Well n'yowdy there y'all! It's your friendly neighborhood Edmango back with harder, more concrete details about his next game project. Last time I updated I talked about [Crystal Spire] and my time loop game ideas. Well I went back and forth on them pretty heavily for a while before realizing the problem.

I was overscoping the idea. So I cut back and cut back and cut back until I figured out what I wanted. Mainly I wanted a few things.

- Endearing characters
- Short dialogue
- Many Branching paths that felt *good*
- Ending clips that show off a sense of humor
- Simple core game-play mechanics that do not interfere with the narrative

So I went to work coming up with an idea that embodied these ideas in a scope that was more reasonable. Then I got to work figuring out how to scale it up or down in either direction. And in the end I came to this project.

I was more than tempted to just make this a visual novel, but decided against that because LQ and the like were ostensibly visual novels, and the problem with them is I said too little with too many words, so this will be an exercise to say a lot with a lot less words.

=THE GAME=========

Project damsel will be a 2d platformer about rescuing damsels and the immediate aftermath of that choice.

You'll get to meet these characters and visit their homelands, or go on micro adventures with them, getting ending slides, lewds, and more from them!

Some of them will ride on your back, others you'll princess carry, and all 2d platforming will be done in a neat pixel-art style. The focus won't be on collecting tons of new powers, but with having a defined kit to use, solving platforming challenges, and anything *weird* I can sneak into the dialogue and interactions.

=THE STRUCTURE=======

Each "Chapter" of the story will have a certain number of characters to chose from and then a number of endings you can unlock for them.

In the tutorial episode I'm working on there will be 2 damsels, one is Nipha, the other is a Dummy (body pillow), and you can rescue them to unlock 2 endings each. My plan is to have each character have at the minimum 2 endings each with unique art and dialogue. As well as any other number of joke endings I can put in by popular demand.

An average "run" or going from start to end, should last under 20 minutes as currently planned, and you're meant to repeat stages to see other characters and different parts of the stage and rescue new damsels.

I really like the idea of a game you can pop in, play a bit, and pop out with little to no issue, letting people focus on the characters they want and then doing something else if they so chose!

=TIMELINE========

I'm going to try to have a demo ready for this by the end of the month, as well as a working title and a few other things just so I can have a very clean start to this! I plan to hit the ground running on this one and see where it goes from there.

See ya soon!

~Edmango~

P.S. concept art for the key art and images like the above were done by my pal Tippler, whom I've mentioned a few times before. I'll be doing the final art unless plans change.

But then we come to the development side of the problem, what mechanics fit to make this experience short? How long is the dialogue between characters? Should they only speak at the end? If it's a visual novel and it repeats so many times, how do I make the variance quick enough that it doesent become tedious and annoyingd privately and didn't particularly settle on anything. I had, in order:

• A hex based time loop dungeoncrawl

• A large tile based exploration time loop game

• A randomly generated map time loop game

• A deck based exploration game that played like corruptions of champions

• A dungeon generation game where you drew tiles from a deck and placed characters to "work tiles"

• And then several iterations on an SRPG combat system.

That last one was the one I spent the most time on, testing out multiple iterations and getting the game feel down. I ended up with something kind of workable, but needing a fleshed out skill system. I might do a write up on it later, but still ran into the problem of mechanics not serving the narrative.

So instead I turned the mechanics and narrative into "THE CRYSTAL SPIRE" Which I update on questden every other day here:

https://questden.org/kusaba/quest/res/1028895.html 

You can read the first few posts to see the entirety of the chart. I based it off of Towergirls and it's doing quite well on the site itself and when reposted on places like Reddit. Suffice it to say I think I'm going to try to make something good in this setting. Speaking of good, another thing I was working on was getting back together with UberWulf on some music. Attached is some theme music for the game. We're going for a sort of eastern influenced fantasy adventure, more Chinese instrumental influence from our references. 

But you're probably wondering, EDMANGO, what are you doing?

Mostly Questing really, writing updates, drawing when I have free time, and trying to come up with the thing I think will be the most interesting to work on. My current target in terms of game development is figuring out how I want to mechanically establish this game idea. I'm torn between making it a visual novel or a more fleshed out game like a short hike or a more rpgmaker-like. But let's talk about it that idea:

THE CRYSTAL SPIRE - (A LOOPING ADVENTURE)

This game would be a brief but heavily branching game with ending slides similar to fallout new vegas. The characters you collect and bring to the end of the game provide different endings with joke endings and other fun ideas. The idea is for the game to be short and easily repayable so that I can put in just a bunch of these.

But then we come to the development side of the problem, what mechanics fit to make this experience short? How long is the dialogue between characters? Should they only speak at the end? If it's a visual novel and it repeats so many times, how do I make the variance quick enough that it doesn't become tedious and annoying. Does the game then need to be even shorter, something minit-like where it's an island and you have a limited time frame so that time is forced short, or do we come to it in a different avenue.

Then I was wondering about nsfw content, how does it fit into this, would they be intractable animations, short, uninteractable ones, or something else.

And that's where I'm at right now. I'm hoping this is an Idea I can follow up on, the Misadventures of Rudy and Nipha game I talked about before was too much overhead for little perceived gain, so I scrapped the idea.

In the meantime, I'll be posting on twitter and updating [CRYSTAL SPIRE] on questden. If I get something workable or a good pdf for a concept I'll give you all another update. Until next time!

~EDMANGO~
P.S. Attached is a song wip from Uberwulf for the game. I've been using it to help vibe out the project, let me know how you guys feel about it!

Hey there everyone! Just checking back in, it's been a while since I made a post here, good news is im still crackin at PQ. It's nearing the climax and finale, so it's a good time to read if you wanna binge something near completion. Tippler's been doing an AMAZING job on the art and honestly I'm so proud of what PQ is becoming. The horror and mystery elements are all coming together and a big bad has revealed themselves, so I appreciate your support!

PLUSH QUEST will likely finish by the end of this month, after that I'm going to wrap up this thread of Catalyst and move onto something new, probably another quest in the meantime, but also a new game.

============ NEW GAME??? ============

Yep that's right, im cracking out the old game design manifesto and am making something new, this time it's a pseudo boardgame/roguelite. I'm taking inspiration from the stuff I've done previously and lessons I learned in questing to make something I think will be rather fun and somewhat unique. The premise is as follows:

You are sent into the dragon's lair, hand picked by the monster herself and told you have 16 hours to prepare, lest she kill everyone here including you. You collect trinkets, weapons, and artifacts all in an attempt to make a run at the big bad.

Mechanically it plays like a handbuilder, you're trying to build a hand of [currently not determined] size and quality, collect allies to gain more action points a turn, and explore a board of hidden hexes. Here's a test I'm doing on TTS:

So far it's incredibly broken and barely playable, but I'm liking the direction its going in!

My objective is to make it feel good mechanically, test out multiplayer, see about getting some playtester, then making a digital version that feels kind of like a roguelite.

Oh but roguelikes have progression elements. Well my plan is to make it WAY harder then to be able to complete it in one run, letting you *reset time* going back to the beginning and lock in elements you like, reset ones you don't, upgrade the shop, and more. 

With a concept like this, adding new allies, weapons, bosses, areas, biomes and the like should be possible so I plan to try to make something cool.

Oh and have a quest tie in that's like a chose your own adventure set in this setting, hopefully that will interest some people.

Thanks for your time, talk to you later!

~EDMANGO~!!!!

Hey there all, I'm back again with another update. This time I'm here to talk to you about the project I mentioned in the previous update. PLUSHQUEST. It's a collaborative endeavor with TIPPLER, just an all around swell dude. He's running a few quests on the site too and even is running a parody of CATALYST which I absolutely love and cannot believe he would do. This madman.

Read PLUSHQUEST here: https://questden.org/kusaba/quest/res/1013611.html

It's the story of a plush creature living in a world of other plush creatures, not like a toy story kind of thing, but where like stuffed animals are like their own tribe of creature that roams this world of plastic, stone, and candy! The Prelude is over and character creation has finished so its time for the story to be told. The audience chose a HORROR themed adventure and I'm super excited to shroud you in mystery. Here are some headshot concepts of the npcs you'll be meeting on your journey!

Who is a betrayer? Who is an ally? Who is a reference to a character from another quest? Whoooo knows? I'm updating this one around 4x a week because I'm relying on Tippler to do the art and I can just do the words in my free time. I'm trying this out because I want to see if I can make a CONCISE story, one that finishes in a thread but still feels good and engaging and makes for a fun post-game read.

Let me know what you think if you give it a read and feel free to suggest and warp the story towards your needs!

- Your PLUSH EDMANGO

Hey there kin! It's been some time. almost a year since I've posted on here. In that time I've gotten new jobs, made some money, went in and out of a relationship, and got on some new medicine. It's been a rough time!

So with that in mind the patreon is going to be functioning a little bit differently from now on. As of right now I don't have a game project in the works. INSTEAD I have a little webcomic I've been working on for the past month. It's called CATALYST. You can find out more info about it and read it here: 

https://questden.org/wiki/CATALYST
https://questden.org/kusaba/quest/res/986604.html

Basically it's a super hero story about a character that has the power to give other people superpowers in a world full of furries, kobolds, and other whacky creatures. It'll get lewd, possibly even NSFW, and if I make any extra NSFW art of the characters I'll probably post it here on the patreon. It's also told in the format of a Quest! That means that you can read the story and then post a suggestion for what you want the protagonist to do and if I think its cool enough or enough people suggest it I'll pick it and make the next update about that.

So for right now patreon tiers will just be a sort of donation towards me and making projects like this. Once I figure out good reward tiers I'll also update it. One thing I'm thinking of as a reward tier is having an OC of yours be added to the town as a background NPC or something like that but I havent fully fleshed out the idea yet.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and here are some of my favorite panels of the story so far:

-Edmango

Hey there kin, it's been a while! Sorry about the radio silence. This is going to be a short life update from me and update about what's happening on this Patreon.

LIFE UPDATE

I spent some time in the hospital a few months ago and it really changed my perspective on a lot of things, but it also meant I needed to take time away from LQ. I've moved houses and only now have access to my desktop again. I scribbled some ideas down for more LQ content but have reached a point where I think it's best I work on something different.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR PATRONS

I'm planning on shelving Lust Quest for a few more months to work on a new project, I'm tentatively calling it The Misadventures of Rudy And Nipha (MORN). It's going to be a game in the vein of the misadventures of Tron Bonne from the PS1, where you explore ruins, rob banks, and solve puzzles.

Once I've worked on this for a few months and released it I plan to come back to Lust Quest with renewed vigor and tackle the Lustival Idea.

You all will get access to any wip builds and can help provide suggestions and feedback on it.

The main Patreon page will change to reflect this once I've got my first prototype ready.

Feel free to ask any questions, thanks for sticking with me through some rough times  and I hope everyone's quarantine is safe and enjoyable.