Special Orders, a Mega Black Pearl, and a Prospective.

'Lo all, long time no see!

The end of last month was...a long time away from the comp. And when I came back, I had computer issues, with slowness so bad it made doing art impossible. To be honest the computer issues are still very present, but I can at least wrestle with it now and, so long as the computer hasn't been on for too long and I don't have too many programs open.

That was enough time though to finish the first Special Orders collection! Originally this was for Hypnovember (the first one being that 'Medival' image in another post), but as I shifted to that small drone game the idea turned into something unattached to a particular month.

I kinda like this format, especially as I'm using Hunger Game winners for it (check the discord to enter the Thrallworks Hunger Games btw), but I do wonder if I could 1-up it a little more when I come back to do this again.

Oh, there's also a Mega Black Pearl here, because a Mega Pearl also won a Hunger Game, but Gems can't be thralled so I did something novel.

Anyway, new year, new stuff to do, new plans to scheme, so lets see what to change.

Quarterly Projects

I thought the Conversion Chamber experiment worked well, and I'd like to do more things like it for a while to see about what more smol games could be made- ideally in a crisper timeframe.

So I'd like to spend the 2nd, 5th, 8th and 11th months of the year working on standalone little games that can be programmed, arted and pretty much finished within...say, 3 weeks, give or take a little bit of run-up time to make sure I hit the ground running.

I have some larger ambitions for this, and so I'm looking to pair up with a programmer friend of mine to focus on games set in the Movement world to begin with, specifically with the Shopkeeper character, as we decided the game design we did with her previously made her the most viable for a small-self-contained gameloop.

We're thinking something...isometric.

If it turns out something can't be made in time for the first instance, then maybe we don't continue on this idea. But for the moment I think it's worth trying.

Thrallworks Updates

Last year I really felt the pressure of these, because sometimes it'd be two weeks spent working on code and not much narrative or art progress, which pained me. I also wanted to get the game back to where it was in the Ren'Py engine by the end of the year, but due to how much time the Designer UI and other parts of it took, that didn't materialize, so that's now a goal for the first part of this year.

In the end, I skipped more update times than I would have liked just to have something new or substantial out for it, which meant that even when I did do that and came out with a scene or some art or innovations, it still felt like I was rushing them; there was maybe only 2 times the entire year where I felt really happy in what the Update updated.

So we're going to switch things up a little this year. 

Rather than a vague kind of 'Update', where I provide whatever I've been able to work on over that period of time, instead we'll be doing a series of more specific updates to the game and other parts of said game. Parts such as:

Art Update -

• A $2 Patron Update that will come out twice a month
• This update will focus on adding CG's, BG's and Character Art to the game. Ideally something like 1 of each, but sometimes there'll be more of one or less of another.
• Some backgrounds will be 'draft' BG's, that have ghostly placeholders of people in them. When those appear, I'll also be making a $10 Patron post where they can suggest what characters they want to fill those roles, with a subsequent $5 poll ran to make the final selection.
• There may also be some additional $5+ WIP/Sketch art for future/potential designing that's posted up as well, but that sort of thing I think is either best left to another category, or posted on Discord.

Thrallopedia Update -

• A $5 Patron Update that will come out around once every 3 weeks.
• The first of these will be adding the Thrallopedia to the Reorientation Demo as a part of the main menu.
• After this, each Update will add a new thrall to the Thrallopedia
• Some of these images will also be posted publically.
• Some of these updates may actually be spent updating the Thrallopedia Sets on my Gumroad, to bring them all into line at a similar level of content.
• As with other Thrallopedia entries, the slots will be commission based. After the Domine set is done, we'll likely be returning to a more straightforward commission style that's less of a roulette wheel.

Scene Update -

• A $5 Patron Update that will come out around once every month.
• These Updates will add writing to the Reorientation demo; whether it's additional paths within a scene, adding in a new scene, re-drafting a scene or adding in some new expressions or systems to older ones.
• These can be thought of as the main 'Game Update' posts, and will have the game links at the bottom.
• The writing added might not always be in chronological order, some of them might be small 'Primers' of information that Cerise gives, which may form public posts as well.

Code and UI Update -

• A $5 Patron Update that will come out around once every month.
• These Updates will be me crying over Code in the game and things that require it, such as working out how to save data and implement new UI things and trying to keep on top of all the flags and the event manager in the game.
• Probably also will involve roughing out UI sketches of areas and things.

Hopefully this kind of structure will put us in a good frame to move ahead on getting most of the TW content squared away this year to come.

Other Things

As well as these, there's other stuff we're doing over on discord and the things to come out of that.

Discord Hunger Games

• A contest I want to hold every 2 weeks at 8.30pm GMT on Sundays
• Works like a more entertaining raffle
• People sumbit a .jpg or .png image of a thrall-worth female character (no OC's) into a themed 24+ person contest
• The winning submission gets to have their submission turned into a thrall model of their choosing (if possible) and the first one out gets to pick the theme for the next contest.

All the above Special Commands were previous winners of this game. I may change up how this prize is expressed in the future, if I can think of something suitably interesting/entertaining.

Discord Gladiator Arena

• A contest to hold between some of the Hunger Games, time yet unspecified
• This is a more involved game, a 5 player affair that will work in a kind of King of Tokyo format (for those familiar with that boardgame)
• This will be played until there at 5 winners, at which point a 6th match with the winners will be held.
• The winner of this 6th match gets their Gladiator-character into the Drone Exchange that will be in the game.

March Thrall Art Contest

• Over the month of March, I'll be holding an art contest where people can send in art they've done of characters or OC's of theirs as thralls or in thrallworks or the like.
• After the month is over I'll select out a shortlist, then make a couple of polls to let you all decide on the winner.
• The winning person will get a cash prize and I'll put their thrall in the game in some capacity (if they so wish)
• The runner-up will get a smoller cash prize and their entrant into the Drone Exchange (if they so wish)
• 3rd place will get a cash prize or their entrant into the Drone Exchange; their choice.

There may well be a follow-up writing contest after this, but we'll see how this one goes first.

A Comic?

I do miss working on a comic. Perhaps if things get into a certain rhythm, we may partake once again in doing one, but I'm aware that what's already outlined is quite enough to start.

Overall Goals

Well, this year I want to see the end of some things. I'd like some Movement stuff I'm happy with, and I'd like to see what comes after L-D19's Orientation- I don't need the full Stage 4, Evaluation and Auction, but I'd like to get somewhere with that and make a proper instruction sessions with her, as a blend between scenes and other stuff like I dabbled with in the conversion chamber.

I'm shortly going to have to deal with some rather rough irl circumstances on top of the computer troubles, so lets hope it doesn't disrupt things too much. At any rate I think I'd like to get some CG-stuff and some BG things on a roll for the end of the week, so guess I'll see you soon with the first Art Update!

Ciao~