Author: SaltyJustice

New Team Member Announcement

Say hello to our new writer/scripter, Pyxxis!

Pyxxis will be helping me with scene writing and some editing, but I’m going to train the poor bastard to make maps, scripts, and all the other things.

Pyxxis is an intern until we assess his technical capabilities. So here’s hoping he has the true grit necessary to start working on a game three years after it started development. Lesser men/women/in-between would pale at the challenge.

Programming Update

I’m almost done the credits sequence, but it’s not ready for a release today. I also fixed the sprites-don’t-appear-on-game-load bug and reorganized the entire repository and game directory.

There will likely be a new prototype for patrons next week including – if I have time – the new costume system.

Art Update – Feedback Requested

Now that chapter 5 is out and the art is complete, we’re trying to establish the game’s final style. This is pass #1 of a shaded, lined 55.

Already we’ve got some feedback on Discord that the shine is too high and we need bolder lines. Let us know what you think on the forums or the Discord.

Chicken has been getting us the miscellaneous art needed to fill out the chapter – and has already delivered Queen Bee Mei! Patrons get to see her today!

Koops is now working on the ending CGs for Doll Manor. They look great, and she also bombards me with pictures of her cute cats.

Urimas is getting me new icons for the game.

Ain’t Mei pretty?

Hund is getting us combat animations for all the elements not in the game yet. This week he got us the ice attack animation.

Mario and DrDissonance are up to date on their assignments. Mario will be working on the alraune story between his many, many shifts at his day job, in case you were wondering why it’s taking so damn long.

Odyssey of Gianna Update – Not So Good

OoG, our associated project, got hit by the patreon purity patrol, and has purged its direct art links and beta. You can still get the beta, but it cannot be advertised on patreon directly. You will need to join the OoG discord and speak to Vhiel.

Tell them I sent you, and have a paypal ready.

Fortunately, there is no hint that Pandemonium has run afoul of the forces of censorship.

Argue about this post on the forums! Battle for my amusement!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are dangerous maniacs!

Follow us on Tumblr to see Koops’ awful puns!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

Yep, as per usual, patrons can go download prototype 5-5b from the downloads page.

This prototype involved me renormalizing all the voice ticks so they all play at the same base volume and the engine changes their volume, instead of the files all being at varying decibel levels. Trust me, it was overdue.

Also, the images for the Doll Transformation were added. So even if you’ve seen the finale, go back and see it again because these images are superb.

There was also a bugfix or two thrown in, specifically the black-screen bug on the command deck of Cryogenics.

We also had a team meeting and will have an exciting announcement – next week. Not this week. Go play the prototype!

Argue about this post on the forums! Battle for my amusement!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are dangerous maniacs!

Follow us on Tumblr to see Koops’ awful puns!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

That’s Right, We Done It

Chapter 5 is now story-complete, and has been released to patrons. If you are already a patron, then the prototype can be acquired from the downloads page as usual.

If you are not a patron, you can become one – it only costs a buck! But if money is really tight for you (I know how that is) we also accept:
Heartfelt essays about why you love the game
Poems about the game, its contents, or just a love of our work
Photos of your adorable dogs, cats, and/or goats. Bonus for all three.
Basically we just want to know you love our work and will arrange free copies based on that.

If you are a new patron, a patreon post will go up shortly detailing where to find the downloads.

Okay so now what?

There are still a few things to go in chapter 5. Two new areas are getting added which simply didn’t get completed (The Manufactory, Lower Cryogenics), the Raibie TF sequence will get properly finished (it was rushed into an incomplete state due to my own illness), a post-chapter credits sequence will be available (Koops was too sick to finish it on time), and the Doll TF images were not complete (because Chickenwhite got sick this week).
Yeah we get sick sometimes. We’re human. For now.

The Doll TF images will probably be patched in next week, along with bugfixes.

Otherwise, please enjoy the conclusion of all the character arcs and the stupid stuff I wrote for this. There are tons of little stories in this section of the chapter, it’s very dense.

When does the public get at it?

As the patrons oh-so-generously voted, patron releases becoming public after one month. That means that prototype 5-5 becomes public on November 28th, 2019.

Argue about this post on the forums! Battle for my amusement!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are dangerous maniacs!

Follow us on Tumblr to see Koops’ awful puns!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

So this is the secret thing I mentioned earlier in the month.

That’s right, Team Starlight has a cross-promotion agreement with Vhiel, the developer of Odyssey of Gianna.

It’s a transformation-heavy H-RPG set in a mystical land where princess Liliana must go on a quest. She’ll probably get turned into a monkeygirl, but ostensibly she’s going to save the world.

Why this cross-promotion? Well, the beta launched exactly one week before Pandemonium’s next prototype, and I’m a fan of the project myself. So we not only cross-promoted it, but even tricked Chicken into doing fan art!

This is Jyla, a rogue who can also turn into a bird – sort of. Trust me, it makes sense in context.

What’s that? You’re not immediately sold on this game? Well, Vhiel put out a demo a while back. You can get it right here.

If you like what you see, the Beta release came out a few hours ago. Anyone who has donated 10$ or more to Vhiel’s patreon gets the demo and a copy of the game when it is fully released. Pricing information is available in this post.

So if you like anything in the demo at all, go support the game damn you!

OoG also has a discord if you’re into that sort of thing.

Yes, I will be writing up a review once I’ve had a chance to go over it in detail. It will be every bit as brutal as the other Design with a Grain of Salt posts. It comes from a place of love I promise.

Will there be cameos in Pandemonium? I mean probably. It’s a big game. Anything could happen.

Other Update Stuff

I need 2-3 more images from Chickenwhite. The last prototype sent to the testers had only a couple bugs, and they’re fixed now. Except for Mario messing up the slime scene but that’s his fault.

We are presently on track for the release next Monday.

Patrons get a particularly spooky bonus stuff this week…

Argue about this post on the forums! Battle for my amusement!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are dangerous maniacs!

Follow us on Tumblr to see Koops’ awful puns!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

Boring Update Before the Good Bits

After sending a second prototype for testing, there weren’t many bugs nor many negative things to say about it. Everything is on track for release. In fact, I’ll have a little extra time so I’ll be getting some dialogue work done on older parts of the chapter. Aren’t you lucky?

Ultra Secret News is Later This Week

I was informed yesterday that the thing I’ve been hinting at is “later this week”. I will post here and on the patreon as soon as it’s out. Get psyched!

Poll Results for Costume Time

Queen Bee Mei won pretty definitively here, with 55 as 2B a distant second.

Exactly when these get made is up in the air at the moment. But, here’s the plan:

I will add a password input menu to the save point options. You’ll be able to enter passwords there to activate silly costumes or cheat codes. The passwords will be found at various spots in the chapters, but will be the same between playthroughs.

When certain passwords are entered, characters will use alternate costumes if available. So if you find out the 55 as 2B password, you’ll be able to replay chapter 5 on a new file and enter it right away, and enjoy an entire chapter of cosplay.

It also means I can put in absurdly dumb passwords as rewards for achievement-like activities, like completing chapter 1 without talking to anyone (that isn’t mandatory) or losing a battle. And then someone will post the passwords on the forums and totally defeat the purpose.

Terrible Things are Happening with Unity Edition

After some success with recreating the old assets, someone who shall remain anonymous found a pose set. Oh the awful things that we can do.

Unity Edition will be getting yet another content upgrade soon, including moths and claygirls! A prototype is available here (Updated Oct 24, lol the link has the word “GAYS” in it) and a new release is expected pretty soon.

October Budget Report

Here’s the much-hyped October budget statement for the project.

I know you’re all just so excited to read the budget statements, but this is a special occasion. We just passed 10,000 total project income! Woohoo! Just in time for the completion of chapter 5, and it’s a coincidence I swear!

Argue about this post on the forums! Battle for my amusement!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are dangerous maniacs!

Follow us on Tumblr to see Koops’ awful puns!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

I know you all want the poll results but here’s the game’s update

I have sent the first test prototype to the testers and got a positive result. I cleaned up a bunch of bugs, but it wasn’t too severe. I still have lots of cutscene variations to write, graphics to put in, and all that crap.

Despite all that, we are easily on track for the End-of-October release, and I’ll tune it up to make it as nice as possible.

Artistically, Chicken has 3-4 more images to make and we’re done on the need-to-have front. Everything else is nice-to-have. Urimas is almost done the spriting (I need a few more tiles and a sprite sheet), Hund has some inking to do.

Oh, and DrDiss got me the finale music. It will make you cry, it’s really good.

1$ “Mario Pls Rewrite These” Poll

Writer MarioneTTe wanted to revisit some of the chapter 1 TFs to bring them in line with later versions, so we asked which TF should be revisited.

Zombee was not posted because MarioneTTe already edited that one, actually. The rest were up for grabs.

I was expecting Slime to make the list, but Bee? Bee? Okay. Mario will attempt to edit both with priority on Slime.

1$ “Suggest Costumes” Poll

If your head hasn’t been on fire for the past week, you’ve probably noticed it’s the scariest month of the year. So we’re trying a frightening experiment – character costumes!

1$ patrons suggested a bunch of costumes for characters to wear, and I let the artists pick three each.

These were the results. I intervened personally to pick the best option because, well, the artists didn’t. This is because the artists are morons.

5$ patrons this week will be voting on which of these should get made. We do not know how many will get made. This is because we don’t know what sort of time investment is necessary to make a costume – this is an experiment for us to find out and also give you a silly costume to play with. It may take 1 hour for Chicken to make a costume layer, it might take 3. When we find out, we’ll report back with our decision.

5$ Patron-Choice Concept Art

There seems to be some confusion about how this works.

Like, you wanted Darkmatter Christine? Okay.

So anyway, I put all the options on a big wheel and spun it.

Bee Girl Christine won! I was hoping for Ghost Lotta but okay.

I’m not sure exactly when we’ll have Bee Girl Christine ready, as our priority is finishing the art for chapter 5. I expect it will be done before the end of October.

Budget Report Next Week

Not this week, next week. Suck it up.

Argue about this post on the forums! Battle for my amusement!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are dangerous maniacs!

Follow us on Tumblr to see Koops’ awful puns!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

The Very Big Special Announcement is scheduled for mid-October

I spoke with the… person who is doing a thing… and that’s when it will be. It’s important to give these things time for… reasons.

No seriously, I’m not messing with you. Get psyched for this!

Programming Stuff

I’ve completed the special effects additions I needed and have written most of the mainline cutscenes. It’s now possible to play chapter 5 start-to-finish on the good path! I still need to write the evil path but I got past a roadblock so that will all be finished this week.

There are lots of extra small scenes and examinations I need to write still. We’re on track to spend the second half of October cleaning up bugs and whatnot.

Art Stuff

Chicken has been doing a very good job getting me the assets I need. We have Christine’s emote set completed and will be working on… well, you’ll see. This stuff is good so I don’t want to spoil it.

Urimas, as usual, is getting me some sprites. You know, sprites of characters doing things important to the plot. Again, you’ll see.

Music Stuff

The next part of Adventure Mode has several musical cues, and DrDiss has gotten one of them ready. We’re currently working on a second layered track for the finale. Everything is coming together!

Patron 5$ Poll This Week, AND Patron 1$ Suggestion Thingy!

As part of yet another weird experiment that the artists really want to do, artist Chickenwhite wants to experiment drawing different outfits for characters.

How these work is that they replace the emotes/sprites for a specific form. Once all the basework is done for a form, the outfit can be swapped out with minimal effort (this system is often called “Paper Doll”) and the artists want to see how long it takes to do.

So, this week, 1$ patrons can put in suggestions for what outfits they want to see for which characters. The artists will then each pick their favourites and the 5$ patrons will then narrow the field down. This is just to make sure the artists don’t have to draw something they are uncomfortable with.

Also, because it’s now October this week, 5$ patrons will be asked to do the every-other-month bonus art poll. The rules are the same as last time, but I will elaborate on them here just in case:
You may suggest a character and a monster form from any of the ones that have been seen so far, and beleaguered artist Chickenwhite will draw it. Last time was Latex Drone Jeanne.
The monster form must have already been concepted but the character, not necessarily. So if you wanted Alraune Christine or Golem Sanya, you might get it!
The result is selected completely at random by spinning a wheel. Therefore, duplicates are that much more likely to get picked. Who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky and we’ll get Mothgirl Mei?

Please check the patreon if you are a patron for more details!

The Links Part

Argue about this post on the forums! Battle for my amusement!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are dangerous maniacs!

Follow us on Tumblr to see Koops’ awful puns!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

Free Bonus Stuff – Latex Drone Jeanne!

Giving a nice salute!

This was voted upon by 5$ patrons for our every-other-month concept poll. Patrons got to see it two weeks ago, and now you get to see it even if you have NO money!

The next 5$ concept poll is in October, so get psyched!

Bizarre Let’s Play by Stinkehund

For over two grueling hours, Stinkehund, Koops, and Chickenwhite played chapter 5. If you’re the kind of person who can tolerate European artists, then you are stronger than I and you can watch this.

It’s actually pretty entertaining, particularly when they make fun of me! And Koops really likes Little Shop of Horrors. Also they forgot about the fact that you can adjust the game’s brightness – a feature they explicitly asked me for and I put in so they could us it.

These are the people I work with.

Coding Update

I have completed all but one cutscene for the good path of chapter 5! One to go, and it’s the finale so I’ll have it done tomorrow. After that, I go back and add the bad ending, and then all the optional cutscenes and examinables.

And then we release it.

Art Update

Chickenwhite is going to get the remaining art for chapter 5 done by the end of the month. Patrons get to see Doll Christine today! The rest of you have to wait.

Music?!!?!

DrDiss is getting us a track to play during the next part of chapter 5! It’s almost ready, patrons will get to hear it later.

Argue about this post on the forums! Battle for my amusement!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are dangerous maniacs!

Follow us on Tumblr to see Koops’ awful puns!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

Programmin’ Bits

I’m off to the races on the last part of chapter 5. All the maps are completed and have collision, and I will be gluing them together tomorrow. After that brief process, I start writing the scripting. It gets pretty zany.

Particularly because I totally rewrote a key section a week ago. I think the new one is better.

Art Bits

Chickenwhite, who is an optimist, promises the remaining chapter 5 materials by the end of the month. Because she is a realist, she then got really sick. Artists, amirite?

The Classic Mode Hunt

So as a result of weeks of intensive labour by some weirdos, all of the original characters from Classic Mode have been re-created in 3D Custom Girl. They hunted through the assets and made some guides.

You can find one such meta-guide here.

With this, Throwawaylady has been making new monster forms for Unity Edition, which are being incorporated into Classic at a later date. And if you’re the kind of person who wants to make a monster girl (please someone make us a spider girl!) you can hop into our Discord server and get right to it. All the downloads are in the above guide!

We’re always excited to get new helpful people to make a dizzying array of monstergirls for Pandemonium, so don’t delay!

Argue about this post on the forums! Battle for my amusement!

Give us money on Patreon so we can make more monstergirl stuff!

Join our Discord and curse at me in person! Our testers are dangerous maniacs!

Follow us on Tumblr to see Koops’ awful puns!

Follow our Twitter to see the same content as usual, but wth fwr lttrs!

Short off-Monday post. A small patch for Classic Mode has been released, as well as a bugfix for Adventure. This one should sort out the lingering angels vs. demons issues.

(Mediafire) (Mega.nz)