Random thoughts

We're currently in the middle of implementing the fighting system and stuff.
Maybe, if nothing bad happens in the upcoming days we can show some ingame screenshots this weekend.
But I can't promise that...




So, what I wanted to talk about today is the pros and cons of implementing more than one character into the game.
I guess I should point out, that I can't say for sure if we implement another character or not.
At least not at this point during game developement.
(still I thought it would be better to talk about this stuff instead of not doing any blogpost at all)

This means, that this whole topic is PURELY theoretical, no promisses, no guarantees.

Anyway, lets get to the pros and cons.

Pro:
- different characters would mean different gameplay possibilities
- more hentai content
- higher chance that a player would find a character that appeals to them

Con:
- considerably more work (which means "more cost")
- doesn't guarantee that the difference between income (sales) and expenses (work time) balances out
- if done wrong, the workload could "explode" without having a great impact on the content

Possible solutions:
- the hentai content per character could be limited
- crowdfunding via offbeatr (to add more characters to the game)
- careful planning of the implementation of new characters



So, lets go more into the details:

Cres is currently practising animation of the CGs, which means we won't include "CG scenes" (several pictures with variations) but we would include animated CGs (with voice acting).
We thought about giving each of the bosses their own animated CG that appears when the heroine goes game over, as well as giving each "Stage" one animated game over CG.
Giving every enemy their own CG is out of the question, since the workload would explode, even with one playable character alone.

To compensate for that, we came up with a different plan, that "should" work... at least in theory...
According to this plan, we do ingame-grab-animated CGs (yes.... you heard right... and I hope we didn't underestimated the workload...).
But! There's one thing to it...
There will only be 3 different poses for the heroine that get used over and over again.
Each enemy will only get 1 animation, and yes... the good thing is, those 3 poses need to be only drawn (and animated) once, and then the enemy (tentacles or whatever) gets swapped out on each scene.

So it's basically 3 animations, just with swapped out enemies.
That might sound lame...
But that's actually the most cost-effective approach I could come up with, and hey!
It's high-rez animated CGs!

At least in theory this should work out, without being too much work.
Can't promise that this will really work out as intended, but that's the plan, and I believe that it will work.
We will find out in the upcoming weeks, if this really works out.



With this methode, we should be able to maximize the amount of hentai content with as less "extra work" as possible.
And this means, that we could include more playable characters later on.


Offbeatr:

I can't say for sure if we really do this, but there are several things that actually support the possibility of using offbeatr.
First of all, a lot of people stated that they can't use DLSite to buy the games we make.
But as some of you know, we can't do our own "shop" for reasons I've stated about 100 times already in the past.
(so lets skip that)

So actually the only other "legal" way to "sell" the game, would be offbeatr.
And that's a huge plus for offbeatr.

Second, we could use offbeatr to collect money in order to implement more characters.
The game would be a "full" hentai game with only one playable character, but having more characters is always a nice thing.
There's just no guarantee that this extra work would pay off... well, with offbeatr we could kinda "avoid" this risk, since we can actually see if people are interested in the game, and we can also see how much "worth" they think it is.

Third, offbeatr charges less money than DLSite.
If I'm not mistaken, offbeatr takes about 30% of the money, while DLSite actually takes 50% or more.
(officially DLSite takes a minimum of 45%, but actually they take 50% by giving you less money via slightly cheating with the YEN <--> USD exchange rates...)

Anyway, as you can see there's some high chances that we will be using offbeatr sooner or later.
Most likely once the game is done (or nearly done), so we can also offer a playable demo-version that depicts the gameplay and hentai content "as is".
Coupled with instant-access after the crowdfunding campaign is done.
This also means, that we will go with a funding goal of 500 $ (or whatever is the lowest goal possible), and yeah... since the game will be done (or nearly done) it's of course "guaranteed" that we deliver it.

In this case, there will only be stretch-goals for the implementation of more characters.
(at this point I think there will be no other extras, just new characters, nothing more)
Well, the new characters themselves should be enough "extra content", since they'll have their own animated CGs, and they all play differently from each other.

Whatever, this is just purely theoretical stuff, but this is what we actually planned to do.
High chances that this will work out, but we can't guarantee that things will work out this way.
(there's always something happening that requires to change stuff... I just hope no "radical" changes are necessary)

Hopefully we can show some ingame screenshots this weekend!
We're trying our best to get stuff done til then.

Ferania Pixel

Instead of bothering you guys and girls with a long boring text about game mechanics, I thought it would be better to skip that and rather show some stuff once in a while.
We aimed to start the "real work" next week, but Cres already managed to finish some of Feranias sprite graphics.




Well, other than that, there's not really anything important or interesting I could write about at the moment.

So, see ya next week!

Plans for the game

This will probably be a longer post, but I'll try to keep it as short as possible and post more frequently.
So... yeah... most likely I'll spare some details and do a new post in the upcoming days.
(just so you know)

First of all:
Thanks for everyone who gave their votes!
I think I'll tell you what I had on my mind, but I still let the voting go on til the end.

It's a bit ironic to see Ferania and Catheline on 1st and 2nd place...
Since... yeah... I thought about choosing them.

It's safe to say that Ferania is the heroine of the new game.
With a possibility of Catheline being another playable character.
You might wonder about the word "possibility" there?
Well... it depends... on a lot of stuff...
(I'll cover that in another post, sometime)


We're still in the planning phase, but I'm happy that I've resolved the biggest issue thanks to Kyrieru.
(Thank you very very much once again! ^^)
Though this time it's a bit more of a coincidence.
(still it's thanks to him!)

I'm not sure if I mentioned this on the blog before, but I really like "randomness" in games.
When developing a game with a lot of random factors, you never know what happens next.
And thus, even I as developer can have fun with the game, being surprised by events etc.
It also expands the replayability a lot, I think.
(well, it depends on the game of course... but... I'll try to NOT talk too much about it now, so lets leave it like that)

The biggest issue with this is:
How to randomize something without confusing people?

And yes... that can be complicated.
At first I thought about making a static city, placing events, enemies, keys (to unlock new areas etc.) and other stuff randomly into the game.
But that would certainly be too confusing to some players.
I was about to give up and do a regular "linear" platformer, when I read Kyrierus post about rogue-lites.
And when he mentioned the game "FTL", I kinda... well...
I felt dumb, since I play FTL a lot myself... lol...
But that's simply the answer!

If I do something similar to the FTL "randomization", which means, if I have a big map with several "points" (locations) you can visit, and those locations are connected with other locations... and each having a different event going on in them...
Well, that way I would have a lot of randomization without confusing the player.
I could go into the details... but I feel that this post is getting long enough already.

So, other than those "locations" you can visit, that are different (randomly/procedurally generated) each playthrough.
Other than that, the game will be a simple 2D sidescrolling (platformer?) fighting game.

Usually the heroine will be fighting hordes of enemies in each location.
After "clearing" one place, she gets money and maybe some upgrades or new skills (randomly) etc.
And you can spend that money at "safe zones" for healing your HP or buying upgrades.
At least that's the idea, I still need to plan it out in detail, but I believe we can start working on the game next week.
(too much to do this week)


Regarding the hentai stuff:
Yup, it will contain either hentai sprite sex or maybe instead high-rez animated CGs during gameplay.
(most likely animated CGs, if we don't run into serious problems trying to implement them)
And as "game over" CGs, there will be animated CGs too.
(if we don't run into serious problems, that is)


Anyway, that's the rough plan for the game, I'll stop here.
More details tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Which heroine to pick?

In the last post I presented a sketch of a "possible" new heroine.
Well, Cres and I were talking the past days about several different possible characters.

One thing we're certain is:
The new heroine should be a kemonomimi.

Which means:
Wolfgirl, Catgirl or even a Dragongirl (or some other animal-girl).
(just for those people who don't know the differences: unlike furries, they have less fur, and look more like humans, except with animal ears, tails etc.)

We haven't settled on a heroine yet, but we do have our favorites.
In the end, it's personal preference which kemonomimi type you like most,
as well as which heroine you would pick, there isn't any particular up or downside to it.

Of course it's most likely that we will choose the heroine by ourselves,
instead of listening to what others say.
(because well... I guess nearly everyone would like a different heroine)

BUT! Since I'm curious, I'm going to ask you guys (and girls) anyway:
Which heroine would you pick?
(you can give multiple votes, if you like more than one)


To make the decision a bit easier, I'll present you a few possible candidates:

Ivalaine (Wolfgirl)

Ferania (Wolfgirl)

Catheline (Catgirl - Liger (Lion + Tiger))

Chiira (Catgirl - Cheetah)

Here is a better drawing with her, but she will get different clothes if we decide to put her in the game:













Stella (Dragongirl)

The designs can still change a bit.
Some of the above drawings are just sketches, and yes, Chiira doesn't suit wearing a skirt.

Geisterhand on hiatus - new game project

After months of silence, we decided to return with a new game.
Yes, a new game... which means, Geisterhand is (at least for the time being) still on hiatus.
(probably even forever? but  who knows...)

First of all a short explanation for everyone who's curious as to why Geisterhand is on hiatus:

Simply said, adding the hentai-sprite animations made it necessary to change too many things on the already existing game, furthermore the translation process and the implementation of the text was too tiresome...
And yeah, while those are just a few reasons, I think that they are the most important ones.

Well, we haven't worked on the game for the past 6 months or so, so it's kinda difficult to pick it up.
(Cres improved her drawing skills as well, so there would be another big difference in the quality, which kinda... leaves a weird impression, at least if we continue the work, and the new stuff looks way better than the old stuff)


So, what about the new game?

Instead of presenting you a wall of text in this post,
I thought it would be better to do several smaller posts in the upcoming days.
So stay tuned!

One more thing though...

Possible new heroine:

Slow progress and stuff

Well, I guess calling it "slow progress" is really optimistic.
We had all our hands full with real life stuff, so we didn't do much on Geisterhand the past weeks.
(jobs, problems, other stuff that has priority)

Just in case people might wonder:
We are currently not working full time on this.
But we did in fact work full time on this, as long as the money raised from Paperheads allowed us to.

The reason I'm saying this is, so people hopefully understand why we did a lot of stuff a couple of months ago, and why progress is getting slower and slower lately.
So don't expect any announcement of a release date, as this game will most likely take a couple months (at least) until it's done.

We also planned to add some stuff, so the developement time is being longer than originally planned.



Planned additions for the future:

First of all, we decided to include hentai sprite animations for every enemy.
But keep in mind, that since I don't like this to interfere with the gameplay itself, the animations ONLY happen when Sheylas HP drop to zero.
(so when she is K.O)
Instead of respawning automatically, you will have to press a button to do so.
So you can enjoy the animation as long as you like.
Also, we need to do voice recording for this, I guess.

The CG scenes only come up, if you lose all your continues.
(so this stays the way it is)
Also there will be a "skip CG scene?" question at the beginning of a CG scene.

Regarding the controls, there will be an option that lets you switch controls between 2 preset settings.
Controls A - will be the regular controls as they are now
Controls B - will be modified controls, based on the feedback I got from several people

Since I can't really cut down on the number of buttons for the skills etc. (since it just feels awkward, in my opinion, but I understand that everyone sees this differently) it's just a different button layout.
But no changes in the number of buttons or gameplay.

I mean... I don't want the player to hold down a button to charge an attack up.
(since holding down too many buttons is bad, and might cause trouble on certain keyboards)
And I also don't like the idea of letting the charged shots charge automatically, since they use up SP (energy) on use, thus lowering the SP with every shot, making the player unable to use the SP for the bullet time/time alter mode.


Well, that's everything for now.



I updated the links on the right side once again.
If you haven't done so already, you probably should check out the hentai games from cheshireCat and Kajio.
They both released their games some time ago.

cheshireCat:
http://dreamingofcheshirecat.blogspot.ca/?zx=e9007938276229f2

Kajio:
http://hkajio.blogspot.ca/?zx=a6fcb807aa0b86a