Happy holidays, nudies! Boy, it's a bit nippily out today, huh? That's because we're celebrating the season with some surprise lovely new Anne art! Amber, you're gonna catch a cold! Now Alison's gonna have to keep you warm somehow!

It's been a bit hectic over here, with the team juggling work, the holidays, and some personal emergencies. That doesn't mean we don't have anything to show, though! Right now, the big thing Bear's working on is rigging up all of the NPCs we've created to make sure they're easily insertable into the game itself. Rigging is hard work! Do you have any idea how many bones a human model has?! Well, Bear does! It's THIS many!

Lots of bones in these models! Not as many as Amber of course. Amber's the boniest of 'em all! A main character has to have a lot of bones, you know!

We've also been taking a hard look at our central mechanics, seeing what could be tightened up, what could be better implemented, what needs to be expanded on. We made the decision to tweak how the sexual side of this game works.

Originally, Amber had five set stats that you could raise through activities and such.

Athletics - Amber's capacity for feats of agility and endurance.

Mentality - Amber's ability to study and retain knowledge.

Boldness - Amber's willingness to exert herself and take risks.

Exhibitionism - Amber's desire to perform publicly for people.

Randiness - Amber's neediness to touch herself.

Sexual content being optional has always been a core feature we've wanted to keep, but having two of your stats be sexual in nature meant that people who weren't interested in those accompanying scenes would always have these underleveled stats in their menu. It'd feel like you weren't truly "completing" the game. Plus, I also just don't like the term "Randiness", but I was desperate to keep the AMBER naming convention. Something had to be done.

So, after a bit of deliberation, we decided to change those two stats. They're now...

Entertainer - Amber's ability to charm and perform for people.

Reputation - Amber's level of fame and recognition around the town.

You'll notice that the description for Entertainer isn't too different from the description of Exhibitionism. That's because... technically, there isn't! In a mechanical and possibly psychological sense, anyways. We wanted to make sure that each stat had use outside of sexual context, and Entertainer sounded like a better fit for it. For instance, you might need a bit of Boldness to even ask the intimidating Freddy to work at his cafe, but you would need to make sure you have high enough Entertainer stats to truly wow his patrons as a waitress.

But what about sexual content? Well, rather than lock the content behind two specific stats... We decided to apply the content across ALL the stats! As long as you've done the prerequisite quests, your stats can help unlock erotic scenes across numerous places! With a high Athletics skill, you can REALLY get a workout at the gym! With high Mentality, Amber can help show off all the features of a new product at the Erotech toy shop! A bit of Boldness might mean that Amber can enjoy a nice touchy-feely break on a park bench without a care in the world, but high Entertainer stats could make it a full-on performance for an adoring audience! All of this stuff is completely optional, and while you don't have to go TOO far out of your way to unlock it, it's still easily ignorable for those who just aren't interested.

Reputation will be less of a stat and more of a progression tracker, increasing over time as Amber makes herself more known around town. It can't ever go down and won't have any negative connotation behind it, so don't go thinking Amber is going to get shamed out of town or anything like that. At first, people will be mildly curious about Amber, starting her off as "That Naked Girl". But make yourself more well known and help people out, and soon you'll be "Culo Culo's Nude Wonder!"

We're also working on a mechanic to really emphasize Amber's nudist whimsy as you walk around. Can't go too much into detail juuust yet (and sorry I keep teasing it), but I can show you some UI assets we've been working on. I love any excuse to show off more lovely artwork!

Cute, right? Don't worry, they'll be turned into discord emojis soon. Can't wait to get these in-game~

BUT, that's all for now! Thanks so much for the support! Have a happy holiday, and we'll see you not too long after with even more progress! Stay warm, even without clothes!

Hey there, nudies! Check it out - a redraw of the Birthday Suit Club announcement picture with Amber and Suria together, now redrawn by art director Anne! The original was just a mash-up of some existing art from both Anne and Rock Cocks artist/Amber character designer Leslie, but Anne redrew them both in their style! Love those colors and that INCREDIBLE BOOB SQUISH. Thank you, Anne~

It's also our Birthday Suit Games lead programmer's birthday today! Happy birthday Invertex! Everyone appreciates you and all the work you do! Here's to 100 more!

We've also started prototyping that thing I mentioned yesterday. Not too much to show just yet, but hopefully should have something going by next real progress report (as in next week or the week after). In the meantime, here's a possibly-related squishy Amber head

That's it for now, though! Thank you all so much for your support, and see you next week!

Hey there, nudies! Last time, I made mention of some cataclysmic work-related stuff that was keeping me busy. I do some stuff on the side to help keep this game funded and our team employed. While the extra work hasn't left me much time to sit and write for the game, it still allows the others on the team to chug away and things we still need made - new art assets, environments, back-end programming, that sort of stuff. It's also why progress reports have been a lot slower lately, because I just haven't had time to write them.

Reason I described it as "cataclysmic" was because... Well, that job (and everyone else's) was about to get very brutally terminated, and I had to go all-hands-on-deck to make sure it didn't. And after a very tense few weeks of arguments and negotiations... Happy to say that things have finally, FINALLY resolved peacefully, amicably, and in a way that still gives me a paycheck that I can dump straight into paying our team here! Hopefully, I'll get to talk more about that all that drama in graphic detail publicly some day. But for now, I'm finally able to shift my full focus back to MNL and properly helm this ship again. Thank you so, SO much for your generous patience and support. I'd like to reward that patience with the return of weekly progress reports, so let's start now!

The team has kept real busy in my semi-absence, with art director Anne really flexing that artistic directorial skill. Amber's model has been given some new tweaks with some extra bendy bones to make certain joints move better and new textures to make her POP. Above is a little test Anne made with her model!

But that's not all! Anne's also been working on... THIS!

Little dialogue faceplates for all the OTHER characters you'll be chatting it up with in Culo Culo! Counting Freddy, the Mayor, Alison, Petty, and Amber herself, that's 15 characters so far! Phew! That's a lot! We should probably just cap it here just to make sure we can actually finish this game, but we miiiight add a surprise character or two. This doesn't even account for all of the generic NPCs you'll also be interacting with!

Bear's also been hard at work putting the finishing touches on the park zone!

BIGGER! GREENER! Wetter? Admittedly, we've been having a liiiittle trouble with the big pink tree in the middle. It's going to be a surprisingly important tree, so we gotta give it some extra attention. Why's it important? You'll have to see~

Though while I've been talking a lot about story and characters, I've also been considering what players might do if they're just not too invested in the story and just want to run around as a cute girl with no clothes on. And obviously, there's still activities and such to engage in of all varieties, but I'd still like players to engage with even generic NPCs in fun ways. We're currently prototyping some stuff that I think you guys are going to find REALLY exciting. We hope to have something to show in the next week or two! Can't wait to see your reactions~

But that's it for now! Gotta go celebrate my birthday tomorrow in my finest suit! Thank you all so much again, and see you next week!

Hey there, nudies! Apologies again for the delay! Been a real busy month for me, with some cataclysmic work-related stuff I just couldn't ignore. Thankfully, it seems to have mostly subsided by now and I finally have some breathing room again. It's honestly been pretty painful, both not being able to work on the game and knowing that I'm also the one holding things up. I promise, I ain't doing it intentionally! I love my cutie nudist like you wouldn't believe! Which is why it's a delight to finally be able to put together another progress report for you all, showcasing the world we're loving building for our cutie nudist~

Last update, we showcased the cool comic-style shader that art director Anne put together, giving shadows a really cool sketch effect. It took a surprising amount of finagling, but Invertex has implemented it in-game! Some stuff still needs to be adjusted, but it's looking great so far!

Though we quickly realized that Amber's beautiful body was actually outclassing her accessories! They also needed to get retextured to better match Amber's goodness! So Anne's working on that now, as well.

The bag hasn't actually been updated since the very beginning of the project, so it was definitely due for an upgrade.

A while back, we also posted some concept art of a cool-looking tree. We haven't quite finished that tree yet, but Bear's been hard at work on everything surrounding it! Check it out!

A nice lil' nature zone is currently underway! Complete with original props! Tents, RVs, a lake, campfires... even new foliage to match!

We really are making EVERYTHING from scratch! It takes a lot longer, but man, is it worth it~

These will also be replacing some existing trees you've seen before, like the ones in the cafe zone. Everything's getting a bit of a visual upgrade as we finalize the look and layout of these areas.

Speaking of! A couple posts ago, I showed an RPG Maker map we had made internally of Culo Culo Town to get a sense of scale and general idea of where everything was laid out. It looked like this at the time:

As we started building with this idea in mind, we realized it wouldn't quite work with the zone layouts we had in mind. Mostly the dividing railroad track and the roads you see in the middle were adding problems to our idea of how Culo Culo should be traversed. We wanted the surrounding nature to be more immediately accessible, and have a better divide between rural and urban. So... we changed the map again! 

If you look at the bottom of the map, that little green house is actually Amber's house! That means that Amber has her own little private path to the nature zone we showed before, which continues up into the mountains. She can also follow the road to walk into the city proper, or go the opposite way to find a more rural neighborhood out in the country! You have a few different paths to choose from, but whether you go to the city, the country, the beach or the mountains, you can go au natural~

I figure I might as well show this, too. This is something I quickly scribbled together during a meeting with the team. The colorful squares you see are zones we've already made. Six walkable zones in total, not including building interiors. The numbered circles are further planned zones - stuff like the uptown portion of the city, the coastline, the rural neighborhood. They're numbered in reference to their importance for the game - meaning that some zones are more of a priority to make than others. For instance, it's pretty crucial that we get the uptown portion of Culo Culo Town finished since it contains a lot of various shops and characters that are important to the game. Less important would be the farm land you see on no. 7, which, while would be nice to roam around nude in, isn't a HUGE priority and should only be worked on once other zones are finished and no other interiors or assets need to be created. Still, I'd say we're roughly halfway through creating zones for this game! Ideally, we can finish all of these, so you have plenty of unique locales to roam clothing-free around!

And speaking of clothing-free... We've also upgraded the Discord server! Due to popular demand, we've added a new channel for our comic, The Rock Cocks! If you weren't aware, it's a comic that I write alongside my wife Leslie about a punk band with an exhibitionist streak. With sexy shenanigans and an eclectic cast of roadies that includes not one but TWO nudists, the comic is absolutely up your alley if you're excited about MNL! Go check it out, and then go chat about it with other fans in our discord, if you're so inclined!

That's all for today, though! Thank you so much for your incredible patience and support. See you again soon!

Oh god

Okay, okay, I got a LOT to talk about, but let's get right into the actual progress first because we DO have some really cool shit to show. Then I wanna talk about the general state of everything and how that's been affecting us on the development side of things.

First of all, huge props to Anne these last couple of weeks for being the MVP. You see that .gif above?! That's a mock-up Anne worked up themselves for a pause screen! We're still working on implementing it in-game, but the general idea remains the same - utilizing the cute fading bubble effects that we have across the game's UI, as well as having Amber's in-game model show up with a cute animation to reflect whatever she's wearing (or not wearing)! I fell in love with how this mock-up looked, but it's not just that either!

Eagle-eyed viewers will note that Amber looks just a little bit different in this .gif. Did she do something with her hair, maybe? It's not a new haircut or even a new shampoo; it's a new shader!

Here's how she looked before...

And here's Amber with Anne's new shader!

What a difference, right?! There's a new texture to her hair that makes it sleek and shiny, but what I really dig most is the shadows!

Check this timelapse of Anne actually drawing the shadows on Amber's model!

They maintain a screentone effect to keep that sketchy, cartoony look, but the effect also adds a sense of depth to Amber's model that wasn't quite there before! Despite looking more cartoony, Amber actually feels more fleshed out than ever!

And the shadow effect applies everywhere across Amber, as you can see here! Even in the smallest of crevices... Sorry, it's probably rude to wave a flashlight at that, isn't it? Ahh, Amber doesn't mind, though.

You can even see the thickness of the lines adjust based on how intense the shadow is on Amber. Even the light itself has a screentone effect! Was it important to show this effect directly on her bare butt? Of course it was! Anne did an INCREDIBLE job with this shader, and what better place to show it off than right on Amber's butt?!

Anne's still working on this shader, but it should be ready to implement in-game within the next couple days! Anne's really putting their screentone expertise to work not just in 2D, but in 3D! And we couldn't be happier! This game's just POPPING with style now!

But Anne's not the only one bustin' buns around here! Bear has also taken the things he's learned and has been going back to old areas to pretty them up even further! Last time, we saw that the cafe zone now has some beach to it. Well, it ain't just the cafe area now!

It's in front of Amber's home, too! Say hello to your new dreamy beach house!

Originally, this beach was literally nothing. There was nothing in front of this house, because the camera would remain locked and prevent you from crossing the street. But now, you can run right across it and head straight on over to the ocean! Can you swim? Ehh, we haven't figured that out yet. Maybe! But you can definitely strut your bare self across the sands and chat up some beach bums while they check out yours!

Amber's house has also gotten a slight face lift, now with a mailbox and some lovely framing to accentuate the attic space. While the attic won't be accessible immediately, it's something we'd like to keep in our back pocket for later to expand on the house. Looks quite nice though, right?

The neighboring houses have also been improved with new textures, mailboxes, new trees, planters... Bear's been taking direct inspiration from Megaman Legends, one of my all-time favorites. Amber probably won't be kicking Servbots any time soon, but Kattlelox Island wouldn't be the worst place to wander around with no clothes on. Obviously, very happy with how this is looking. AMAZING WORK, BEAR.

All right, that's progress. Now let me sit and talk with you about the general state of things right now, because nudies... it's been rough.

As you know, the majority of us on the dev team are American, and the landscape for adult content here in the states has gotten real bad, real fast. The plan for MNL's development and the reason I haven't been promoting it too much was because I had planned for us to finish up the demo, then put the game up on Steam in early access to gain more visibility on the project and help fund the rest of it. As of this month, that's no longer possible - Steam does not allow adult games to go up in early access.

Okay. That sucks, but that's fine. The other plan for MNL was that after the initial Steam launch, we would continue to support the game through additional content. I wanted to expand on Culo Culo Town and the stories of Amber and the townsfolk through free expansions and patches. But that's also just no longer possible, as Steam has cracked down on this as well.

These crackdowns are a result of payment processers getting more strict on adult content rather than Steam themselves laying down the hammer, something I'm unfortunately very familiar with over at adult comic site Slipshine.net. Be that as it may, though, a Steam launch isn't looking very likely. Not until the game is 100% complete with no additional content to be added. It's thrown a bit of a wrench into things, and forced me to sit and think about the game's direction. 

Is the game cancelled? Absolutely not. Is it delayed? No, it's just taking a while. But it's forced me to sit and really think about the trajectory of this game and how we're going to see it through to the end. Because no matter what, I want this game to come out. It's my dream game. Hell, it's a lot of people's dream game. I need to see this through, though I may have to taper my loftier expectations of what all I can do with this game.

Thankfully, MNL's content has always been planned to be more on the softcore side of things. While public sexy acts have always been planned, it's always been 100% consensual and doesn't contain more extreme, illegal acts. As long as nudity itself remains legal to be depicted (which, I'mma be real, who even knows what'll happen at this point), then I think MNL will be just fine as a game. I don't think we'll need to change anything at all, content-wise.

But we also can't plan on a Steam launch any time soon. Not until the game is done, and we're nowhere near that point. So for now, the focus is going to be here on Patreon and Subscribestar. We're still going to aim the get the demo out as soon as we can, but the biggest push will be towards helping our game continue development through these sites. I'm hoping that once we get this demo out, we can continue to regularly add new story content for people to play on a monthly/bi-monthly basis. We're also in the process of planning a new website to help strengthen our lovely community and provide easily accessible builds and game content, just in case we can't host them directly on these sites. Our moderator/resident skeleton Killerbro has been assisting with this, and we hope to have something to show on that end soon (though I'm the one holding that part up).

So, yeah. That's what's going on, and that's the plan going forward. It sucks that it has to be like this, but we're just going to keep trucking along. We love what we're making here and we want to see it through... but we're going to need all the help we can get. I'mma gonna start promoting the Patreon and Subscribestar more, and if you can help any way either financially or just sharing with fellow nudie enthusiasts, it would be much, much appreciated.

But that's all for now! Until then, I leave you with a sneak peek of some concept art we're working on for the next major area...

 Thank you all so, so much, and see you again soon!

Hey there, nudies! Check it out - a brand new poster-sized beautiful piece of promo art by none other than Anne! Since Anne's our artist going forward, I thought it would be good to have a new piece of key art from them to show off, and Anne was way more than willing to flex their skills. We'll probably do some more edits and variations on this going forward too as we continue adding characters and solidifying everyone. But still, it's great to see all the characters we've made in one busy scene! And of course, it's even better with Amber's no-clothes self right in the middle~

Today's post isn't much of a progress report because everyone's been uh... well, I had to build two new computers for me and Leslie and import all the files over. Anne's been working on this monster of a pic. Invertex has been working on importing the stuff Bear's made, and Bear's FUCKING APARTMENT EXPLODED. Like, straight up, big fireball. He's okay, everyone's okay, he was just out for a bit with no power. He's back now, but obviously couldn't get much else don in the meantime. But the band's back and we're rocking and rolling with no clothes on! Wait, that's that other comic...

That's it for today, though! Thank you so much for the support, and see you next week!