Lust & Lead - Dev Log 03
Rebby - Yet another exciting evening...

Hello everyone! You’ll probably notice that this post is looking quite sparse in regards to images showing off the latest developments. The last couple of weeks have been a bit… unconventional, at least for me.
Shortly after the last Dev Log, I started working on audition documents for the game’s voice cast. Preparing everything was a somewhat time-consuming process as I had to write character descriptions that weren’t too spoiler-y, select appropriate lines or write some specifically for the auditions and work on a few character sculpts to provide visuals for certain roles.
Once the documents were done, I submitted the casting call in a few different places and figured my job was mostly done until the deadline at the end of the month. Curiosity is a powerful thing, though, and before I knew it I had over 800 audition submissions to go through, across platforms.
Casting
Rather than leave all of that until the deadline, I decided to start reviewing them early. Since then, I’ve spent a good portion of my time sorting, categorizing and scoring auditions, as well as going back through some of the stronger submissions multiple times.
I’ve also been following up with prospective actors and have had discussions with some I’ve previously worked with. Nobody has officially been cast yet, but I’ve started shortlisting some of the roles and there are already quite a few people I’m interested in working with.
For some of the stronger auditions, I’ve also been animating the dialogue to the characters to get a better idea of how well the voices actually fit. It’s admittedly a fairly time-consuming thing to do for an audition, but there’s a noticeable difference between simply listening to a voice and actually seeing it paired with the character.
At the same time, I’ve also been looking for a composer, so there’s been quite a lot of listening lately. It’s all been very exciting, but strangely exhausting as well. There have been entire days where most of my time has disappeared into auditions, messages and following up with people.
Writing and Development
Of course, if I’m planning to start sending scripts out once casting is finished, that means I need scripts. For that reason, the first draft of the main script I mentioned in the previous Dev Log has now become a second draft, and I’ve also been writing more gameplay dialogue and optional conversations.
I've had a lot of fun writing the main cast and figuring out how they interact with each other Lust & Lead’s world is generally a lot more alive than Sin Spire’s, and there are quite a few side characters who exist just to add some personality or provide more information about the world. I’ll probably talk more about them in the future.
All of this has made it increasingly apparent that Lust & Lead probably isn’t quite as simple of a project as I initially imagined. The actual gameplay is more straightforward than Sin Spire, but in terms of characters, dialogue and cinematics, the game is gradually becoming comparable in complexity.
I have still managed to work on the game itself in-between all of this. The dialogue system is now back in after being rewritten and cleaned up from the version used in Sin Spire, and I’ve worked on another set of sex animations alongside several character models and enemies.
Unfortunately, most of those characters currently exist as sculpts and I’m not really in the habit of showing off extremely unfinished work. There has technically been quite a bit of art done over the past couple of weeks, but most of it is stuck in that awkward phase where it isn’t that interesting to look at yet.
Alpha Build
With the gameplay itself not actively being my priority at the moment, I imagine some of you are wondering about the playable Alpha build that I’ve mentioned a couple of times. For those unaware, Sin Spire had a playable Alpha that lasted until the game was essentially complete.
There will be an Alpha build for Lust & Lead, but I want it to have all of the foundational systems in place as well as enough of the story to properly establish the premise. Story and dialogue might not seem especially important for an initial Alpha, but this will be everyone’s first real impression of the game and I want that impression to be as strong as possible.
So, when will it be available? Well, there’s still quite a bit to do. I need to finish off the initial enemy roster, add more weapons and animations, get enough of the script recorded, finish the tutorial and actually make a proper level.
Taking all of that into account, we’re probably still looking at a few months of work. I’d like to aim for either the end of October or sometime in November, although that isn’t a hard deadline.
Until then, I’ll keep you guys in the loop the way I usually do through these Dev Logs. Hopefully by the next one I’ll have a bit more to actually put on the page.
Anyway, that’s enough for today. I’ll see you all next time!
I thought this angle was cute so here’s a bonus shot.