Coming Out On Top (BxB, Dating, Comedy) (News 11/15)

[Obscura]

I guess I should update this thread with mention that I'm redoing all the character art this month. I'm learning as I go, you can check out my art critique thread here:

http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 46&t=16926

If you want to criticize/approve the new artwork, please do it there. Thanks!

If you're interested in the story between me vs. godzilla Steam Greenlight--where my previous artwork was trashed--you can read about it here:

http://obscurasoftgames.blogspot.com/20 ... vs-me.html

(BTW, no hurt feelings, I still love my old, flawed artwork. I was putting my game on Steam for feedback, not because I seriously thought it would be approved.)

Anyways, here's some updated character art. Brad (above), the closeted Mormon quarterback, will in be in the full game as one of Mark's dating options. Mark (below) will most likely be clothed and you're not gonna see all these abs that apparently came out of nowhere.

Hopefully the version with the new art will be ready on October 1st, that's my tentative deadline for redoing all the sprites and expressions. (CGs will probably have to wait, since I still have a Kickstarter to launch.)

[KashyaCharsi]

Mark is hot

[koneko]

Oh my god I adore the new mark, he is positivly beautiful, though he looks like he used a bit too much hair moose heh, or that just might be me.

[Obscura]

Aw, thanks guys. Your feedback appreciated. Koneko, you're right, he looks like he's entering the mousse Olympics with that hairstyle. I'm gonna shorten his hair and fix his face a little (it looks too long to me right now.)

[koneko]

Can't wait to see the new hot Alex heh XP.

[KashyaCharsi]

Alex doesn't look thirtysomething now. Though I am bad at estimating age. And could you change Penny's laughing face?

About hardcoreness, I have seen some games where the player could decide whether to see the more explicit part or they could skip it.

[Obscura]

Haha, thanks guys.

@Kashya--yeah, all of Penny's expressions will be redone. It does seem the majority of people on the poll so far want explicit sex...I'm trying to figure out right now what's the best way to code it into the game and what will work best in the end.

@everyone: If you have comments or feedback for me for the ongoing development of my game, go ahead and leave them on my blog. I'll be updating my blog regularly with game stuff (link in my sig) and not be visiting this thread as often. Thank you much!

[rasburn]

Hey there

I played this game a while back (sorry for not posting ), before the Redux version came out (pun not intended). I did think the graphics were actually quite nice then, and I liked the style since it's more realistic/comic rather than the typical anime style. Now that I've seen your new art here and in your art thread I have to say they look much better! They're much more relaxing to look at (the colors and shading! not the motives ). An improvement for sure.

What I thought about the game? I thought it was nice and varied, and a pretty relaxing experience overall. The suspenseful scenes were good, but I guess I prefer even more suspense in VNs just personal preference though. Also, I got two of the main endings (the two "worse" ones I think).

[Obscura]

Hey there

I played this game a while back (sorry for not posting ), before the Redux version came out (pun not intended). I did think the graphics were actually quite nice then, and I liked the style since it's more realistic/comic rather than the typical anime style. Now that I've seen your new art here and in your art thread I have to say they look much better! They're much more relaxing to look at (the colors and shading! not the motives ). An improvement for sure.

What I thought about the game? I thought it was nice and varied, and a pretty relaxing experience overall. The suspenseful scenes were good, but I guess I prefer even more suspense in VNs just personal preference though. Also, I got two of the main endings (the two "worse" ones I think).

Thanks for the feedback, rasburn! I liked the old style too, hahaha. They were my babies. They're easier to use for comedy, but I guess the new style will be better for porn.

Thanks for the feedback about suspense. I think the three new guys are gonna have way more issues to deal with than Alex, so hopefully they'll provide a lot of drama. (And then there's Ian...which is 110% drama).

[KashyaCharsi]

Alex's drama wasn't bad either. I love these cool teacher types everywhere, in movies, novels... I had some in real life, too.

[Hachiko]

Played this game last week, just wanna pop up and say-

HOLY SH*T!! This game had me crackin' up dudddde!! I was adamant in playing this at first because I do not like yaoi, but dayum, you've nailed it! XD (Also at first I thought that 'girl' who took 'their' pictures was a guy and when I saw her on the titlescreen, I was like, "EWW IS HE A ROMANCEABLE CHARACTER?!" XDD And I actually thought Mark was also a romanceable character as well.... x)) Bottomline is, the demo can cure a bad mood like magic, srsly. =) So I've been reading up on this and the whole game is coming out this December? Is it possible to add a 'no H scenes' option? Like, just censor it out with a 'heart' like in the demo or completely toggle it off (if they don't really have an effect on the story). If there's no time/won't likely happen, it's still cool. (but I'll have to be uuuuber careful not to let my family walk in my room when I'm playing it xDD)

Was there supposed to be 3 endings in the demo? Because no matter how harsh I've treated Alex, I still got his ending. =/

edit: The thread could use more screenshots as well!

[Obscura]

Hey Hachiko. Thank you for your comments and for checking out a game completely out of your genre.

I am indeed aiming for December (knock on wood). I'll have a better idea of the ship date once I've inflicted it on my testers.

Yes, I'm going to have something that turns off the H-scenes for the 18+ version. (And quite possibly release a true 16+ version in 2014, though that's going to depend on a number of factors).

Was there supposed to be 3 endings in the demo? Because no matter how harsh I've treated Alex, I still got his ending. =/

There are actually 2 versions of this game floating out there (I decommissioned the older one), so that might cause some confusion. You've just played the 18+ demo, and that has only one ending with two variations, unless you count the ending where Mark gets in your face because you keep trying to escape the constraints of the demo.

Thanks again for checking it out. Personally I think the fact it features gay guys is the least interesting thing about it, though of course that's its biggest appeal. I mostly enjoy making people laugh so I'm happy if it lifted your spirits.

[Lesleigh63]

Okay, I played the 18+ demo.

Writing - I like the writing style. It's concise and to the point but at the same time the sentences haven't lost their 'rhythm' (nothing jarring that throws you out of the prose) and there's a nice flow to it.

Artwork - I'm really pleased you redid your sprites. Much better now. I prefer the really pretty style anime type sprite but I think this western comic style suits this story which I'll explain more in a minute. I don't particularly like photographs for backgrounds - a couple of them work really well (the scene with the white flowered trees and the outside of the lecture theatre come to mind) but it's hard to get that kind of lighting and clarity consistently in each photo.

Adult content - I felt the two adult scenes had a feeling of 'rawness' or 'harshness' to them. It wasn't from the CG artwork but from the language and terminology used. I've read some 18+ BL manga that had some explicit art but the language was 'softer'. It may depend on your intended audience - the predominately female BL audience (that's me) or perhaps the gay bara audience. From some of the posts and your blog, it looks like you may have interested the gay audience, and I think the harsher (perhaps more real) treatment of the adult content and also the more western style sprite would work well with that market.

There may be more discussion on this in the adult content of the forum. I'll have a look when my access comes through.

[KashyaCharsi]

For me, the most important thing is to keep up your humor. With that, I'd even settle for an interactive story