, but you could instead see the image in this CG viewer at any time.

I also added a "Gallery" button to the in-game menu, so you can now view the gallery at any time without having to quit to the main menu ^^ You'll also now get a quick popup when you discover a new event, reminding you to check it out in the gallery. This only occurs if you're unlocking a brand-new event, one you haven't seen even on other saves.

Renown

As you may have noticed in the bottom right, I am experimenting with a new currency to the game called Renown. Renown is earned when you rescue (or attempt to rescue) boys from the Demon Lands. It serves to fill in the gaps when that boy does not have gold to rewards you with, and/or no XP such as when you rescue Alex.

When you gain enough Renown, you can earn different rewards in the world. Some random NPCs may offer items or services only when you have enough. The most notable example is Alex, who offers the player photos he's collected on his travels whenever Lucas reaches certain Renown thresholds.

I am still experimenting with this system and seeing if it will be a good fit for the game, or if it feels a bit superfluous. My main motivation was Alex offering single-image photos to the player as an extra reward. This would also allow me to add some simples images to the game (or possible fanart) without having to worry about creating multiple-image scenes with dialogue and sound.

Journal

Another new feature is Lucas' "Journal", which can be accessed from the in-game menu. This serves as a way of keeping track of the lore of the game, and provides additional reading on some of the curious things you come across in your travels.

As you encounter new things, the journal will be automatically updated :3 This was an avenue for me to provide some more fun backstory to non-demon things, like kinky plants or traps, and serve as a compendium of sorts!

You can also view discovered books and notes here, such as the Journal Page you find when cleaning up the Deep Unassuming Woods.

New Background Sounds

I was unhappy with the sound pack I used for many of the current scenes. It sounded very non diagetic to me, and the sound quality felt tinny and distant.

I replaced it with a new pack, one which was also used by a game called El Dorado of the Stars by Yogurt Prince. Though it has less variation in terms of different speeds, it sounds a lot more natural to me, and has a bigger range of squelching noises. ^^

Here's an example of the new sounds in the green slime scene!

You can find the full-sized images for this particular scene here, under the Fan tier: https://princeofcanada.fanbox.cc/posts/4476100

Kink Warnings

A very small feature I added was the option to turn on warnings for specific kinks in the options menu. When you turn these on, you simply get a brief warning message right before a lewd scene starts if it contains those themes. This lets plays skip scenes which contain

Translation Engine

I have also been experimenting with a translation plugin for the game. I would not be happy with having to release different versions of the game for each language, I wanted the player to be able to switch between them at any time.

The plugin provides base functionality for that to happen, though it is missing a few things, such as being able to scan the project for all translatable texts and the translations being editable in a csv for a non-programmer translator to work with.

More importantly, I also don't have a translator... so even if I put in the work to make it possible, I still need somebody willing to translate the game from English to other languages and continue to do so from now until the future.

That's quite a big responsibility, and the game in its current state is bound to be rewritten a lot, so this feature will likely not be utilized until much later in the game's development life. Still, I one day hope to reach an even bigger audience through this system ^^

Postface

That's all for now! I have been making excellent progress on the game art recently so I am hoping to have everything wrapped up and new content on the way by the end of the year.

Thank you all for your support, it really means a lot to me, and I couldn't do what I do without your help!