Hello there, peeps!
Paws here, and I'm gonna bring you what we've thought up so far, and while a lot is a subject to change, we were brainstorming heavily and planning how to portion and order the workload to make the updates easier, thus more frequent for you, lovelies. But before I get you all hyped, I believe I owe some explanations .
Original Collars was a dear, but trouble child. It was made as we learned to use our tools and as such, it was a mess out of a programmer's nightmare. Conjoining that with the unrest on the development team, it was really only Nekomama's valiant fighting that kept the game from collapsing in on itself. You guys know first hand how much of a buggy, glitchy mess it was. When Michael backed out of the team (for reasons I maybe shouldn't mention, but I never cared much about restraint, so I'll tell you, Michael was a sore butt over the fact that somebody *coughleadprogrammercough* refused to date him. So he made trouble, then pulled his characters out. Then tried to get some new ones in, but no, thank you, I dipped my tail in that river once, there are piranhas there. Nope.) we made a valiant effort to save the game. Alas... it was taking more time to remove the old characters than it would to rebuild the game anew. So, here we are. Thank you, Original Collars, you were a wonderful learning experience. And thank you all for sticking with us through it.
But as I said, there is a future to think about and bring around.
And boy, are we hyped about it.
New workload and update plan
So as I said, we are brainstorming to do everything right this time, that including portioning the work and the order of it. The Idea is, in the very beginning, we will focus on the town, as it is the core of the game. Core, that's an important word. And a big one, because core brackets every base system in the game, like laws and effects that are applied to your protagonist, the weather and it's influence, it houses a port to every other thing in the game. Once that is done and polished to a no flaw state, implementing everything else will be a breeze.
Speaking of implementing everything else: This time, we are gonna do stuff differently. Instead of a slow general progress on all things in the game, we will focus on one thing at a time. Which is good for you! How? Well, for once, there will no longer be teaser updates that implement a base of something with a "To be continued" post it note stuck on it. No more NPCs with unfinished or close to none content. No more ripped and frayed ends at jobs and trouble with advancing in it because further progress is yet to be implemented. No, ladies and gents, this means:
When an update strikes, it will house a single part of the game, like a new character to be woo'd, a new job to pursue, a new area to be explored and hunted for, in it's entirety. Don't get me wrong, that sounds big and really, it is. So there will be one such thing implemented at once in each update, with a possibility of random unattached to nothing, but fun content tossed in if we'll have time. Yes, this means that we are thinking that this may allow us regular, planned release dates. And to ensure the possibly least problematic progress, after each update, we will tally the bugs that you may find (we're counting on you!) and release a hotfix/patch, so that we don't have to worry about bugs from here, here, and here, but be fairly sure that what we have is solid and the issues are in the new content.
So, for a:
- Character, it will house an entire character's worth of plot, sex scenes, and such, with graphics and all.
- Work career, it will entail the entire work progression tree from the lowest position to the highest one, including perks, optional sex scenes, and things you need to get to the top.
- Module, like cooking, alchemy, crafting, or bounty hunting, every recipe, material, monster drop, quest, reward, et cetera, will be implemented at once as a single update.
- Area, it will contain the map of it, monsters dwelling there, their drops, sex scenes, and loose quests of the area.
New places, new people
The remake is gonna take place in a new town, and entail completely new characters. But there will still be a lot of content that we will be "recycling" to speed up the work.We wanna release a demo when we finish the core of the game, so that you may see the setup and the intro in detail, explore the new town, learn about the new places (and not be so angry at us for starting over) and meet some core inhabitants. I'll slip you some of that now, alright? Just between me and you.
At the beginning, you will get a choice of your sex, genitals set, and name. That's already an improvement. On an important note - you won't be able to change your sex later, but you will be able to modify the genitals. So, yeah. After creating your character, you will be dropped off in a prologue serving as tutorial, where you will learn of some new character mechanics, like hunger. You will also learn your character's backstory. You play as Izuna's grandchild, and as it turns out, share your grandmother's... blessings. The catch? Izuna's beastly libido skipped a generation, and as a result, your mother is blissfully normal, and very, very prudish. So when you hit that puberty like a train on a road to wreck that you are, she smells the scripture and sends you to a town where your dear granny Izuna spent the last of her years to learn more about this "affliction" and how to control it.
...At least that's what your mom thinks you're doing.
A big part of the remake's new mechanics will be the mentioned earlier hunger system, and a completely new necessity to hide suspicious objects from others, so that the townsfolk won't realize what a lewd thing you are. If they do and your reputation becomes too xxx tinted, you can count on a visit from your dear mom, and if she will become too alerted... it's game over. She takes you back home and you're grounded for life.
With hiding your newly liberated dark secrets you will get help from the carpenter, the witch, and let me tell you, you won't have it easy, because based on your sex and genitals set, different things will become alerting to your mother. A boy shouldn't have women's lingerie... and a girl shouldn't be seen with a strap on laying around in plain sight. But a cuntboy could have girly panties, and a futa girl can have... whatever those undies with a slit at the front are called. Use some logic and you'll be fine.
Speaking of new people, though, there are several new races to be introduced. we decided that the cat people - newly dubbed Felineko - aren't the only domesticated race anymore. Among the town NPCs you'll meet among the others:
- Ash the Cainu (a dog person)
- Betty the Ovian (a sheep person)
- Marcus the Taurian (Or cattlekin, if you wish, a cow person)
- Uther the Lycan (a wolf person. We're not saying domesticated here, though...)
- Several others, though varying in the level of being "domestic" races
You should be happy, too, since many of the town NPCs will get some minor quests you can do that will push their stories ahead and reward you with some porny scenes, and I certainly plan on giving more of the people around actual faces you can look at while chatting. We wanna have much more variety in people shapes, colors, and ethnics, too, so there's that to look forward to.
So, what actually are the new things?
Well, aside from the things mentioned, a few things.I'll be pointing those out in a list, to make it neater and easier to read, but keep in mind, that things listed can be changed, as we are still brainstorming over the game core and modules. Okay? Okay.
- The Collars - well, technically, they aren't new, but there is a new mechanic planned for them. You don't just put the collars on people. You sneak up to them and clasp them on them. That can be done through a sneaking up on a character you don't wanna waste time romancing, and putting the collar on them, making them a willing slave to your desires. It's irreversible, and unlocks all the collared options... but locks progress made the usual way through the art of wooing. So if you wanna have both, you want to unlock all the options you can through romance, then put the collar on them. It's also much easier when you build up a relationship with them, first, as they slowly stop being wary of you. Win some, loose some, choice is yours.
- The Hunger Meter - remember all that tasty foods from Original Collars? Well, in the remake, it actually has some use to learn cooking. You do get hungry! And while a bit of a diet helps you loose some excess chubbs, starving yourself will have negative effects on you, like placing a debuff on your stats and lowering your max health. If you starve for too long - it's an end game, you died. Luckily, your mom still loves you and will send you some occasional care packages with the noms. No, we are not making the playing complicated, we encourage you to try everything.
- The Lust Meter - When I talked about being blessed with Izuna's beastly libido, I failed to mention the drawbacks. You may be a generation or two from a sexual black hole, but nobody walks around extremely horny all the time without any penalty. So now, you will need to take care of that, too. It's a careful balance, because keeping it too high will obstruct anything productive you try to do, but keeping it too low, and some sexing up options will be locked because you will simply not be horny enough.
- The Reputation - it will be an important part of the game. You need to keep it innocent, regardless of how famous or infamous you become, or your mom will come in like a wrecking milf and ruin your carefully built erotic empire. Aside from that, though, being famous or infamous will affect how others see you, and some jobs will be influenced by how famous you are. But, isn't it thrilling? Being a famed in the town, loved hero, where in the truth you have a basement full of sex slaves.
- The Restoration - upon arriving, you find that your grandmother's once expansive home lies mostly in ruins. When the local carpenter comes in to take a look, you get to start buying upgrades at his store. He will help you restore the house to a livable state, then for a pretty coin, help you restore the more eloquent rooms of the place, like the basement with the slave cells, workshop which you can arm in an alchemy nook, smithing, crafting ones as well. Additional rooms to help you hide your stuff from your mom, the stable for the pets...
- The Pets - it's an affectionate name, really, considering what we plan on having them do. Pets will be, additionally to the previous idea of being battle companions and a kind of a sex partners without much thought behind them, get an added use of being sent out to do stuff. Aside from gathering ingredients in the wilds, training to increase their stats, and earning you some money on side jobs, they will also have a certain fun function to be unlocked upon being levelled enough, and that is... the option to send them out to a certain location to sex people up. Now, it has chances of succeeding or not, depending on a person, time and place, but if you succeed, you get a porny picture from the escapade and your pet will gain experience, and the target will become more susceptible to your own advances. Yes, now you can send a werewolf out in the dark of the night to screw that tight-assed bitch who scoffed at you.
- The Bounty Hunting - aside from the regular jobs you can take up, you can also register as a bounty hunter, and take up quests from the local Hunter Association, and gain your fame that way, helping people and protecting them (and sometimes capturing live monsters for them for one reason or another). Some quests will be about capturing a monster, some about gathering drops from them, another about just beating a number of them. The thing is, they all have good rewards and and give you access to some pets and recipes that you can't get otherwise.
This is all for now, but I'll be chatting you up again soon, as we have more to show for our work. I'll try to pump out some first sketches of new NPCs before I leave to visit my girlfriend and be... preoccupied, until after new years. In the meantime, stay pawsome!
