(Pt 1, covering the writing, is here.)
We're getting near the end of August, so I thought I'd drop part 2 of my mid-2023 roadmap for House of Hellish Harlots. The first concerned the writing left to do, which originally was all HoHH was going to be. Since then I've experimented with Twine enough to improve the display and add art. It now looks closer to a regular game. Despite this, text will be the focus, and the project will remain 'words words words' plus the occasional picture to brighten things up.
This is what I think I need to do, or rather commission other people to do:
ART
This can be divided into 5 areas:
- Title Screen + Logo
- UI
- Harlot pinup art
- Character Portraits
- Backgrounds
TITLE SCREEN
I have some ideas - either the exterior of the House, or maybe curtains across the stage. Either way, I'll need to find an artist for it. I tried the AI art approach... and it wasn't good. One option could be to reuse harlot art. A lot of DLSite games take this approach where they cut and paste a mob of sprites from the game on the cover. I need a background and I need some nice titles spelling out the name of the game.
UI
This is the collection of icons at the top left of the screen (and top right, if you're playing on mobile). It displays various player stats ('health', round number, money) as well as buttons to bring up the character sheet or sav/load menu. I cobbled it together out of various bits of AI art. It's functional and does the job of presenting that information to the player, but it isn't good. Getting someone to redo the art and integrate it all within a nice panel (maybe curtains, maybe a batwing) is a high priority.
HARLOT PINUPS
If I had infinite money and resources, the ideal version of HoHH would have animations for every different sex act carried out by every harlot. Sadly, I don't have infinite money and resources. HoHH also has a lot of characters, way way more than a typical hentai monster girl game. What I'm going to try to do is commission a single pinup for each harlot. Even that will likely be expensive as HoHH will probably end up with around 100 harlots. I've put enough funds aside to start the ball rolling, but will likely need to look for additional funding at some point to avoid being left dangerously out of pocket. Any suggestions there welcome. Maybe higher subscription tiers? An adopt-a-harlot push for patrons/subscribers to directly fund their favorites?
I have started negotiations here with an artist for the first pieces. Fingers crossed that will prove fruitful.
CHARACTER PORTRAITS
This is one area where AI art seems to be fine. Female NPCs will get overhauled when I commission pinups for their scenarios. I might just leave the car NPCs and Portly Gentleman as is.
BACKGROUNDS
Backgrounds is also an area where the AI art is adequate. Ideally I'd like to replace them with proper art, and might need to do this if I want to put the game on Steam. It will come down to resources. I'd rather focus the limited funds on creating nice harlot art, especially as the backgrounds will likely be more expensive to commission. If fundraising goes really well, and there's money left over, maybe...
OTHER
There are also a few other potential areas to add art/graphics. This would be for the vendor NPCs - charms, potions and ailment cures. It would be better if the player was selecting from a point'n'click shelf of icons rather than a list of text. The same is true for gift selection before entering the harlot's room.
I have some ideas there and might experiment. I put these as weak maybes. Maybe for a hypothetical HoHH 2.
SOUNDS?
Music and sound fx is something I haven't put much thought to. Maybe the stock ejaculation sound. Maybe some ambient background noise. Maybe the same stock music every RPGMaker monster girl H-game seems to use.
I'm not going to put any thought to it for now. If the game project starts shaping up to be good enough for something like a Steam release, I probably should add some sounds and music. Everything else is a higher priority at the moment, so it's off the table until it needs to be on the table.
CODING
The core game logic is pretty much all in place.
What might be needed is a bit of optimisation and polish - for instance delaying showing text of a new area until the background jpg has finished loading in. I'll try to figure this out myself, but at some point might need to get an expert in to iron out the last wrinkles.
I might also need a second pair of eyes when it comes to packaging the game up as a game on Steam or app on mobile. That's uncharted territory for me, and I'd be terrified of fucking up something basic.
Anyway, that's an approximate roadmap for the fancier parts of HoHH. The ideal goal is a fully complete game I can release on Steam/DLSite. However, I'm also aware a lot of monster girl hentai games have big ambitions and then end up becoming bogged down and never finishing. If I feel I'm out of my depth and it's not something I can realistically do, I'll pare it back down to a simple text project with the odd picture to brighten things up.
This is a little vaguer as it covers aspects I'm not going to be in personal control of. If you want clarification or further details, ask away below.
And if you'd like to support the project, you can on Patreon or SubscribeStar. It's a big game project, but I hope people can see I've got a clear plan, clear end goal, and have consistently posted regular updates over the last couple of years.
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