I tend to forget that not everyone is keeping track of whats going on in the discord all the time, so here is a post to summarize everything that's been going on for the past few months!So to begin I will show off some pictures featuring some of the progress on going with the manor's rework.

//Hallway between lobby and bedroom//

So do you remember the hallway containing the doors for Roxy and Annie's rooms? Well, this is how they look now!There have been many instances where people have told me that the walk-ability of the manor felt very bloated and the areas feeling samey... I agreed. The original design of the manor was very rushed, and didn't really show off my ability to make good looking levels with distinction between one another.

//Bedroom and Backlobby// 

Now each section of the manor will have subtle color and shape language changes to help with this issue. On top of this if you couldn't tell already-

//Main Lobby (Doors and color theme haven't been updated yet)//

The entire left top hallway has been gutted entirely( I touched on this in my previous post already) but also-

//Right Hallway (also not styled yet//

 

The lower hallways have been shortened GREATLY. I honestly don't know why i decided to make them as unnecessarily long as they were, but now it has been addressed.

//Locked Door//

Here is what locked doors will look like now. No more new players checking every door they see to find out where to go! They will also come with a satisfying unlock animation.

//Neon sign for the wip Club in Lynlee//

Now ive been sitting on some other juicy content and features ive been working on in game wise, and im gonna sit on it for a little longer.

In the meantime lets show off some of the stuff my other artists and animators friends have been making!

//Tease of one of the new Barrack's Bunny girls by @midnightstep

//A wip screenshot of the downtown portion of Lynlee. This will feature lots of animated billboards. Some of which will be drawn by @tavuntu on twitter like this cyborg girl ad. These ads will then be animated by @silumansoft also on twitter.//

//one of many magazine covers that you will find in various places in the game ((like the camera puzzle) yes there are nude alts))//

Now I would like to announce that ive been working closely with some of my new artist/animator friends to create some "external content" for the game...

Now before this starts setting off alarm bells of where patreon devs start up auxiliary projects before finishing there first one, I am simply taking a light directorial role with this. And by that I mean THEY are doing 95% of all of the drawing if not all of it, while i occasionally make edits/corrections and step in occasionally to keep things on model or on script.

Basically instead of listening to music or watching videos while working on the game, I'm now in a discord call with a number of people occasionally giving them pointers or streaming an art edit for them to use as reference.

//Anime Euphy?//

 

Fairly soon they will be able to work pretty independently as well. They are fans of the game and already are in love with the characters and world.

"So what does this mean exactly?"

Well to start, it means soon i will be posting on social media funny doodle pictures of the characters to advertise the game in between updates. 

After that? well? We're working on full character turn around design sheets for Euphy, Roxy, Annie and Lewis.

"What are you going to use these for?"

Perhaps short funny manga skits that we'll also post. To help advertise the game and world build in-between updates.

"What about lewd drawings/manga?"

Yes. We will also be posting "tease" pictures on our socials that will be fully revealed and available to view on the games patreon as a benefit to ALL tiers. 

Some funny shitposts, manga skits, and lewd manga as well.

The idea tho is that we're are starting VERY small and will scale up as the game grows to not burden dev time or the people we already have on board with too much work.

"If you're just making still pictures, why does it say Anime Euphy?"

Because we are treating the pre production for the manga as if it was going to be animated... and maybe it will be... one day ;)

Like I said... starting small... and sloooooooowly scale up from there alongside the games natural growth.

So again, no worries. im not dropping a fuck ton of dev time to draw manga.

Wrap up!

So all in all lots is being worked on atm! And im receiving lots of help by a number of people to help make content for Network Euphoria inside and outside of the game!

I will return soon with news about the upcoming QOL update that will Hopefully be ready Late February or March with the Cafe update soon after!. As per usual my holidays got super busy or else we would have been looking at a January release. :(

As per usual, for more frequent news updates come join the discord below!

 So before I get started I'd just like to clarify some changes being made to NE's support structure. 

Nothing crazy is being rug pulled for my supporters or anything. The only change is that the most up to date version of the game will be constantly up for sale on the itch page and be available for only supporters to play. Meaning, the free demo version will only be updated every once in a while when i feel the game has reached another stable point in development. The moment the game reaches the point where the town introduction is completed. (Ie after you are introduced to the town residence) Will be the final free version of Network Euphoria and the cut off point for the demo. When we get to this point, the demo will be up to play on Steam as well. Why is this the new system? 

The sole reason is that the last way was simply unsustainable for the game's development for a myriad of reasons that I have expressed many times over in the game's discord community. 

Although I have zero problem with those who insist on playing for free to simply obtain newer releases of the game once they inevitable become available through unofficial means. Cough cough f95 Cough. I understand not everyone has the money to spend on silly porn games. So be my guest. (─‿─) 

I'm working on a more technical update that will arrive in the coming weeks that will address some issues pertaining to travel time and wall transitions in the manor. I went into more detail in my previous post about this, but long story short, the interior of the manor is being compressed and redesigned in some aspects. You can see the changes being made in the images below. One thing these images don't show off, is the fact you will now use doors to travel along the top hallway. The script logic controlling the smooth transition of fading walls and floors was causing a number of technical issues: floating characters, screen flashing, cutscene editing headaches and so much more. I don't intend to drop this concept entirely: I now know how to properly set it up, and what I need to keep into account while using them. However, their removal from the manor will be vital to save development time. 

Gutting them from this specific area will be MUCH MUCH faster than trying to hook up everything into a new system. And as you have noticed, I've taken this opportunity to also condense a lot of walking space and mirrored areas. Quite a lot of time will be spent walking around the manor, so saving travel time is vital. 

Another thing I've been working on is the cafe restaurant across from the convenience store! Inside will be one of the first side npcs you will meet! She is currently nameless and wont have much if not any affect on the story. You will indeed be able to have some sexy fun with her later in the game through a new mechanic tho. ( this will be introduced in coming updates). 

So im hoping to do one update to add a bunch of fixes and the new hallways, Then another one shortly after. This one will be finishing up your interactions with Charlie in the convenience store alongside an opportunity to go into the cafe.  

I can't wait to show everyone what else i've got cooking town, story and gameplay wise! So stay tuned! 

Thank you everyone for their support! 

-The popups for the Kitchen, Pool and closet unlocks actually spawn now.

-Deleted one of the doors in the lobby that got duplicated somehow, causing the interaction highlight to not appear.

-Expanded the interaction radius of the Gacha machine.

-New players will no longer have the game audio settings defaulting to zero upon first ever game startup.

-The Warning Server Admin enabled  textand Dev menu button has been properly disabled.

(This saddens me to hear that lots of people probably went through the whole intro sequence, without hearing any music... cuz the game defaulted their settings to 0 :( )

-The menu no longer stays behind during one of the cutscenes.

-Roxy's Butt inspect shows her butt instead of the gacha machine.

 I forgot to add the file to the previous post. The build was bugged anyway. There is now a patched version attached to it