I'm hard at work on something new!

With the characters getting their last touches (so many last touches), I'm moving forward with setting up the first scene for Chapter 11 in Unreal Engine. That will be a bit before I can show it off since the first scene will certainly be the longest to setup with the most issues. Now let's talk about To Be A King's future, without getting spoilery.

New Lands to Survey

Due to Daz Studio's limitations, I planned to keep things centered in Caudium. That limitation, along with the animation issues in Daz, are what really pushed me to move to Unreal Engine. Imagine the General and his traveling companions looking out over a vast landscape. Impossible in Daz (without some SERIOUS faking of it). Easily possible in Unreal Engine. You'll be visiting Egypt, Gaul, Estrid's homeland, and likely a few other locales over the next few volumes. If all goes well, we will even join the General during his sailing across the Mediterranean on a custom war ship. Here is a video showing a little bit more about the Unreal 5 development! [previewyoutube=FE7duwYMbuQ;full][/previewyoutube]

More Characters To Meet

I don't want this to turn into 101 To Be A King characters, but we have many left to meet. Possibly some more late-game love interests. My original plan with the harem was for most players to do a "gotta catch 'em all" type playthrough. Well, based on how you all feel about the different personalities, I know that isn't likely for most players. That means I'm less concerned about adding in a few more options, as you'll probably only have a handful in a given playthrough. The General also needs a few more military commanders, and we are going to meet those men over the next two chapters. My goal with these new characters is to ensure they enhance the story and don't remove precious time from your favorites (Kaylan, Aelinia, Flora, etc.). The switch to Unreal Engine is going to make that easier to maintain. Within a few releases, I'm expecting even larger chapters, though your actual playthrough time probably won't increase a great deal. Just more options. Speaking of

Unique Story Choices

When you are doing 1000+ renders per release, and can only set up and render those out so quickly, it is important to keep the story a bit more concise. Put up some guardrails, and make sure you don't enable a dozen choices for one scenario. I haven't been the best at that, but I have cut out a ton that either wasn't possible or would add way too much development time. Trust me. That changes with this render engine transition. Once I get my bearings in Unreal Engine, I'll be able to let you, the player, direct more of the story. Things like alternate scenarios with a change in a character can be done in minutes, instead of many more hours of setup and rendering. Clothing and hairstyle choices will likely also be included, assuming I don't find significant issues when I test that. I still need to make sure I don't have a story with more branches than a 100-year-old oak, but I'd like to offer you all the opportunity to do things like visit the tavern, pay a visit to Goddess Anna, and maybe see if your favorite princess is available for a quickie. I have many ideas, but they will need to go through some testing with my beta team before I can say yay or nay. Nothing about this is going to make the game free to roam. Just some more choices are presented where you can choose where to go next. Maybe even get risky with your choices to see what happensLet me stop here before I spoil anything. Goddess Anna would be pissed!

[ 2023-04-27 18:00:08 CET ] [ Original post ]