Glassix 2 v0.15 released

Changelog

Added waypoints in locations to travel between locations quickly
Travel menu can now go back levels by clicking on red labels
Reimplemented models loading directly from mods folders using Trilib
Added 4 new location models: HallwayA, HallwayB, HallwayC, HallwayD
Added 18 new hallways locations in Newbit map
Sounds and Musics have been moved to StreamingAssets folder

This new version focus on the waypoints navigation between locations. It works pretty much as you can expect, click on a door, stairs or specific waypoints to move to next locations. This one was more complex to code than Glassix 1 since when spawning in the new location, I needed to place the player to the related door but the result should give more of a feeling of living in the city than before. I've also took the opportunity to push it further with waypoints offering multiple destination such as a lift which can send the player to any of the floor directly, not just one.

I've added hallways in both the apartment building and the university albeit they are quite plain at the moment. Here too, it took some time to create those myself even though they are quite basic. I prefer creating mine because the one I found online are usually made using tools which create a huge mess in the model and make it difficult to modify or maintain and I had to put my head back in 3D modeling and UV unpacking which is another mess to handle on top of all the other aspects of game making. But still quite interesting since I'll be able to create whatever I want given enough time.

Besides this new navigation feature, I also put back the external model loading feature. I had to disable this a few version back due to some bugs in the module but it has been fixed now. This means models are now loaded directly loaded from mod folders and creators will be able to simply drop their FBX or other 3D extension in their mod folder to use them in Glassix 2, be it buildings, locations or furniture, albeit each of those will also require their own editor to configure the necessary information such as size, materials and whatnot.

I've also moved the sounds and music in the external folder which means they are also loaded a runtime and creator will be able to add their own sound or music during events.

While coding the navigation stuff, I had a few ideas I wanted to share, such as a new spell "Wormhole" which could allow the player to create connected wormholes in their favorite locations for quick travel. Similar to teleportation but would be lower level and cheaper, that seems interesting to add to the game. Another aspect I'd like to improve in the game is interactions. For example, it's possible to toggle lights directly from the UI but with the waypoints interactions, I realized it would be more interesting to add light switches as interactable 3D models directly in all locations as well as make lamps and other lights not directly connected to the main system to toggle them on and off. Similarly, the ability to use furniture which should be usable such as chair or couch or TV which would change the animation, something I guess you are already familiar in other games.

The plan was to focus back on the Newbit scenario now that I have the hallways and the event editor but I'm thinking it's been a while since the last poll to get your opinions plus those new ideas seem fun to add to the game so I'll prepare a poll with all the most interesting features planned so you can decide which one I'll focus on.

That's it for now. Again, this version has no new playable content I'm afraid just the navigation feature, sorry about that :x

Thanks a lot for your patience and support!

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Oct 01, 2024 07:41 am

Public post

Glassix 2 v0.14 released

Hi everybody!

Changelog

Added Choices feature in Events, Events Editor and Online documentation
Added game entities and entities properties in Event Editor
Added new confirm panel before switching or leaving the Appearance and Biography editors to avoid losing unsaved changes (Thanks player whose name I forgot! :x)
Fixed bug with male beard not updating correctly in Appearance Editor (Thanks Squark!)
Fixed Free Mode saves not working. Requires new game. (Thanks Bulgara!)
Fixed bug with outfit morphs not updating in Appearance and Biography Editors

This new version focuses on the choice feature in Events and add a new tab in the Event Editor to handle that. Choices or options however we want to name it are a basic feature in visual novel to (usually) let player decide the outcome of the story.

In Glassix 2, choices involve much more complexity compared to other game engine such as Renpy because I've given access to most game variables to be able to cover all possible conditions we can think of when displaying a choice. Most of those conditions are the same as conditions for an event and use exactly the same code and prefab, making it easy to update and debug if needed. But as always, there are some exceptions which is what makes coding new interfaces not a simple copy from a previously existing interface (Event conditions VS choice conditions, same-same, but different). Choices are then displayed in the usual way (Just noticed I should add a semi opaque dark background to make it more obvious the players needs to click on one choice :x)

The second important addition to this version is the new game entity properties dropdowns which will allow creators to access dynamic data in their events. Usually, in Renpy, we'd have either the names hard coded or a global variable with the name stored and used. In Glassix 2, we have fixed content created in advanced (such as the Mercer family in the Newbit scenario) and randomly generated content, such as NPCs filling the city. What I think will make Glassix 2 really different from its competitor is mixing this fixed and dynamic content together and make it feel like an enjoyable experience. Fixed content will allow creators to create a proper story with different branchings, similar to Glassix 1, while having randomly generated content will allow the story to have its own flavor even when replaying the same scenario.

Events can target fixed content and follow a scenario, but it is also possible to create unique events for the randomly generated content and NPCs, to make them appear as a fixed content when they would actually not be. They could be present during your first run in the scenario but in another run, they'd vanish. For example, we could create specific events for a nympho blond girl requiring specific body proportions and age which would keep seducing the player during any scenario played. Her appearance would still be random but would need to match some min-max value. When randomizing the citizens, there could be or not be a match making those events accessible or not.

Another way to make randomly generated content matter would be by using predefined randomly generated citizen. For example, in Newbit, the player has several colleagues, each with a unique job. Their appearances and gender are randomized, but their scenario unique citizen code is not and known in advance meaning we can use this code to make this colleague either a good friend or a rival, whatever their appearance is.

This mix of fixed and random content will make Glassix 2 fun to play and replay (At least I hope so!). I have not included all game entities not all game entity properties yet, only about 10-20% of the total of it I'm guessing but that should be enough at the moment. I'll add more as I create content for the game using those same editors as well as from players feedback if any.

All of this will require proper documentation and tutorials of course. I wanted to release a quick first tutorial for a basic talk event to show how to add some flavor when talking to NPCs but couldn't due to lack of time. I'll try to do so asap since it would be another good testing opportunity for me to test my own code. I did test it as much as I could this time around (did notice some bugs in v0.13 which have been fixed too) but with the code complexity, I wouldn't be surprised if some still escaped me.

As for new content, I'm afraid I didn't have the time to add any yet since both the choice and game entities features took me more time than expected so this version would only serve as a demo for creators to give a shot at the event Editor. I've also some stuff to say about v0.15 content but will keep that for another post coming soon as to not bloat this release post.

That's about it for now! I'd like to add an extra thank you for players reporting bugs, even if I don't fix them right away in the new version, I do (try) to keep track of the reports and fix them when I have the time as well as players suggesting how to make the game better (The new confirm panel comes quite handy like a player suggested, I forgot your name though, let me know if you read this!). I still have a few to fix in my backlog as well as some other QoL suggestions which are pretty good ideas so don't hesitate to report or give feedback on how to make the game or UI better!

Thanks a lot for your patience and support!

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Aug 01, 2024 11:11 am

Public post

Glassix 2 v0.13 (finally) released

Hello everyone!

Download links

Changelog:

Added Events Editor

Well, that must be the shortest changelog I ever wrote lol. But one huge mess to implement.

Anyway, the current Events Editor is a simple basic version which is quite rough but gives complete control over event contents in the game allowing player and myself to add new authors, mods, files and events to the game and even to overwrite events.

I've been rushing to push it out today actually, there are several important nodes which don't have proper dropdowns list and use plain text inputs which makes content unclear but that'll be fix in next version. It's also missing some critical features, such as the ability to add player choices during events but this is due to the fact I didn't use that myself yet in the current events and it will be added in next version.

The code behind all this is quite complex because some nodes values will depend on some other nodes values. Let's take the citizen list for example which will be quite important during scenario. When creating an event, the scenario condition is not mandatory, because the event could be a generic event accessible even in Free Mode, like some small talk and general work events. So the value of the citizens list needs to be changed each time the scenario condition changes, or even empty the list of selectable citizens of there are no scenario. Same things happens when we want to show the list of furniture inside a location. We have an optional location condition and in the event steps, we can interact with the furniture in the room (for this one, I want to easy way at the moment and show all the furniture in the game instead of loading only the ones from the current location if any, I'll fix it later too).

There's also the complexity of the getting entities properties. The game contains various entities, such as infrastructure, location, furniture, citizen which have various properties (a name, a size, an age, a gender and so on...) and I want to make most of those properties accessible in events so that the event can properly refer to the needed property. For example, when having a general talk event and we want the player to use the current character name, the game uses a unique variable structure like "[entity.code.property]", and to retrieve the full name of a citizen in an event, we'd then use "citizen.citizen1.fullname". This part is also not using proper dropdowns but will in the future so that everything is easily accessible in the Events Editor and we can really create unique events matching the involved citizens. It'll also be possible to extend this feature to get access to relationships, for example, Glassix 2 will allow you to get married and change spouses (I'd like to add possible spouse harem too depending on the setting of the city we're in and this city could be changed during gameplay by the mayor, a job which the player could also reach with the proper skills and relations). Since the spouse of the player could change, we'd need a special property to retrieve and we could go with "citizen.player.spouse.fullname" or "citizen.player.spouse[0].fullname" if we use harem settings.

I guess I'm pushing it quite far here and it's really complex, but I wanted to share my ideas for the Events Editor now so you know where I'm going with this. I'll try to make everything easily accessible without requiring the player to know all those variables or entities because they will all be presented in a simple dropdown form with human readable labels. I've already started with several nodes but there were quite a lot and some required more dedicated UI to handle their complexity so it's taking quite a lot of time. To be transparent with you, I've been working on this editor for the past 3 months and stacking all my work time on it, it should be around 1 month of full time work on it. That's about 8-9 days of work on it per month, that's all I can afford at the moment since I'm quite busy with my web dev work. Next version should have most nodes completed + the new Choices tab, so still no new content in next version or maybe some basic events, though I'm not planning to release Glassix v0.14 in August (more details in another post).

Ok that's a lot of garble, let's try to give you some insights on the basic workflow of the Events Editor. I will release a proper documentation on the official game website asap too.

Here is a quick breakdown of how it works

The first step are to simply choose or create the author/mod/file where the events will be stored. You can add new authors, mods and files with the "+" button in the top right.

Next we can create or edit existing events.

Inside the event, we'll need to first configure some general data such as the trigger type or its frequency, a complete details of each field will be released on the official website asap.

Then we can configure the conditions of the events which comes in 3 types:

Character (or actor): A citizen involved in the event which can have specific gender or age requirement for example. A lot of variables are available and will be explained properly in the official documentation.
Global: A global condition such as the time of day or day index
Flag: A custom author flag. Author will be able to add their own flags to keep track of players actions and decisions. For example in Glassix 1, one series of event is related to Sarah's secret and whether you keep it, share it with Hikari or share it with the boys. A flag would then have 3 possible values here: not shared, shared with Hikari, shared with the boys. Follow up events would then depend on the value of the flag.

Once the conditions are set, we can move to the steps.

A step is usually a block of text shown to the player, each block of text is a step. So if you have 10 blocks of text, you'd have 10 steps. But when we show a block of text, a lot can happen at the same time, for example, a citizen will spawn, an actor will change its animation, some flags will change and so on...

Here is a quick peak at the current node to impact the current step. I've tried to add tooltips to explain what each node does and when you add one, you'll have more inputs to configure the node you just selected.

For example if we want to add a screen effect (currently a simple image shown but I'll add more effects in the future such as screen shaking or black/white screen), we'll need to select the image to show, its color and opacity. Here again, I've added tooltips when hovering the inputs with the mouse.

Some nodes are set in stone with a fixed amount of values, but some other requires more complex processing, such as changing the behavior of an actor like its animation, the furniture he is using and so on... In such case, a "+" button is available directly on the row to add more nodes to this block.

Once the steps are done, simply save the file and give it a shot in game (I'm afraid there's no quick preview yet but that's coming for sure asap)

This was a quick overview, the full documentation will be available online asap too.

Event files are located in the game folder and can easily be zipped and shared online so that authors can share their mods if they want and expand the game content. You can even edit my own files but beware they will be overwritten with each new version. There is also a priority feature in the event system meaning you can technically overwrite my basic events by your own if you wish so. Just make sure not to use too high a priority otherwise you might lock some core story events preventing advancement of the story.

Anyway, I think I've bored you enough (if you read this far lol). I'm expecting issues with the editor since I didn't have too much time to test it but I didn't want to delay this new version more. Error log can be found in "C:\Users\<user>\AppData\LocalLow\Gaweb Studio\Glassix 2\Player.log" so if you encounter any issue, please attach the file with your message so I can debug this more easily.

I still have a lot to say but I've already spent 3 hours on this and I need to eat so I'll keep the rest for another post.

Thanks for your patience and support!

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Apr 30, 2024 10:54 am

Public post

Glassix 2 v0.12 released

Hi everybody!

Changelog

Newbit scenario extended
Added new "Go to objective" action in slotbar
Added new UI icon to show objective action when there is an active objective
Added boobs physics!
Added quick text skip during event with CTRL key
Changed global water effect in city mode to something closer to some kind of pink fog
Added new infrastructure: RestaurantA
Added new location: RestaurantA Main Room
Added 13 new furniture: ChairD, PlantA, PlantB, PlantC, PlantD, PlantE, TableD, TableE, SignA, PaintingA, StatueA, CeilingLightB, LampA
Fixed livingroom windows model not letting light pass through
Fixed issue with pubic hair and face details layers darkening the skin
Fixed issue with loading screen disappearing before all textures were properly loaded when visiting a location
Fixed issue with city lights not updating properly at night

After many delays, here is the new version of Glassix 2. This version focus on the Newbit scenario story however I might have to disappoint some of you since the new content can be played in less than 5 minutes if you take the time to read everything. This is due to the complexity of writing events in Glassix 2 compared to Glassix. In 2D, I just had to pose characters, save the image and add the text. With 3D, this process is more complex since I need to adjust animations, face expressions, position in the room, camera angles and more... Add on top of that the needed time to add new buildings, locations and furniture each with their own texture to organize. Well, that's several days of work just for that. The fact that I don't master the whole process yet also adds to the needed time. However with time comes experience and I also plan to create tools to make everything much easier to handle thus making adding content much easier, for me and for players. More details in a future post this month.

Besides the story, I've also added some nice boobs physics and focused on making the game less of a hassle, learning from our experience with Glassix, though the way Glassix 2 plays is different.

First, to make things easier on the players, I've added some buttons to quickly go to objectives and I've added the quick skip feature when holding the CTRL key. I've also adjusted loading screen so they properly wait until everything is loaded in the room before disappearing.

Secondly, I've been looking into making locations less empty, starting with the new restaurant location. There's still some work to make it better but that's a first step in this direction. Unfortunately, I did not have time to fill other locations with more furniture but that'll come.

Overall, this new version doesn't bring too much for the player but it should give you a better idea of where I'm going with Glassix 2. Some of you mentioned the game looked a bit like another 3D H game named Lifeplay which was right but with this new version and seeing how the Newbit scenario unfolds, I want to show you that Glassix 2 will offer some proper story line similar to Glassix, unlike Lifeplay where you are a bit lost in what you should do in the game. Glassix 2 will offer both nice stories with scenarios and for those who prefer freedom, the Free mode will let you play in any city and set you own goals, though you'll have some optional side objectives to complete to earn karma and unlock more spells.

I apologize again for all those delays and hope you'll enjoy the new content. Let me know if you encounter any bug in the game!

Have a nice day!

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Feb 29, 2024 01:51 pm

Public post

Glassix 2 v0.11 released!

Hi everybody!

Changelog

Added skill experience gain with work action for player based on skills, spells and mentor
Added daily skill experience gain for NPCs based on skill and mentor
Added skill level up system
Added new panel to edit slot bar actions
Added new hire, fire and promote buttons in business panel
Free Mode doesn't require citizens to have jobs to be able to start playing anymore

Here is the new version of Glassix 2 in which I focused on the skill, skill experience and actions features.

Regarding skills, the process is pretty standard, gain xp while doing certain actions and once you have enough xp, you level up automatically. Having higher skill level will give better job opportunities and will often be used in events to check if an action succeed. They are dependent on the attributes of the character, meaning if your character has shitty attributes, he won't be able to level up the skill to a very high level and will be stuck in mediocrity! But luckily, that's where magic comes to the rescue and will help make the game easier even for normally lost causes :D

Glassix 2 is aimed at being a simulation which reflects real life (with a drop of magic) which means normally, skill xp will be earned very slowly, usually taking 10-15 years to level up to max level, something close to real life if we want to be considered a master in a certain skill (Depends on the skills though but for simplicity, I set all skill at the same level. Though it's easily possible to edit values in the XML files to better reflect reality). Some skills, spells or items will make this process much faster and cumulates so you could be 2-3 times faster than normal (again, this boost can be changed easily in the future if players want to customize to their own preferences) and add to that the mentor feature, such as teacher for students or a trainer at the gym which can boost up to 3 times again the value, depending on the skill of the mentor again. Depending on the scenario, it might be useful to take some classes before finding a good job :D

Now, I already anticipate the kind of grind this can bring, similar to what we have in Glassix and I plan a simple feature to skip several days or weeks or months at once, to reduce the grind and getting large returns, be it in quick money from your salary or skill xp from working, though less than if you had been going day by day. A simple character focus to this would also allow you to pick up some citizens you'd like to befriend or make more obedience during this process so the grind will be reduced even more. I still need to organize my thoughts on this to make it work flawlessly but I'm letting you know just as a heads up ;)

Back to the slot bar feature, you can now change the actions in the slot bars. This time, I tried to make it more engaging than my other panels with some drag and drop (yeah, basic feature I know but still new and interesting to code for me). There are two different slot bars, one in city mode and one while inside a location, each having their own actions coming from basic actions, spells, work and more in the future. I'll add multiple slot bar to both interfaces in the future when there are more actions which can be switched with the usual up/down arrows so players can organize that better when one slot bar won't be enough.

Finally, I've added some basic hire/fire/promote buttons inside the business panel if are working in said business and if your job allows you such actions. At the moment, NPCs won't react to such actions at all, similar to setting up the city in Free mode. I plan to add actual slot bar hire/fire/promote actions so we can get specific events related to the target skills, personality and what not with different reaction such as refusal if they have a better job or don't like you and so on. Lots of possibilities there but I was too short on time this month due to Chinese New Year (Yeah, I get both Christmas and Chinese New Year being French and living in China lol).

The UI is currently still barebone, notably for the slot bar edit panel (I was planning to add a filter to the list but considering the number of current actions, I decided to wait until there are more). I do plan to improve the existing UI later on but not a priority at the moment.

The basic and most urgent features of the game being mostly done, I'm planning to organize a poll next week to let you decide what actual content you want in next version.

Let me know if you have some feedback regarding those new features. Thanks for your time and support!

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Jan 31, 2024 12:41 pm

Public post

Glassix 2 v0.10 released

Hi everybody!

Changelog

Added money feature
Added infrastructure and business ownership feature
Added money, income, income tooltip, expense, expense tooltip, owned infrastructure and owned business information in citizen panel
Added monthly event to earn money from income and lose money from expense
Updated citizen randomizer in Free mode to work by batch rather than overwriting every citizens when randomizing
Added new options to citizens randomizer in Free mode
Added new buttons in the citizen panel in Free mode to select owned infrastructure and businesses
Fixed issue with age calculation in Free Mode
Fixed issue with incorrect date display in specific cases
Fixed issue with hair not clearing in editors

So, here is the new version for Glassix 2 which simply introduce money to the game. Though it's just about money, there's quite some stuff going on behind such as the addition of building and business ownership which will be expanded on later on too. At the moment, owning stuff impact who will receive rents for buildings, and who will receive business members fees and pay employees salaries.

I've added those basic information in the Businesses panel and the Citizen panel so that everything is clear. I've also made it work for both modes: Scenario and Free mode. While in scenario, initial owners will be specified by the scenario and it might be possible to change during game if the scenario allows it. In Free mode, you'll be able to directly change ownership of the map buildings in the Citizen panel so if you want to own everything, no need to cheat, just go Free mode and get unlimited money :D

The UI is currently really blend. Since there's still a lot of stuff to add, I'll keep it blend to get a better idea of what we'll have and once done, I'll update the UI to make it prettier and more user-friendly.

I had less time to work on that due to Covid this month but overall, this new version introduce the basics of the full economy feature I'd like to add to the game to make it more complex and fun to play, feeling you actually achieve stuff and progress. In the future, I'll also add a new unique job, mayor, which will unlock even more actions to control stuff in the city such as building and business taxes and such though it's not a priority but something interesting to keep in mind.

I realize the current game is still not very interesting to play. I will still have to push your patience a little more with next version to add skill experience feature and jobs actions so that all the minimum necessary basic features of the game are done and then I'll be able to focus on actual game content, progress the Newbit scenario, add more sex animations, more interactions and events...

I apologize again for the lack of communication those last two months and thank you for your patience, understanding and support!