Legend of Krystal Forums

Many of you may know the story behind Breading Season and how it died (probably?). This project aims to follow some of the concepts of BS but with quite a different approach.

Project Blue is the codename for a new breeding game.
There is no official Name yet. Got an idea? Please share!
Updates at the bottom of this post.

What is this project about?
We want to organize and create a breeding game with strong community backup in mind. While the core of the game will be provided by a dedicated core team, everyone is welcome to contribute content to it. The core team will listen closely to all the contributors regarding the development. The core team is not defined yet, if you are interested in joining it, please continue to the bottom of this post.
This way, we hope we can get a huge variety of content (monsters, NPCs…) for the game!

What can I (the player) do in the game?
As with many of the details, we will go step by step to enhance the game. For the first milestone we aim to implement the following gameplay mechanics:

• Breeding monsters
• A market to buy/sell monsters
• A combat system
• Interactions with NPCs (like dialogs)
• Quests

What features have already been proposed?

How will the content contribution work?
While the core game will be designed for extensibility. The core team will provide interfaces and instructions for creating game content. The first milestone will offer you to contribute the following elements:

• Regions: create your own world consisting of landscapes, towns and buildings.
• Characters: create your own character with dialogs and interactions and place them in the world
• Missions: create quests for the players and tell your own story
• Monsters: create your own monsters with their own attributes
• Packages: combine different content and create a package to offer a complete and seamless world for other players

I am interested in contributing content to the game. How hard will it be to create content?
While we aim to make creating content as easy as possible for everyone, we will not be able to provide an editor or other tooling until a certain point. Most tasks are as easy as creating the assets. For example, all the animations for the monsters will be baked into the game’s core, so no need to create them yourself.

When will we be able to see a first demo?
Before blindly rushing into a dead end we want to sketch out the basic concepts and the direction where we want to go. While many ideas already exist, none of them officially determined. The first step will be to form the core team and then to define the route. This project is very new. We just started but already making great progress. If we can keep up the current rate, a first working demo may appear in two weeks or less. Want it to happen faster? Feel free to share your ideas and help us define the basics!

As already stated before, this project will live by its community. So feel free to share your thoughts, provide ideas and discuss the different elements! Or think about contributing to the game! We are grateful for every feedback and contribution!

Regarding the core team:


I will keep this post updated as often as possible.

Update 2016-07-26
The programming team is ready and has started working. For any additional interested programmers: the framework will be MonoGame.
The decision was made to create a proof of concept first. This will probably be done this Weekend.
Added poll to investigate on how to weight platform support.
Added proposed feature list.

You have a lot of detail here, but it's unclear weather you are intending to lead the team. If you are not intending to lead then i think is premature to set such a rigid vision for any new project. If you are intending to lead, what will role will you take other than instruction of others, what are your strengths / weaknesses, how much time and commitment can you contribute etc. A person's influence can only be as large as their contribution in a game such as this.

The team needs to be formed first, then the actual game based around what those people are capable of delivering. It's all well promising all sorts of community editors, but they are pretty damn hard to make and with so many creators it can be counter productive to have content with different formats coming from all sources.

evildumdum Wrote:You have a lot of detail here, but it's unclear weather you are intending to lead the team. If you are not intending to lead then i think is premature to set such a rigid vision for any new project. If you are intending to lead, what will role will you take other than instruction of others, what are your strengths / weaknesses, how much time and commitment can you contribute etc. A person's influence can only be as large as their contribution in a game such as this.

Why yes, of course, I am sorry.

I am the initiator of this project and will probably take the head position and lead the project at the beginning. What other positions I take depends greatly on the team we can get.
What can I contribute? Forming and managing the team, creating concepts, programming game- and web logic, providing servers and infrastructure.

Hmm, you're pretty flexible then. What languages do you programme in. Also what platform will you be steering this towards? Servers and infrastructure is also an interesting one. Could you elaborate on that?

evildumdum Wrote:Hmm, you're pretty flexible then. What languages do you programme in. Also what platform will you be steering this towards? Servers and infrastructure is also an interesting one. Could you elaborate on that?

I am mostly flexible concerning the programming languages. I think my experince looks something like this: 50 % .NET (C#), 15 % Java, 15 % Python 10 % C++, 10 % some others (C, Perl, Cobol…). I don't have to take the lead in the programming, but I surely will if needed.
Servers I can provide Windows (Windows Server 2012 r2) or Linux (CentOS). Infrastructure depends on what we are going to need.

As I am very experienced with .NET, my preferred framework would be MonoGame. It's possible to use the programming language python through IronPython for programming MonoGame code.
If I had to choose, it would be MonoGame. With MonoGame we can also easily import animations from Spriter. It's important for this project to have a good animation tool for the animators.
Btw, MonoGame is not a game engine. It is a framework to build a game engine. If I would have to choose a game engine, I would consider something like Unity, Unreal Engine or something smaller, Cocos2D.

I've also taken a look at ren'py. But from what I've seen it won't fit our needs as it is designed for visual novels. Have I maybe missed something?

Ren'py is designed to be used by everyone from people with no knowledge of programming to advanced coders. It has a basic framework that creates visual novels, but can be modified with even a basic knowledge to python to do nearly anything other than 3d. If you want to see some of the stuff it is capable of, i suggest looking up a game called PytFall. It's the most advanced Sim Brothel game at there at the moment and created in Ren'Py. As i am unfamiliar with most of the systems you are intending to use, the most i can offer your vision of the game is as a minor coder. You have a commendable clear vision of what you want the game to involve.

My only warning is that more often than not a game based on individual community members contributing what they can ends up as a messy patchwork of half finished mechanics and storylines. I wish you all the best with your effort however.

Cobalt Wrote:I've also taken a look at ren'py. But from what I've seen it won't fit our needs as it is designed for visual novels. Have I maybe missed something?

Interestingly enough, when thinking about the combat for the game, Sakura Dungeon pops to mind as that has, while mostly visual novel aspects, does have a dungeon crawling gameplay with a turn-based system where you can fight against other monster girls. So it's definitely doable to have like combat in Ren'py.

And I do wonder it'll be better to have a uniformed thread where we keep things talking about this new game in one place. We have one thread in the Discussion section and now here. Perhaps we should stick with one place for the time being and discuss things from there. As far as positions go, I'm more in the writing department, but I can help out in UI stuff if needed.

I'd love to see a good breeding game come to fruition. Breeding Season wan NOT a good breeding game since the switch to Patreon and subsequent style and policy changes. I make spectacular User Interfaces and am knowledgeable in both CSS and HTML. I do things with Twine that others don't believe can be done . . . but I already have two Twine projects I am working on so I really don't want to write any Twine code (and Twine wouldn't be a friendly platform for making this game . . . it could do it, but the level of JavaScript knowledge to do so would make it preferable to make an HTML 5 game from scratch).

As I said, I have two projects already, but if you need a UI guy to get you started, I have a lot of free time so I can probably squeeze it in . . . but I can't promise I'll be a reliable long term team member at this juncture.

I don't think there is any right or wrong answer in terms of reviving this game as long as the team is competent. As far as i see it is an issue of practicality. I will try to be impartial as possible when laying out what i am seeing in my own and cobalts visions for the game so do let me know if i misrepresent anything.

Cobalt:

Wants to create a core engine, with editors allowing anyone to create content for the game as a priority. The core team will then direct and assimilate community made content into the game.

Pro's:
Potentially huge amount of content created for the game.
High community participation.
Lessend pressure on the core team to create content themselves after the initial launch of the editors, increased pressure on those communicating with the community to create content good enough to be used in game.

Con's:
In my experience a high risk of a patchwork of different content that doesn't quite fit, and unfinished work from creators that never quite finished.
Games that use this format have erratic progress rates and a high risk of stagnation after the initial interest in creating new content wanes.
Creating the initial editors would take a lot of initial input.


Myself:
Want to assemble a core team that wants to revive the game, but with nothing set in concrete until a suitable team has looked at their skill set, desires and commitment to the project.

Pro's:
Initially far more flexible in the design, though once agreed upon would be less flexible compared to cobalts.
Progress more consistent in quality, output rate and design. Less risk of stagnation.

Con's:
Requires high levels of commitment from core team as all content would come from them.
Less scope for direct community contribution, though no reason community members can't ask to help and be given non-urgent work.

I just wanted to say a couple things here for the moment. An extensible framework is always a good thing in my mind, but the core project should not be depending upon community "backup" to produce playable content. There should be enough core content to play a satisfying game without installing a bunch of community content first. I'm seeing a lot of emphasis on animation without art to animate (even labeling "graphical artist" as optional) and coding, but more emphasis is put on community management than on background and story creation. To me, this is backward. Write a "canon" story and background, create a *few* playable monsters (hell, even 2 fully functional monsters, either with or representing both genders, would be enough to get started) with their scenes, and finalize the engine coding. That puts a playable game on the table, even without sound editors, community managers, or any sort of online server. Then the coding team can start building an editor which modifies content without messing up the engine, while the remainder expand the basic game with "official DLC." Keep the "canon" content editable, as well as extensible, and that way people can rewrite the main story, rebuild the regions to be more extensive, or do anything else within their skill set to make the game over into their personal vision for it.
Also, one minor point here on animation. How do you expect an animator to animate blank bones without some idea of the images that will be there eventually? You don't want "baked" animations to look like shit just because the images don't properly line up and Miss Cowbell's legs are slicing through Wolf-Face's hands.

And second, I personally am very leery of including online interactions almost from the ground up, as this makes it sound like a multiplayer game rather than a single-player game where players can optionally connect with other players. I realize you'll just naturally plan that way if .NET is your specialty, but what I personally want from the game (and what I think others will as well) is a single-player environment where I'm free to follow my personal fetishes without the nagging feeling that I'm doing it in public. And then if an optional expansion is available to trade your best/favorite monsters with other players, that's okay. But don't make this one of those social networking games where I have to "befriend" five neighbors, visit their ranches, and milk their cows.

In that case i should stress that i don't think he is going to be entirely reliant on the community, just as mine may at some point have an editor to allow community creation. This was more a summary of our starting priorities.

ValturNaa Wrote:I just wanted to say a couple things here for the moment. An extensible framework is always a good thing in my mind, but the core project should not be depending upon community "backup" to produce playable content. There should be enough core content to play a satisfying game without installing a bunch of community content first.

I think there is some kind of misunderstanding. The main difference in evildumdum's and my approach is that he is aiming to get something on its feet as soon as possible while Project Blue is aiming for a long term goal. If evildumdum will introduce extensibility in his idea aswell, then the differences may not be too great in form of concept. Also, with Project Blue we do a clean seperation of concerns. Letting programmers do the programming and artist do the arts.
I would really love to see an art team forming to provide official art to Project Blue. I already have a few people by hand, willing to fill the gap. They already provided some concept sketches. But so far, it's nothing that meets the quality standards we expect from something we want to introduce as "official". So there will definitely be content available.
I personally don't see this as a big problem.

ValturNaa Wrote:Write a "canon" story and background, create a *few* playable monsters (hell, even 2 fully functional monsters, either with or representing both genders, would be enough to get started) with their scenes, and finalize the engine coding. That puts a playable game on the table, even without sound editors, community managers, or any sort of online server.

As stated before: I am searching for people that can do it. We surely welcome anyone who is capable of doing this. Why I labeled it as optional? Because I already have plenty to do with managing the very core of the project. If the team is enhanced by writers and artists, awesome! But if they choose to manage the work on their own, I'm also fine with this. If there is someone that is willing to manage the official content part, I'm all for it. And there already formed a team that is willing to create content for Project Blue. But this team chose to manage their work on their own and provide a package with their world.
Btw: If there will be more than one breeding project, the content provided by an artistic team could be provided to all of these games.

ValturNaa Wrote:And second, I personally am very leery of including online interactions almost from the ground up, as this makes it sound like a multiplayer game rather than a single-player game where players can optionally connect with other players. I realize you'll just naturally plan that way if .NET is your specialty, but what I personally want from the game (and what I think others will as well) is a single-player environment where I'm free to follow my personal fetishes without the nagging feeling that I'm doing it in public. And then if an optional expansion is available to trade your best/favorite monsters with other players, that's okay. But don't make this one of those social networking games where I have to "befriend" five neighbors, visit their ranches, and milk their cows.

.NET is not an online framework or something. Online functionality is no main feature we are aiming for. In fact, it is not even planned for the first few milestones. It was just an idea that was mentioned by someone and could be easily implemented. Even if there will be online functionality added later to the game, they will never replace single player features (at least as far as I am concerned).
Why we need a web developer? Because we want to provide an online platform for sharing feedback and content, providing a wiki and to make development status public (showing current progress and roadmap).

evildumdum Wrote:Con's:
In my experience a high risk of a patchwork of different content that doesn't quite fit, and unfinished work from creators that never quite finished.

That is something we hope to mitigate to some degree by introducing the concept of packages. This way a whole team can form and provide all the content suitable to their world.

Elerneron Wrote:I'd love to see a good breeding game come to fruition. Breeding Season wan NOT a good breeding game since the switch to Patreon and subsequent style and policy changes.

The best way to prevent others from repeating someones faults is by pointing them out. I would be grateful for someone doing this.

VintageBass Wrote:And I do wonder it'll be better to have a uniformed thread where we keep things talking about this new game in one place. We have one thread in the Discussion section and now here. Perhaps we should stick with one place for the time being and discuss things from there.

This is because Project Blue is a definite project and I am not sure to what degree it fits your needs.

Good, glad to hear we're on the same page, Cobalt. I was mainly worried due to the priorities stated in the initial post. And on the note of pointing out what went wrong with Breeding Season, does anybody remember the alpha dickwolf event? Blah blah blah words blah blah blah alpha dickwolf blah blah. I think that was a good example of somebody getting way too lazy with his content. BS became too scattered because it was trying to cater to everyone's requests all at once. This time around, I just hope the development team(s) can stay focused on the task at hand, produce some quality content, and file suggestions away for after the priority material is finished.

Cobalt Wrote:

VintageBass Wrote:And I do wonder it'll be better to have a uniformed thread where we keep things talking about this new game in one place. We have one thread in the Discussion section and now here. Perhaps we should stick with one place for the time being and discuss things from there.

This is because Project Blue is a definite project and I am not sure to what degree it fits your needs.

What I was asking about was we got three threads talking about this game, those being this one, the one evildumdum started over at the Discussion (technically not really) and the original BS thread. I was thinking of perhaps sticking to just one thread so we're not hopping all over the site and redirect people to the main thread that'll be the home of this new game. Just saying that being the moderator that I am, that's all. Wanna have some sort of housekeeping going on so it's not too confusing about where to go and the like.

ValturNaa Wrote:Good, glad to hear we're on the same page, Cobalt. I was mainly worried due to the priorities stated in the initial post. And on the note of pointing out what went wrong with Breeding Season, does anybody remember the alpha dickwolf event? Blah blah blah words blah blah blah alpha dickwolf blah blah. I think that was a good example of somebody getting way too lazy with his content. BS became too scattered because it was trying to cater to everyone's requests all at once. This time around, I just hope the development team(s) can stay focused on the task at hand, produce some quality content, and file suggestions away for after the priority material is finished.

So then why not think about what we need to focus on first? The main draw of the game is, simply put, a monster raising simulator that is training monsters to make better ones, to breed better and, later on, fight other monsters, right? So the goal of that is getting those mechanics down, correct? Work on getting a system in place where we can acquire monsters, either by buying them from a shop, earning them from an ally or possibly capturing wild ones. Then we get into raising the monster, tending to it, training it up, and then rinse and repeat until it's ready to do whatever from there, or move on to the next monster. That should be the main focus, right?

Also, weirdly enough, I'm thinking of having like six monsters to start off:
- Canine
- Equine
- Bovine
- Sheep
- Aviary
- Feline

It's pretty basic, and really I was thinking about what kind of animals we normally see on a farm, and especially those used for breeding, and usually we have those. We can shake things up a bit to add a little spice, but as long as we keep to a small list for the beginning, we should be fine. Plus with the future battle system gets added, we can figure out the best possible stats for each monster.

Also, I take it we'll be starting off with player choice in gender? I know there was that, but way back when BS was starting off, there was only the female option. Maybe we could do like we're only a male farmer and we're only able to have female monsters. It's limited, but it gives us a good starting point, plus it allows the PC some action to breed with their monsters.

Just thinking here.

VintageBass Wrote:What I was asking about was we got three threads talking about this game, those being this one, the one evildumdum started over at the Discussion (technically not really) and the original BS thread. I was thinking of perhaps sticking to just one thread so we're not hopping all over the site and redirect people to the main thread that'll be the home of this new game. Just saying that being the moderator that I am, that's all. Wanna have some sort of housekeeping going on so it's not too confusing about where to go and the like.

A good idea would be to create multiple threads, each with a different focus. One for discussing the a story, one for the monsters, one for the breeding mechanics, one with combat mechanics and maybe a last one with monster acquiring mechanics? I am not sure if this fits this forum's spirit. But as a moderator, you may be able to answer this question?

VintageBass Wrote:Maybe we could do like we're only a male farmer and we're only able to have female monsters. It's limited, but it gives us a good starting point, plus it allows the PC some action to breed with their monsters.

This way it would not be possible to breed the monsters with each other. Wouldn't that be the main purpose of the game?
With the animation system we have in mind, we add a little limitation but gain a huge reduction of required animation work. Adding a monster would not result in creating animations for all already existing Monsters + 1, like it was with BS.

VintageBass Wrote:What I was asking about was we got three threads talking about this game, those being this one, the one evildumdum started over at the Discussion (technically not really) and the original BS thread. I was thinking of perhaps sticking to just one thread so we're not hopping all over the site and redirect people to the main thread that'll be the home of this new game. Just saying that being the moderator that I am, that's all. Wanna have some sort of housekeeping going on so it's not too confusing about where to go and the like.

My thread was designed as a place to sound out the community and find out who had the skills and was ready and willing to form a team to revive the game. I doubt it will get much exposure in the discussion forum. Seems pretty dead in there. Cobalt seems to have taken the direct approach by announcing the project and recruiting after. While there is nothing wrong with this approach, it does rather exclude other visions for the game and for that reason i'd like to keep my own thread open for a little while longer. Since the main Breeding season thread seems to have the most traffic it wouldn't make sense to ignore that one either.

I can understand as a mod your need for housekeeping, but i feel we should keep the project options open until most people have had a chance to come forward.

Everything else you had to say about the design of the game i more or less agree with. I don't think we should try to cater to too many fetishes initially either. Simple male and female will do initially, perhaps with personality quirks, but nothing physical.

Cobalt Wrote:This way it would not be possible to breed the monsters with each other. Wouldn't that be the main purpose of the game?
With the animation system we have in mind, we add a little limitation but gain a huge reduction of required animation work. Adding a monster would not result in creating animations for all already existing Monsters + 1, like it was with BS.

I must ask, It seems like with the use of the word "We" that you have already formed the core team. I can't help but get the feeling you are getting ahead of yourself with these plans otherwise. If you have formed the core team then you are taking a sensible, if rushed, path. It will also affect the plans and efforts of those others that have expressed support for a continuation but have not yet signed up for any particular project. Could you clarify this please?

evildumdum Wrote:Everything else you had to say about the design of the game i more or less agree with. I don't think we should try to cater to too many fetishes initially either. Simple male and female will do initially, perhaps with personality quirks, but nothing physical.

Yeah, stick to just the basics for the time being and then we can add certain kinks that, ultimately, should benefit the game and makes sense mechanically. Adding too many will just bog everything down and won't be fun for everyone, especially those who feel a bit uncomfortable about certain things.

Cobalt Wrote:A good idea would be to create multiple threads, each with a different focus. One for discussing the a story, one for the monsters, one for the breeding mechanics, one with combat mechanics and maybe a last one with monster acquiring mechanics? I am not sure if this fits this forum's spirit. But as a moderator, you may be able to answer this question?

At that rate, that sounds like we need to get a sub-group going for that if you're going to be offering something like that. With the other projects that are here, there are different threads focusing on those specific things and the like. It can definitely work for sure, but as of right here, it's better to keep things contained until we get some real traction going and I figure out how to get something like that going. I can't promise on that as of now.

Cobalt Wrote:This way it would not be possible to breed the monsters with each other. Wouldn't that be the main purpose of the game?

Well my line of thinking is more that you, the player, are essentially breeding with the monster... yeah, monsters breeding with each other is an issue...

Of course we could start off with just two monsters a pop and add them down the line, both genders added and the like, I'm just trying to suggest something that'll be the best way of going about getting the base idea. Which, seeing that I omitted breeding monsters with each other... that fails with my suggestion. Again, planning phrase we're in.

evildumdum Wrote:I must ask, It seems like with the use of the word "We" that you have already formed the core team. I can't help but get the feeling you are getting ahead of yourself with these plans otherwise. If you have formed the core team then you are taking a sensible, if rushed, path. It will also affect the plans and efforts of those others that have expressed support for a continuation but have not yet signed up for any particular project. Could you clarify this please?

Yeah, I have noticed that as well. I'm with dumdum on that.

evildumdum Wrote:I must ask, It seems like with the use of the word "We" that you have already formed the core team. I can't help but get the feeling you are getting ahead of yourself with these plans otherwise. If you have formed the core team then you are taking a sensible, if rushed, path. It will also affect the plans and efforts of those others that have expressed support for a continuation but have not yet signed up for any particular project. Could you clarify this please?

No, I'm sorry. The team is not formed yet. I'm just communicating on multiple platforms and the idea regarding the animations is something that (so far) did only receive positive feedback. So in my mind it was already marked as common sense, while actually, it is not.
Anyways, it seems like the best idea so far.

Cobalt Wrote:

evildumdum Wrote:I must ask, It seems like with the use of the word "We" that you have already formed the core team. I can't help but get the feeling you are getting ahead of yourself with these plans otherwise. If you have formed the core team then you are taking a sensible, if rushed, path. It will also affect the plans and efforts of those others that have expressed support for a continuation but have not yet signed up for any particular project. Could you clarify this please?

No, I'm sorry. The team is not formed yet. I'm just communicating on multiple platforms and the idea regarding the animations is something that (so far) did only receive positive feedback. So in my mind it was already marked as common sense, while actually, it is not.
Anyways, it seems like the best idea so far.

I can't help but shake the fear that you are pushing a concept that is unsustainable. The certainty and rigidity with which you are asserting things is worrying for a game that has not even got a core team behind it, much less a team with the skills to implement it. What's more by asserting that everything is already decided, you are suppressing other more realistic suggestions by making it appear that there is no need for them. If you have not got a team, there is no game and you cannot assert anything, much less make reckless promises.

These are exactly the symptoms that killed that last project. A leader with an overly ambitious idea and making grand promises, but was lacking the means to deliver on those promises. In H-bombs case he lacked motivation, in your case you lack a team with the appropriate skill. For the sake of the game i urge you to slow down, take a breath and take stock of your position before making any promises.