Big team meeting today to discuss who we were going to hire for our new emote artist. We need a few more bits but we’re closing in on the candidate. Get psyched.
Meanwhile, I’ve finished most of the Monoceros maps, glued them together, and am 90% done the baseline scripting (encountering bosses and stuff, not topics and sidequests). I’ll be doing enemy placement and crafting balance this week.
Urimas is still making sprites, the bastard. Chicken just finished a concept for the upcoming harpy tower defense, and is actually half done the Rubber Queen Mei costume. Remember that? What we promised years ago? Yeah! That’s happening!
Koops is making some characters for chapter 2, Wispy has shown some damn cool looking sketches for the werebat TF, and MarioneTTe.
Stinkehund has finished the map rework for chapter 1. Chicken is currently assigned to make Cavecrawler Sanya, after which the next assignments are for the chapter 1 updates. Koops has finished some emotes for the next part of chapter 2 and then has to work on some Harpy Tower Defense stuff.
If I told you Urimas has made some sprites and tiles, you wouldn’t believe me but, he has. I was just as shocked as you.
Monoceros Time
So what has been done in the past few months since the last major update? Well, Chic went insane and finished ALL of the monster/boss art. Yeah, it’s all done. Lined, colored, etc. So let’s look at some of it.
I thought it might be fun to show off the fish-person because of the fact that a reverse-mermaid is going to need flippers to swim on their human feet. The poor fellas seem to have gotten the worst of both worlds.
Meanwhile, you can see the finished version of the firefly (the sketch was on the last post). Pretty spiffy and I know our insect fans will enjoy her design.
Meanwhile, here we have the second imp variant, with an increase in stats and attitude to match. I wanted to have some more demonic variety since only two demon types show up in this game (Imp and Succubus) so we got two imp variants, an enemy succubus, and a boss succubus. On the right is the frozen shade, an ice elemental who just wants to cuddle. The ice boss has a unique mechanic to quickly TF your party into frozen shades but I think you’ll be able to figure out how to counter it (tip: one of the four elements of damage in the game is FIRE).
Chic’s next task is to finish sketching all the different player forms, then line and color them. Here’s alraune form, because every game set on Pandemonium is going to have alraunes if I can make it that way. I just like plantgirls okay?
And here we have spooky ghosts! Caelyn can’t help but being cute even when she’s dead.
Chic thinks she can get all the form artwork done in February which is bold to say the least. However, I had not expected her to finish all the enemy art by January so maybe she can pull it off, who knows.
Yeah But What the Salty Doin?
I spent most of December working on Project Carnation and Pandemonium (which you may have seen in the form of a release for Pandemonium and several bugfix patches), but all of January has been allocated to Monoceros.
As such, I’ve completed the maps for about 90% of the main game. As mentioned in the previous post, the game has 11 main areas and 7 optional areas. The last two areas are fairly compact, but I need Urimas to make tiles for me to complete them, so instead I’ve been gluing the maps together, putting in basic scripting, fixing errors, etc. You can almost walk from the start of the game to the end. Obviously no monsters are in yet as that’d make finding bugs harder.
Pyxxis has put together a basic stat line for every enemy in the game. We’ll be working on putting in updated crafting materials and items next. I should have map glue finished up this week and will be working on scripting until Urimas gets me the tilesets I need.
I get that map screenshots are a lot less exciting than monsters and stuff but believe me, I put a lot of work into the visuals here.
Okay So What Now?
I’m going to finish the maps in February, then hopefully get all the scriptwork done. Combat balance will have to wait until maybe March. I also have to work on the Harpy Tower Defense for chapter 2 in March. Chic is going to finish all the player art, and then move on to updating the game’s UI, giving it a title screen, etc.
Our next update post is End-Of-April. Most of the game should be done at that point, though with an incomplete combat balance and probably riddled with bugs. At that point we’ll figure out our release date and plans.
How About Some Fan Art?
Hey it’s Izana looking really tough and definitely prepared for whatever comes.
Oh no! Verand’s curse has turned her into a brainless pooltoy! Whatever will she do? (Hint: Hang out in Verand’s pool, what else?)
This was done by The Doodler who you should go commission hey wait IS THAT AN AMOGUS!?!?! I’m going to kill him.
We also have a blushing Lotta from HadezMuze. I forgot to post it last week so now it’s permanently a part of the Monoceros Milestone 2 update.
Curious Cat
Is broken right now. It takes a long time to load and never shows questions. Presumably it needs some fixing so, for the time being, we’ll have to take drastic measures. I hope you people deserve this.
The scholar ponders (or is maybe sleeping).
“Wow, that’s a pretty good cat”, you think to yourself, “But what if he was a little bit more dangerous?”
Steam/Itch versions will all be handled tomorrow, today is a travel day for me.
This is a bugfix release, dealing with the various minor (and one major) bugs that have been reported over the past couple weeks. In addition, a new scene was added. Ask Yukina about the legend when Empress is present.
The Search For Help
We presently have two promising candidates for the emote artist position. If you know someone who’d be a good late entry, we made a page with some details. Yell at me on discord!
What the developer doin?
Other than fixing bugs, I’m working on the last major area of Monoceros mapping. A big juicy progress report is due out next week.
Urimas is making some sprites for that, Koops finished a character that patrons get to see next week, and Chicken finished the Empress emotes. That’s right, this is a bonus stuff post!
Unfortunately I got these late Sunday so I haven’t had time to put them in the game yet. Next update I promise.
We want to hire an emote artist to work on the game. If you want to be such an artist, or know someone who does, I made a page for it.
Code, Art, The Whole Shebang!
Chickenwhite very frustratingly is 95% done a piece so I can’t quite show it off right now. It’ll have to wait for next week. Urimas is making some top-secret Zeke sprites, but it’s been slow-going on the sprite front. Hund is redoing the maps for chapter 1 as part of a (small) planned update. In fact let’s see some of that:
While obviously needing some editing, the new style is much, much more useful from a practical perspective. It’s harder to miss areas you didn’t check out or to remember stuff you wanted to investigate but forgot about when you quit the game yesterday. You also get to have the dungeon maps on here as Mei sketches them out.
As for me, I’ve been working on Monoceros maps for weeks. More on that in the update post on the 30th.
Fan Art
Some fan art of Niko made by Niko. It’s so good you’d swear it was real.
We do periodic budget reports. This is the report for the second half of 2022. It’s very exciting, there’s so many numbers and they go up and down and wooo!
Development Stuff
All the artists are now back to work. Urimas is making some special sprites, Chicken is finishing the Empress emotes and then wants to work on Cave Crawler Sanya. Koops is making a very special character for the next part of chapter 2. Hund is redoing the map for chapter 1 to update it to the drawn-on style of chapter 2, and it will also feature dungeon maps!
I’m working on Monoceros for the months of January and probably February. More on that in the end-of-January report on that game. Once I have that done I’ll be making the Harpy Tower Defense minigame for chapter 2.
Help Wanted
There is now exactly enough slack in our budget that we can commission an outside artist to make emotes for us. Emotes are very draining because they’re so repetitive but people love how much they bring to the conversations. We’ll be hiring artists on a contract basis to make emote sheets for us! If you know an artist (or are one!) who might fit, send them to this page.
Version 4.12 Released
It’s a bugfix release. Fixed a problem with warping and a lot of small tile issues and typos.
Curious Cat
If you’re wondering why there’s so many, it’s because I was out of town for most of December. This is the backlog. Also there’s Pumpkin and boy is she a cutie.
Fan Art!
Probably the best piece by Hadezmuze yet, it’s Lotta and her faithful doll maid Parsley. When I showed this to Chicken, he said “Is that supposed to be Lotta? More like LOTTA HIPS!”. I work with these people, be glad you don’t.
Also what if Mei was a mannequin? Also by Hadezmuze. I like mannequins what can I say. I don’t know why.
I’m out of town, obviously. Not a huge update from any of us.
However, I do have some news on other games!
Unity Edition Reaches 1.0
You can download it here. Congrats to TL and all the wacky people on Discord for somehow taking an insane idea of remaking classic mode in Unity engine, adding everything to it, and then finishing and releasing it. It’s done! It is currently getting a few bugfixes and is opened up for mods, so people can keep adding new forms and gameplay stuff.
If you want to know more, you have to join our Discord (in the links section like always) because the game doesn’t have a proper page to my knowledge.
Now that the game is done, TL is moving on to another project. What is it? I don’t know, neither does TL. But I’m sure it will involve cute girls and monsters and stuff, and I’ll be sure to tell you about it when I find out more.
Odyssey of Gianna is now on Steam
Remember that really good open world game that has a bunch of transformation and stuff in it? Yeah it’s on Steam. You should go play it and loudly announce to everyone on your friends list that you’re playing an H-Game, and it’s actually really good. It’s not Doom 2 good (very few things are) but it’s up there.
That’s all from the Bottled Starlight team for 2022. In 2023 we have a whole bunch of stuff coming out. A game, a prototype, more chapter 2, and maybe a few photos of cats.
As a head’s up, there will be a very short update post next week. Obviously I’m out of town doing Holiday Things.
Coding and Art
Chicken is working on emotes, Koops is doing some raptors, and Urimas is taking a break. Hund is making an explosion, it’s gonna be cool. Me, I’m working on Peak Freaks, which should be hopefully releasing in January, and Project Carnation. More details on Carnation later, once it’s a bit further along.
Peak Freaks is an action-puzzle game where you play as a dude who looks a lot like Master Higgins from Adventure Island. Your goal is to use puzzle blocks to climb across procedurally-generated race tracks and go for the best time, and/or sabotage an AI-controlled rival for kicks.
The art is done by Chicmonster (same artist as the one working on Monoceros) and I (Salty) did the coding. I presume it’ll be available for cheap on Itch.io, that’s up to Chic.
Curious Cat
Fan Art
Artist HadezMuze made Sanya in a maid outfit and then asked for input. I said it was unfair that Zeke didn’t also get to wear a maid outfit. I regret nothing.
A bugfix patch was released to Patrons/Subscribers/Steam/Itch (it’s on the downloads page if you missed it) fixing most of the bugs that were reported last week. There’s a couple minor collision bugs leftover. The artists are back to work and I actually got some of the Empress emotes! Hooray!
This will be a short month because The Holidays are upon us. The Werecat story cover is now complete so expect the Amazon release of that just in time for your weirdo Christmas gifts of… soft/hardcore porn stories about transformation. Okay.
I am currently working on Project Carnation, more details later on. I will also be finishing up Peak Freaks this month (hopefully) and getting Monoceros done in the early parts of 2023.
Niko
What a handsome boy.
Curious Cat
Fan Art
Based off the bunny designs from chapter 2, we have Princess Zelda! She looks too cool NOT to be a playable character in BOTW 2 right? Right, Nintendo?
You know at some point I’m going to have to break it to people that Jeanne is a nerdy, quiet type. Until then, keep making fan art of her as a badass.
As usual, you can get it on the patron downloads page. If you want it via Steam or Itch.io, the Steam instructions for the beta are on the patron downloads page.
What’s that? You can’t remember where the patron download page is? You can find it in the pinned post on Patreon! Subscribers from Subscribestar will get their own version of the post, too.
What’s in version 4.10? Two major new areas, a new town with tons of NPCs, two new playable forms (Harpy and Bunny), a new party member, a pile of new enemies and items, bugfixes, backend improvements, enemy AI changes, and UI upgrades. It’s got everything you need!
If you’re a new user and don’t know how to get this stuff: You need to be a patron/subscriber, or buy the game for 1$ on Itch.io. The links are at the bottom of every blog post.
Fan Art
We got DOUBLE CHRISTINE this week. What a time to be alive!
By popular vote, she is throwing the water bottle at the camera, not stealing it.
Curious Cat
Aggressive Links
DMITRI OUT OF NOWHERE
You thought you were safe from cats because it’s the links section. GOT YOU.
Pandemonium Development 