Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman, rise and shine!

Hi guys. It’s been a while xD I apologize for missing communication with everyone, there were some personal events in my life that prevented me from working on this project since May-June 2016 and there was no progress till the end of October/November 2016. Speaking frankly, I had so much doubts about doing this stuff that I even considered converting it to shitty 2.5D platformer with stock 3D models from Daz3D, but then I admitted that despite loving high-quality 3D (like Mithos56 or Miconisomi), doing shitty 3D without proper quality is even worse for me than doing 2D platformer with bad quality. So I decided to continue my fight with art skills:) A friend of mine that helped me with initial animations for that remake is busy with making mods for other project and doesn’t want to continue remaking animations for this one, so I discovered that my Galaxy Note table with Samsung S-pen and an app called Infinite Painter can deliver interesting results, I’ll post some art WIPs in the future, maybe with proper art education which I’m working on now I’ll be able to add some HCGs to the game and then it would be awesome.

Regarding the game itself, when I started this project, I didn’t have any strict plan for its design, stages and etc. So now there are some outlines of what I would like to deliver:

1. There will be 5 stages in full version of the remake. Maybe I’ll cut them to 4, but I would like to make fifth one because it concludes the plot logically (I played MGS V: PP recently and it really sucks when a good game doesn’t guide the player to the ending directly);
2. I would like to spend some time on drawing CGs for game-overs, they will not be animated, just some pictures. If it will be possible to include some of them into the demo – that would be awesome;
3. Demo will have 2 stages. I will gather some feedback after that again and then I’ll proceed directly to the end of the development of this remake;
4. I acknowledge that some fetishes (like X-ray / egg laying / etc.) are not for everyone and final version of the remake will have an ability to toggle them off (ideally I’d like to make an ability to turn off ALL hentai features in order to convert this game to usual platformer, if needed, but implementing this option is much easier when whole game is finished and you know what places to disable).
5. My level design policy is “we don’t force you to explore whole level in order to complete it, but you will miss some fun if you don’t”. For example, Stage 1 can be completed in several minutes if you take the fastest route, but full exploration with looking through plot events/decorations/alternate level routes and gathering weapon upgrades will take up to 10-15 minutes of gameplay. That’s what I missed in original Dark Star, because level design was relatively simple and straightforward there.

I recorded short (around 6 min of gameplay) video with small part of Stage 1 in order to illustrate current progress of the implementation, it’s here, on Vimeo (NSFW, and yeah, sorry for low video quality – Vimeo doesn’t give much space to store video – and I know that I have to improve struggle mechanics somehow, still wonder how it could be done with minimum animations):

https://vimeo.com/198767235

I almost finished level design of the 1st stage and there is some prepared art for 2nd stage, but I would like to add details to stage 2 decorations and then start level design of 2nd level and focus on remaking and adding more hentai scenes. Also I managed to fix almost all things that I mentioned in the first post, except platform edge problem, it seems that it doesn’t affect gameplay much, maybe I’ll just leave it there as it is. I don’t know anything about the deadlines for a demo, it can be 1/2/3/etc. months, just too afraid to say anything about that, it depends on the workload at my main job.

The communication seems to save any game creator from depression, so I guess that I have to write some stuff about development progress each month or two, maybe it will help to do what I planned to, after all, I have lots of ideas for hentai games and the next one will be done with Unity, but probably with other technology for animation (skeletal 2D animation) instead of plain 2D sprites, so it will be visually closer to Kooonsoft games or the games from MenZ or Dr. Linch project.

Thanks for everyone who is still interested in this free remake, I’ll do as much as I can in order to not disappoint you.

Regards,

Dark
P.S. It seems that remake will need some soundtracks, what do you think? The game is more intense than original one, what kind of music will it fit, some sci-fi action theme? Or maybe we don’t need any music at all (it’s difficult to find even beginner composer who’s willing to give some free music for hentai game, I guess, but it’s possible).