We've made a little teaser trailer to show off our progress! We scrapped the idea of making important NPC's with the character creator, instead they have their own unique models so they can stand out more. Characters emote, eyes dart, mouth movement, animated backgrounds, multiple choice etc. We've added more complex lighting and some new 3D environments, a lot of precursor work before the playable story mode next month.

# Patch Notes

This update includes a large number of improvements across the early game, overworld, quests, dialogue, characters, visuals, UI and overall stability.

## World & Early Game

* Continued the Overworld overhaul, improving destinations, presentation and navigation.
* Improved Overworld destination popups and how location information is displayed.
* Fixed Overworld popups appearing in the wrong position after transitioning between scenes.
* Added and significantly expanded the Airport area.
* Improved Airport lighting, environment, sky and overall visual presentation.
* Finished and polished more of the intro sequence and its transition into regular gameplay.
* Improved transitions between Visual Novel sequences and regular game scenes.
* Added further polish and fixes throughout the Airport and early-game areas.

## Quests & Progression

* Added an on-screen Quest UI to make current objectives easier to follow.
* Improved how quests start, update and react to events in the world.
* Improved task and quest instructions to make objectives clearer.
* Improved quest triggers and progression behavior.
* Fixed incorrect quest-start text during Coby's foyer dialogue.
* Various fixes and adjustments to early-game quest flow.

## Dialogue & Visual Novel

* Significantly improved the Visual Novel presentation system.
* Visual Novel backgrounds can now make better use of both images and videos.
* Added a new horizontal character presentation mode with automatic player positioning.
* Improved backdrop colors, saturation and materials for more consistent scenes.
* Improved camera behavior and transitions during conversations.
* Updated dialogue presentation and speech behavior.
* Improved early Coby dialogue and related sequences.
* Fixed issues with some imported dialogue data.
* Improved loading and transitions when leaving Visual Novel scenes.

## Characters & Animation

* Updated and integrated new character work for Coby.
* Updated character work used for Cash.
* Improved character blinking behavior.
* Added more natural eye movement.
* Improved mouth movement and lip-sync/viseme behavior.
* Improved synchronization between facial expressions and character models.
* General character animation and presentation improvements.

## Visual Improvements

* Introduced a revised toon-style color treatment across the game.
* Added new color-grading passes for a more consistent overall look.
* Reworked character and environment outlines.
* Added and updated several shaders.
* Improved sky and background colors across multiple scenes.
* Reduced excessive bloom and adjusted post-processing for a cleaner image.
* Improved panoramic backgrounds and scene presentation.
* Added support for more dynamic, handheld-style camera presentation.
* Continued visual tuning across the Airport, Club exterior and other environments.

## UI & UX

* Updated several parts of the HUD.
* Added new fonts and improved overall text presentation.
* Added a new interaction prompt/tooltip.
* Updated the Lust and Energy displays.
* Fixed issues with Perk Cards.
* Improved the presentation of dialogue choices with a clearer screen overlay.
* Added and improved tutorial popups for early-game guidance.
* Added more consistent UI opening and closing feedback, including interface sounds.
* Continued a broader interface consistency pass across the game.

## Stability & Fixes

* Fixed several crashes related to the audio system.
* Fixed errors affecting character IK and other gameplay events.
* Improved scene loading and scene-transition reliability.
* Fixed UI elements that could become incorrectly positioned after scene changes.
* Windows builds have been moved back to DirectX 11 to resolve crashes encountered during scene transitions.
* Various smaller fixes to dialogue, quests, cameras, interfaces and environments.

## General Polish

* Numerous smaller improvements have been made to the intro, dialogue timing, camera movement, scene presentation and gameplay flow.
* Continued cleanup and refinement of systems supporting future quests, characters, interfaces and story content.

Download the current build via: https://jasonafex.itch.io/amorous-2/devlog/1531024/-amorous-2-new-horizons-update or simply run the launcher to update!

Hey everyone! 💜 Here’s a quick look at what changed in the latest Amorous 2 update.

This update focuses mostly on improving the game’s UI, menus, overworld flow, and general presentation.

The main menu has received a big visual upgrade!

The game should now feel more polished right from the moment you open it. 🌙

The settings and pause menu have been expanded to make the game easier to adjust while playing.

This should make the game feel cleaner and more comfortable to navigate. 🎮

The overworld has received several updates and fixes.

Exploring and moving around the world should now feel smoother and clearer. 🧭

There have been improvements to dialogue and story-related presentation.

These changes help support future story scenes, character moments, and presentation improvements. 🎬

A new radial menu system has been added and improved.

This should help make certain choices and interactions feel smoother and more intuitive. ✨

Inventory visuals have also been touched up.

Small change, but it helps the whole interface feel more unified. 👜

A few smaller presentation updates were added too.

These small touches help bring more life to the world. 🎶

Alongside the visible updates above, this version also includes several behind-the-scenes fixes and improvements to help the game run better and support future content.

Thanks for following the project! More updates are coming. 💜

Got a bunch of cool front and back end to share this month on the game! We've finalized the look of our perk cards (acquired by completing certain quests and activities), updated the chatbox UI, added a bunch of stat icons, fully animated all the work activities and more! 

We've got a new parallax mode when talking to NPCs so you can load in any background you want, so long as it's an HDRI file. This is to further open up the modability of the game beyond the base locations.

Pretty much all the shop locations are small 3D spaces you can explore now, with roaming NPCs and things to see. We've settled into the date creator, which you can easily use in your web browser to create new date paths or edit existing ones. These dates can (ideally) be exported/imported to the game with relative ease.

We are also making some adjustments to the toon shader since it was creating some unwanted shadows on the hair/cheeks. The final look will be as close to our 2D art style as possible. Check out all the attached screenshots and sneak peaks! We will also be posting the HD renders of the animated scenes and pinups to discord.

Full patch notes can be found here for backend content