Project Arkavite is a H-RPG game about experiencing the adventure of a lifetime. Our tale begins in a land rich with fantasy and sprinklings of dungeon-punk. This is a world of magical guns, swords and sorcery -- sporting lecherous lewds and magnificent mysteries!
Broadly speaking, I’m designing an open world in which you can go around adventuring, surviving and exploring endlessly. Something with many JRPG fantasy traits, but doesn’t strictly lock you down the path of a linear story. While the game will have a core narrative, there will be plenty of other aspects focusing on exploration, combat, survival, romance, "romance~", and customization.
◉ Customization - The player character is provided with numerous slots for apparel, but customization doesn't end there! Magical potions, curses, and esoterically induced transformations will present an added layer of customization, allowing you to alter your body in lewd and perverse ways.
◉ Romance - In Arkavite you will find traditional romancing akin to what you'd see in otome gamu, and that other kind of "romancing~" you may find in eroge. Let your mind run wild! We have a main cast in mind. Pretty bois and some lovely ladies. Capture targets are key!
◉ Survival - Food, drink and rest will be present in this game. When the going gets tough and supplies start dwindling, you may find yourself forced to dine on things you probably shouldn't be eating. Crafting, and construction are also a given. In later stages of development we will tackle weather systems and environmental hazards, both standard and magical.
◉ Exploration - We’re aiming for an open and somewhat organic world. From cities and villages to castles and ruins, a large portion of the world will be hand-crafted. To make the world feel truly larger than life, portions of the world will be procedurally generated. Devious dungeons and wilderness that'd swallow you whole. Our goal is to create an unpredictable, yet enjoyable experience in this endless world of Arkavite.
Why Support Arkavite? Developing games and experiences is my passion. If you've arrived at this page, genuinely like what I do, and want to see it go further, your support would mean the world to me, and go a great way in helping secure the future of this project! I’d like to offer more if possible, so if there’s anything you want to be seeing from me on top of what I do now, do let me know!
While every effort has been made to ensure this first release is as bug-free as possible, I expect there to be a few stragglers. If you run into any issues, please be sure to let me know. In addition to bug fixes, content and QoL updates are expected to follow, so do let me know what you think!
Sorry again for the long wait. With all that out the way, I hope you enjoy~
Drowning In Sand: The Character Creator’s Imminent Descent!
Hey, hey people. Development marches on! The promised day approaches! This month has been incredibly productive, so let us begin.
Scheduling
I am proud to announce, the new and improved character creator will make its debut with release of version 0.0.1-A on May 3rd 2024. Just under a few weeks from now!
I’ve now moved most resources towards Sandbox development. In the run up to release of the character creator, I will be putting the finishing touches on the build. Clean-ups to animations, widgets, tool-tips, and a little bit of tutorial guidance. Simple things which shouldn’t delay us any further, and worst case scenario can always come later. The “tutorial” element is probably the only mandatory feature, though I assure you it’s nothing fancy. It will most likely consist of a pop-up informing players “This is an alpha character creator, the rest of the game is still under development so you can’t proceed further. Have fun creating~”. Something to that effect.
The public release date is now set in stone. I now more than anything want to get it back in everyone’s hands, and following your feedback, figure out what works, what sucks, does it crash every minute? Hopefully not lol. Why aren’t pompadours priority number one!? That kind of thing. And from there I can add new content to the character creator on the side.
Today, we’re going to have a little retrospective, talk about the most recent developments, and briefly touch on where my current focus lies with the sandbox. Be sure to let me know your thoughts and feedback! I will strive to keep on doing what I’m doing, but it goes without saying, your feedback is invaluable. If you like what I’m doing, want to see me doing something better or have any thoughts in between, please be sure to leave a comment. It really does help me know whether or not you like or dislike the current direction.
A Retrospective
For those of you who are only just joining us, following the whole Unity Engine kerfuffle, I’ve put a lot of time into not only switching engines (From Unity to Unreal), but using this as an opportunity to make things better than before. The situation as a whole has certainly been far from ideal, but I do not hold any regrets given what fruits this change has already begun to bear. I’m quite pleased with how far we’ve come since just last October. Arkavite – You hear of design changes during game development, but this is quite the jump. Looking back, a lot has transpired these last several months. I hit the ground running, tested like crazy, and had to completely rethink how things should look and feel. Now the dust has settled I think I can confidently say what we have now has a leg up on the previous iteration. And I’m not just saying this from an aesthetic standpoint, but also on a technical level. (2023 left), (2024 right) Many were saddened by the change. I myself am maldingto this day. I put far too many hours into bashing my head against the wall with 2D animation, planning and the whole pipeline behind it, but, after putting the time into this new system, It’s clear the style of game I’m creating benefits from the change immensely. Customization is a fundamental component to the game and with my previous workflow, I was riding up against the limitations of 2D time and time again.
One might assume 3D is more work when it comes to animation, modelling etc, and while both mediums do have their own strengths and weaknesses, for my use case at least, 3D has been so much better. It’s unintuitive to think of, but 3D is better for me largely because of maintainability and raw flexibility. With 2D, when you want to change a base animation you have to update all your composite parts to match. Redo cloaks, redo hair, redo arms, legs etc, etc, and the more items your game has, the worse it gets… Whereas with 3D, if you want to change an animation, you just change it and all your composite parts will follow the rig. If you want to change an item mesh, you just change it. It’s magical.
2D did look pretty but it’d probably have added few years to development, and stolen a couple more years of my lifespan given the standard I aspire for. I may return to the style in future in some other game where ludicrous amounts of customization aren’t a main point of focus and I have more of a team behind me. Who knows~
From the get go, my aim has been to make something as good as – if not better than what we had prior. No doubt the model has room for improvement and will improve as time goes on, but as a general point of thumb, do you think we’ve landed on something as good as or better than what we had before? Is it worse? Let me know your honest thoughts.
So, here we are. The Character creator nears completion for standard functionality. We have basically every key feature of the original, and then some. The UI and aesthetic are all in keeping and consistent. I think we’re in a really solid position to move forward from. It’s as if we’re back at the latter half of last year.
I can’t say it enough but I must reiterate, thank you all so much for backing this project, subscribing, chatting on the server, commenting, and just following along. Had it not been for everyone’s support I really would not have been able to dedicate so much time and resources to the project. Now as I dive deep into sandbox development with reckless abandon, I can’t wait to see everything come together.
Men Men Men
We’ve enjoyed our time reminiscing over the past. It’s time for the present. Without further ado…
I present, Man… Well. Technically not man, but rather, Magu? Yes. Magu. Magu Magu.
Arkavite – Male Builds The player has been updated to allow for female to male blends. There has been a slight change to the buttons on UI. Selecting “Male” under Build will now switch the appearance to male defaults while selecting “Female” under Build will switch the appearance to female defaults.
To accompany the new sex I’ve added an Outfit set called “Dapper”, which is just a more masculine variant of the “Adventurer” set. I’ve also added a male underwear I’m sure you’ll enjoy. I’ve also expanded the selection of sliders so that you may create something male, female, or anything in between. I’ve also updated the character description system with the view system so we can determine what you are based on appearance. Male, female, futa, trap, reverse trap, double reverse trap. The whole shebang.
How Did We Get Here?
One of the major challenges was figuring out how we get a 3D character which can be male, female or anything in between. On one hand, you can have separate male and female skeletons and attempt to bridge between the two bodies through sliders and bone scaling… The only problem is, that’s not seamless. You’re always going to have a snap change at certain points when swapping bases, and it doubles the mesh requirement as each base needs its own tailored outfits. And it doesn’t end there. Now you have to worry about, eyelashes, eyebrows, hair, seams, how it all fits on each skeleton. A lot of work gets doubled and we have more complexity to worry about. Now some outfits may need variants for style’s sake, but if we’re talking purely about fit, there are far more scalable solutions.
Arkavite – An intermediate example depicting the deform and snapping issues experienced when working with two bases. Given the relative simplicity of our art style, I’ve opted to have a single body which can morph between male and female using a mix of blending, bone scaling and bone translations. As far as I know this isn’t done all too often as texture warping can get you into trouble, but we’re cel shaded! We don’t need super high detail textures to make things pop so, what we have just works.
There’s also an added benefit. Because everything ties back to one base mesh, this means male builds have access to most of the same options as females and vice versa. We will of course have separate male and female animations. If we didn’t then things would look weird. On that note, I’m wondering how I should handle the switch between male and female animation. Should the player get to decide how they walk and run? Should it be based on archetype, or apparel? Or should it all be automated and change based on a combination of factors? Appearance, psyche, hips, body and mind. Let me know your thoughts~
Future Body Development
We definitely need more masculine hairstyles so male builds have more to work with. We can also have a think about facial hair and body hair if people really want it.
As for all around body types, currently you can only really create a slim or thicc character. Later I may add morphs for musculature and weight gain. Musculature may be more texture based given the games aesthetic. That way you could have slim lean or bulkier builds. It’s not a total certainty right now as all that adds more complexity and work than I need at this stage, but it is something I am seriously considering for later.
Booba Upgrades
This one goes out to all you booba lovers~
Arkavite – Clean Sliding During the body upgrade I increased the poly density of the chest, and changed the method used for scaling. This has all been done to allow for cleaner deforms. The breast size nerf discussed in previous updates was in part due to the deform issues we saw when scaling bones. There was self-clipping at the largest scales and horrible outfit deforms at the smallest. With the new method, that’s no longer the case. We can have clean deforms all the way up to humongous sizes, and all the way down to being flat – which also happens to be key for male development. Cleaner, bigger booba and less finicky models to worry about. It’s a win win.
I also added scale based breast and butt jiggle variance. The bigger the jiggilier!.. This should also prevent men from having jiggly flat chests and butts. That would be rather odd. Would you like a firmness slider? Or, perhaps would you like to see jiggle physics tied into a boon or bane~
Face Time
While we’re still on the topic of modelling, let’s touch a little on the face. [Resting Smug Face] now changes the resting facial expression to a smug face. I’ve added a back-end system to manage expressions and reached a stage in the modelling process where we can start doing more face related things… “Such as”, you ask? Why, blinking of course! [blink] It may be the tiniest of details, but it holds a surprising amount of weight when it comes to making a character feel alive. No more dead eye stare! Little by little, the details add up and the composition awakens.
Under The Hood
Putting everything to one side, this month I was mostly occupied with updating the Equip and Player appearance back-ends to C++. Doing this has dramatically sped up my ability to add new items. One such item is prosthesis.
The [Limbless] bane will now replace the player arms with mechanical counterparts when the respective sub-options are selected. I see prosthesis developing into something you can buy or upgrade in future. The starter prosthesis should resemble something shoddy, but perhaps not this shoddy, so the current models may be placeholder. For the next iteration I’d like to develop limbs with a finer mechanical look to them and perhaps some armor-like qualities. For lower grade variants I could then peel away the outer casing and imagine what it’d look like with exposed mechanisms, wiring and sigils.
A Splash Of Color
I’ve added new options for selecting lip color, nip color, and ear floof color.
The Kitsukana ear mesh and textures have been updated. I updated their ears to look more fox-like and less like the Nyaatsu ears. Nyaatsu ears meanwhile have received some ear upgrades of their own. I’ve made improvements to the base mesh and applied some simple textures for the inner ear. Bunnjin ears have also gotten some texture upgrades and I will probably be updating their mesh at a later date. You’ll be pleased to know all ears have received a buff to their jiggle factor. Very important. Highly immersive.
The Squid in the Room
Before I go, I should really address the squid in the room. Ikaware haven’t received a lot of development time because they require a tad more work than the other starter races. It’s tough to slot in. What are my plans for them? What sets them apart from the other races?
Their ears should be somewhat similar to the Magu. Just a bit pointier and longer. As for their hair, they’re meant to have wiggly tentacles which double as weapons they melee with. They are special snowflakes so I will need to carve out some time for them in the coming months.
Thank You For Attending My TED Talk
Tomorrow, we’re going to have an experimental release, and this weekend onward, most my free time will be spent putting together the sandbox. Up-scaling and porting the inventory is simple enough. Completing the command system which the TF item framework uses is expected to be more of a pain than anything. What I really hope to focus on is map development and combat. We should really solidify the world style and start treading new ground.
As usual, I’ll be posting as I go in the ol’ Discord. I realized it can at times be a pain to have to sift through chat history for snapshots , so I’ve added a new channel (#workshop) dedicated to pinning the little in-the-works posts and discussions related to present and future developments.
Don’t forget, public release cycle resumes in just under three weeks!
There is much work to be done, so with that said, I will bid you adieu. Once again thank you so much for joining me on this adventure! Till next time~
Hello there. We have some changes, some additions, and to top it all off, some fixes!
Recent Changes
Reduced breast size range to avoid scaling issues.
Updated Credits Page
Recent Additions
Added Codecks Page for public development tracking
Character Creator: Added Futanari
Character Creator: Added Confirm page
Character Creator: Added archetype selection
Character Creator: Added player Character Bio screen
Ported the dialog parser system to C++
Ported the entity description system to C++
Ported the entity framework (formerly known as the actor framework) to C++
Recent Fixes
Fixed issue of splash screen not appearing in builds
Multi-line Choice Titles not Displayed Correctly
[Bakuretsu] Choice Displays Invalid Tags
Character Bio
Arkavite - Character Creation (Confirm Screen) The quill button finally serves a purpose. On click, it will bring up the above finalization page. All that’s currently displayed are the Character Bio and Archetype sections. The final version of this page will feature an overview of your beginning stats, and a list of which traits (boons / banes) you’ve selected. As of now the confirm button does nothing. It is merely placeholder.
The underlying player structure and dialog parser system (responsible for handling character description generation) has for the most part been ported over to the new engine. This allows us to generate the “Character Bio” you see above.
The dialog parser system is used whenever we need to reference aspects of a character. Their appearance, what they’re wearing, their name. All of it. We use it in dialog scenes, and item events. This system is applicable to all characters. Not only the player. It’s been future proofed so that we may have procedural or custom NPCs which can be manipulated in the same manner as the player.
Returning to character creation, alterations to the player appearance will be reflected in the Character Bio. Now height, breast size, etc. can be converted into meaningful descriptions from their slider values, we can add these descriptions to the slider display. A little extra job for me to do when polishing up the UI.
Archetype
Archetype dictates the temperament of your character – how they respond mentally to scenarios and predicaments. It’s our alignment system. We use the archetype stats to run skill checks for various aspects of gameplay. As for archetype selection at character creation, for now we’re relying on sliders. Some choices are stated to influence these archetype stats. In future we may make the starter archetype entirely dependent on which traits you pick. I also like the idea of having it be dependent on some choose your own adventure style scenario at the start of the game much like some older RPGs, buuuut that’s just an idea.
The player archetype is something which can shift over the course of gameplay depending on the actions a player takes. A pure individual may fall from grace or one who is corrupt may seek redemption. Some may fall to insanity while others give in to chaos. It will make for a lot of fun, I’m certain.
Sex Selection
I’ve added a series of new buttons to the right. As you can see we have “Sex” and “Build”. Sex changes the sex of your character (i.e, what genitalia they have), while Build will change the shape of the character body. The Female and Futanari sex options are working. And yes, the futa is physics enabled, though I will say it’s not the most realistic right now since I’ve made it a floppy hard on. I will need to add a flaccid model variant, or create a model which can blend between the two desired states. More peen models, coming soon!
As for the male “Sex” and “Build” options, their models are currently being worked on. Getting that done is now my primary focus. Peen sliders will also be added along with the remaining male models.
The male model
Some all around UI polish
Tutorial-ish Guidance for first time players
These are the last few things to complete before I can make that juicy public release and shift the majority of my focus back to sandbox dev. We're onto the final stretch. Hopefully soonish I'll be back to working on some real gameplay.
An experimental build will be dropping momentarily.
Ability to support your Creator by contributing – one-time or recurring.
Means to reaching out to the Creator directly via Instant Messenger.
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