Alpha Release - First/October DevLog

October Dev Log
Hello, This is the first of many Developer logs I hope to do. A little about myself to start. I am in my mid 30's, got a full time job outside of game development and am basically going into this with nearly as little experience as possible in all fields regarding game creation and development. The closest being very little python coding experience copying and expanding on others work. My biggest strength has always been that I learn relatively quickly and I have always had a strong passion for wanting to make games; however, due to life experiences and depression I kept talking myself out of it and never taking the first steps into learning.

10 years ago, I really got into visual novels though most of those were the Japanese anime versions that were more common in the times. About 5 years ago, I started getting into adult visual novels. I was already a huge reader and generally leaned into stories that integrated adult themes into the stories when it came to the relationships/romance. It wasn't about the steamy sex or 'smut' for me but it brought a bit more realism for me into the story. While I do like a wide variety of genres I typically favor more fantastical settings especially 'swords and magic' or dystopian stories. While it does not always need to be there, a good romance plot generally allows me to stay hooked.

2-3 years ago I found my way to the Daz store, I remember it cause Gen 9 models were just being released and I was having another moment of "Should I give this a go..." I think I spent a good couple hundred dollars on some models/clothes/hair, etc. just to try it out. It didn't go well and eventually I just gave up yet again. 14 months ago, I found a great community that was really passionate about games, life, and naked girls. They also had a large group of developers that were willing to help each other out, some finding their start in similar fashions. Its funny thinking back to this time cause mentally, I was crushed. While I had a lot going well for me, I had effectively lost every friend I had and was still getting over a very bad break up. but for some reason this time I decided to just stop letting the negativity win and try.

I spent the next 8 months learning Daz, After Effects, Photoshop, how to utilize external assets to further improve your shots, and so much more. Even more recently I been learning Blender as well. First I just was making random renders, asking people for random scenarios and setting the scenes up, learning different lighting, camara set ups, etc. Then I started working on a short story 'game' I eventually called Games of the Gods, which I may end up going back to but ultimately I kept wanting to work on the real story that constantly kept calling to me. 'Pandora's Legacy'.

I have always been a big mythology nerd, it didn't matter which one it was of, Greek/Roman, Norse, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Aztec, Chinese, Hindi, etc. I already had several book drafts made for the Greek mythos though so I felt for my first game I should narrow the scope and focus on best knowledge pool I had. So about 8 months ago I started making concept pieces for the MC and girls, made a few random renders and then got sucked into wanting to make an animation. I worked on that for a good 2-3 months, but I learned a lot in that time (most of it what NOT to do). Unfortunately, that animation will never be used as none of the characters in it are who they are now, but I do not regret doing it. I feel like beating my head against the wall and struggling as much as I did on it allowed me to see that I could do it and allowed me to finally move forward with my ideas.

5 months ago is when I finally started rendering out the first of the story. It was advised to me that I should do a prologue and use that as a means to further practice and learn before getting into the meat of the story but I decided to take it one step further and do an entire 'intro' that basically told a story that was relevant to the lore but not relevant to the overall story. Basically something that on repeat views will just be skipped. But even so I put a lot of effort into this as it was a practice field for me. I'll post the final numbers at the end of this log and I am sure they are not very impressive but I am still proud of the work I managed to get done and am looking forward to getting into the actual prologue of the story and eventually the main story.

Development wise I plan to go at a steady pace, I am still only a solo developer with a full time job with only one PC. I will not give time frames as I do not want to make promises that I cannot keep. That said, while rendering/story wise, the work flow should be a bit faster now that i have some aspects figure out; the prologue will be introducing features that the 'intro' did not use such as:
~A cell phone (Eventual text conversations with text history)
~A Lore Log
~A Personality Graph
~A Checkpoint Metric
~ Gallery

Pandora's Legacy is continuing to evolve as my skills improve, initially I was not planning on having any sandbox elements and it still isn't in the traditional sense; however, I do believe there will be some limited free roams. I am also going to be exploring the usage of clickables and 'extras'.

Release wise, Alpha release of the intro will be sometime tonight/early tomorrow. This is just going to be private testing from a build off itch.io.
Once the prologue is finished I plan to expand to a limited public release on itch.io.
Depending on feedback, the hope is by Chapter 3/4 to do a Early Access on Steam.
This is very tentative and very subject to change.

Supporters wise, I do not plan on monetizing the game until Early Access, depending on feedback, I may start a Patreon/SS once Chapter 1/2 drops but not before then. This is a personal decision as a) it eliminates the added pressure to push out content at an unhealthy pace and b) I will feel less guilty as I try and continue to work through my mental health and juggle my main job. Do I wish I could eventually make this a full time job? Sure, but I do not have the experience to make that happen anytime soon and would rather not 'milk' potential supporters cause of that. For now if you do wish to support, the best thing you can do is just let people know that it is here and to keep their eyes out for more content and to hopefully enjoy the ride.

Now for Pandora's Legacy itself. First and foremost, the protagonist is female and all the Love Interests are female. While not all of them are exclusively lesbians, the only MC romantic relationships will be with women. There will be no NTR (or at least how I understand it), the LIs will either be friends and/or lovers, they will not hook up with someone else if you do not pursue them. This is a growth and self-acceptance story in a more literal sense then most. As the MC learns to accept herself and helps the other girls learn to accept themselves, she will quite literally grow with them. There will be combat, magic, betrayal and some dark moments, but there will also be some very wholesome moments like headpats, cuddling (Really looking forward to the scenes with wings/tails), and lewd handholding.

Well this has been rather long but it is the first one and I felt like I should explain a few things. I hope you join me for this ride and just see what Pandora's Legacy has to offer.
Starting Statistics:
Pandora's Legacy Start Date (Post Animation): 07/01/2024
Animated Sprites: 19
Animated Side Images: 38
Rendered Stills: 206
Rendered Animations: 16 (2,625 frames Pre-Time Remapping)