Astro Vulpus (Still Dead) Aug 02

[suijin]

Already looking a lot better! Honestly I think at this point it should be good, I just get easily thrown off by certain color combinations.

[Lucky777]

100% felt like I was going to crash into the backgrounds, ESPECIALLY the dots on top of the trees.

I don't know if it's about the colours so much.

They just look like they're directly in the way.

[Yorozuya]

Been a while since I'm around this topic... First of all, good improvements overall. With regards to the backgrounds blending in with the ships / enemies, I honestly don't have any problems with it, although that might just be me being accustomed to playing vibrant-coloured games. Anyways, maybe it would help if you give your ships and the enemies a slightly bolder outline? If not that, give the background a deeper depth perception, like size them down more or make the colours more blurry or darker to make it seem as if you're flying high over them instead of nearly brushing above them.

On another note, I don't know about ship designs, but seeing that you have more than just one models, are those supposed to be a preview of what your ship looks like as it gets more and more upgraded, or were you just choosing between one of those showcased?

Now about helper ships again, particularly Slick, I felt that she's not being much of a help because her missiles have a short range. This is contrasted even more when you summon her and any other assistants, they get to shoot in a wider / longer reach than Slick, and end up overshadowing her usefulness. Maybe you could do something about this? Just let the missiles travel all the way and explode on contact with the enemies instead of auto-detonating a short distance after it's shot or something. That being said, I noticed that her missiles exploded into green shrapnels and those actually contributed to damaging the enemies, not a bad idea at all. How about making those explosion dusts linger a little longer instead of vanishing instantly?

[AcetheSuperVillain]

While we're on the subject of changing things, how do you guys feel about the first combat bgm (Siren Song)? The more I hear it, the more I realize I'm sick of it after 7 years. Though it is kind of appropriate for space combat. If you guys like it, I can keep it, if not, I'll probably replace it.

[suijin]

I think the music's fine, but I'm also not particularly attached to it. Could go either way. Although I noticed that the sound effects have a tendency of drowning out the bgm anyway, so I might not even notice a change right away.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Clench tight, there's a new update of Astro Vulpus. Details up front.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Been a while since I posted anything sexy. I have been doing a few practice and set-up graphics, so I thought I'd post some.

First of all, I've been trying to use a more Sonic-esque style. Specifically inspired by this fan-artist: http://akatsukishiranui-fox.deviantart.com/gallery/ ... https://e-hentai.org/g/941352/9156d217fe/ The reason is, I'm trying to prepare myself for the ultimate jump to 3D games, and Sonic style is one of the few anthro art styles that really works in 3D. But, it's not always very sexy, hence the assist from ASF.

I have yet to fully decide on the new designs for the Astro Vulpus girls, but here is a test character in the new style. It's a bit quick and sloppy, but otherwise, this is what to expect.

These are more or less the costumes I came up with for the Pepper, Slick and Harriet. But then I thought that see-through latex might be a fun futuristic sexy approach to costumes. I've had difficulty portraying see-through materials in the past, but this time, I feel like I nailed it. It looks good, but I'm not sure if it will be a good fit. Like, will their personalities match people who run around in a sheet of plastic and no panties, or will their reactions to the only boy in an all-girl squadron seem out of place, or would it seem odd when they meet a nudist space princess later on, or would it still feel rewarding to see them naked later on.

So basically, I'm curious, how do they make you feel?

[suijin]

Well I'm the weirdo who likes my 2d girls wearing clothing as often as possible, so I would prefer something that's a bit more complicated and still leaves a little to the imagination, but I might be in the vast minority there.

p.s. Really like the new update. Background's perfect, musics good (and hopefully less annoying for you), Pepper now has best ship to go with being best girl, and I cannot overstate how much of an improvement being able to more closely control the summons' movements is. Excellent work.

[KiWolfGirl]

Oh nooo please dont do sonic OC character style

[Yorozuya]

The new art looks good, but honestly speaking, it doesn't make me want them any more or less than your previous one. It doesn't give that vibe of "OMG THIS has to be the final product", to me anyways. Then again I'm not much of an style enthusiast in ero-games, so you'd best get several other second opinions. I'd just mention that since you're doing this with a purpose in mind (2D -> 3D), you should just go along with what suits your needs best.

As for the latex fitting the ambience, I can see it both working and not working for the immersion. If the see-through suit is the only design available for the squad, let's say the only suits issued by the higher ups and whatnot, then sure the girls won't mind wearing them. Maybe now that there's a boy around, they'll get more self-conscious or so, but hey it's the battle-suit, so it can't be helped. On the other hand, if you're planning on having them wear it 24/7, that does seem kinda off.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

I've actually been working on the story, so let's put everything into context.

Astro Vulpus squadron is like a private defense contractor or a local militia on the frontier of known space, they coordinate with the military, but they are not military. Pepper and Vix, Renard's sister who has passed away, were the founders of Astro Vulpus. Pepper thinks of Renard as a brother (at least at first) so when war breaks out between the animal people and robotoids, Pepper invites Renard to join the squadron so that he won't be drafted. Slick and Harriet aren't thrilled with this idea, but warm up to him as the game progresses.

So it could be that transparent clothing is just how people dress in the animal future. This is my favorite solution as it does not require me to deal with it. Or it could have been something they felt comfortable with as an all-girl squadron. They are all bisexual or at least comfortable in threesomes and harems, so it could be that they enjoyed seeing each other in see-through clothing. I haven't given much thought to Renard yet, but he will end up with something equally revealing.

[Lucky777]

I like the see-through clothes, and I DO like sonic porns from time to time, but I'm not personally too huge on these characters being in the Sonic OC style.

Is it because I don't want to mix sonic-style characters into my parody Starfox?

I don't know.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Well, it's not all that sonicky in the end, so don't worry about it.

Here's Harriet, not sure if this is the final version:

harriet.png (167.92 KiB) Viewed 1887 times

I realized that transparent clothing is going to be super painful to draw over and over again. Also, it feels like too much, too soon, I want you to have to work for the nudity.

[suijin]

Yes.

Seriously though, love the outfit. Doesn't seem like quite the right fit for Harriet, but I'm not sure what's missing. Maybe I'm just expecting her to be a bit more blue. I don't know, ignore me.

[Lucky777]

- That draft design assuages my Sonic-OC-related concerns.

- The way you can control the summoned ships is pretty great now; I'm happy with it.

- The new background doesn't make me feel so much like it's in the way; so I guess maybe it WAS the colours after all.


- I like the new music, and I WOULD especially like the new music that plays in your base, where you can upgrade etc and hang out with the girls, BUT ... uuuh
... ... Don't the horns in that tune start out off-key and get more and more off-key as the tune goes on? D :
You should probably check the key signature the song is written in and make sure the horns are observing the accidentals except when you INTEND them not to.

- ...Also can you post a video or something somewhere of you barrel-rolling the shots?
It seems to me that I still ABSOLUTELY cannot dodge through them, no matter how far my mouse is from my ship.
My ship doesn't shoot, so I know it's in the [aileronlol] Barrel-roll state.
It goes through the other ships on the screen just fine when it passes through them.
But the shots hit it 100% of the time.
I'd post a video myself but I don't... have or know how to use recording software.
Hell, even if I did, my lappy would probably complain and run the game at 2FPS.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Actually, I forgot to mention it, but I'm definitely seeing some problem with aileroning through at least the yellow shots on my side as well. I'm going to look into it.

As for the music, I wrote that song before knowing what keys were. There are a few from that era that got it right by accident, and it always sounded okay to me, but I can crack it open and take a look. I might slow it down a few beats too, just cause it's a bit hectic for upping stats and watching porn.

Another thing I changed about the new background was to make the trees smaller so they look farther away, that's probably part of it too.

[Lucky777]

Hahahahaha, not knowing what key signatures are explains it.

For my own part, I've got some EXCEEDINGLY minor skill in music theory, but I could never compose worth a half-flushed shit.

I'm 100% okay with the speed of the tune as it is, for the record, but oh god fix the key of those horns PLZ.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Well, since you asked nicely, give me a minute.

While I wait for Anvil Studio to update from v.2014 to v.2017, I've been thinking about when it would be appropriate to upload a release of Astro Vulpus to NewGrounds. I'm honestly not wild about uploading unfinished games. I feel like it devalues the portal as a whole, devalues my own channel, and it even says on NewGrounds "do not upload a useless demo". On the other hand, games like Panthea and SimBro do this all the time and they make shitloads of money on Patreon. But then, those games are basically designed to go on and on in development forever and never really finish. Astro Vulpus is designed to be finished, and is frankly steamrolling its goals at an astounding pace. I could theoretically just finish the game in about the same time as it would take those other guys to do 2 or 3 updates, if I can keep it up.

So I don't know. If I uploaded a demo/preview/early release to NG, I would want some kind of obvious finishing point, like how right now, if you beat Mission 3 and get all 4 sex scenes, you've pretty much seen all there is to see. I would want to add some kind of To Be Continued... (please send money) screen. I would definitely want some final quality sex scenes included. The current mostly-weekly updates I think would be too often for an NG release, maybe just one upload when it's half-way done, and another when it's finished. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that.



While that was going on, I managed to "fix" the song. It's actually in a pretty weird sound profile to begin with, so it probably still sounds weird, but hopefully better. It'll be a while before I reupload the game, but here's the adjusted menu tune, midi and mp3:

Ace39SingingintheDarkness2.zip

(1.44 MiB) Downloaded 19 times

[Lucky777]

For a game like this my 2 cents would be an upload when you're halfway and another when you're done.
Alternatively, an upload with some final-quality sex scenes, regardless of "halfway" or not in the plot, and then another when you're done.
But from my past experience browsing newgrounds years before the current "rolling updates to games" trend became a fad, I'm partial to finished games going there.
Unexpected bugs can always be fixed, and new features going in isn't a bad thing after a solid base game is up.
But EVEN in the case of something like simbro, some quasi-rational impulse in me rebels against the idea of repeatedly stuffing unfinished games into the portal.


Also, the tune totally sounds better to me now.

There's a 10% chance I'll try to fuck around tomorrow with SOME kind of sound-related software and see if I can get the notes where I'm thinking of having them.
...5%.
Also the chance that I'll succeed is some slightly lower fraction of that : D
EDIT: Ah, one of the tunes says it was created with "Solmire"?
Well, first thing'll be for me to look into downloading that; maybe I can open the file in it and just tweak the notes I was thinking of.

[AcetheSuperVillain]

Actually, the music is made in midi format, using Anvil Studio. I think Musagi can also import and export midi, but I've always been happy with Anvil. Midi is basically electronic sheet music, which uses your computer's sound card to play the notes, usually badly. It's not quite 8-bit chip tune, but it's basically 16-bit chip tune. Solmire has a collection of "sound fonts" which are basically better ways to play the sounds. This also converts it to MP3, which you can jam into your MP3 players or put into a Flash game, since Flash doesn't do midi.

I like the Saphyr 2000 sound font, since it sounds closest to how my computer plays midi. There are probably nicer ones in there, but it's just too unpredictable when they change the sounds. I'll often get volume changes, like a bass line that's barely audible is suddenly the loudest thing or a primary guitar sound gets drowned out by the drums. Sometimes the notes change in strength per duration too, like in one sound font you hear the note clearly from beginning to end, but on another sound font the same instrument starts loud and fades out, or starts quiet and hits its peak slightly later. These things are all very annoying to deal with when converting with sound fonts.