To clothing or not to clothing

Should there be clothing sets? What about alternate characters?

Currently, there are not many attacks available to the player. This is because for every attack I add, it adds to the amount of work I would need to do when adding a new set of clothing.

There are a few options,

If there are no clothing sets, there could be an unlimited number of moves and attacks. Or, even if there is a small amount of clothing (dress, armor, x, x) it would still be viable to have a lot of attacks. Or, it would be possible to make attacks clothing dependent, or make it so some outfits have no attacks at all. That way adding an outfit doesn't mean animating all of the attacks.

However, if there's no clothing (or very little) you lose out on the fun of finding clothing, wearing clothing for different situations, etc. There can't really be a gear finding focus, at least for visible clothes.

The other question is, what about alternate characters?

Alternate characters could be added who play differently, yet do not have the polished event or clothing animations of the protagonist. They would also have a smaller number of H poses. At most, maybe 1-2 alt outfits.

The other option is, there could be no main character at all. Have a small number of characters (3-5), who all play differently, with different attacks. It might still be viable to give each of them an outfit of each type, if there are only 3-4 outfits. However the disadvantage would be that there would be no super polished event animations. (For example if I add a hot-tub on a whim, currently I could make an animation for it, whereas doing 4 animations for all the characters every time I add something is less viable.)



47 comments:

  1. I like the idea of a small amount of different clothing with more moves and attacks, and also having one main character with maybe a few alternate characters.

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  2. I'd definitely be open to the idea of alternate characters, but considering the long process of animating, layering, and programming, it might be a little less time-consuming just to add a few small modifications to the current character to indicate different races such as long pointed ears for elves/drows, or small whiskers and a thin tail for nekos. The head would be the main focus of those mods while the body would remain the same.
    As for the clothes and armor, sets sound like a good idea as long as you only worry about attack animations. Once you sustain enough damage to destroy your clothes and leave you naked (or remove your clothes manually), only then would you be susceptible to H-moves.

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  3. IMO good clothing sets are only possible for 3D games. For 2D ones the amount of work they add adds up exponentially with the number of sprites needed if the clothes are involved in H. Too much effort for too little gained.
    Personally, being able to wear different clothing is neat, but it's not a "bullet point" feature that'd make me interested in a game. I can do without it, but some people really like their swimsuits.
    Have you considered making human characters be part-based (hair, face, boobs, clothing, etc. stapled onto an animation skeleton)? That way any human animations or clothing would function interchangeably for every human and there could be some amount of player customization. Kids could inherit your appearance, too. The always-identical monster-girls would have a normal sprite with their own animations and style.
    Overall, my vote goes to whatever makes the game more sandboxy and replayable. Making attacks clothing-dependent is my favourite, as it would make each set feel unique. But if you have to draw them in every H-position as well then that's still too much work.
    Also, isn't being able to play as monsters, monster-girls and male PCs already planned? That's basically the same as alternate characters. Especially if you add human bandit-girls or whatever, I really don't see the difference apart from clothes.
    Whatever you do, don't take on too much work and burn yourself out. Feature creep kills.

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  4. I find the idea of moves based on clothing the coolest.
    Makes finding new clothing more rewarding and in game progression could lead to the character looking different, adds to skill cap i.e. switching clothing mid-fight for different moves, also means if certain abilities are needed in certain areas the player can have clothing that looks appropriate for the area. also lends itself to fun secrets i.e. the outfit with the terrible moves is actually the only way to kick high enough to open the door and find a secret boss or a set of clothes leads to better drops from an enemy but makes the fight harder etc.
    I think the linking outfits to moves adds a lot of fun options.

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  5. I think the main character with themed weapons and outfits sounds the coolest. Having her wear a witch's hat with a staff or tome with magic attacks, or an armored knight with maybe a lance, a hide wearing barbarian with an axe, or a woodland bow-wielding ranger. I think it keeps things simpler and keeps peoples class-based dress up fantasies intact.

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  6. In terms of throwing in some new attacks, I think you could just do 1-3 different outfit sets, with some recoloured variants if you want to play around with stats.
    As for alt characters, a male character could be nice for interacting with only the female enemies, so you could just reuse poses from their scenes with male/peen-wielding enemies. However, if you still wanted to throw in a unique pose (maybe two for dom/sub roles) for the male MC and all the female cast, it'd still be less work than doing one unique pose for ALL of the enemies... but I wouldn't say it's worth it.

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  7. If this wasn't an H game, I'd say go all out on outfits and all the gamey fun that comes along with acquiring them.

    But since it -is- an H game, IMO, clothing is not important to me. Hell I ran around naked most of the time anyway. Ultimately I play this game for lewdness, and so I'd be weary about any feature creep that would make this game spiral into development hell.

    If it were me, I'd shelf the idea of more clothing for now. Just add all the moves with the one piece of clothing you got now. In the future, once it looks like you've got all the moves the game'll have, -then- start looking into adding new clothes since you'll have a better idea of the work involved.

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  8. Regarding alt characters, I think it may be possible to recycle most of what you have. Like just swap out the head and replace it with a neko's head, for example (plus adding a tail body part). I'd love to play this game as a cute monstergirl.

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  9. Clothing would be good, but not like modern clothing, more like clothes made from animal or monster furs. Materials would be dropped by the monsters and can be crafted on the player character's home. Even if this is a H-Game, adding clothing would certainly add more complexity and flavor to it. Clothing wouldn't need to be too detailed, it can be just recolored versions depending on what materials were used on crafting it.

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  10. While I usually wouldn't care about gameplay for an H game, the games you make are actually fun to play on their own. I vote for limiting characters, but alternate outfits will have different movesets (and hopefully different scenes?)

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  11. I prefer depth over breadth. Would obviously be nice to have variety, but if the question is to sacrifice depth for lots of different shallow experiences, I vote depth.

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    1. Adding to this: let modders come up with other characters or clothing sets. If you build a strong foundation, you won't have to worry about people building content on top of your foundation.

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  12. To be honest with you? I'd rather have not much in terms of variety but much in terms of content. A mage and an Archer character, maybe, but clothing should be either 2-3 outfits for one character max. As for H-scene / attack animation, make them character dependent, not outfit-dependent. If anything, Clothing/No clothing difference in animations, but that's about it.

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  13. This would be the time where you have the help of another artist. Perhaps one of you is dedicated to making clothing and one dedicated to adding attacks. I guess you are going at this alone all the way?

    Well, if you are going Solo, I think you should focus on making 1 main character for now before moving onto the NPCs

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  14. I would prefer to have the current clothes but can still unequip them, have only one playable character and maybe a few more skin color options and perhaps the choice between two different boobs sizes (the current ones are a little bit small for me)..

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  15. i don't see a need for more than like, a 'clothed' state and a 'nude' state. one or two outfits might also be nice, but i don't think having more than 3 sets of clothes would really add that much to the game. having alternate characters would be more than enough to justify only having a 'nude' state and a 'clothed' state, also.
    i don't think i have much else to say about this besides not focusing too much on outfit differences because everything else you described in the post sounds good.

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    1. > i don't see a need for more than like, a 'clothed' state and a 'nude' state.

      Well said.

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  16. why dont you just do the Disgaea thing and reuse a lot of sprites, creating basic actions and see how you can recycle them. idk im not an artist

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  17. I'm in favor of having a few outfits and a lot of weapons/moves available for all of them. Having clothing-specific items/moves could also be cool if you want to differentiate specific outfits more.

    I think there should be just one main character that gets a lot of focus. Secondary characters and playable monsters should be limited to one outfit and moveset each.

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  18. I am in favor of having outfits being special, it makes looking for them more alluring and gives variety to the main character. On the other hand, however, having multiple characters would be nice too if it worked similar to Dark Cloud where you would have to venture out and find them. Maybe even have them being guarded by bosses or even better have it be a random chance you find them being attacked and save them.

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  19. I like the idea of having different characters with their own weapons and outfit. I don't think that adding different outfits to the same character adds much to the gameplay, at least not at this stage of development (maybe when the game is mostly finished but I don't think it's really necessary). If we have multiple playable characters with their own outfit, weapons, traits or abilities I believe it can be way more interesting, like having a monster girl specialized in magic or an elf archer. Or maybe all being human, depends on which idea has more pontential

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  20. When I read "Lufu", I think "Fufu".
    When I hear fufu, I see naked.

    If sacrificing clothes means more characters like your bun, I'll take it.

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  21. If you decide to add just a couple more clothing sets, bringing the total to 3, one suggestion would be a set for each playstyle:

    Balanced - the current clothing
    Nympho - some sort of sexy/slutty clothing, perhaps crotchless or something.
    Combative - armor.

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  22. Do clothing, not side characters! Having alternate costumes affect gameplay is what interested me most about this game from that start, and if you fully explore this gimmick it'd be something unique in H games. Save the side characters for Noaika or a different game.

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  23. Maybe a handful of clothes, with 3 variations "normal" "ero" and "tough."
    Normal is just normal, as it's now.
    Ero is instant H on contact, no damage taken, unlocked at the end as a pseudo gallery mode.
    Tough is just normal but with no H at all, in case you want to stream the game or don't want to see a certain monster's H animation.

    As for the secondary character, you can find and/or rescue secondary characters in random places, so that you have a reason to explore.
    but if the only difference is gonna be the attack style, I'd prefer just having different weapons and clothes on the main girl.
    and if you're expanding on the main girl, slap on a rudimentary character customization with hair style, hair color, skin color and eye color.

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    1. well you can already H without damage by pressing a button (cant remember which one tho)

      as for the tough one, i dont see the point, nobody is really gonna stream a H game. plus why would it be an outfit and not an option like in eroico.

      also with the customization, there is already options to customize hair skin and eye colour. though hairstyles could be cool.

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    2. You can only see one animation with the 'give up' button.
      It's not just for streaming, but also if you want to go through a place without having to deal with H attacks, or if there are monsters you don't like and don't want to see their H attacks. but an option is fine too.
      You can only change your character entirely right now, not just hair color, skin color or eye color. though that can be done with the color mod i guess.

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    3. you just need to escape and fall over again till you find the animation you like, or jump on your enemies till you get the one you want

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    4. There will be ways to control what animations play as the game develops.

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  24. i think it would be cool to see multiple outfits act as "classes" simpler to bravely default.
    and although the alt characters sounds cool, i think it would be best as a bonus to add later on when the base game is done

    perhaps a good idea to do is to have the different outfits that add passive abilities like in breath of the wild or have simple abilities don't need brand new animations. that might reduce work load because your animating less.

    example:
    witch, throws potions.
    Succubus, drains and heals HP when doing H things.
    Merchant: less attack power but more inventory space (could be that backpack thing shown in that one old post)

    idk im not an animator but i think it could work IDK.

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  25. one idea for an outfit that could be cool is a slime outfit, it not only act as armor but can also be used as a type of strap-on where it can be used on girls (or boys) for a futa without a real dick thing. or perhaps it could act as a sort of condom that stops you from being impregnated by absorbing the jizz?

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  26. Id say keep clothing to a minimum. Personally Id prefer having a large number of alternate characters that play fairly different from one another with each having only one or more clothing items.

    Another Idea is that you could have a couple different main char body shapes that each can only use one type of clothing (like neko-girls wear the same as normal human or faeries the same clothing as succubi). This way the same clothing animation could be reused across different characters of the same type.

    As for the number of attacks, that doesn't need to be all that high. I think everyone would be happy with 3 different types of melee weapons (heavy, light, stabby [like a spear]) and one or two ranged weapon types (bow, magic wand). With the attack system that is currently in place, the only real change I would want is less weird blocking and dodging.

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  27. I would definitely prefer gear. Specifically, clothing that wears through combat, time, etc.

    Classes would be really great from a gameplay perspective, as well as from the perspective of sexual variety, but I think sacrificing animations for this is not a worthy trade off, especially considering that half of that reasoning can be overcome by different character sprites and clothing.

    Overall, though, I definitely want to be able to experiment with clothing items. Bonus points if clothing also affects stats when equipped (speed, protection, etc.)

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  28. Some ideas!

    - Default Moveset: The protagonist has a default moveset when Naked, which is carried over to most clothing items.

    - Special Outfits: Some outfits act like 'classes' and replace your moveset entirely! You lose it if you're naked.

    - Hats and Accessories: Some items could be independent from the outfit, such as a hat or glasses. You'd remove these for H so they don't need to be animated.

    - Gear Progression: Colour palettes! Even if there's a limited amount of items, you could generate alternate colour palettes for them or give them affixes/suffixes like other loot-focused games.
    For example, let's say that we have the "Standard Outfit". To get more content out of it, we add an affix, a suffix and select a different palette, creating...
    "Flaming Red Standard Outfit of the Monster Magnet"
    Which:
    a) Spawns a subtle fire effect around you, dealing damage to nearby enemies.
    b) Has the 'Red' colour palette (players could collect dyes to change this if you're worried about customization!)
    c) Increases the 'lust' parameter of nearby enemies, making their AI's weight pouncing for lewds over regular attacks.

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  29. Meat Mc scrugman7 December 2019 at 07:36

    that last idea seems great and id love to see it get added, although i do see myself (w)hording all of the outfits despite having tons of better ones lol

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    1. Meat Mc scrugman7 December 2019 at 07:38

      that was supposed to be a reply to anon above me lol

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  30. Like others said, color swaps could greatly lower the workload. It can work for upgrades of a same line of equipment throught craft, occasionally finding one of the better versions in shop or in a rare chest. If done well, something like 4 or 8 versions may not even feel that repetitive.

    Other than that, the "different characters clothing" could work as classes. That would mean not all animations have to be done for every outfits, while the naked/H-animations are somehow shared. Each new "child of an adventurer" would get the default outfit, then specialise into one of the classes. The (re)birth system was pointing out at "there's not really a main character to this story" anyway.

    If you want to be picky, limit whose class one can be depending on the child sprites.
    Like half-elf can become archer but not heavy-sword user or werebeasts can be limited to hand combat. Things like that may pose constraints on the player, but feel natural as each monster village have its own identity and monster-dady may have a word in his daughter's education.

    In a way, you'd have to plan who your next partner is to get a "new character" of the class you want to reroll as. Having a jack of all trades capable of everything doesn't seems as interesting on the long run.

    As an exemple:
    "You left your silver-bow in the familly's chest as your child can't use it, then her own child, now re-classed as an archer, would inherit her grandma's bow instead of starting with a lvl1 weapon."

    It seems silly, but that's what makes people come back to such games, the little stories that are built upon their game experience. And again, a jack of all trades would lower the importance of all those stuff you can loot/craft. So it's a win-win to tie some outfits to specific movesets

    The important part is to create distinct templades, I'm sure people would love to draw new sets of armors if templades were avaiable. However, allowing modded armors may lead to totally broken stats, so a cosmetic-only mod (new sprite sheet loaded instead of the one with same name) would be the best until most of the game is set in stones.

    So, you can easely get away with one outfit per moveset/character and recolors until the game mechanics are finalized, then start addig more flavor stuff like new outfits. For now, getting more of the game's core is a priority over estethic stuff. Palette swaps are A-OK.

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    1. sounds cool, but what about those who want to play as the same character.

      one idea is perhaps as a new game plus kinda thing where it gives you a new save file, so you could always go back to your old saves if you miss them

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    2. we used to crowd around the coal-powered macintosh and wait two hours for the AOL pigeons to deliver all 94 kb of the funny burger king song7 December 2019 at 16:10

      on top of that, perhaps when starting the game there could be a choose your race feature, like elf or orc or cat girl, all only change small things about your appearance for easy animation (elf has bigger ears, orc has large fangs, cat girl has small ears and a tail, dragon has horns, Holstaur have horns AND a cow tail.) you could even cheat with some of them (werewolf, hell-hound, Anubis all share the same ear and tail sprites just with different colours.)

      as your genealogy continues, features are added and removed, (cat-elf = big cat ears. dragon-orc = fangs and horns so on, so forth.) perhaps a certain combination make a new race (wolf + demon = hell-hound).

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  31. Perhaps instead of armor sets for different situations, we have different weapons each with their own quirk, but all have the same animations (or perhaps 3 weapon types with their own animations). Possibly adding some clothing in the future for general vanity looks and collecting them, and not for actual def values or quirks.

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  32. Loosely follow Kill La Kill's example with the gravity of outfits.

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  33. I like the ideia of having a very small amount of clothes but a larger number of attacks and quality animations for a single character. But if the aim of the game is having different gear, those different clothes/armor can have different habilites, like the Mario outfits for example. There's even the possibility of adding clothes to use just as a casual garnment that you can use just to chill and relax without fighting, just for cosmetic reasons.

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  34. So will you do different hair set and custom? Color eyes and hair and skin
    Any light app to mod the character?

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    1. You can already mod the colors. Can find how in the mod section.

      There won't be hairstyles.

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  35. Replies
    1. https://www.mediafire.com/file/nrqs6rmqxi99u2m/Lufu_21_paws.zip/file

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