Jackary Archives Day 200 and Daily Discussion - Talk to me about my game idea?
Added 2025-01-12 04:24:35 +0000 UTCBeen a little inconsistent on these again, but as the 200th Archives post, here's Goth Zelda in her underwear! This batch includes any variant where she's wearing her provocative Triforce thong or a bra. (The triforce underwear was originally drawn to be a swimsuit but it's pretty provocative so I retroactively decided it was underwear instead)
Daily Discussion
Alright everyone, I have an odd prompt for today... this crazy idea has popped into my head that I can't stop thinking about. I might want to make a video game? And I wanna know what you think of my idea?
Now I'm not going to get ahead of myself; I don't even know how to code and don't have time to learn how to. For this to be even remotely possible, I'd have to partner with someone ( or multiple someones) who already knows how to make games, and with no funding, the logistics of that are so complicated that the odds of this being made are, frankly, astronomical. But it's fun to imagine, right?
What would you guys think of a roguelite dress-up doll game with a Jackary OC?
The idea would be a roguelite action game with a goth-adjacent OC (maybe she's a witchy cottagecore goth-adjacent girl who accidentally teleports herself to the fae world or something?), and her powerups/gameplay augments are enchanted pieces of clothing. Her artwork (drawn by me) would heavily feature, appearing on-screen whenever she powers up or has interactions, and her outfit in her art would change in real-time based on which powerups (aka clothing items) you have.
There would be a story! She would have a character and a personality! It wouldn't just be horny fodder! But people love cute girl characters, and people really love skins. What if, instead of skins, you had countless clothing items that mixed and match into thousands of different combinations, and at the end of every run, you can save the artwork you've "made" of miss protagonist?
See these variants of Goth Zelda in this post? What if she was the protagonist of a fun stylish roguelite game, and every single one of these represented a different run with a different combination of abilities? And what if instead of just what you see here, she had 100+ different items you could dress her up in? Change her hair and lipstick? Add tattoos or piercings?
Would you play that game? Or am I insane? Let me know!
Comments
LMAOOOOO more accurately, I would say the goal here would be for it to be SFW enough to be mainstream accessible. That doesn't mean it can't be indulgent ;) but like, if I theoretically had the resources to get this made I wouldn't want it to be some hentai game that I just toss online onto newgrounds or whatever and call it a day; I'd want it to be something that could be respected beyond just how much skin it shows I would actually say most of my art aspires to this standard -- that perfect middle line where it's just horny enough to cause a reaction but not so much that it has no identity outside of that. I don't always meet this standard and I've quite often gone far past it but I think it's a good target for a game LOL another example would be NieR; it's mutually understood by literally everyone that 2B is unapologetically horny character design, but there's enough restraint and substance in the rest of the game that nobody considers NieR to be a "horny game" and people love the shit out of 2B in other words, you can expect to see a lot of skin... but in a classy way LOL
Zach H
2025-01-15 01:09:21 +0000 UTC"wouldn't be horny fodder" 😕
Depression Machine
2025-01-14 23:12:24 +0000 UTCOooo I like those! I would definitely be the specific outfit, suffer the consequences player lol. I think having a toggle in the options menu to choose to have the character use the home base outfit during a run or have it change depending on whats actually equipped. Though now that ive written it out it does kinda take away from some of the gameplay if you choose to turn the option on, though having options are nice. Or making more to do in the hub area so the player can actually see and play with the outfit they created at home base. I do like where this idea is going. So much potential!
PolkuCow (Josef)
2025-01-12 07:08:28 +0000 UTCLOL I'll get back to you when I figure out how to manufacture clothing 😅 This might just be semantics but I feel like designing the whole system would be harder than actually programming it (though I'm willing to being corrected if I'm wrong). You'd have to identify every little possible contradiction between all the combinations of clothing and account for them in the artwork and everything. But once you have all of that figured out, I don't think it would be terribly difficult to account for those discrepancies in the coding. Or maybe it would! This is why I need a programmer lmao
Zach H
2025-01-12 06:54:04 +0000 UTCYes I had the same thoughts! It would create some interesting tension in the way you choose your powerups; some people will want to min/max gameplay, while others might enjoy the challenge of beating runs with specific outfits even if their stats don't jive well. I think it'd also be fun if beating the run in a certain outfit unlocked those items at "home base" where you could customize your character freely. There's also all kinds of potential for stuff like a dyeing system where you can adjust the colors of things to make outfits match better, and maybe you can only do that with a certain kind of in-game currency/resource, which gives you another thing to look for in your runs and etc etc etc. I think it could be a very fun, albeit difficult-to-design idea!
Zach H
2025-01-12 06:49:54 +0000 UTCI know little about coding so I'm open to being corrected here, but I imagine designing the system would be much harder than actually programming it. I'd have to think of every outfit item, draw them all, and then account for every possible contradiction, possibly making custom variations for certain combinations that can't be reconciled. I already have some experience with this; in my Pastel Zelda drawing, making her hoodie/crop top work together was difficult, because the hoodie is the topmost layer, but it also passes behind the crop top, so when you remove the crop top, now you crop-top shaped gap in the hoodie. That required having multiple hoodie layers; one for when she's wearing the crop top, one for when she's not. I suspect (and may very well be wrong) if you were coding a dress-up module, the easiest way to reconcile these differences would be to take a similar approach; you'd have to manually identify every contradiction in the clothing items, create custom adjustment versions, and then factor those into the code. Example: A character wearing fishnet tights won't have any squish in her thigh, so the fishnets will be form-fitting to her leg. But if you add stockings on top of them, it creates thigh squish, and now you have a problem because the lower fishnet layer isn't following along. This means you need to duplicate the fishnet layer, and change it accordingly to match with the stockings. If you were programming all of this into a dress-up model, you'd probably have her wearing "fishnets," but if she puts on "stockings," there's an if/then that changes the fishnet layer to "fishnets_stockings" which is the custom variation that fixes the contradictions. So yeah, would that be a pain in the ASS to do at scale? Definitely, but that's also why nobody has done it. I'd be willing to rise to the task haha
Zach H
2025-01-12 06:37:20 +0000 UTCThank you for your feedback! Funny how you mention bullet heaven, this idea was born after I was introduced to Vampire Survivors by my cousin. It's fascinating how with good design you can squeeze so much out of so little; VS is a very simple concept but they've done all the right things to keep you coming back for more. I agree that design would be the most difficult part -- there are a lot of pain points you'd have to account for. And it would be a MONUMENTAL task on the art side; I'd have to draw every single implement AND ensure they all mix and match with each other. My instinct is definitely to limit clothing items to "slots" which are represented by categories. A top, bottom, hands, shoes, accessories, etc. I can also see the potential of certain outfit "sets" where every piece shares similar qualities, similar to Hades gods. I also like the idea of "fusions" kind of how Hades has duo boons, or how you can evolve and sometimes combine weapons in Vampire Survivors. Example - there's a "goth" outfit set and a "pastel" outfit set; combining items together creates new pieces, and now you have pastel goth! I think getting it right would be a design nightmare and a staggeringly intimidating artistic endeavor, but I'd be willing to rise to the task if the conditions were right haha
Zach H
2025-01-12 06:20:38 +0000 UTCYou're not insane. I think the idea has legs. Immediate pain point: clothes stop looking good when you're wearing too much. For an idea of what I'm getting at, look at a risk of rain character at the end of the game. Similar to your idea, they pile up their items on their characters to a ridiculous effect. The moment you get a voluminous sweater behind a letter jacket, you're toast. Intelligent clothing design can probably help. Like have specific silhouettes you stick all your designs in, but I think that'll only get you so far. You could limit it like Hades does. Each run has specific slots (in your case, let's say underwear, pants, shirt, jacket) and once you've selected an upgrade from that category, you can no longer find upgrades for it. But that's game offers passive upgrades that don't affect your main abilities directly as well. Alternatively, the game could switch parts of the outfit to your most recently picked up item. Kinda like old school bullet hell games where picking up a new power up overwrites the previous. For another interpretation, you can draw inspiration from one of my recent favorite genres: roguelite bullet heavens. Opposite to bullet hell, bullet heavens have the player floor the screen with projectiles. But the interesting idea here is that these games have you manually combine the different power ups you collect to make the craziest weapon. Something like this would mean that the players pick up prolific proportions of panties, pontificating on the perfect pantaloons to prepare a permanent pulverization for pugnacious pugilists. ... Or. You know. Players get to dress up the character themselves in the dress up game. I guess my biggest concern is that if it's done poorly, it'll look like someone took one of your drawings, reversed the layer order, and set all layers to visible. And with that intrusive thought lingering in my head, I now sleep.
Donald
2025-01-12 05:09:14 +0000 UTCAh Goth Zelda my love. Love this piece everytime I see it. I love this idea as a game. I especially love games where you change equipment and it physically changes the sprite in the over world. Costumes are fun. The idea that every run ends and shows your final outfit is really neat. You could play the game either by abilities and see what outfit you get, or play entirely based on making outfits and the abilities are secondary. Very neat idea, though I imagine a lot of work not only drawin each individual piece, but coding the abilities and mechanics. Doable, but time consuming. (Now you making me want to further develop my own game idea ive had for a while that statistically probably wont happen)
PolkuCow (Josef)
2025-01-12 05:06:18 +0000 UTCSomeone is really missing an opportunity to sell Triforce thongs (unless they already exist) It sounds very ambitious for a video game! I would be all for playing something like that. But it feels with that many costume variations would be difficult to program (from the very little I know of programming)
EugeneTM_Gaming
2025-01-12 05:06:09 +0000 UTCWell roguelites are a genre of game I have barely dipped my toes into, but since it’s something that you’re putting out I am legally obligated to play it As for the mixing and matching idea, holy shit that would be an absolute nightmare to program I’m just gonna say that
Sturgess1A
2025-01-12 04:33:59 +0000 UTC
