Sunday, March 31, 2013

Come Lurk!

Thanks to the handy dandy Aincalandorn, the forum now has a proper age screening prompt when you open it-- meaning I can remove the restriction on guests reading the forum's content! So if you haven't already, now's a decent time to come take a peek at the forum and see what we've got going on :3 It's a little slow, but that's just because we don't have enough people like you to keep a good set of discussions going! Come take a look, and decide for yourself if it looks interesting, or if there's something missing you think you can add ^.^

Thanks again, Aincalandorn!

Thursday, March 28, 2013

The Hunt Begins...

It's time to give Lith a new face! I'm planning on commissioning an artist to draw up a new face for Lith to put in the game and finally replace that silly old cartoon I sketched up for him so very long ago. The only question is, who do I go to for one of the most important graphical elements in the game-- the single visual representation of Lith himself?

There's a lot of possibilities out there! So I'm taking suggestions from all of you-- I wanna know who you think could draw Lith the best! :3 The topic is live on the forum, ready to catalog every suggestion in one handy place, and I'm hoping to find the perfect match somewhere out there! It could be a huge name, or a tiny one, but I want the perfect fit, and the search starts here. Bring me names! And wish me luck ^.^;

Friday, March 22, 2013

v0.12 is Live!

My work with r3drunner has finally paid off, and we have a brand new GUI for MVOL! :3 Included are new buttons for options and help, to accommodate our new Autosave feature! More on that in a second. The new scene [Offer Yourself] is live, but unfinished-- there's still more to be added to it, though you should find plenty to enjoy as it is :3 Finally, an option for folks that just want to leave it up to Lith-- although it's still up to you to get him in the mood for whatever you, ah, want him to want :P

And finally, Lith has the option for breasts available! There's not a whole lot written into the old scenes for it, as I only slipped it in where it really fit the flow of the narrative, but you should expect a lot more content with lithtits worked in from here on! Also, while working on the save files feature, I've found how to move the save location-- all MVOL games from now on will save to a central folder on your computer instead of on all sorts of different ones, so your save file should be a lot more persistent, whether you're moving the game around, changing its filename, or even playing v0.13 when it comes out!

As for autosave-- it's set up to use what used to be slot 7 as the spot it automatically saves your current game every time you return to the main scene. You can make it save every less often in the options menu, or you can turn it off altogether. If you're one of those savvy fellows that imports your files from old version to new ones manually, please note: you'll need to add "MVOL_" to the front of each folder when you move it up to the root folder, and you may want to copy your slot 7 file somewhere else before autosave overwrites it.

Also, with the addition of [Offer Yourself], I've taken the opportunity to rearrange the menu a little. Several underused options now have a home in the new [Self...] menu, and this leave the main scene's options looking that much cleaner :3

If you've played through all the new content and want to discuss it or give me feedback, as ever, I encourage you to come visit us on the forums! :3 There's a spoilerific thread waiting for you for folks to discuss the new content in Feedback, and we're always ready to help in the Guides & Help section if you're having trouble accessing all of it.

And a final addition, for those kind donators out there: first of all, thank you again for your support! :3 I received some very generous donations since the last release, so much so that I was surprised and a little embarrassed. So, as thanks for those ridiculously generous souls out there, I've already sent out complimentary copies of MVOL v0.12+ to everyone that was so unbearably kind as to donate 25 dollars or more since the last release. I think I'll make this an ongoing thing! :3 If I missed you, please email me and let me know, it should already be in your inbox!

That's it! If you haven't already, pop over to the "Play the Game!" tab, download  yourself a copy, and enjoy! :3

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Coming Soon!

Alright! The save system has now been upgraded, and the new GUI is almost done being designed, we're just working on getting Adobe to do what we want as far as transferring designs! So that's about three points of progress that have actually been completed. I've just sent my rough draft to my proofers and testers while I work on finishing it off, so if you've made my list of approved proofers, I suggest you check your email! At this point, I'm making it a tentative goal to release v0.12 on Saturday!

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If things take longer than I'm hoping, I may push off to the Friday after next, in which case I'll just have more time to add a few extra bits to [Offer Yourself] to make it a more robust experience :3 It's not really complete right now, but it's almost ready to at least make its debut.

Maybe I really should make progress reports more often, because this seems familiar 6.6 I suppose it makes sense that taking the time to lay out exactly what I have done and what's left to do can have a positive effect on one's drive and efficiency to accomplish those goals x3 It helped to see that there wasn't actually all that much that really needed doing, compared to the big, amorphous mass I'd thought I was staring at! There's always more, of course, but we should be pretty close to a good release point at the least.

Thanks again, everyone, for all your patience and support! Here's hoping I'll have more good news for you soon! :3

P.S. If anyone out there is handy with html/css, please drop me a line! I'd really like to set up my forum, and indeed my whole website, to have a basic "Are you 18?" screen any time you try to access it-- that way, I could make the forum itself easier to access! So if you think you know anything about how to make this work, I'd definitely appreciate your help! :3

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Progress: Tits!

Well! It's been a bit since I've spoken up, and I feel like I've at least gotten enough work done to not be completely embarrassed talking about it! So it's time for another progress report. As of tonight, I've finished adding support for Lith's breasts to the current game content, so Lith can now go shemale instead of just being a poor girl cat trapped in a boy's body. At this rate, full support for Lith to have a vagina and/or lack of dick is probably going to wait until after the next batch of story is added to the game, but I'm still working on adding it to new content as I go, so donators should be able to enjoy at least the partial experience, and that'll be less work when I go back to add it all throughout the game.

The other big push I'm making with this update is for Dominant Lith content. I've got one biiiig new scene I'm adding to the game: Offer Yourself! You can offer Lith the choice of what to do with you, though it's still up to you to nurture the impulses in him in the first place before he'll indulge in them... I've probably got it about half-done, and it will probably feature over a dozen possible outcomes when it's complete, but I may release v0.12 before it's 100%.

And on another front, I'm working with a kindly volunteer by the name of r3drunner on a new GUI for the game-- it'll be functionally almost identical, but having an actual graphic designer should give the game a better look overall. We're still working on it, so we're not sure if it will make it into v0.12, but it should be coming soon.

Finally, I've been hearing a lot about save files-- I actually have included support since v0.05 or so for importing your old files into new versions of the game, if you know how to copy them over manually. This is a bit complicated for a lot of folks, though, so I'm hoping to delve into how Flash works with file saving and create a more robust saving system-- with the ability to import older games' files either manually or automatically, and hopefully include some kind of autosave system.

Those are my big four goals for v0.12, and I've made some fair amount of progress. To the progress bar!

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Some extra bits that need added here and there, plus playtesting so I don't have to re-release each version four times as bug reports come in, round out the work needing to be done.

And on a related note, I'd like to address the folks that despair that this project might be abandoned when I don't update for a while. You don't know me personally, so I should clarify about myself: it is not in my nature to abandon this project. I honestly can't see myself abandoning it short of some massive, life-changing event-- basically major illness or injury. Unless something like that happens, I will keep working on this project until I'm satisfied with it. I may slow to a crawl at times, and churn out work by the leap and bound at others (very occasionally) but I will always keep working on this game. It's just a matter of being in the right state to do the game justice.

To be honest, I can get sick of Lith at times. I created him a long time ago to express a part of myself that doesn't get much outlet, but working with him so much can, well, drain that part of me. Forcing it makes for crappy writing, and makes it that much longer before I can get back into it with any real enthusiasm. So I'll go silent sometimes, because I can't bring myself to give Lith the attention he deserves, to bring him to life in the way you all enjoy. It is a blessing of the medium of writing that one evening of perfect alignment of the cosmos can be immortalized for you all to enjoy from that point onward-- that I can give you all my very best moments, rather than making you suffer through my day-to-day mediocrity.

The upshot is that this will all take time. Sometimes, by chance or fancy, I'll pump out a lot of work, and we can all rejoice, but otherwise, it will come slowly, as the opportunity strikes. I thank you all for your patience as I try to refine this process and find ways to create work that meets my standards for this project on a more regular basis.

In the meantime, I hope it will give you all some measure of relief to know: My Very Own Lith is not dead. It is not going to die away quietly-- it will either die suddenly in the case of my own health taking a downturn, or it will come to rest at the end of the road, when it is finally complete. The road is long and the going slow, but I've no intention of falling short of my destination.

To all my readers, players, fans, supporters, and donators, I say thank you, and I hope I'll have more for you soon.