The Cyriaan Chronicles in Development as an RPG

[Oblesklk]

Update #4

It's been almost a month since I updated, so figured this would be as good a time as any to give a quick state of the game's development.



What we're planning

Right now, I am planning on entering alpha phase sometime early summer. Alpha phase means the initial development is done. But the game is probably buggy in places, could use some more love and interaction in spots, and certainly could always use some balance fine tuning amongst the classes to ensure they're all viable. This phase will just be me and the producer(s) testing the game.

I want to enter beta phase by late summer. Our Patreon supporters will receive beta invites to the game. I am hoping at this stage the game is stable and only small bugs remain, although there could be many of them. I will be adding new features based on user feedback. I will be leaning on beta testers heavily for feedback, as this is the first time the game will be opened up to a larger audience.

I want to fully launch the game by winter of 2022.



So how are we tracking on those goals?

There are 10 mandatory, main story zones in the game. I've been calling them zones, but you could also call them chapters. Six have been completed, and I'm working on chapter/zone #7. I've budgeted about two weeks per zone. So I"m feeling good that we'll hit our alpha phase milestone. There could be two optional zones in the game. I have finished one of them, and it remains to be seen if I will develop the second one. Just depends a lot of how much steam I have, versus user feedback.



How are we using the money collected from our Gumroad site and Patreon subscriptions?

Quick links to our online sites 🙂

Gumroad where you can buy TickleTown videos and our older tickling comics: https://oblesklk.gumroad.com
Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/oblesklk
DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/agency-publishing
Discord Server on The Cyriaan Chronicles #10 Game Development: https://discord.gg/bGX3MR2C55

We bought a developer's kit called RPG Maker MZ. While it's an intuitive, good toolkit for beginners like me, it comes with baseline graphics. The graphics are decent, if you don't mind more old school pixel art. Right now the game is being developed with all placeholder, stock asset artwork. If it releases like that, I think it would still be an "ok" game, but I don't think it would be good. To be a good game, especially in appealing to ticklers, we have decided to invest in hiring an artist to create custom art assets for the game. We want the characters to look unique, and have some tickling focused artwork.

On that note, we've collected enough money to do the following:

1. Full artistic assets for the four main characters. This means a full body shot of the character, but also a series of reaction images as the dialogue takes place (the character being frustrated, happy, angry, sad, etc)

2. 7 full body artistic assets for important, supporting NPCs I think this is important in bringing characters to life. The RPG Maker MZ toolkit allows you to make your own characters, but they're just headshots. To make it look good, I think we needed to hire an artist for more important characters.

3. 12 artistic assets sets for important, supporting NPCs tickled in the game (basically bust shots of the character in a normal state, then a laughing/tickled state)

4. 10 tickling pinups, available through the game, of scenes appearing in the game (basically one per chapter)





The attached image: new zone



I'm attaching a screen shot of the map used in the game for the Whitelands, a sub-arctic area in the northern parts of the Aedylon empire. It's going to be featured prominently in zones/chapters 5-6. The Whitelands were referenced in The Cyriaan Chronicles #3, and have now been brought to life. Before we started the game, we went back to re-read a lot of those older Cyriaan Chronicles issues, and made a design commitment to integrate those older story elements into the game.

 

[oneortheother]

Hey, good luck on this project!

Making your own game is something special, isn't it? I know I always have a ton of fun with the games I make, as there are so many avenues for expression of creativity. Hope you're enjoying the process!

Anyway, quick question about your game: how are you gonna handle the tickle scenes? Is it going to be described in prose or will there be picture/gifs?

 

[TickleMFG]

Amanda Video Pack via Gumroad and the chance to fund a good cause was a no brainier.

Lots of great detail, it's looking like a labor of love. Good luck with the rest of the development - very excited to play it.

 

[Oblesklk]

Hey, good luck on this project!

Making your own game is something special, isn't it? I know I always have a ton of fun with the games I make, as there are so many avenues for expression of creativity. Hope you're enjoying the process!

You got links to your games? It's really neat to see how many people have been doing stuff like this over the last decade or so. And yes! It is incredibly freeing. I always loved writing scripts for our tickling comics, but it is rather restrictive. Our rule of thumb was: 1 part story, 9 parts tickling action. While that struck a good balance with customers, it was rather limiting in its storytelling. In a game like this, I can take my time, flesh things out a bit, and just breathe and let the story unfold. I am enjoying the process immensely so far. I think I will love it even more when players start in on the beta and start engaging on specific game elements.

Anyway, quick question about your game: how are you gonna handle the tickle scenes? Is it going to be described in prose or will there be picture/gifs?

A little bit of both. The tickle scenes are generally coming from three sources in the game, ranked from most frequent to least frequent:
1. Cut scenes.
2. Character interaction.
3. Combat.

The cut scenes are just kind of like cut scenes out there from the old school, pixel graphic RPGs. They are a mix of prose ("Villain takes off helpless damsel's boots") and dialogue. The dialogue will be accompanied by the character's face to know who is saying what. Part of the funding we're receiving is hiring an artist to do custom artwork for the characters, so they have a unique look (and don't just look like every other character in the stock RPG Maker MZ toolkit). Additionally, we hit our funding goals, so we'll also commisison a pinup that pops up during a scene to give the player a sense of what's going on. If you've read The Cyriaan Chronicles #8, it's basically a series of tickling pinups. So the pinups here will be simillar (no backgrounds and different artist than who did CC #8).

For the character interactions, these are mostly just playful tickling. The characters will bond as the story unfolds, and tickling hijinx will ensue as they get more comfortable with each other. This will be similar to the cut scenes mentioned above, but no pinups. Just a mix of prose and dialogue to convey what's happening.

In combat, there is a "Tickled" debuff that works similarly to a stun or paralyze debuff. It basically renders someone helpless for 2-4 rounds. There is no animation for this sadly, as it would take a special laughing animation for several dozen monsters and characters. There is prose that accompanies it, but it may be more of a flavor thing than a sexy thing....unless you find tickling goblins and orcs sexy. Which you might (no kinkshaming here) ! Two of the characters have abilities that can tickle, and there are a limited number of monsters that tickle as well (tickle sprites and such). But they're not common.

 

[Oblesklk]

Amanda Video Pack via Gumroad and the chance to fund a good cause was a no brainier.

Lots of great detail, it's looking like a labor of love. Good luck with the rest of the development - very excited to play it.

Thank you very much! I really do appreciate your contribution. And incidentally hope you enjoy the Amanda pack, as well!

Contributions from folks like you who are either Patreon members or Gumroad customers have allowed the game to hit its funding goal rather quickly. I've engaged with an artist already, so that process has begun, although in its infant steps.

 

[Oblesklk]

Links to our online sites:

Gumroad where you can buy TickleTown videos and our older tickling comics: https://oblesklk.gumroad.com
Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/oblesklk
DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/agency-publishing
Discord Server on The Cyriaan Chronicles #10 Game Development: https://discord.gg/bGX3MR2C55


Update #5

It's been a few weeks. I wanted to give a quick upadate on how things are progressing.



What we're planning

Right now, I am planning on entering alpha phase sometime early summer. Alpha phase means the initial development is done. But the game is probably buggy in places, could use some more love and interaction in spots, and certainly could always use some balance fine tuning amongst the classes to ensure they're all viable. This phase will just be me and the producer(s) testing the game.

I want to enter beta phase by late summer. Our Patreon supporters will receive beta invites to the game. I am hoping at this stage the game is stable and only small bugs remain, although there could be many of them. I will be adding new features based on user feedback. I will be leaning on beta testers heavily for feedback, as this is the first time the game will be opened up to a larger audience.

I want to fully launch the game by winter of 2022.



So how are we tracking on those goals?

There are 10 mandatory, main story zones in the game. I've been calling them zones, but you could also call them chapters. Eight have been completed, and I'm working on chapter/zone #9. I've budgeted about two weeks per zone. So I'm feeling good that we'll hit our alpha phase milestone. There could be two optional zones in the game. I have finished one of them, and it remains to be seen if I will develop the second one. Just depends a lot of how much steam I have, versus user feedback.


I got some good feedback from our last update on how to frame up the second optional zone, and I'm still thinking through how it would all work. But I like the general notion. I'm going to keep collecting feedback and see what we can do here.


Overall, I am ahead of schedule at the time of posting. But I still need to playtest heavily and keep adding to the world building so the world feels alive and reactive by the time we invite our first wave of players in. Examples of this are more optional quests in the game, more items that can be clicked on to do something, whether adding an item or telling some of the lore. Beta is still planned for late summer, but will post in several places if this changes.


I've found an artist I like, and we're in the very early stages of producing custom artwork for the game. We will be publishing artwork to our Patreon, along my thoughts and solicitation of Patron thoughts, as it comes in.


And still planning on releasing the game free of charge. That hasn't changed. We don't know where/how we're going to host it yet, but we have options so it's not something I'm overly worried about yet. I'm trying to keep focused on development and lining up the artists, so I can focus on testing in spring/summer.



New zone: Danmarr Sea



This is a screenshot of the final zone in the game. We thought it would be rather fun to switch up the climates a bit. We'd been getting colder and colder as the companions ventured north. Why not end up in someplace warm and sunny?


This will house chapters 9 & 10, and we're hoping to fill it with fun points of interest as game dvelopment continues.


Thank you for for taking the time to read this! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them here, message me directory, or you can join our Discord server linked above. I try to post somewhat regularly in there as the game develops.

 

[Oblesklk]

Links to our online sites:

Gumroad where you can buy TickleTown videos and our older tickling comics: https://oblesklk.gumroad.com
Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/oblesklk
DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/agency-publishing
Discord Server on The Cyriaan Chronicles #10 Game Development: https://discord.gg/bGX3MR2C55


Update #6


What we're planning

Right now, I am planning on entering alpha phase sometime early summer. Alpha phase means the initial development is done. But the game is probably buggy in places, could use some more love and interaction in spots, and certainly could always use some balance fine tuning amongst the classes to ensure they're all viable. This phase will just be me and the producer(s) testing the game.

I want to enter beta phase by late summer. Our Patreon supporters will receive beta invites to the game. I am hoping at this stage the game is stable and only small bugs remain, although there could be many of them. I will be adding new features based on user feedback. I will be leaning on beta testers heavily for feedback, as this is the first time the game will be opened up to a larger audience.

I want to fully launch the game by winter of 2022.



So how are we tracking on those goals?

Overall, production is running ahead of schedule.

This week, I hit two big milestones on the way to releasing the game into its alpha stage.

First Milestone - Successful playthrough test
Last week, I finished my first playthrough of the game. That is a pretty big milestone, as it now works. There were a lot of continuity and bugs, but the first playthrough made sure all the critical errors were removed, and several bugs were cleaned up in the process.
In theory, it means a player could play the game from start to finish as of today. I wouldn't say it would be an amazing experience, but it could be done!

Second Milestone - Economy revamp
Before I play test the game a second time, with different classes, I wanted to add several features to the game. I added several minor features to make the game feel more alive: better sound (fires and clocks will make noises, louder and quieter as you move closer/further away), better weather effects, interesting lighting setup (some dungeons are underground and pitch black, except for some torches lighting the way and the player's torch).

But the biggest change to the second playthrough will be a complete economic revamp. I mean complete. I gutted the entire system.

I didn't think the first iteration was very "fun." It was functional, and worked a lot like traditional RPGs. You get stuff, you sell stuff for money, you spend money on upgrades. Nothing wrong with it, but it lacked a certain polish.

I am really simplifying the economy so wealth will be measured in tens and hundreds of gold instead of hundreds of thousands. Players can still spend gold to buy baseline armor and weapons. They won't be exciting, but they will be upgrades.
More exciting than this is the ability to craft your own weapons, armor, and consumables. So let's take each of these in turn:

Consumables are things like healing potions, mana potions, attack buffs, etc. These are learned by finding recipes in the world. Some characters joins your party and likewise share their expertise in how to make new consumables, which you then learn how to do for the rest of the game. The ingredients are found all over the world, and are drops from monsters.

Weapons and armor now come in sets that you can craft. There are a dozen armor/weapon sets in the game. Once you collect enough pieces and equip them, a character will start to see improvements in stats and abilities. For instances, if you equip enough mage equipment, your character's mana and magic attack abilities will increase, the more they equip. And if your entire equipment load is of the same set, the character will get a powerful and unique ability to take into battle!

 

[rally]

Thanks for the updates. Very excited to see how this turns out!

 

[Oblesklk]

Thanks for the updates. Very excited to see how this turns out!

Been focusing pretty intently on getting a skeletal version of the game up, and now in the iteration phase to add more features. Will definitely keep everyone updated how things are going in the coming months.

 

[blargblarg]

Thank you very much! I really do appreciate your contribution. And incidentally hope you enjoy the Amanda pack, as well!

Contributions from folks like you who are either Patreon members or Gumroad customers have allowed the game to hit its funding goal rather quickly. I've engaged with an artist already, so that process has begun, although in its infant steps.

I have a question, are there only going to be full packs with the models or will the individual files come out at some point?

Great to have TickleTown back!

 

[Oblesklk]

I have a question, are there only going to be full packs with the models or will the individual files come out at some point?

Great to have TickleTown back!

Thanks! It's good to be...well if not back, at least not entirely dead yet 🙂

I'm not sure about the clips, to be honest. It's great feedback, and I'm sure others share your question.

I'm trying to prioritize the packs just so there's something up on a site. The game is taking up so much of my time, that I'm finding it difficult to get time to even get those packs up. Clips are much more challenging, as I would want to add in screengrabs and explanations of each clip. So I will prioritize the packs for now, then revisit individual clips down the road.

 

[blargblarg]

Thanks! It's good to be...well if not back, at least not entirely dead yet 🙂

I'm not sure about the clips, to be honest. It's great feedback, and I'm sure others share your question.

I'm trying to prioritize the packs just so there's something up on a site. The game is taking up so much of my time, that I'm finding it difficult to get time to even get those packs up. Clips are much more challenging, as I would want to add in screengrabs and explanations of each clip. So I will prioritize the packs for now, then revisit individual clips down the road.

After so much time (how long has it been? At least 7-8 years right?), just the fact of being able to purchase the videos again is great news! I remember that there were several series just before you closed shop that looked great.

I think there were even several girls that tickled Kristy or Amanda that never got to see their videos released. Or maybe they did and i dont remember right, but something of the sort

 

[Oblesklk]

After so much time (how long has it been? At least 7-8 years right?), just the fact of being able to purchase the videos again is great news! I remember that there were several series just before you closed shop that looked great.

I think there were even several girls that tickled Kristy or Amanda that never got to see their videos released. Or maybe they did and i dont remember right, but something of the sort

My full intention is to upload all that stuff to my Gumroad and Patreon accounts so it's available (including the later footage with Kristy that you referenced). There were several comic book issues and video clips that folks missed out on, and that's kind of a bummer. So I'm trying to remediate that, although it is taking me awhile. I appreciate everyone's patience!

I will offer an official update on the video game, but we're ahead of schedule, and likely moving into alpha stage of devleopment in May. Which is crazy to me, scary, but also kind of good news.

 

[Oblesklk]

Links to our online sites:

Gumroad where you can buy TickleTown videos and our older tickling comics: https://oblesklk.gumroad.com
Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/oblesklk
DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/agency-publishing
Discord Server on The Cyriaan Chronicles #10 Game Development: https://discord.gg/bGX3MR2C55


Update #7


What we're planning

Right now, I am planning on entering alpha phase sometime early summer. Alpha phase means the initial development is done. But the game is probably buggy in places, could use some more love and interaction in spots, and certainly could always use some balance fine tuning amongst the classes to ensure they're all viable. This phase will just be me and the producer(s) testing the game.

I want to enter beta phase by late summer. Our Patreon supporters will receive beta invites to the game. I am hoping at this stage the game is stable and only small bugs remain, although there could be many of them. I will be adding new features based on user feedback. I will be leaning on beta testers heavily for feedback, as this is the first time the game will be opened up to a larger audience.

I want to fully launch the game by winter of 2022.



So how are we tracking on those goals?

I am writing this entry with not a small amount of emotion behind it. I don't know if these are tears of joy, tears of frustration, anger or...oh wait, there's not really tears at all. But I am very happy to announce we have officially launched the alpha version of the game! I wanted to release it "early summer" which to me meant sometime in June-ish. So we remain slightly ahead of schedule on the development front.

These last two weeks have been an absolute mess, train wreck, fustercluck, odyssey, and learning experience all on one. It started with me doing my second playthrough of the game in test mode, theoretically putting it into alpha state. Somewhere between me testing positive for COVID, realizing I had conflicts somewhere in my javascript that only express themselves when the game build is finally constructed, as opposed to the sandbox playtest area, and finding out how poor the performance is for the game when it's webhosted, I've learned a lot. Right now for the alpha testers I am creating just one .exe file that contains all the data files within. Very clean. I'm unsure if I'll head into beta and then proudction like that, but it's sure simple.

It is beyond exhilerating to say we are officially in alpha. This project has been a twinkle in my eye since forever. I took the plunge late last year, and have been deep in development for about four months straight.

The artwork is lagging behind a bit. I'm not worried about it quite yet, as it should keep filtering in during alpha/beta stages. But I think most would agree the sooner it's in there the better.


The Main Character

Besides a general update on how we're progressing on the game, I wanted to reveal something fun about the game: the main character!



Lucia is a proud Sergeant Major of Fallung's 3rd Royal Guard regiment. A young woman in her early twenties, Lucia has risen to prominance as a bold leader, skilled swordswoman, and wielder of the arcane arts. She serves at the behest of Princess Katrine, as part of the Princess' special troops to protect and serve the Aedylon Empire, especially the royalty. Lucia answers frequently to Simone (first appearing in Cyriaan Chronicles #6). Simone handles much of the administration tasks of the Royal Guard.

Lucia's father Walter died when Lucia was quite young. She does not have many memories of him. Her mother, Gwendolyn, raised her virtually alone in Fallung, and and the two remain close to this day.

When playing the game as Lucia, the player has two choices of skills they can pursue with her:

Bladedancer. The bladedancer combines grace, speed, and precision in slicing foes on the battlefield. Bladedancers move along with their blade in a hypnotic rhythm, becoming one with their weapon. They are fierce protectors of their allies. In traditional RPG lingo, this class is more a tank/support class.

Elemental Mage. The elemental mage studies a variety of spells and can rain down fire, rock, water, or lightning upon their foes through bolts and storms. Each enemy has an elemental strength and weakness, and the elemental mage excels at seeking out these weaknesses and exploiting them. In traditional RPG lingo, this class is a DPS class.

 

[Laughsmith]

She's cute as a button and despite the tropes, not an RPGM-anime-template-looking character (which-no offense intended- kinda became my pet peeve with 2 out of 3 artists going for it). This is going to be good.

 

[Oblesklk]

She's cute as a button and despite the tropes, not an RPGM-anime-template-looking character (which-no offense intended- kinda became my pet peeve with 2 out of 3 artists going for it). This is going to be good.

Thanks! I think Lucia turned out pretty cute, too. I like playing with art styles between the tropes when we can, and this artist has had a fantastic interpretation of both Lucia and Ylie so far. I can't wait to see more of the artwork implemented into the game.

 

[Sketch Zero]

Congrats on your huge milestone with your alpha!

 

[Oblesklk]

Congrats on your huge milestone with your alpha!

Thanks, I really appreciate that!

The alpha is going well so far. It's the first time I've gotten the play the game exactly as you all would see it (the test environment I've been using is slightly different than the public build of the game). So that's been nervewracking. I was having a couple series of game stopper bugs, but I found them and hopefully have squashed them. Besides those known issues, the gameplay has been pretty stable.

Doing more testing, and I'd like to host a couple nights on our Discord channel where I'm showing the game and answering questions. If you're interested in that kind of a presentation of the game, join our Discord server and I'll give folks some head's up when I plan on doing those. Based on user feedback and my own schedule, it would probably be a weekend evening, either a Friday or Saturday.

 

[oneortheother]

Good to know your project is picking up steam! Do you have plans on doing an open beta test soon? I'd love to test this out.

 

[Oblesklk]

Good to know your project is picking up steam! Do you have plans on doing an open beta test soon? I'd love to test this out.

Originally I was planning to go into beta sometime late summer. Say August or so. But the development went much more quickly, and the game is more stable than I originally anticipated. So it may get bumped up as early as July. Right now, the development got way ahead of the art studios. So while testing, I'm also waiting for the art pieces to get done so they can be integrated and tested in the alpha. Not everything will be done by beta, but at least more of it will be ready to go.

If you haven't already, join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/bGX3MR2C55

We post pretty frequently there, and will let folks know when beta is coming up. I'm also planning on doing some live streaming events through Discord on a Friday night here and there. It will be the first chance to see the game in action and I'll be there to answer any questions that folks may have.

I appreciate your interest in the game!

 

[Oblesklk]

If you're interested in seeing the game, I am hosting an hour long presentation of it on our Discord Server next Friday, June 10th, at 5pm (PST) / 8pm (EST). The game is still in alpha state, so it's a pretty limited player base while we work out bugs. So it's not ready for the public to play yet. But it's stable enough (knock on wood) that I feel comfortable hosting a session where I play the game while engaging in community discussions.

To see the presentation, just join our Discord server at: https://discord.gg/bGX3MR2C55

 

[Oblesklk]

I had the presentation on Friday and I think it went well! I was really excited the show the game for the first time on Friday.

I expected about 3 folks to show up, we got amount triple or quadruple that number, so I was happy with the turnout. The gaming server also blew up, we about doubled the number of participants in one week. I appreciate everyone's continued feedback and I will keep working on the test and dev to push us into beta testing this summer.

As a reminder, our Discord server where I post updates and media from the game is found at: https://discord.gg/bGX3MR2C55

There is no cost to join. I have posted questions and answers from the presentation into the Discord #general channel.

 

[blargblarg]

Thanks! It's good to be...well if not back, at least not entirely dead yet 🙂

I'm not sure about the clips, to be honest. It's great feedback, and I'm sure others share your question.

I'm trying to prioritize the packs just so there's something up on a site. The game is taking up so much of my time, that I'm finding it difficult to get time to even get those packs up. Clips are much more challenging, as I would want to add in screengrabs and explanations of each clip. So I will prioritize the packs for now, then revisit individual clips down the road.

I do have one question, will the gumroad page have descriptions of the models or will it only be abailable on the deviantart page?

 

[Oblesklk]

I do have one question, will the gumroad page have descriptions of the models or will it only be abailable on the deviantart page?

If you've seen the Gumroad page, I try to be very fact based in the clips based (length, places tickled, genders of ticklers) and less colorful in the descriptions. Is that what you mean? Like having the Gumroad store description have a bit more personality to them, like short stories, memories about the models?

 

[blargblarg]

If you've seen the Gumroad page, I try to be very fact based in the clips based (length, places tickled, genders of ticklers) and less colorful in the descriptions. Is that what you mean? Like having the Gumroad store description have a bit more personality to them, like short stories, memories about the models?

Exacly, i kind of remember the old Tickle-Town website as having a bit of a backstory to each model. How Amanda was hired of-the-street and such. I remember there was another model who was actually a mother and how Emma was a cheerleader. That kinda showed a bit of the personality of each and every model and made it more charming.

And the backstories are there of course, because you did add a bit of info in the deviantart-page.

For example, you just uploaded Rileys videos. Who was she? What is her relationship with Kristy and the other tall model? What did she think of the stocks or the X? What were her worst spots?

Maybe im being a bit eccentric but those are my two cents