ALMOST HERE! Day 2: The Cruise & Some Monologuing

Bonjour! (No, I'm not French - I lack culture)

First off, I made a twitter and am making relatively frequent updates.
Whaaaaat? You can follow here: @erisasummer

We're getting ready for the release of the first edition of the Ren'Py client for what I'm terming "Erisa's Summer: The Cruise." Yep, you read right - after nearly A YEAR since I finished the RPGM Day 1 of Erisa's Summer, Ren'Py is about ready for prime time.

Well... a pilot with prime time ambitions, maybe.

What will be set initially as version 0.2.0 will comprise the following:

• Prologue recapping, but not completely rehashing day 1 (from a new perspective)
• Introduction to the cruise
• One set of branching sex scenes depending on day one choices
• An introduction to the expanded cast of The Cruise
• An introduction to the environments of The Cruise
• Establishment of the general cadence of the game

I think this probably reads a little more sparse than it actually is. I've tested the game a few times and I think the combination of images and text comes together pretty strong. I've played a lot of other games, including many in initial versions, and I feel like this is a healthy offering. Of course, you, the player, will ultimately tell me.

I gave some consideration to putting in the next set of events I have in mind before launching, but it's been almost a fucking year since I released something. So, with that in mind, I'm trying to take the alternative approach of putting things out in chunks. This is a big bite, and I want to make each of the next bites at least a bit sizable, but also doable on my end.

Development-wise, I think things will go pretty quickly with adding that next bite, though. I have the ideas in mind and am starting to storyboard them. It'll probably be a few weeks (at least) after the release of 0.2.0 (and any subsequent bugfix releases), but here's what I'll be considering for the next update:

• Branching event immediately following 0.2.0
• First dinner (number of different choices available)
• Group event in the evening (with a few smaller choices)
• An ending to the evening (maybe some options depending on girls you've spent time with)

From there, we'll lead into the meat of the game. I'm still wrestling with making it more or less stat grind-y or just offering different sequences of events/choosing who to spend time with at different intervals. This is where the dev gears are turning at high speed! I've got ideas and those ideas will come out to sexy fruition sooner or later!

So anyway, I'll make a post in a few days once there's been a liiiiitle bit more testing of the initial version. Look forward to it!

***

I also just wanted to take a minute to reflect on why I'm still working on this game and how long it really took me to get modern. I really like adult games and have played a ton of them - starting primarily with Chaotic's vdategames, Lesson of Passion, and the games put together by Tlaero and Mortze.

But my inspiration to create a game was first the "more simple" Tesliss Equation by Goblinboy. I'd always had a soft spot for text adventures and this one made me feel like I could create something cool in that space.

Unfortunately, TADS/RAGS/ADRIFT are all showing their age. And most are stupid hard to code in.

I worked on an ADRIFT version of the project initially. ADRIFT was the most user-friendly of the bunch, but still, it was a pain in the ass for me to just create a simple loop attribute. How BBen designed a (very!) functional combat system in Pervert Action: Legacy, I have no idea, but he deserves incredible credit.

Around this time, I was playing a number of games in RPGM systems - most notably The Humbling Experience, The Coceter Chronicles, and DanielsK's games (in particular, Zoe's Temptations and My Girlfriend's Amnesia). So, naturally, the next jump was to RPGM.

In hindsight, RPGM is both wayyyyy too resource intensive (having to build every map environment, sprite, etc.) as well as too code-limiting (constructing logic trees and declaring variables in RPGM is infuriating). RPGM burned me out for a long time, but unfortunately, it was already the system I'd adopted. And I wasn't able to make a release until well after any sort of prime RPGM enjoyed, as other devs were already moving onto Ren'py or Unity.

And now...

Well, honestly, Ren'py is great so far. It's built for this. But it's also built on python and built around python, so there's a simple, common code denominator that can be invoked relatively easily to accomplish other game functions. I know I've talked a lot about my foray into another game called "EveL" which I silently created and toyed with while keeping Erisa on the backburner. Here's a shot from that client:

I made the above in relatively short order, compared to any of the complicated variable changes in RPGM for Erisa's Summer. And the custom buttons, clocks, menus - they all work. It's like a new day. Seeing this made it obvious I had to move to Ren'py.

So what am I saying here?

Not too much! Just indulging myself in the journey I've taken to get to this place, from a system standpoint, but also paying homage to the games that got me here along the way. That said, there's an obvious thread in Erisa's Summer that I've found lacking in (most) other games: the female only/lesbian only angle.

I get it, devs are working to acquire the largest crowd possible and lesbian content probably works best as a supplement to straight m/f content. That's cool! I totally support that! There are great m/f focused games! But... I wanted to make something focused exclusively on girl-girl stuff.

There are some games I have to give it up to: from the above LOP have a lot of games where you can take a female protagonist on a lesbian route, and vdategames have a number of games where you can play as a female (and, of course, you're dating women). Zoe's Temptations, The Coceter Chronicles, and The Humbling Experience also all have prolific lesbian content and some more modern favorites include VULVA and CLIT by yahotzp (full-lesbian games! sexy, well thought out content!) and Healslut by Davie Zwei (lots of choices, great story, and f/f-only route possible!)

But even with the modern efforts listed above, I still feel like there's not enough wholesome girl-meets-girl, girl-fucks-girl content, so I'm continuing to do my part to rectify it. That's all! Sorry for rambling, but I just wanted to do a little riff on why I'm still here after 3 years of sporadic development and platform changes! Hopefully we all find that things are a little more routine from now on!