Hey everyone! I'm here with some more news about SimbroResErection development. Let's dive in!
So, what's taking so long? I'm glad you asked. The game has had a lot of ongoing bugs and bottlenecks which I've been trying to address. Initially, the goal for this update was to add climax scenes and expand upon the sex scenes by making a free mode, dialogue mode, and a "skill" mode. As I've been incorporating these things I realized the current dialogue engine wasn't going to cut it for the dialogue mode. This has led me into a rabbit hole of optimization. I've been refactoring code to use structs and arrays while replacing the dialogue engine to make the initial update goal plausible and the game as stable as possible. So let's get into the specifics.
New Dialogue System
The new dialogue system was a big undertaking. It has a new text renderer which supports proper text tags, and text effects, and supports LTR languages. The new engine lets you use numbers on the keyboard to select choices, can change character emotes and animations, and has skill checks integrated so dialogues can now branch based on a character's skills.
New Translation System
The old translation system was not great. It used broken json files to store multiple languages which made adding a language confusing and a massive chore. The new translation system sets out to fix that. First, all dialogue is now stored in easy-to-read txt files. Second, all languages have their own folder for organizations. Third, adding a new translation is much simpler. All you need to do is copy the English folder, rename it to your language, and start translating the files inside. When you start up the game it will automatically detect the folders and files and will add the folder names to the language selection in the settings menu.
Dialogue Rewrites
I have mentioned in previous posts that all of the dialogue needed to be rewritten. Well, with the new Dialogue and Translation System now was as good of a time as ever. Due to the new systems, I'm not able to just copy and paste dialogues from the old system. The old dialogue also didn't support skill checks, emote and animation changes etc. So, I've been going through all of the dialogue in the game and reworking/rewriting. Now, girls in the slums can be bargained with (charm check) and the lost girl event has multiple options to avoid fights if your reputation is low. You'll be able to bribe or bargain with debt collectors and you'll find some alternate dialogue for some events.
Scene Transitions and Texture Management
As the game has grown so has the need for texture management. I won't go too in-depth with this but essentially, large textures are loaded and unloaded when needed which saves memory and makes the game run faster and more compatible with devices with lower memory. All of this is done whenever there is a transition in-game (fade to black). The new transition system is responsible for making this as smooth as possible. The new transition system also has new effects for scene transitions which makes things look a little nicer.
Saving and Loading
While working on refactoring code to switch from data structures to structs and arrays, I've also changed how things are saved and loaded. This now makes saving and loading much easier (on my end). I've also added more save slots to the game and an auto-save feature. You'll now have 10 "pages" for saves (1 for auto-saves and 9 for regular saves) and your game will save at the end of each day.
Combat VFX
In the midst of all of this, I've also added VFX to some of the attacks in the combat system. Attacks like Charm and Defend now have visual queues which make the success of these moves more evident. This is still a work in progress but I think it was needed to make the combat more "readable".
Sex Animation
I've been slowly plugging away at adding all the new transition animations for climax scenes into the game. For context, each ses position in the game needs 3 "transition" animations. One to start the climax, one to end the climax, and one for idle animation after everything is done. This means over 30 new "transition" animations are needed to make all of the scenes feel "natural".
What am I working on now?
Currently, I'm still working on the animations for the game and the dialogue rewrites and implementation. Once those two things are done I'll be fully implementing the new sex scene modes and testing the game. I can't say when all this will be finished but I promise that I'm working hard to get this update out.
Conclusion
As you can imagine all of this has been/is a lot of work. I mentioned before that I don't want history to repeat itself by having a bug-ridden game that gets slowly dropped due to broken systems. All of this work is to make the game as stable as possible to make future updates easier. My goal has always been and always will be to complete this game and make it as enjoyable as possible. This upcoming update will ensure the game runs at its best and provides me with the tools to make better content.