Author: NoMoshing

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Iron Waifu Endgame (aka, I Was Gonna Delay, But…)

Okay, first off- the Backer Release will be out in a few hours. It was a damn near thing, though.

You see, last Wednesday I finished the first draft of the puzzle we’re using in the newest dungeon. And, after giving it a think, well, it just wouldn’t work. We’re looing at a situation where it was almost impossible to figure out without a a diagram, but then with a diagram it was just carrying out a tedious series of steps. So, Conash, epic tester Seil, and I put our noses to the grindstone and worked hard over the last week to develop a new puzzle, finish off the quest, and have everything ready to go. Next time you’re on the forum or the Discord, make sure to give a tip of the hat to Conash and Seil, because this release would not have happened with them putting in a lot of work.

Anyway, on to the meat of today’s blog post: What to expect for each of the final nine if they happen to win Iron Waifu 2017.

Alina: For all the harem girls without a love quest, it should go without saying that yes, they will receive a proper love quest. However, Alina’s somewhat of a special case. She’s already got a full complement of sex scenes, after all, minus the one from her love quest. So, of course the only proper response is to bow to a frequent fan request! For Alina, expect a love quest with associated scene, an additional random scene featuring a threesome with Alina and Therese, for the Alina x Doralice sex scene images to be done Also, her chat menu option will be made completely up-to-date, and her total art revamp will be pushed to the top.

Brigandine: Brigandine is putting forward a strong showing, as always. But what if the top NPC in the game manages to make it all the way to the top? Well, we’ll have to explore some of the things associated with her backstory. For Brigandine, expect a quest where you will accompany her on a return trip to the cursed city of Bateau-Assassinat, with Brigandine as a guest star party member. She will conclude the quest by having a sex scene with the Hero, and in the spirit of her role as a trainer, a few characters will be added to the game who will train up some of your party members’ own skills, and Brigandine will be able to point you towards them. Plus, she’ll get her art revamp, even though that’s just her face set at this moment.

Chimei: I’m pretty impressed with Chimei, all told. She’s had a pretty strong showing this year, and I’m personally cheering for her. What to expect from the mysterious slave girl? Chimei’s love quest, where you’ll find out why Chimei became a slave as her former owner will be coming back to reclaim her, will be added to the game, including a couple ways for you to translate all her dialogue for the duration of the quest. As well, we’ll add an individual random scene with her to the game. Finally, her initial cost will be reexamined and adjusted, and her art revamp will be bumped to the top.

Doll: Oh, Doll! How could I have forgotten? Doll will receive a love quests delving into her origins and why she’s an amnesiac, with accompanying scene, plus a sex scene featuring her and the Hero for the random sex scene list. Her art revamp will be bumped to the top of the order, and a fully up-to-date chat option will be available.

Kyrie: Although a pretty controversial character, should Kyrie rise to the top you can expect some big things from her. Of course, she’ll get a love quest with associated scene, where you’ll team up with her old party to take care of some unfinished business from her past, plus a random scene and her sex-on-demand menu all filled out. I’ll also run a poll to see who she should get a group sex scene with. Her chat options will also be made up-to-date and her art revamp will be bumped to the top.

Larelle: Another controversial pick, due to her vampire harem plan, but maybe you’ll have a chance to change her mind about that if you crown her as Iron Waifu? She’ll get her love quest, where you’ll descend into some long-forgotten ruins in search of forbidden magical lore in hopes of super-charging Larelle’s necromantic powers. As well, she’ll get her full complement of on-demand sex scenes, plus a new individual scene will be added to the random sex scenes. On top of that, we’ll see her chat menu option be made fully up-to-date and her art revampe prioritized.

Violet: Alright, go maids! Violet’s gotten pretty far this time around, and I’m hoping she’ll continue to impress. As for her reward for making Iron Waifu? The usual- a love quest plus scene, this time going back to Violet’s homeland in order to save her parents from a magical disaster, as well as updated chat options, the art revamp being kicked up, etc. Add to that a new sex scene where she’ll take care of the Hero’s needs all by herself, plus twin sister Lilac will be going for a revamp at the exactly same time, so it’s two revamps for the price of one!

Yamamaya: Well, that was close. I mean, I didn’t even really have Yamamaya’s writeup prepared, because Nerys was so far ahead. But let’s see… First off, the usual: bumped up in art priority, up to date chat option, no problem. She’ll also get an individual random sex scene where she’ll have the Hero all to herself. She will also share her gift of love quest with her best friend! And no, you’re not going to find out who that is until the fateful day. But it would be a Yamamaya-themed update, so why don’t we also revamp all the catfolk NPCs while we’re at it?

Hope that helps narrow down your picks for the quarterfinal- and beyond! I’ll see all you guys later, just a scootch more work to do on that backer release!

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Introducing SacB0y!

Hello, world!
I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention to the BKG Discord, forum, or whatever else recently, but the update we’re going to be rolling out over the next two weeks will feature artwork from HC’s newest artist, SacB0y! He’s a veteran game artist who did backgrounds and CG for spy visual novel Secret Agenda by GDIdoujins.

As for SacB0y’s skills, well…

He’s pretty good.

SacB0y is on board to do all of Nerys’ CG scenes, so expect her to have her on-demand sex scenes, vacation sex scene, and maaaaybe a random sex scene by v0.29 next August. Plus I’ll have her love quest pics for… whenever that happens? Hey, maybe for this September if she wins Iron Waifu.

Speaking of which, as of today, Iron Waifu is in Round Two, with the first match being Kyrie vs Raina. Voting has been consistently strong, which I’m pretty glad for. It’s nice hearing people talk about which character they like and why, so please don’t be afraid to comment.

Anyway, like the schedule says, this Sunday is May’s public Devstream, and we’re doing a couple of special things! First of all, it’s going to be a multi-stream with SaB0y, so you can watch him work on some more great HC art while I finish polishing stuff up for the Backer release. Also, it’s probably going to be the last day of me playing Puzzle Agent in the pre-show, so I’ll be running a straw poll over the course of the stream where you guys will be able to vote on what I’ll be playing next. You can find the Bad Kitty Games stream channel over here.

Whew, what an update! Lots of exciting stuff going down. Well, I’m off- still a lot of work to do before release day!

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Iron Waifu Commentary (and some other stuff, too)

So, Iron Waifu 2017 has kicked off in style. The first day broke last year’s participation record, and then day two went and broke that new record! While there haven’t been any upsets yet, party members routinely beat non-party harem girls and Brigandine is really popular for an NPC, the high level of participation has been pretty exciting for us at BKG. On top of the usual suspects lobbying for their favourite characters, ShadowCluster has publicly made a case for electing Serade as Iron Waifu which I found pretty compelling. If you haven’t been following it yet, you can find the brackets and schedule here and the current match (Evanie the Sword-Saint vs Ino) here. I’m looking forward to seeing the results!

As for the game itself, work has begun in earnest on the new quest. It’ll be a pretty fun one, I think, and I’m looking forward to seeing what people think. It’s always fun making a chain of events that can go in one of two very different ways depending on the player’s actions, and there’s going to be a pretty big one at the beginning of this quest. Other things are moving pretty quickly. I’m hoping that for this month’s update we’re going to have some new status effect icons to help communicate things a little better to the player, and finally have some new CGs. So far backers have responded pretty positively to the mini-release, which is good to hear. The Banneret upgrade scene was a lot of work, and I’m looking forward to sharing that with everyone later.

Oh yeah- the Backer Devstream will be this Saturday due to some unavoidable life stuff. I’ll be distributing the link a bit later today, so keep your eyes out!

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Party Time

The focus of the last few weeks of development has been on the upgrade from a mere Journeyman to a Banneret- the highest rank in the Adventurer’s Guild without becoming a part of the Guild’s bureaucratic and leadership structure. Banneret, if you’re not familiar with the term, refers to a knight who earned his knighthood as a field promotion, and while in the world of Harem Collector it’s not an actual knighthood, the Hero does get a literal banner to decorate his house with. We probably won’t have the art finished for the mini-release, but soon there will be proper heraldry for the Adventurer’s Guild, instead of that samey red banner that comes with the default tileset.

Of course, by the time you have enough Fame to reach that lofty rank, you’ll probably have almost every harem girl in the game. That makes for a pretty crowded party! One of the hardest things about planning the Banneret party is just how busy it is. Twenty-five guests, plus the guild staff and Shally crammed into that little room. More than once I’ve placed a new sprite only to block off this character or that. But hey, that’s the kind of game I signed up to make, right?

I also want to try to get the Old Piano into the manor. While in the redesigned manor there will be a proper trophy room/bar for you to decorate, I know a lot of people have been wondering what the Old Piano is for. The plan is for it to be a fixture in the manor possibly with some kind of reward for practicing every day.

With regard to artists, we’ve got Kumiho currently tasked with a new set of status effect icons for the battle interface. We’re going to do our best to reduce ambiguity between the different status effects, plus getting new icons for a lot of status effects that would be been invisible before we made the battle interface change. Also, we might have gotten a replacement artist already. I don’t want to say much until some of the new art is in the game, but I’m remaining optimistic.

Anyway, that’s it for me this week. See ya next week for the mini-release!

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What’s Next? (May Release Goals)

…Is it Wednesday already? Fuck. Well, okay, I think I can stop licking Ann Takamaki’s thighs long enough to tell you guys what’s going on.

First of all, I need to fix up a handful of vacation content issues tonight, and will roll out v0.27.4 around midnight or so. It won’t be new content, mostly, because fixing up the vacation is probably going to be a long term thing from here on out. I’ll try to add a little bit every update, though, so check back in with the vacation from time to time.

As for v0.28, coming out next May, the biggest chunk of content will be a new quest in the Save the Elves questline. Obviously I don’t want to give away new plot details, but for the first time that plot will be getting out of the vale and joining the larger Middle Kingdom. I’m looking forward to getting the Hero to look cool a little bit, and of course there will be a little more involvement from Bronwyn, plus Conash is doing to try his hand at enemy design, which is pretty exciting.

Another thing that’s going on, is that I’m going on a fairly hardcore recruitment guide. I’ve heard all the complaints, had a talk with GusBus, and we’ve agreed to part ways professionally. So I need to recruit 2-3 artists,which will hopefully unfold over the next couple weeks.

That’s about it for now, I suppose. At least I can’t think of anything. I’ll be updating the April schedule in a couple days, the backer devstream will be this weekend so that link’s going out soon, so please pay attention for that. Thanks for your support, and happy fapping.

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Harem Collector v0.27.3 Public Release!

Hello, everyone! After some struggle, Harem Collector v0.27.3 is now unleashed upon the world!

Journey to far-off Sunnyshore Island, where you will be able to explore three new dungeons, uncover new equipment and items, and (most importantly) unlock sixteen new sex scenes with your lovely harem girls!
Expect the vacation to be updated with additional content in the future, as you can get away from it all and enjoy a holiday whenever you wish!* Please visit the travel agent in Southport for more details.

We’re also trying out the Yanfly Battle Engine mod for RPG Maker VX Ace games, so please tell us what you think of the new battle interface as we’re not 100% sold on using it or not. You might recognize it as the same battle engine that games such as Overwhored use, and we feel it might help keep straight the various buffs and debuffs that end up applied to your party members and enemies. As well, there is the usual bevy of bug fixes and such that come with these updates.

*Additional in-game fees may apply.

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Island Vacation Post-Mortem

So, that was a learning experience, at least.

Back when I was first working on Harem Collector, in the “lol throw it in” phase of the game’s design, I thought it would be a good idea to include two vacation events. I figured that a) going on luxury vacations played into the fantasy of being a rich, successful adventurer, b) there could be a ton of vacation-themed sex scenes, and c) it would put a lot of the harem girls in a new situation, in order to inspire new and more interesting dialogue. I had Gurotaku make up some CGs for all the available girls (at the time) having sex in various swimwear, drew up some basic ideas, and resolved to revisit the vacation later, when I had time.

Two years later, we throw up this poll asking what quests should be done next. I plan the next few updates after the results of that poll, and behold, the beach vacation is number two on that list. I was about two weeks into developing the new content when I suddenly realized that this just doesn’t work.

You see, the vacation as a whole doesn’t feel like part of Harem Collector proper. It’s just kind of… bolted on to the side of everything like ill-fitting DLC. I eventually came to kind of resent the vacation content and wish I was actually making progress on parts of the game that contributed more to the whole. But, because of the poll and the fact that the vacation was part of the plan from the start, I didn’t feel like I could just cut my losses. I’m beholden to my patrons to at least attempt to deliver on my promises, so I pressed on. And things did not go well, drawing out the process of working on the thing I’d rather not be working on. Not an ideal situation by any means.

Either way, the vacation is mostly finished at this point- just have to write dialogue- except for adding a few more sex scenes once pics become available. But this is why I’m cutting the second vacation, why I’m not happy with this update, and why more 3DCG sex scenes are getting added to the game.

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Fan Art Contest, Progress, Etc

Hey everyone, very busy today, so I’ll keep this short. have a lot of work to do before Friday, so I can’t do a big, healthy blog post.

First off, unfortunately, due to the lack of response, I’ve decided to cancel the rest of the fan art contest. A big thank to everyone who had entered, but continuing just wasn’t feasible with the amount of people who entered.

As for progress, I caught the flu from Nekochan last weekend and spent Saturday through Monday having occasional bouts of chills and fever. Now, we’ve been to see a doctor, and apparently all the sickness lately doesn’t have any broader implications- we’ve just been repeatedly unlucky to catch every variation of the cold bouncing around this year and a flu mutation that we weren’t vaccinated against. I mean, it has to happen to someone, I guess. I just wish I had won the lottery instead.

As always, I’m also thinking ahead to the next release. April and May are always busy for me- the trinity of tax season, wedding anniversary, and Iron Waifu- so we’ll probably turn things down a touch for that release cycle. Details will be forthcoming in a couple weeks, when I have a better idea of what’s going on.

Anyway, I have to spend almost every waking hour for the next three days getting shit done, so if you’ll excuse me….

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The Squire Party

Last Sunday Lewdgamer shared an editorial on hentai game introductions (that you can find here) that I took a look at. The subject of the editorial piqued my interest, and since it was written by T51-b, who you might remember as the person who wrote that update article on HC back in January, I decided to take a look.
Just about when I was thinking, “Yeah, maybe HC’s opening could use a little bit of punching up,” I see this:

After getting over my “Senpai noticed me” feels, followed immediately by high levels of smug, I figured I’d talk a little about the opening this week.

First off, not many people realize this but the current opening isn’t the first opening to the game. The black-screen-and-disclaimer bit has always been a part of the game, although the disclaimer itself is currently on the fourth or fifth version at this point. But originally, instead of opening on the squire ceremony, the game would instead open on the Hero standing out in front of the manor, lamenting his lack of ability to purchase the manor. While this original version of the opening laid out a few things pretty clearly- that the Hero wanted a harem of sexy slave girls and that the manor provided the Hero with enough space to host such a harem- most of the other important information that the Hero needs to start the game was missing.

One of the things that I’m particularly proud of with the squire ceremony opening is exactly ow much information is laid out for the player in a rather short amount of time. Just by going around, talking to people and having drinks, the player learns that:
-The Hero is an adventurer, and has been for awhile.
-Who Gargan, Raina, Meline, and the guildmaster are.
-The function of the two vendors at the Adventurer’s Guild.
-The layout of a guildhouse, so you can identify them on sight.
All this in addition to similar exposition about the Hero’s goals that already existed in the previous opening. Plus, particularly sharp players can pick up a variety of details about the world and it’s setting. Most importantly, you’re interacting with the world rather than sitting through some exposition about it.

If I could change it, I’d figure out how to stuff a sex scene in there somewhere- early sex scenes always help draw me into a game, and maybe getting a handjob or something from Raina would help build up excitement for getting her later. But all in all, I guess it’s a pretty great opening sequence!

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Four Years In

So, yesterday was the fourth anniversary of Harem Collector’s first public release, only a couple days after Nekochan had a curious peek at what I was doing in RPG Maker and encouraged me to share it with the world. It’s been quite a trip, and a lot has changed over the years. And now, the end is coming into sight. If all goes according to plan, we’re going to do v1.0 by December 2018, though certain assets like HCG and music will lag for some time after.

The general plan is to finish up the five general plotlines by late spring 2018, before diving into doing the endgame and character-specific quests. It’s a lot of work, but I think we’ve finally got a core team that can handle it. While GusBus, Peasea, and company are finishing up the art and music, Nekochan and I will be doing pre-production for… whatever comes next. HC2 is a strong contender, but I’m full of ideas and might take some time to do a smaller, less grandiose project.

In the short-term, right now Conash and I are focused on fixing up the interface a little more. The contractor budget is going towards status effect icons, which should be a lot more communicative. Once that’s done, the next contractor priority is going to be HCG. I really don’t like having placeholder sex scenes, and once the current handful are gone, I want them to be gone for good. New harem girls will be available when we can get their first scene fully CG’d, but that’s the only thing preventing their inclusion. Other than the “trophy” harem girls that will unlock upon completing the relevant story arc, of course.

That’s it for now, really. Thank for everyone who has supported us so far! I look forward to giving you more and even better harem collecting goodness in the years to come!