New Beta Release: Extra Modes! (v1.85)

We are happy to announce that a new Beta has been released! This is a special release since you won't be able to play the Story mode, but you can test your skills in the Extra modes!

Everyone with a MoGi Origins Beta access, can now play the Survival and the Time Attack mode! These modes would be unlockables in the game!

What's new:

    • Survival and Time Attack modes!
    • New MoGi to fight against: FairyGirl Troll, Vampire and ZombieGirl!
    • Updated sex scenes for BeastGirl Squirrel, SlimeGirl Black and RockGirls Stone and Gold!
    • New music
    • Additional sound effects for all MoGi
    • New menu design
    • So many glitch and minor fixes!
    • Voms is more flexible as he can now kick in the air and grab on ledges or use his Groundpound          move in the same jump!

Let us know of your thoughts, suggestions, and any bugs and glitches you may find! And thank you all for your support, emotional or otherwise!

Problems and Progress

Veins here.

Apologies for the lack of posts the past few months. Me and Titan had it hard for several reasons... Covid-19 struck a bit too close to home and the lockdown damaged us mentally. There were other problems like over 200 wasps occupying my room, back problems, hard drive failures and even bridge shuttering floods and ear problems (during the making of sound effects of all times) to name a few. So we weren't in the best frame of mind to focus on the game as much as we wanted.

Problems aside, we managed to pull ourselves together and do a lot of progress. All the normal MoGi are pretty much finished. Sometimes however, if you try to fix something, something else breaks, so we had many unexpected glitches:

 

SlimeGirl Blue: her projectile reverses trajectory when we press pause.

SlimeGirl Black: she vanishes with Voms during her grab.

We try to finalize everything we can and release a new demo with two Extra Modes, as originally promised. These Modes (Time Attack and Survival) are almost completed, as you can briefly see in the video above. They need a little more work before we are satisfied regarding the mechanics and pace. Both modes will include new MoGi to fight against.

These new MoGi would be Troll and Vampire. Working on them, gave us the opportunity to go back and improve many other enemies, regarding their behavior and sounds effects. A lot of the MoGi have updated audio and they sound a lot more unique and memorable. The image below shows some of the things that had to be improved.

various corrections

 

There was a lot back and forth to make all this happen and we had to test each change several times over and reevaluate every decision we make. What works, what doesn't, what we can keep working on or discard. Many "luxuries" were left out so that we can focus on what is most important. For example, I wanted the NPC Soldiers to be able to kill MoGi but that would be a week of programing work, and although it would make the game more realistic, it's not really that important and it only may have been used on a couple of screens max. 

That said, we tried to add details whenever possible. Most MoGi have a little tell before they attack. Naiad and Turquoise hold their projectiles a bit longer and Squirrel looks back if she is about to turn without finding a wall :)

An important thing we added, is Voms' kicking and grabbing in the same jump. Up to now, he couldn't grab on a ledge if he had kicked on the air. Titan had to play around with the core mechanics, which is always dangerous. This small addition however, improves the gameplay and it can create a few satisfying combos. The following images also show some decisions we had to make.

This is a problem that occurs in many 2D platform games
and we couldn't work a way around it because it would cause conflicts
with the other mechanics of the game.

Trying to make Vampire's jumping attack animation feel good, visually.

Having an enemy that jumps was a huge challenge to program, because the base of the platforming engine still used some of GM's built in physics systems which are a complete black box.

We hope we can release a satisfying new demo soon, as we feel we are getting closer to finishing the game with each new installment. Releasing the Extra Modes is our way of saying that progress is made and that the game looks and feels good. We don't want to spoil the actual game as it's really close to finish, so the Extra Modes were the best next thing we could prepare for release at this point.

Okami and Elf

Hey all! Veins here.

I'm happy to announce that we are a few steps closer towards the completion of the game. Quite a lot of progress was done during August. Titan was working on the Time Attack and Survival modes of the game, and I finished animation the sprites for Okami and Elf, which are going to be transformations for Rudy. You can see both making-of videos in my YouTube channel.

For those who don't remember, back when we started the game, there was a suggestion, to have the option to play the game as MoGi. This is what we came up with, having Rudy morphing into several MoGi, each with a different power and attack, in order to avoid various obstacles. It was a challenge and we hope our efforts are well received! Okami and Elf are 2 of the 3 Rudy transformations. The 3rd is Gold and when she was done, we decided to add her in the game as an extra MoGi enemy. That though, won't happen with Okami and Elf. We would love to include them of course, but it would take a lot of time to program them as enemies and give them sex scenes. We need to focus on finishing the game, rather than adding extra content at this point.

Thankfully, not many things are left to be done in the game. Apart from Stheno and 2 adult scenes for Voms, the rest is just 3 adult scenes for Rudy, and a couple of bosses. Then, Voms and probably Rudy's playthrough would be done and the playtesting and polishing should begin.

The next thing I need to work on, is Stheno, Ucogi and Alice. Ucogi and Alice's playthroughs are not a priority right now, but they do appear as characters in Voms' timeline and I need to animate them soon. I was waiting a long time for this and I'm hyped!

Dreams and reality

Hello everyone.
This is Veins and I hope you are all healthy in this global lockdown.

It has been almost 4 months since our last post, due to many reasons... the pandemic, family problems, computer problems and so on. Up to know, we barely even let a month pass without a post. While Titan was here we were very hyped and working nonstop for 2 months. After Titan left, we had the Coronavirus outbreak and I kept staying at home, but this time I felt overworked and exhausted... symptoms of burnout. I was locked in my own house for much longer than I planned and in need of a break. I haven't been on vacation for over 2 years, and all these small things combined...took a toll on me. Also, it's hard to manage such a big project, let alone have every story and detail in my head for 8 years. I tried to learn Spine, in hopes of having better quality animations in the game, but mixing different programs and animation styles in the game was too much to handle at the time. Moreover, since Titan taught me how to use GameMaker, I took on some more work, like the level tiling, which I guess it felt overwhelming after I let it sink. So, I needed some time away from the game.

The break I took was necessary and distancing myself from the game made me see a few things with fresh eye. MoGi Origins is a game I wanted to make for a long, long time. But as much as anyone may like something, at times it may be hard to be excited and motivated for an extended period of time. So I had to recharge my self in order to get back and deliver everything we promised. That said, we might have to make a few compromises otherwise this project will drag on forever. I'd like to talk about these things and see how you guys feel about them as well.

A while ago I wanted too much from the game, like background changing according to the time of day and rain or laser particles. Titan told me no, reminding me that I have to have my feet on the ground. Indeed, if we keep adding things, we will never finish the game. That is true for other things too.

Rudy: Originally I wanted Rudy as MoGi to have sex with the Soldiers, but after talking with Titan about it, we decided that Rudy should make a random MoGi replica (depending on the MoGi she has unlocked) that would immobilize the (immortal) Soldier. That way Rudy's game play would be faster, as she wont be occupied on her own, but instead, create "hostage scenes" on the levels. Rudy will transform to Gold, Okami and Elf and these MoGi will perform handjob in 69 position, vaginal sex and oral sex respectively.

Vor: His timeline, gameplay and programming was planned but we decided to exclude him as a playable character. By the time you unlock him, you would have already play the game 6 times. He would have been god-mode, but Ninjuco is also god-mode and more fun to play as. Also with Vor, we would have to design new bosses, and we'd rather spend our time improving other aspects of the game.
There was no way we can make Vor have sex with every MoGi out there, so we would have to limit his sex scenes with the Queens. And the worthy Queens for Vor are all giants, which is repetitive and not as sexy as more casual maledom sex. Actually I tried to find animators to help me with Vor's scenes, but we decided against that, after having trouble with many others that were involved helping us with the game.
Vor was an extra character that we wanted to add as a matter of good will, since he wasn't reached as a goal in Offbeatr. But, we decided that Vor should be an NPC. The good news is that while Vor won't be a playable character in the game, we will give "his" sex scenes to other characters. There would be some NPCs in Ucogi's and Alice's timelines that would have sex with MoGi, making their stories a bit sexier and hopefully more interesting to play.

Levels: There are a few levels that I want to update with new graphics, parallax scrolling and new platforms. The game feels too horizontal and I will try to tweak that a bit. If you have the demo, then you have played about half of the game. If you have any suggestions regarding the level design and graphics now would be a great time to tell us your thoughts. I have to sort out the resources anyways, so that the game loads faster, and while I'm at it I may as well start polishing the game. If you have any complains about anything that you see in the the game, now would be the best time to speak up!

The project is near it's completion, for Voms' timeline at least. This is more wishful thinking than a promise, but... if everything goes well, we can release Voms before the end of 2020. Thank you for your support, understanding, feedback, and stay safe!

Aftermath of Titan's trip

Veins here.

Once more, Titan returned home and he is no longer living with me. As usual, I will try to get straight to the point and go through our progress and process. Our main plan and focus was to finish Voms' timeline. Sadly we didn't manage to do that but we are VERY close. "How close?" you might ask.

We kept track of our progress through those notes.
The last 2 weeks were reserved for playtesting.

Titan has pretty much programmed everything, but there are a few details here and there that need to be addressed, like add a few cutscenes and finalize the level linking, puzzles and hazards and the last 4 Queens of the game. Titan stayed for 2 months at my place. I want to believe that if we had 2 more weeks, his part in the game would be over, but that's unlikely. We worked so much and so hard during his time here that we were both in the brink of burnout.

As about me... I got a lot on my plate. I have to finish 2 sex scenes (Blue and Stheno) and finalize a few animations (Ucogi, Alice etc). Also, there a few things I need to revisit. I was considering going back to some older animations and improving them, but I haven't made up my mind about that yet. I want to update some older background art and level design. When I was doing the level design, I left a few areas kind of empty, in hopes of populating them with platforms and hazards later on. I need to get into that now, while also correcting levels that weren't done properly by the various people who got paid to tile the game. 

I managed to learn GameMaker during Titan's time here and don't find this procedure to be much of a chore. So, right now, I have the freedom and power to polish many of the levels. The game may feel quite flat, as it doesn't have a lot of verticality, so I want to try and change that. Other than that, I have to create a few animated cutscenes, and I also need to worry about the sound effects, the whole presentation and execution of the game. 

I do know that I would need at least 2-3 months of hard work to finish with the art and leveling, but at the moment, we need a small break to rest, reflect and plan for the near future. In the main time, Titan has his fair share of work to do. We have created the foundation for all the playable characters during our playthroughs, fixing everything we could before Titan's departure. 

Programming such a big game is a huge task for just one guy.
Titan managed to fix every issue the game had.

With the game so close to completion, me and Titan discussed if we are pleased with what we made so far. We created an easy going protagonist, that he'd rather talk his way out of a situation rather than use violence. We wanted the MoGi to be memorable, instead of being generic enemies. There was also a lot of research: how to have a 3 story arc, what makes a good Metroidvania game, how to have interesting backtracking and interesting Hostage placement (as incentive to make the players explore) to name a few.

So, many things have changed over the development time. Thanks to the feedback we got, we added a lot more than we originally planned: tool upgrades, secondary moves, sub-weapons powerups and energy canisters to name a few. The sub-weapons enhance the action but can also unlock doors. The tool upgrades give additional moves. Magazines and Hostages reward the exploration. The map with every objective and teleport was a colossal new addition. The unique NPCs are now over 60 and their speech bubble has one of three colors, depending on their importance. All these new additions are fully functional in the game.

With the game so close to completion, we can't release a new Beta. I compiled a video with our progress and the difficulties we faced. The video is full of bloopers and glitches, but everything you see in it, is now fixed. It is important to know that even though the game crashed a lot and many unpredictable glitches occurred, we kept working and supporting each other. This is the hardest part of the development and we are both exhausted.

We hope you enjoy the sneakpeek from our video. All we ask for is a little more patience and some productive feedback. If there is something that you don't like or if you think that something is missing from the game, now it's your best chance to say something!

Development madness!

Hello everyone!

We have been working almost non-stop for the past 2 months, trying to finish as many things as possible. Some old ideas were discarded, some new emerged, but the game keeps going with undivided attention!

Titan has finished programming all of Voms' boss-fights and Veins is trying to provide all the potential art for Titan to work with. The following video shows testing of the playable character Alice and the Queen Stheno among other things, in various stages of development. The art still needs to be finalized.

Here's a partial list of the things we have these past few weeks:

• New menu
• Updated gallery
• VS portaits
• Survival and Time Attack levels
• Level updates (redesigned outdated or glitchy areas of the game)
• Map updates, legend, teleport points
• Teleport rooms
• Placing Magazines, hostages and NPCs
• Adding pledged messages
• Adding water-floating objects
• Updating lifts and door mechanics
• Cut scene updates
• Correcting dialogues, tutorials and instructions
• Correcting various glitches (such as objects not pausing during pause)
• Correcting various mistakes (such as doors leading to wrong areas)
• Correcting various areas (some areas of the city can be accessed by specific characters)
• Adding additional objects such as Mr. Tremmors statue, spaceships and various items
• Alice, Ucogi and Ninja are programmed (finalized art still pending)
• Vor, Queens and other animations are programmed (finalized art still pending)
• Story for Voms is 100% completed
• NPC portraits, names, advanced programming and making additional NPCs (such as Dr. Nova, as seen in the following image)

We are at the hardest phase of the development. This is the phase were we are exhausted after years of devotion, as everything finally gets put together. Everything we worked for, hopefully fits together well. With Voms' story almost done, Veins and Titan will spend the next two weeks reviewing Voms' playthrough, trying to address any problem, glitch and oversight they may find. Many unpredictable things may happen at this phase, such as new objects not freeze during pause, gameplay or anything unpredictable that we could not foresee.

After that, Veins will finalize all the art assets, including sprites, sex scenes and level art. Veins has now a decent experience with GameMaker and he will deal with the enemy placement and any art glitches made by the several people who worked in the tiling of the game.

Once all that is done, Voms' game will be released. The rest of the characters will be released at a later date, once they are completed as well.

Hyped by the progress!

Ever since Titan went to stay with Veins for the second time, we've been working like madmen on Mogi Origins.

There are about 150 rooms in MoGi Origins and various aspects of those rooms need to be reviewed. We've been sitting next to each other reviewing each level, going through each minute detail as we attempt to finalize them. In some severe cases we have to re-do huge parts of a level. Here is an example of a  level that took about 5 hours to be completely revamped and you can watch the progress in the sped up video.

Veins has been thoroughly enjoying this process as he's a more detail orientated person. He's been able to add tons of new shading to the game so it feels less flat, while making older levels more consistent with the visual quality of some of the new ones.

Here are a few more example of level editing, tiling, coding and object placement. We managed to cover 2 room in 8 hours in this video. Spoilers for some of the later levels.

We've also been finalizing the puzzles in the game. Voms is a mechanic and it's important to his character that he solves problems. Almost all the puzzles are done. We have been keeping track of all the things we do and all the things we still need to do.

Currently we are just focusing on Voms and getting him out the door. Technically, you can walk around the entire game world in our development version and that's quite a large accomplishment.

Speaking of the other characters... Since Voms will encounter them, Veins has been working on animating them. Progress on that front has been good. We managed to make 2 more videos regarding art and testing the Ai of enemies. In these videos you will also get a glimpse of a half-finished naked Ucogi, so have fun!







Thank you so much for the constant support and positive thoughts!

Titan is back!

Veins here.

And yes, Titan is staying with me for the 2nd time, in order to complete MoGi Origins. He will stay for 2 months and so far we are working non-stop. A lot of progress has been made already and we are happy with how things go.

In the past few days we finished the Menus and the Gallery, updated a lot of art and we finished the design of additional levels for Survival mode and Time Attack. Titan is currently linking all levels together so that we can start placing MoGi, Hostages, Magazines and power ups in a way that would make sense progressing the game. We made plans regarding all that.

Many decisions are now finalized. The NSFW option wont hide the Gallery, but only hide the sex scenes during gameplay. Also only Voms (from he playable characters) will be able to find Hostages. There will be 3 Hostages per region (9 in total). Survival mode, Time Attack and Queen Replay will be unlockables.

In games like Castlevania, enemies appear only in their designated areas. In MoGi Origins however, we will be introducing a new MoGi every few screens. We hope to create an interesting dynamic between all the enemy MoGi, by having clever combinations of enemies for Voms to fight. 

We also plan to create 2 major events in the game, where white and black solders appear to make things harder (they can fly). These event will hopefully unite the stories of all the characters, provide a sense of progress and make some backtracking a bit more interesting.

 

As we are very close to finishing the game, our vision gets clearer as to what needs to be done. Small details will be added, such as a drowning sign near deadly lakes and hills so that the game won't appear to be to flat. All 'Versus Portraits' are done (the images that appear instead of sex when the NSFW option is on) and almost all the sex scenes are completed. 

We are doing our best to complete this long awaited game and we hope to complete it before Titan leaves. Wish us good luck and strength!