Hi folks,

We will be releasing Part Two of the Sova update on July 25th on Steam, with GOG following shortly after. The update will conclude the Sova chapter and make her a fully fledged waifu onboard the Mary Celeste. The rest of Yeti nebula will unlock, as will 20+ new Pandora scenes, two new bosses, 10 new cinematics and a Gallery overhaul!

Moneyshot

I have spent most of the month working on cinematics but primarily doing lipsyncing passes on Sova’s Pandora scenes. The screams still echo within my brain cavity.

Gladly I got to end the horror by posing some sweet and silent gallery poses.

Manski

I worked on the dating animations for Sova. She's a very energetic character, dripping with sarcasm and booze, so I tried to match that aspect with the body movement in her animations.

Massimo Decimo Meridio

In the past month Sova was in my sights! Extremely happy with her, especially in the cinematic where she smashes some poor guy’s head like a melon!

I'm also super happy to be working with my second favourite character in Subverse coming up after Sova!
How hot she is daaaaaham! Can you guess who it is?
I've already made 2 animations for her! So enjoyable giving her a personalized animation!
Can't wait to see the final result!!

Yagskie

I've been assigned some top secret content that I can’t talk about!

Hint: It involves dicks going into butts

Mendez

I'm going full steam with content for characters in the 0.6 update after Sova!

I've been helping out a little with finding any issues with character models and been posing up a few ideas for sex scenes in the process. So far I'm quite happy with how they're turning out, so I hope you'll all enjoy them as well when they get released!

Brunka

I've been rubbing a lot of stuff lately, mainly pussies. Still waiting for a genie to pop out.

Hungry JJ

Hello,

After finishing setting up the flow of the game for the second part of Sova’s release, I began working on the second big space combat mission of Sova’s storyline. This mission will call back to the Keisterstation mission, and require the Captain and Sova to defend a very important entity. Other than that, I have been fixing some small bugs here and there from last release and assisting getting Sova ready for the Gallery.

Prof. Bang Dev

I'm prototyping a technology for changing the character's in-game looks, and also working on the cinematic visuals.

For an upcoming cinematic scene I have to update and advance with the aura effect I made for Celestina (and Deva). This effect is basically using the original character's mesh surface 32 times, tessellated and using a transparent surface, each layer offset just a little bit further from the original mesh and using a bunch of VFX trickery to make it look like a moving flame aura.
It's a very resource demanding effect, so it's perfect for these cinematics which are pre-rendered.

Mrs. Mankrik

After finishing up the lip flaps for the dialogues and relighting some of the scenes with DC, I crammed all of the new PANDORA scenes into the game, along with the Gallery poses, and now I'm working on getting Sova's gifting animations in. We will continue to relight and improve the dialogue system as production progresses

Timmeh

Some of you may have noticed the new Mary Celeste UI changes. I've been spending some time improving them even more, letting players see if areas have new interactions before going into those areas of the ship.

There's also two new mantics coming in the July 25th update, Lamarse and Pervedillo.

Discussions on how to overhaul grid combat with HentaiKouhai and Bangkok took place. Equippable waifu items - a small part of the overhaul - will arrive with the intent on expanding these items in later releases accompanied by other parts of the overhaul.

HentaiKouhai

After the release of the previous content patch, I've been working closely with Timmeh and Bangkok to implement Sova's long-awaited match in the TFC! Alongside this, we've started the discussions and the accompanying implementations for a very much-needed revisit to grid combat. Some elements of the planned revamp to grid combat have made it to Sova's TFC match and we hope that these building blocks that we will fully flesh out in the upcoming updates can make grid combat a bit more enjoyable in the future.

Samantha Flowers

This month I've been working on setting up the sound design for Sova's juicy new Pandora animations, as well as the main story's cinematics. Let's just say one of them required a LOT of VO...like, a LOT a lot.

WTX

My work this month was solely focused on overhauling the Grid Combat maps. Prof. Bang and I worked together on bringing the maps that were given a detail pass by our Art Director (plus a few new original maps) into the game, and make sure they look good and run smooth as Sova's bottom.

Portsman

We spent some time deciding what Sova would wear for her royal "duties". DC wanted an Ayane inspired butterfly ribbon on the back (of course) so we integrated that along with a healthy dose of Jasmine inspired baggy trousers.

ErinTheSketchy

And, guess what, new UI! This time I've made a cosmetic and functional attack on Gallery. It's now easier to preview and navigate, scroll-free, and nothing stands between you and your waifu -- especially text! Special credit to Prof.Bang and HungryJJ for their work on the filter and background half-screen preview.

Bangkok ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

It is no secret that while the base design of Grid Combat has established a sturdy foundation, these sequences need embellishment. The entire system is going through thorough revision cycles as we return some of its elements to the drawing board to update the experience. For this upcoming July 25th update, I’ve been working on delivering a small list of buffing equipables for each Waifu with the end goal of driving forth the players’ need for Grid Combat playstyles.

The progression system within Subverse is getting a massive revamp, as the current dual-meter method is less than rewarding and, quite frankly, bland. We want to give you substantial incentives while grinding through the levels and earning your chosen Waifu’s affection. The design of this new, singular meter, filled with motivating rewards, has taken most of my time during the past month, and I can’t wait for you to receive it.

Tibor

Out of work, recovering from COVID, Post-COVID health issues. Hope to be back this week and contributing as much as possible to make the game better .

See you next month!

Bis bald,
Till Eulenspiegel

NEW FOREPLAY RECRUITMENT SCENES
Foreplay cinematics have been added to precede each waifu’s recruitment scenes. DEMI, Lily, Ela, Killi, and Taron all received cinematics.


NEW LIP FLAP SYSTEM
During dialogue scenes, all characters’ mouths now move if they are talking. Some characters are still a work in progress and may not move perfectly in line with the dialogue.


NEW STORYLINE – GRAND CHAMPION 
Meet Princess Sovalin Maliana and get started on her journey towards becoming Prodigium’s greatest cage-fighter. 


NEW NEBULA – YETI
5 Systems will be available to explore in this story update, all located in the brand new Yeti nebula.


NEW UI
The Quest Log UI has received an update that provides additional filtering. You will be prompted with a very brief tutorial when opening the Quest Log for the first time from the Bridge onboard the Mary Celeste.


The Mary Celeste UI also received an update. When hovering the room buttons, an icon representing each activity in the room will be displayed for more player feedback.


NEW SUBTITLES FOR CINEMATICS
Subtitles are now available when watching cinematics in game. You can toggle this option on or off from the Settings menu under the Gameplay tab.


NEW MINIGAME
During Sova’s story, we’ve added a new WIP minigame. This is an experimental rhythm-based experience. 


NEW MANTIC - REKALL
We’ve added a new support melee mantic for players to discover and recruit to the team.

• Main story missions and side-quest missions are no longer replayable from the replayable mission screen, only random scenarios can be replayed.
  
• Added new status effect icons in Grid Combat.
  
• Added status effect icons to the details panel in Grid Combat.
  
• Updated Kloi Warden portrait icon in Grid Combat.
  
• Added new portrait icons during the character selection screen and speech bubble prompts during Space Combat gameplay.
  
• Added more variants to Taron’s special attack VO line in Space Combat.
  
• Removed the news desk from the news studio during dialogue sections.
  
• Removed scroll-box slider on speech bubbles and increased space to fit text.
  
• Nudged Speech Bubble prompt over in Navigation to provide more room for anomaly text to be read when interacting with an event.
  
• Added new activity icons to UI while onboard the Mary Celeste. 
  
• Optimizations to several grid combat maps
  
• Overhauled several Grid Combat maps visually 

• Fixed issue where enemies sometimes faced the wall in Azzorion’s fight in Grid Combat.
  
• Fixed issue where Azzorion looked the wrong way during attacks in Grid Combat
  
• Fixed issue with Azzorion’s icon changing to a mine when dropping a mine in Grid Combat.
  
• Fixed issue where DEVA transformation SFX was not associated with SFX volume channel.
  
• Fixed inconsistency with Jawz ultimate heal ability not applying to all targets in Grid Combat.
  
• Fixed issue where Napholeon & Producer shield caused units inside to appear as silhouettes in Grid Combat.
  
• Fixed issue with indicators not rendering in Space Combat when the larger ships spawned for the imperium faction.
  
• Fixed clipping issue with Killi and Taron PANDORA scene.
  
• Fixed issue where Taron’s thong on the trophy wall was casting shadow incorrectly.
  
• Fixed issue with Captains texture causing the star tattoo on his back to not render correctly.
  
• Fixed several typos reported.
  
• Fixed weightpaint-related issues in some of Elaisha’s Dialogue Scene idles.

• Exclamation marker is still visible after completing one section of a quest that spans more than one anomaly.
  
• Low texture resolution rendering for some users during dialogue sequences throughout the game.
  
• Some users reported odd textures when loading Ela and Taron in PANDORA and Gallery.
  
• Framerate drop can cause Mary Celeste to shoot out of the jump-gate in Navigation.
  
• Bridge projector fails to update the color scheme throughout Mary Celeste consistently. This will be fixed in later builds once all nebulae are unlocked.
  
• Physics on dangling pieces such as tentacles or hair (i.e. Huntress or Killi) may clip through the character's body or rapidly vibrate.
  
• Yellow/White screen flashing artifact during space combat when using the FXAA aliasing method. Most likely due to the lens flare and or high bloom values.
  
• On rare occasions, an unintentional song plays during some areas of the game.
  
• On rare occasions, clicking the Help button in the dialogue section of the game can remove the help text but can't be re-enabled until restarting or starting a new scene.
  
• Potential stuttering when playing back cinematics for some systems. Note there is an option to disable 4k videos from the graphics tab under settings. This has improved performance for some users.
  
• Reports of performance issues on some Space Combat random scenario maps.
  
• Animation in You’re Mine Now scene needs finalizing.
  
• Replay icons and navigation icon concepts are a work in progress, inconsistencies are known.
  
• Animation clipping on several older Pandora scenes. These will be fixed in 0.5. 
  
• Killi’s tailband is still missing, it will be fixed properly in 0.5

Sova will not be available to gift items in the Bar in this release, this will be added during the second update (0.5) of Sova’s chapter, along with her Gallery, Foreplay, and Pandora scenes.

Hi everyone! Here is our April 2022 update. Let’s hear what the team have to say about their daily struggle of working on titties and ass for a living.

Moneyshot

I have worked on two extremes of Sova’s sex scenes this month which has a nice contrast to the way you animate. From the softer foreplay to showing off her race’s stretchy anatomy. No Sovas were hurt during this process.

Idles and cinematics have also been one of my priorities. The idles have been my favorite ones to animate to date, I really must like the color blue I guess..
And the Captain takes a literal spin in the F3N1X in an obligatory space battle cinematic.

Manski

I've been working on a cinematic of Elaisha's. Like with other cinematics, I began by sketching a storyboard. Once the storyboard got approved, I posed characters (i.e. blocking) to test how it all looks in practice. More angles and scenes were added when I miscalculated timings or had to better sync overall momentum to Elaisha's theme song. Towards the end, I also added lights to the scene. Since Elaisha is an upbeat character with a darker edge, I tried to use shadows to elicit suspense.

Massimo Decimo Meridio

In this wonderful month I have been put through the ringer known as Sova's Pandora animations, and actually I’m really enjoying animating her. Her different proportions are a new challenge! I have also finished one of the most difficult animations, which was a kissing one.

Yagskie

Lately I've been thinking, most of my siblings are already professional lawyers, architects, and doctors... and look at me... a 3D porn animator! But hey! If my work helps make Subverse better, and our wonderful community enjoy the content, I am happy to be a 3D porn animator.
Anyway, as of this April, I just finished animating this Sova scene that’s waiting for approval. I call it “Sitting on Cap's Lap and Taking a Huge Dump on Him.”

Mendez

Apart from getting to know Sova in a few Pandora scenes, I'm also being brought into the flow of creating animations for in-game dialogue scenes. It's a bit of a different workflow since parts of the character movements are driven by code but I'm really getting the hang of it!

Brunka

Lately, I've been working on a bunch of Pandora animations with our small and blue waifu, Sova. Ever since I started working with her, my mind has been corrupted. I see an adorable blueberry and nothing else.
Oh, I've also been introduced to fluids and now I know how to make people squirt.

Attila von Fock

I'm having more tentacle time this month, there is no limitation in terms of ideas with tentacles. Dealing with tentacles is very challenging for an animator yet interesting at the same time.

Hungry JJ

Hi there,

Just like last time, after each story section release, the main goal is to sequence the next set of gameplay events to take place during Sova’s story quest. It is a collaborative effort dissecting the script and turning into a playable experience for the user.

In addition to this I have also started working on the next Space Combat bossfight. Not sure if I can say this but it involves a character that you may have encountered already that rhymes with the word funtress. 😊

Prof. Bang Dev

Alcohol consumption will take a big role in one of our upcoming experiences, so I did what I must, and made a liquid in bottle shader.

I think it was Half Life Alyx that popularized it, but overall, it's a basic and fun little thing that can help users understand exactly how much liquid is in those beer bottles.

It's more important to know than you think!

Mrs. Mankrik

I have been working on creating a minigame for the next block. In the minigame, the player will have to attempt to outdrink Sova in the form of a rhythm game. It was a challenge to get the difficulty right, since I'm used to playing rhythm games at high difficulties, but we hope players of any skill level will be able to enjoy this minigame.

Timmeh

With the start of this new block I've been going over some more quality of life changes within grid combat. It will now be possible to see chain reaction effects within the preview damage, it will also be easier to see how some AOE's will affect the ground around them even if no enemies are on those tiles to preview the damage itself. With this comes some minor optimizations when targeting.

I've also been looking into reworking out level scaling as currently some characters scale so poorly at the later levels that they simply become unusable, this will require some extensive testing for balancing which will likely lead to some more changes in later blocks.

HentaiKouhai

Hi all. Since the start of the block, I've been working mostly on the grid combat stuff, along with our internal testing team to iron out some of the bugs that we found. I've also started to contribute to some of the space combat missions and a little bit on navigation. Recently, I've been working closely with our game designer for the grid combat implementation of a certain blueberry shortstack that'll bonk the living daylights out of her enemies

Samantha Flowers

A very important criticism I saw amidst the release of the Taron block was concerning the lack of participation from previously recruited crew members, and lack of group oriented interaction in general. Well, I'm very pleased to report that is not the case for the Sova block! This patch is going to be jam packed with characters, new and old, a bit more akin to the writing found in the Elaisha patch.
I've also been hard at work rehearsing and doing retakes for Sova from 2020 to 2022 to try to get things RIGHT and earn my place in walking alongside the absolute powerhouse that is our cast. I hated my performance before, but I'm feeling much more confident about it now, so the experience and practice is paying off!

WTX

This month I had the opportunity of putting together the Teelee Arena (or Teerena, for close friends). It's your standard MMA style octagon, but with a sci-fi twist! Here I was able to put Erin's sponsor logos to good use and have Professor Bang's crowd asset give the map a bit more life.

Portsman

I've been bullying Blythe telling her she looks cute in a bunny costume.

ErinTheSketchy

Hi guys! First of all, thank you for the great response to the previous update! It means a lot for all creatives to receive good vibes on their work and it helps reinvigorate them to keep going.
Along with my work as a graphic designer, I've recently been focused towards collecting your feedback. This has resulted in quite a few sleepless nights but its worth it to implement it into the game!
A lot of new things are going on in the game and it's exciting working on them! People, places, plot, adventure and... well... pleasure of course. Stay tuned :D

Tibor

Since I did not want to spam this Dev Diary with a wall of text, if you are interested what I am up to there are more details in my latest blog at https://tibor.blog/2022/04/27/three-steps-forward-once-step-back/ - https://tibor.blog/2022/04/27/three-steps-forward-once-step-back/. Take care of yourselves!

---

See you next month!

Bis bald,
Till Eulenspiegel

• DEVA activation tutorial is now always available if DEVA mode can be activated.
  
• Updated life bars & adrenaline markers over characters' heads in Grid Combat.
  
• Added fade animation when switching outfits on PANDORA’s selection screen.
  
• Added separators between different stats when viewing mantic/waifu stats on the Mary Celeste.
  
• Updated DEMI’s red outfit name to Code Red.
  
• Replaced Temple of Defilement anomaly with a planet in navigation.

• Fixed an issue causing a small gap to appear below and to the sides of the new Grid Combat UI.
  
• Fixed an issue when item names were too long in the inventory.
  
• Fixed inconsistencies on PANDORA cards where the border color did not match the tag Premium/Space whale and vice versa.
  
• Fixed several typos.
  
• Fixed an issue where some trophies didn’t have descriptions.
  
• Fixed issue with hovering tool-tip text getting covered by the Subverse cursor. The UI for this tool-tip was also updated.
  
• Fixed issue where EMP would not fire on Dallick’s mission if his station was not in view for a period of time.
  
• Fixed issue where changing outfits on PANDORA character selection screen caused low res textures to be displayed on selected outfit until user clicked the Launch Pandora button. Initial pop-in may be seen but should not hang with low textures. 
  
• Fixed an issue where on turn passives and status effects would activate again when using wait.
  
• Ela’s Explosive Arrow and Killi’s Vanneran Rage now properly hit barrels.
  
• Status effects are no longer applied before damage is dealt, this was causing preview damage issues with Ela.
  
• Fixed issue where there was an unlit active tile on one of the desert maps in Grid Combat.
  
• Added missing Act 3 Transition cinematic.
  
• Fixed several warnings throughout the project that can potentially cause some noticeable slow down on some machines when loading areas for the first time.

• Exclamation marker is still visible after completing one section of a quest that spans more than one anomaly.
  
• Some users reported odd textures when loading Ela and Taron in PANDORA and Gallery.
  
• Enemies can pass through walls in Grid Combat on one of the boat maps.
  
• Framerate drop can cause Mary Celeste to shoot out of the jump-gate in Navigation.
  
• Bridge projector fails to update the color scheme throughout Mary Celeste consistently with the addition of Hydra and Kraken Nebula.
  
• Physics on dangling pieces such as tentacles or hair (i.e. Huntress or Killi) may clip through the character's body or rapidly vibrate.
  
• Yellow/White screen flashing artifact during space combat when using the FXAA aliasing method. Most likely due to the lens flare and or high bloom values.
  
• On rare occasions, an unintentional song plays during some areas of the game.
  
• On rare occasions, clicking the Help button in the dialogue section of the game can remove the help text but can't be re-enabled until restarting or starting a new scene.
  
• Potential stuttering when playing back cinematics for some systems. Note there is an option to disable 4k videos from the graphics tab under settings. This has improved performance for some users.
  
• Elaisha has some weightpaint-related issues in some of her Dialogue Scene idles.
  
• Animation in You’re Mine Now scene needs finalizing.
  
• Subtitles for cinematics are disabled for this release. They will be re-enabled for 0.5.
  
• Replay icons and navigation icon concepts are a work in progress, inconsistencies are known.
  
• Animation clipping on several Pandora scenes. These will be fixed in 0.5.

Greetings, fellow pervs!

Now that the catgirl is out in the wild we’d like to take a moment to update you on the state of the game and what to expect going forward.

Without further ado, it is our pleasure to introduce our new designer, Bangkok!

My name’s Bangkok( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), and I’m the Lead Game Designer on Subverse. It is an absolute pleasure to have been given the opportunity to work on this title. First and foremost, I am an avid gamer and hentai enthusiast, much like you, and so I will strive to make Subverse the incredible experience it was originally envisioned to be. I hope I can make all of you proud and happy.

During my first two months, I familiarized myself with every nook and cranny of Subverse's design and finalized certain areas within March's patch. I can confidently say that this project has enormous potential to leave a long-lasting footprint as an authentic AAA adult experience. I am currently working on establishing the way in which to achieve this. We all know that we’re in the middle of early access, so the fans are not seeing the full picture coming together yet and there is some concern over where it's all heading. Hopefully DC and I can allay some of those concerns in this blog.



With Bangkok onboard the FOW train, we’re stoked to talk about some of the design philosophies of Subverse moving forward.

We as a team recognize that the build up to the critical recruitment sex scenes is lacking in eroticism and are too abrupt. They definitely need more fleshing out. For starters, we will be going through all the previous content and adding in foreplay videos to tie it in with what is happening. These short videos should establish some atmosphere and bridge the gap between the novel sections and the abruptness of the initial sex scenes.

The current dating sequences in the bar are also very limited with only barebones gifting being currently available. Dating your crew members is supposed to be a more intimate experience compared to the Pandora framework and it is in the process of a major overhaul. The connection between waifu and Captain is not really present in the current iteration of dating, and we are aiming to gradually implement some more interesting interactive features to help alleviate this.



The payoff for all your hard work needs to be porn. Lots and lots of porn. Titties, ass, splooge and big fat meaty balls all coming together in unholy unison. As of now, there is indeed not enough porn. But fear not, the porn is coming.

1. Sidequests not ending with some kind of porn is a crime. Luckily with the help of our inspirational artists we are going to try and remedy this in an exciting way.
   
2. Part of the overhaul of the Dating module means that it must be intertwined with sex in some way. To complete the intimate, one-on-one experience requires some intimate, one-on-one POV scenes. More on this soon.
   
3. The aforementioned foreplay videos tying the recruitment together and introducing more buildup.
   
4. The interactive scene in Taron hasn’t landed quite the way we hoped considering the amount of effort required to make it work, but we will reuse its components to give existing animations some more variety and shelf-life
   
5. The main storyline starts getting darker in a couple blocks time, so its extremely difficult to intertwine random sex scenes into it without it feeling completely jarring. Sex for the sake of sex is just going to exacerbate the problem of it not meshing with the story. Having said that, once the drama is resolved we are looking into giving the player and the waifus some much-needed downtime via supplementary story beats.
   
6. One of these beats is the Devotion Quest rewards (more on this below) which sees the return of StudioFOW’s famed cinematic eroticism within the context of a tightly-waifu-focused epic questline.

For those of you that have been talking to the ladies on the ship (you HAVE been talking to them, right?) you’ll notice that they’ve been gradually revealing more about their backstories. These stories will be carried through to their glorious conclusion with a Devotion Quest for each Waifu.

Devotion Quests are inspired by the Loyalty Missions in Mass Effect 2, where you buddy up with a specific party member and help them out of a bind. Since the Devotion Quests are the culmination of a lot of invested hours into a waifu we want to make sure they are amazing. We want to do this by

1. Giving you ample opportunity to interact with the waifu during her quest. This means talking with them, discussing the quest problems and their environments (each quest will take you to a place special to that particular waifu)
   
2. Creating an environment that immerses you both romantically and contextually. The performances of the voice talent are incredible throughout these sections. The atmosphere must match their intensity and do them justice
   
3. ROMANCE ROMANCE ROMANCE
   
4. The payoff at the end of the quest has to be amazing and cinematic, as well as feel like a seamless part of the story - something StudioFOW will no doubt deliver
   
5. Give you some cool rewards at the end thematic to the waifu for investing all that time into the romance

We are actively developing DEMI and Lily’s devotion quests at the moment and as soon as one of them is ready, we will make an announcement about the release dates.




World-renowned gameplay designer and shortstack-butt-afficionado Halfpint had some great ideas on this topic, which we are totally going to steal. In a December 12 video, he suggested that the galaxy should be reacting to the revolution in some way. Right now everything feels too static, too dead, you don’t feel like the disruptive force of change that the Mary Celeste is supposed to represent. A great idea he came up with was a simple reputation system, that keeps a track of all the battles you’ve fought against a particular faction. When you’ve killed enough Fuccbotts for example, a reward depicting a short 30 second cinematic would unlock showing Fuccbotts mobilizing to hunt you. If you slay enough Kloi, Landervoo and the council could react in some way to your extermination of their forces. Introducing reactive elements such as this will make Prodigium feel much more impacted by your actions. This is but one of the improvements we are aiming to make to Prodigium feeling more immersive.



The main problem right now (and this is a common part of narrative games in Early Access phase) is that the story is still being released and therefore the connective glue is not live yet... So what is this glue we are talking about?

1. Devotion levels being a meaningful part of multiple modules
   
2. Having a Dating system that makes use of the galaxy
   
3. Resources playing a bigger part in collectibles/upgrades
   
4. More waifu interactions with each other and the Captain across all modules
   

These elements working together in harmony will make the experience of managing your own crew feel more cohesive. But as we keep saying, our focus right now is on delivering the story first and foremost and then leaving the glue elements for later releases to tie everything together once the building blocks are in place.



Things like gold stars and meaningless grinding have no place in a supposed top-end story driven product like this. The original philosophy of the Kickstarter and the no-bullshit stance of the StudioFOW OG’s were successful in capturing the imagination of the gaming public. Introducing artificial progression elements and psychological tricks at this stage would be a mistake for the brand. Our design philosophy for avoiding the mobile trap is as follows:

1. Retool the way player performance is measured by utilizing more of the waifus and less gold stars and badges
   
2. Remove replayable story missions. Do you replay Virmire in ME1, do you replay Ostagar in DA:O? No, these are climactic story set pieces, so why would you replay Temple of Defilement, especially after what happened there? Not only does this make no sense from a narrative design standpoint but it’s a huge resource sink on the dev team
   
3. Reduce the sheer quantity of same-y missions and focus on making them memorable by increasing their quality
   
4. Introduce elements that facilitate replayability through dynamic design, instead of mobile-like repetition
   
5. Make upgrades and collectibles feel part of the world. Having to help someone or find a rare component to make your ship better should be an essential part of an RPG dealing with space exploration. We will have more on this in a later blog.

The original vision for Subverse was that it is not a sex simulator. It was not designed from the ground up to be a sandbox style sex simulator. There appears to be some misconceptions out there that this game is supposed to be the next big thing to supplant Honey Select. This will never be the case because Subverse is a story driven narrative RPG with sex. There are plenty of well-designed sex simulation games out there like Honey Select and Koikatsu that focus on endless customizability, sandbox elements and interchangeable parts. These games have mastered the art of being a simulator and have years of experience and much bigger budgets than ours. There is no point in competing with them. Our design philosophy has always been the complete polar opposite of that, and while the introduction of some interactive elements and things like outfits are planned, they will never be the lynchpin of the game.



We understand the game is not in an acceptable state for many of you currently. Quite frankly, Subverse (in its current state) is so far away from our personal standards that it’s not even funny, so there is a lot of hands-on work to be done here. This is a long marathon process and it will take time. We are not promising every single thing listed above will make it in. Subverse has a lot riding on it so we have to test every design decision internally. A lot of people are looking up to the game and we have to make sure we are delivering the absolute best product we can. Thank you to the fans for sticking with us and for reading!

DC
Creative Lead

Bangkok
Design Lead

NEW WAIFU – TARON KRAASK
The star of this release is the nimble thief Taron, who has a very unique mission for the Captain. If you help her get her toys back, she just might join your crew!


NEW NEBULA – KRAKEN
Another portion of the galaxy opens with the release of 0.4, with more than 90 new anomalies and 8 sidequests to explore. As part of our ongoing Planets revamp, we are putting in a new UI for the planets, reducing the Tiers to eliminate backtracking and pave the way for more meaningful content starting from the next release.  NOTE: The Events that are part of 0.4 are also placeholders, and will start getting replaced from 0.5 onwards.


NEW UI
We are in the process of making the UI feel more intuitive, especially in modules like grid combat where it was sorely needed. As part of 0.4 you will see numerous UI improvements and additions, and you can expect this to continue in 0.5 with even more tweaks.


NEW GRID COMBAT EVENT
A special form for Taron can be unlocked as you progress through the story for this release. We look forward to seeing what you guys think of it! If the reception is positive then we will enable these forms for the other ladies as well in Patch 0.5!


NEW – RED DEMI OUTFIT
As part of testing for early access, we have given DEMI a skin for Pandora that you can play around with. This is a very simple reskin, and the goal is to collect data before we start implementing the outfit system in earnest. You can enable DEMI’s red skin by going to her Pandora select menu and clicking the outfit tab at the top.


NEW – EXPERIMENTAL NSFW SCENE
One scene with Taron is enabled for interactivity. It happens during the story, so you don’t have to worry about missing it. You can move the camera around and interact with Taron’s body parts. This is a prototype so we are looking for feedback from you guys on this!


NEW FACTION – THE IMPERIUM
Players will finally be able to face off against the might of Empress Celestina’s forces! The new units consisting of ground and space forces can be encountered from the Kraken nebula onwards.


NEW SPACE COMBAT MODES
We’ve added two new experimental game modes (one instance of each); a Stealth style mission where you have to sneak past patrols while unlocking doors, and another one based around Resource collection. Both modes need feedback from the players on how to improve them


NEW SPACE UPGRADES
Space Combat tier 2 upgrades are now purchasable in the Hangar. Note: As of now, a speech bubble prompt will display once available sometime during Taron’s quest. In Space Combat, level 2 Waifu attack upgrades are now available. Note: As of now, these will unlock at level 12, 24 and 36.


NEW PANDORA SCENES
New Pandora scenes have been added for all existing waifus as well as Taron.


NEW ONBOARD DIALOGUES
Be sure to talk to your crewmates on the ship, they may have new things to talk about!


GENERAL
The Save Game Button is enabled when on board Mary Celeste and during dialogue sequences. Note game currently still autosaves frequently.

• Added the ability to skip cinematics again (default input Spacebar) during dialogue sequences.
  
• Anomalies now only have one encounter instead of three. Note: Tier 2 missions have been removed.
  
• When selecting a solar system from the nebula screen in Navigation, the previously visited solar system star will glow a bit brighter indicating that the user has just left the system.
  
• Added warpgate offscreen indicator in Navigation.
  
• Added a new cursor in Navigation.
  
• Anomaly screen redesigned in Navigation.
  
• Shortened description on the Nebulast and Pararaiha anomaly in Navigation.
  
• Added SFX when clicking on the Archive or Mission Replay hologram folder when inside the Captain’s Quarters on board the Mary Celeste.
  
• Added SFX when opening the inventory when on board the Mary Celeste.
  
• Added SFX on several items when poking interactable objects on board the Mary Celeste.
  
• Added a clear button to PANDORA UI. This allows the user to clear all the cards selected in one go instead of manually removing each one.
  
• PANDORA Card image updates.
  
• Added generic description to locked pandora cards that cannot be purchased (i.e. “Requires A Specific Waifu” and or “Requires A Specific Mantic”)
  
• Added new star badge icons on the endscreen UI–it can also be seen when selecting replayable missions.
  
• Added icons to distinguish between grid & space combat when replaying missions.
  
• Returning from a replayable mission or dialogue sequence now re-opens the selection screen UI automatically in the event users would like to continue replaying segments of the game.
  
• Updated Speech Bubble prompt UI design.
  
• Added indication stating last time save was updated when exiting Main Menu. Note: Currently doesn’t specify seconds so will return as 0 minutes ago if the user exits the session within a minute.
  
• Removed character level from character selection screen when entering the gifting sequence.
  
• Added a new enter screen when entering PANDORA and Gallery.
  
• Added new bobblehead icons.
  
• Added background icon preview when purchasing backgrounds in the Gallery.
  
• Updated Kloi Turret and Tibold mine turn queue icons in Grid Combat.
  
• Rebalanced Space Combat random scenario waves across the Hydra system.
  
• Updated the Scoundrel’s boss ship tri-laser attack so that it connects instead of having a gap between the lasers in Space Combat.
  
• Updated text line in Space Combat tutorial specifying that the user should continue through the rings.
  
• Reduced Ela’s DPS slightly in Space Combat.
  
• Jawz no longer heals when hitting enemies with damage negating shields in Grid Combat.
  
• Jawz ultimate now heals him when backstabbing and the preview is now showing correctly based on where Jawz will end up rather than his current position in Grid Combat.
  
• Hovering over incoming waves now shows their deployment area in Grid Combat.
  
• Fixed several issues when replaying story & tutorial missions in Grid Combat.
  
• Damage previews now show if an attack is effective, ineffective or kills the target in Grid Combat.
  
• Updated resolution setting under the Graphics setting tab so that it defaults to 100% instead of automatically downscaling the screen resolution when changing to High, Medium or Low. This can still be adjusted manually if needed.

• Fixed issue where some users reported that if you delete an image that was posted in Captains Quarters, it defaults to the UV placeholder image instead of updating the pictures on the wall.
  
• Numerous audio related fixes related to grid combat.
  
• Fixed issue where Tibold’s grid combat banter was ducking music volume when it shouldn’t.
  
• Added additional failsafes to the end screen continue button. (A specific sequence of skipping during the end screen can cause the continue button to not show up. Possibly when the rank medal is spinning.)
  
• Fixed issue in Grid Combat where damage previews did not display the skull icon over their health bars when they should.
  
• Fixed potential crash on Grid Combat Kurkle anomaly mission.
  
• Fixed issue in dialogue sequences where in some cases fast-forwarding caused the background or characters to not change when required.
  
• Fixed issue during dialogue sequences where the scene would render darker during Hangar scenes if “Use Background Images” was enabled from the graphic settings.
  
• Fixed issue on PANDORA UI that caused the card purchase window to still be visible if the user clicked on next or previous character before purchasing or exiting.
  
• Fixed issue where text could overlap when viewing the Trophies menu UI.
  
• Fixed issue with Lily’s toes during the Full Throttle PANDORA scene.
  
• Fixed animation blending in Robotic Supremacy PANDORA scene
  
• Fixed issue with anomalies not receiving any light in navigation depending on distance and color.
  
• Fixed issue where some planets' rings were rendered without color.
  
• Fixed typo on Tiny Invader PANDORA card description.
  
• Fixed issue in Grid Combat where units could spawn on detached tiles and get stuck.
  
• Fixed several smaller issues in Grid Combat related to the maps.
  
• Fixed issue in Grid Combat where Trisha’s ultimate would activate immediately upon selection.
  
• Fixed issue in Grid Combat causing Napholeon’s ultimate damage prediction to not show AOE.
  
• Fixed issue in Grid Combat where the holograms on some maps appear slightly off the ground.
  
• Fixed issue in Grid Combat where Ela’s ultimate AOE did not trigger an explosive energy barrel but the damage preview indicated that it did.
  
• Fixed descriptions for Hydra nebula CODEX entry.
  
• Fixed typos in the descriptions of the following anomalies: Uggo, Kloi Naval Command & Marmani.
  
• Fixed typo on anomaly label Bastion of Ignominious Exile.
  
• Fixed issue where DEMI’s trophies were no longer dropping. These should be restored if any were missing in this patch.
  
• Fixed issue in Space Combat where the Pirates' mortar ship would have lingering mortars in mid-air if destroyed.
  
• Fixed issue where the deny SFX could be heard when on a PANDORA screen if the skip button was clicked. Also could be heard during the PANDORA tutorial when clicking continue.
  
• Fixed issue where Killi’s recruitment scene could play back once reaching the end of the dialogue sequences when not intended.
  
• Optimizations made to characters to improve textures loading on characters during dialogue sequences and Space combat ships.
  
• Fixed tool-tip description when hovering “Use Background Images”.

• Framerate drop can cause Mary Celeste to shoot out of the jump-gate in Navigation.
  
• Bridge projector fails to update the color scheme throughout Mary Celeste consistently with the addition of Hydra and Kraken Nebula.
  
• Physics on dangling pieces such as tentacles or hair (i.e. Huntress or Killi) may clip through the character's body or rapidly vibrate.
  
• Yellow/White screen flashing artifact during space combat when using the FXAA aliasing method. Most likely due to the lens flare and or high bloom values.
  
• On rare occasions, an unintentional song plays during some areas of the game.
  
• On rare occasions, clicking the Help button in the dialogue section of the game can remove the help text but can't be re-enabled until restarting or starting a new scene.
  
• Potential stuttering when playing back cinematics for some systems. Note there is an option to disable 4k videos from the graphics tab under settings. This has improved performance for some users.
  
• Hovering tool-tip text is covered by Subverse cursor.
  
• Elaisha has some weightpaint-related issues in some of her Dialogue Scene idles.
  
• Animation in You’re Mine Now scene needs finalizing.
  
• Subtitles for cinematics are disabled for this release. They will be re-enabled for 0.5.
  
• Elaisha does more damage than what the preview damage UI element states  in Grid Combat.
  
• Replay icons and navigation icon concepts are a work in progress, inconsistencies are known.
  
• Animation clipping on several Pandora scenes. These will be fixed in 0.5. 

• More details will be provided regarding the additions and changes to the game’s overall design in an upcoming dev diary.
  
• Optimizations: The goal is to continue making improvements with each release. The focus was on characters during the dialogue sequences in this block. 
  
• UI to provide navigation progress is on hold until the next release. This is due to navigation system rework.
  
• Music will start receiving the proper treatment in later patches starting with the dialogue sections. Combat themes will also receive some variety.

Hi everyone! The Taron release is currently in testing and we're on track for the projected release of early March. We will communicate the exact release date after the team is comfortable with the state of the build. Obviously we would've loved to get it out in January for you guys but the holidays brought with them several management changes and a team restructuring, which slowed down our progress more than we would like.

The new lead designer and our game director DC will have a separate dev diary coming soon where they outline the revamps going on and where the game philosophy is heading towards, but in the meantime the team is back with a progress update as they put the finishing touches on Taron!

Moneyshot

I dipped my toes into lighting last time around with Ela’s set, and this time I was tasked with adding lights and postprocessing to all of the Pandora scenes included in the upcoming release.

It is an ever growing skill to produce a nicely lit scene and to keep it well optimized at the same time, great fun!

Manski

Right now I'm working on Taron's dating animations. Professional animator that I am, I began by filming my method acting of a catgirl's glee to (purportedly) obtain body language references. Since the deadline is tight, I've been working in stages. First I tackled the Idle animation. With that as an established foundation, I focused on the lip sync of all her reactions. The remaining time I dedicated to animating her expressions and body as she reacts to dating gifts. Compared to the other girls, Taron has bouts of shyness, so the VA's performance was a helpful guide in animating that characteristic.

Massimo Decimo Meridio

After diving into spaceship and lip sync animations, I had the chance to work on a special scene for a future content patch involving DEMI! All I can say is that Demi is extremely sexy and she knows how to tease the Captain!

Yagskie

I’m working on some NSFW content for next block involving DEMI. We’re trying out some new, more flexible poses for her to take advantage of her excellent rigging by Rocky.

Mendez

Been working on cutscenes since last we spoke. The Taron patch has less of them than Ela’s block, but they are a lot more meaningful. There's a few shots that I'm pretty excited for you all to see since I think they're some of the best ones I've done for Subverse so far.

Also, here's Killi's butt…

Brunka

Lately, I've been given the task of lighting some cinematic shots. As Taron is about to get her hands on a very powerful artifact, I am focusing on bringing a golden light shaft on her. The good thing with cinematic is that I don't have to care about optimization at all so I can go crazy with the lights. It's a lot of fun!

Attila von Fock

I’m working on combat animation design for some upcoming waifus. The main thing the director wanted was a more anime-feel to the moves and a lot more dynamism so I am trying to deliver that.

Hungry JJ

Hello,

Since the last dev diary, I have finished up the Taron Stealth Mission, worked on lots of backend data tables and made some UI updates. Lately I have been assisting with audio integration where various sounds need to be triggered in PANDORA, Space Combat & Grid Combat.

Prof. Bang Dev

I've worked on lots of particle effects over the last month, some of them for pre-rendered content, and some for actual gameplay.
There’s an important scene that needs finalizing and giving it a more striking look.
On the cinematic side I had to add a lot of flashy effects, because in this release you'll see some pretty complex scenes!

Mrs. Mankrik

I've mostly been working on PANDORA fluids and integration this month, but I've also been finishing up Taron's poses and physics in the Gallery.

Timmeh

This month I've been working on a UI overhaul for grid combat, as well as a few other minor UI changes (gallery backgrounds now have a buy preview for example)
With the new lead designer onboard, there’s also been some changes to the tactical combat and we've been hatching up plans to improve upon it even more on the next block.

HentaiKouhai

For this month, I've been working on the implementation of the reworked UI, specifically for the Grid Combat and the balancing of the random scenarios. Lots of updated assets are also rolling in so I also do the integration and testing for some of those.

Samantha Flowers

Hello everyone,

I've been hard at work chipping away at the sound design for the new Imperium units you'll be facing off against in this upcoming Taron update. The theme I was given was "They are righteous and utilize holy magic, but also have sticks up their asses".

More importantly, I've been having fun getting to lay down quite a few tracks for this update's story cinematics. Can't wait for you all to see how they unfold!

WTX

Further expanding on the locations the crew will be visiting in the future, I got to work on this mysterious facility set on a snowy hillside. If only you knew what lurks within its frosty metal walls.
I'm also putting together this very unusual alien palace, packed to the brim with gaudy sci-fi decor and lots and lots of Neon.

Portsman

It's been mostly a month of working on grid combat and space combat models, some of which are part of the chapter after Taron, plus side quest models.

ErinTheSketchy

Hi guys! So here we are, about to release some new content that we already love and we're sure you will, too!
As I've only been a member of this team for a few months, this was the first chapter I've worked on and I want to say it's been a creative and fun experience. Finishing the work for the first chapter you're part of conveys a unique kind of joy, made stronger especially if you happen to look forward to the next one! I'm really thankful for all the good vibes I received from both you and the Subverse team about the new UI, and I can't wait to work on more of the game!

Tibor

My transformation from junior dev to an expert porn game developer is almost complete.
I didn't want to make wall of text here so I created a blog to talk about my Unreal Engine software endeavour. Please read if you are interested at https://tibor.blog/2022/02/21/start-working-on-subverse/.

---

See you next month!

Bis bald,
Till Eulenspiegel

Hello from the Subverse dev team!

Welcome folks to 2022! The team had a refreshing Christmas back and they’re all excited to be back to working on Subverse. Our goal is to release the much-awaited Taron chapters in early March. We’re working our asses off to make this happen so the team is here to share some of the stuff they’ve been working on this month! Take a look:

Moneyshot

I've been dusting off Lilys machine that some of you may remember, and she's putting it to the test on the next girl in line: Killi.
It sports some new specs, and high enough speeds to start a fire, but thankfully it is cooled down by lube.

Manski

Work continues in lip-syncing and finalising Pandora animations. This week, I'm taking over and finalizing an Elaisha Premium animation that needs a final pass. This is a special Kickstarter-requested animation from one of our spacewhales, so I’m taking extra care with it. I was also asked to introduce rougher breast play to it along with overall improvements to jiggling and motion.

Massimo Decimo Meridio

I am powering through more Pandora scenes, finalizing some facial animations, as well as adding a new one from scratch because we were short 1 from the Ela set. Lesbian fans rejoice! And I’m sure Ela will enjoy Taron’s licking skills :P

Yagskie

Typhoon Rai/Odette, paid me a visit during December, which means that unfortunately my focus has been to be able to get back online and fix the roof and windows in my house…

Mendez

Faces and hair!
That's what I'm focusing on the most right now. The voice actresses really knocked it out of the park once again and I'm doing all I can to capture every little detail of their performances. Every little roll of the eyes, twitch of an eyebrow or tremble of the lip counts.

Also, I think I'm falling in love with Tarons fangs…

Brunka

What if I told you that if you're smart enough, you can create your own living toys? Well, Lily jumped on that particular bandwagon and here she is, enjoying the time of her life.

Attila von Fock

I’ve just finished some alone time with tentacles. Suffice to say, it was one of the more challenging scenes…one tentacle is difficult enough to coordinate but when there are multiple ones in the scene then things get super interesting!

Hungry JJ

Hi there,
Since the last update, the primary focus has been on Taron’s unique stealth space combat mission, amongst the other tasks around the project. In this mission, there will be a few additional mechanics introduced such as stealth, some noise detection, interactable objects and rooms locking down. With these new additions, we are also looking into ways of re-using these mechanics in other parts of space combat to add more variety to the regular space combat encounters. Here are a couple of screenshots prototyping the mission.

Prof. Bang Dev

StudioFOW is famous for their quality in videos, so to me, to a mere mortal, it's an honor to help them with some cinematics.
I'm working on the effects for a very important scene, trying to make it look powerful - I have no eyes for beauty, but I can create some good looking destruction and gore - worthy of the StudioFOW name.

Last block we used Unreal Engine 5 for a few cinematics where ray traced lights (Lumen) and hyper detailed surfaces (Nanite) was needed, and who knows, maybe we'll use it here too - we'll see.

Mrs. Mankrik

I've mostly been making sure that all PANDORA scenes are working, no waifus are swapped, and no bones are freaking out. I'm also taking care of all the fluids that are coming out of various appendages and orifices. It's nice to see all the porn coming together for this release.

Timmeh

Last time I mentioned I was working on giving users more control over the NSFW content, the core technology behind this is now complete and we have a prototype scene working with it. With that huge undertaking out of the way, I've been focusing on optimizations, bug fixing, and implementing some quality of life changes that have been approved.

HentaiKouhai

I've been working mostly on fixing bugs and random scenarios tuning to give you guys a better gaming experience. I also worked on something new and exciting that I know will be appreciated by the cultured men (and women) out there. So be sure to.. uhh.. squeeze in some game time for the next update.

Claudine Coquine

At the moment I am starting to prep the next Act, laying out, posing and blocking the next round of cinematics to give the team a head start on the near future of Subverse!

Samantha Flowers

Hello everyone,

I've been putting time into the sound design itself. Creating various slaps, smacks, and slurps, making sure they're the right amount of dry or wet, warm or bright, depending on the nature of the scene. "How much distance is there between the characters and the camera? How lubricated are they? How much is that butt jiggling?" These are the questions a professional has to ask themselves.

Aside from Pandora, I've brought back some familiar names for this block's batch of side quest characters. Our cast is truly filled with chameleons, and they continue to impress me with the wide variety of roles they can play!

WTX

As I continued to work on the cinematic sets for the next Act, I had the chance to put together this particular research facility set in an icy planet, entombed by snow. Cant wait for you guys to find out what mysteries are hidden here!

Portsman

Everyone loves bunny outfits.

ErinTheSketchy

This was a month full of UI updates. Some of the highlights are PANDORA's visual additions, starting with the loading screen. The quest log went through a massive makeover as well, not only appearance-wise but on a functional level too! We’re also adding a new filtering system that will hopefully enhance your mission experience.

Tibor

Thank you very much for being so supportive and I hear your concerns about my internship status, but in fact the very good news is that I was promoted from intern to junior code pre-analyser.
On a serious note, I am making a good progress in learning the details of Unreal Engine by mainly focusing on C++ development. I have delivered some code already. Now I am prototyping the dating system, branching dialogue and a skills tree. It is really exciting and I can't wait to show it to you guys very soon.

---

See you in a few weeks time!

Bis bald,
Till Eulenspiegel

Hello folks!

Happy holidays from everyone at the team, and to celebrate I will continue with the new dev diary format where you get to hear directly from them! So let’s hear what these distinguished perverts have to say about their daily struggle of working on titties and ass for a living.

Moneyshot

As part of my research on how to further improve handholding content and give the player more contextual and interactive introductions to our characters, I have been retrofitting some smut to test the waters.

I’ve also made a simple 360 viewable loop and hoping it is something you, the players, want to see more of. Since these would take more time than our usual scenes it is something we'd want feedback on before committing fully to them.

Manski

Right now I'm assisting with lipsync, quality control and polishing our completed Pandora animations.

Lipsync for Pandora is manually animated, as opposed to being generated by an algorithm. As usual in our process, I receive audio files containing edited voice actors' performances. I listen to the audio on loop as I animate the characters' mouths as well as their facial expressions. I find working in stages more efficient: first I animate the mouth across the timeline to open and shut according to the audio file. Then I tackle the lip corners to get basic "Ah's" and "Oh's" mouth shapes. Afterwards, I handle the upper and lower lips to further shape the mouth to fit a vowel, consonant, hiss, inhale, exhale, etc. This process is accompanied with gradual addition and polish of facial expressions. All these manual lipsync animations are also providing our programmers with valuable data to eventually develop an automated lipsync system custom designed to work with our models. This should give more variation to the interactive scenes.

Massimo Decimo Meridio

Right now I’m deep into facial animations for Pandora animations - my latest and current one is Taron with one of our large friends.

Since November I've rebuilt 2 animations, one xeno and one footjob, and both went well!
I also created from scratch a doggy style POV animation having 3 actors in the scene, Lily, Killy and Elaisha, and from what I heard, its one of the first of its kind.
I also animated the lipsyncing with the audio tracks in a couple of Taron animations this block. We are now up to 9 Taron animations in total.
So as you can see, I'm fully immersed into Pandora animations.

Yagskie

I’m still chained up in the basement creating gangbangs, so not much has changed in these last 7 years…

Mendez

I've done some re-targeting and animated a little scene idea of my own between a few of our beloved waifus.

I'm currently working on a solo scene for one of our premium Kickstarter backers. Any sword-master should be as intimate with their blade as possible, and Killi seems to have a pretty unique approach…

This is the first time that I'm doing animation for a scene this complex so I'm pulling out all the stops to make it as juicy as possible.

Brunka

Recently I've completed some animations, including a premium of Lily which you had a glimpse at during the last dev diary.
Now I am back on catgirl duty with our lovely feline waifu, Taron. As we finally received the audios from our talented Voice Actress Milly Stern, I can now focus on her facial animation. Starting with some cuddles with tentacles, and continuing with a pawjob, we are on a sacred mission to deliver to you guys even more Pandora content!

Attila von Fock

Every animation I worked on will have a starting pose, which focuses on strong posing, camera angle, and good composition. We try to find the best frame for the shot, rather than try to make it perfect at every angle, so we can create a "movie-like" game animation. This decision helps us to deliver more animation in a short time, and give them the best artistic look as possible. Once we finish the full set of these, we will research on how to expand and improve upon this system but right now we are focused on getting content out that we know we can make.

Hungry JJ

Hello,
Today I would like to share what I have been working on recently. With each main character release usually comes a main quest space combat mission associated with that character. As you may know from a previous dev diary post, this mission will take place inside a large temple. The biggest difference between this space combat mission and everything else is that it will take place indoors as you traverse through the corridors of the ancient Temple of Defilement. The goal was to make this mission feel like no other in the game so establishing the atmosphere is important. This mission will have obstacles that trigger booby traps and or imperium reinforcements.

Prof. Bang Dev

We made a new level for a special PANDORA scene. It's much more complex than our usual scenes in the nice and cozy Captain's quarters, so I had to be a bit more creative when it came to optimization. I think I don't have to tell any one of you that video games are fake. Coming from that logic, everything in videogames is also fake, even the methods to achieving something. Insides are outsides, there's no pipe and we're all in the matrix. Keep in mind we are still prototyping, so it might not make this next release.

Now, because we wanted to have a ship flying in a tunnel, we obviously didn't want to make the actual ship move. So the only way is to make the world move, not the ship. This is nothing new obviously, most games do that, but we here need a lot of optimization to make our girls move smoothly, because we want to use the resources on them, not on the environment. We made it work by cutting the ship to parts, so we only have to render the parts that are on screen, not the whole ship; and made the inside more spacious so there is more space for the action.

For the environment, I used an inside-out cube, made it long enough to make it look like it's a tunnel, added a panning texture that gives the false sense of movement, and moved it with vertex shaders. Vertex shaders are like pixel shaders, but on the surface's vertices. So I can offset vertex positions and make a surface "move" without actually moving the object. It's precise, and as a function can be applied to different materials – they'll move at the same time, in the exact same way. With this method, I made the outside tunnel and everything in it move together, imitating the ship's movement in the tunnel.

The bricks on the walls are just particles, spawning and disappearing out of sight, moving at the same speed as the texture panner does on the wall. Moving lights on the surface of the ship are also just a material trick that is in sync with the actual directional light that lights up some parts of the ship. I also added several little touches, like moving thrusters, flickering interfaces and such to make it more believable.

But I'm sure that y'all will be very busy looking at the actual action in the scene, and I can't blame you.

Mrs. Mankrik

I have been working on creating Gallery poses from Taron's dialogue animations, and customizing physics to each of the poses. You can look forward to some floppy cat ears on her!

I've been working on interactive PANDORA elements too, like grabbing, pulling, stroking and such. For these features, we're making blend spaces, and simulating momentum with code based on the cursor's position. Basically, we're coming up with ways to implement breast-play right now, which is as fun as it sounds like.

We needed three blendspaces for the breasts. One for position offset – it includes squishing and stretching too, as the breasts move on the ribcage –, one for rotation, so they can actually move like there's a hand grabbing them –, and one for pressing and pulling.
Combining these and giving them momentum calculations was not an easy task, and as we go forward we'll have to adjust them for different situations and scenes.
We hope that you'll have at least the same amount of fun playing with them as I had developing them!

Timmeh

A lot of my recent work has been looking into giving users more control over the NSFW content, it’s also an attempt at bringing the story and the recruitment scenes together. These sorts of interactions and camera movements will need to be configured for scenes and characters individually, this does take a lot of time so unfortunately we are not likely to have interactions like this for our current scenes with the release of the next block.

HentaiKouhai

Recently, I've been working on implementing and tuning Taron's abilities. She's a melee character that moves fast, jumps around, and packs a punch with her pounces and scratches. She scales pretty hard as a fight goes on so she should be a beast on later rounds during missions, provided that she survives.

Aside from that, there were also tuning and bug fixes for all of the new units and a very special boss fight that I can’t talk about yet.

Claudine Coquine

For this block I have been working on laying out the shots and posing the characters for the cinematics.
Before the characters are animated, the shots need to be layed out and timed, and the characters posed, ready to be brought to life.
I am also going to be working on how to improve Subverse´s Dating system to make the experience more immersive for you guys.

Samantha Flowers

Hello everyone, it's been quite awhile since you've heard from me! Some of you may remember I started working on Subverse as a simple (not simple at all) casting director. For awhile now, I have since been upgraded to a sound designer and engineer, meaning I must handle both the creative and technical side of audio for the game.

This includes pulling the selects for all VO files, integrating them into our sound system engine's always expanding library (FMOD), and creating sound events where necessary in Unreal Engine.

I'm sure you're all very familiar with my home land: The visual novel scenes! The place where our VA's take center stage in the game! Not only do I set up the sound in this area, but the choice in visuals as well. (Admittedly, sometimes I make a mess and Mrs. Mankrik has to help clean it up.)

Like most technical things, talking about the setup process of it all is easily considered dull for most people, so at this point I can't help but just want to hurry and share the stellar work our cast has put forward. While they're doing the heavy lifting at the front of our sound stage, it's part of my job to make them shine as bright as possible.

I fell in love-at-first-read with Subverse's script, and I know our cast has too, because it really shows in their performance and their drive to make the characters sound organic and real.

After much demand, here is a Christmas special - the much awaited return of blooper reel!



Also here are some images from me.

WTX

With most of the mantic dicks taken care of, I spent the last few weeks focusing on some of the upcoming cinematic sets, which include establishing shots for some of the new locations we'll see in the main story.

Portsman

I'm not very good with words. These are clothes for the girls we have worked on, and there's more coming. They're still in the middle of testing and implementation. All these are subject to changes of course.

ErinTheSketchy

The Graphic Design department is on fire and on a mission to please you! We’re finally updating our interfaces and improving their elements!

I'm currently working on loads of small custom artwork for the new characters' icons and UI visual design for DEVA, grid combat, space navigation, P.A.N.D.O.R.A. and more!

So, what should you expect to see? Skill icons custom-made for the new characters, improved interface layouts and new UI elements are the essentials. A+ to everyone who spots them all!

One of those elements is the victory badges that we show after a successful encounter. The badge can be bronze, silver or gold, so we needed three different versions. I designed several iterations and the general idea was to incorporate sci-fi and epic elements to the design. I wanted the final result to have a strong and clean form while also preserving its artistic feel. The badges are made with extra care and every single light and shadow of the stars is digitally drawn to enhance the 3D feeling, even before the technical part kicks in.

As for the visual effect, we added a few shaders to the icons, so they look even more interesting. To achieve the surface shine, we even 3D modeled the badges, so the surface lights can move believably on it, even though the image is actually in 2D.

We also reused some of the hologram effects that we're using in the dialogues, giving it more of a hologram-like look. We're well on the way to elevating most of the interfaces in the game, so we hope you'll like what you see!

Space nav


Grid combat design


New icons


Bronze badge


Silver badge


Gold badge

Tibor

Following my epic failure and my colossal downfall as the international ambassador of Subverse in East Asia, as some of you might remember I was dismissed from the project lead position. As Alexander Graham Bell once said: "When one door closes, another opens". Well I am happy to report that now I am a junior Unreal Engine developer on the Subverse project.

In terms of career progression it is a rather unusual path as some of the senior developers could be my grandchildren - that’s how old I am.



But I am ready to fight for the project!



To add insult to injury, I am not only a junior developer right now, but I work as an intern. That means my salary is null. Which does make sense from a project resource standpoint as being new to Unreal Engine, exactly zero dollars per month is what I deserve at this moment in time.

Although having said that, I do have over 30 years C, C++, and a quite reasonable DirectX and OpenGL experience. So I expect to be productive in Unreal Engine relatively quickly. I have already started to experiment with a few things and coding some stuff. I am getting familiar with the C++ layer of UE and with Blueprint too. Since I love the team, I like the project, I respect very much our players who support us, I am on a personal mission to make the game better. If I make the game worse, I will be fired again and deployed as the mascot of Subverse to promote high-tech artificial vaginas of Demi on the next adult show in Tokyo. So please wish me luck with my new assignment. Then I can maybe avoid any further humiliations.

My aim is work on the following items in step one:

• Dating system and Minigames: assist with the Dating system and several minigames. These will allow romantic, intimate but at the same time dynamic relationship building between the player and their favorite waifus. We always wanted to do those minigames as we understand there are gaps between the story, the missions and the adult content. By implementing minigames the story will make more sense and we will be able to contextualize many adult scenes.
  
• Review and re-assess the reward system and the replayable missions. We understand there are design issues with the rewards and there is a room for improvement in the replayable missions.
  
• Research the possibility of implementing a reputation system (copyright Halfpint ). This system is in an early brainstorming design phase, but I expect quick progress in the implementation phase once we agree on a solid, robust and scalable design concept.
  
• Work on cutscene loading using some proprietary, new codecs to mitigate the video scattering issue

We are at 0.3 and I am genuinely convinced that we will have a really fun, high quality and enjoyable game once we deliver Subverse 1.0.

I wish you all a happy and peaceful holiday season, and I hope you all can stay safe from this new Omicron virus.

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…and that’s all for this entry, my friends!

May your holidays be full of warmth and cheer! Wishing you a new year full of peace and joy!

Fare thee well!

Bis bald,
Till Eulenspiegel

• Fixed issue where receiving a bronze rank while playing a Space or Grid Combat mission would result in no experience or items dropping even though they would display on the endscreen.
  
• Fixed issue if the user was due for a trophy to drop based on a character’s specified level on the endscreen but could not or did not transition to the next game section they would see an additional trophy added to their inventory-if the action was repeated there could be several. The user would not actually be able to have multiple trophies of the same kind on the wall, only see them in inventory multiple times.

• If a user is stuck on the Killi key fetch quest due to keys that did not drop, the missing keys will be added to the save file. Note: When continuing the game, anything that causes a gameplay event will trigger the next section pending that you were supposed to encounter next. Therefore, clicking the interact button on a planet, an interactable on board the Mary Celeste etc will cause the intended transition to progress to the next section.
  
• Adds missing catalyst to create mantic if it did not drop.
  
• Adds completed sections rank to save file if missing.
  
• Removes excess trophy icons in inventory.

As stated in the bug fix section, the bronze medal bug caused several issues. Here is a list of the following areas that would have been affected; XP, Devotion, Pooter Points, Mantic XP and giftable items dropping. If you received a bronze rank from an initial playthrough of a mission (meaning not played again from the captain’s quarters) post the feature update, there is a chance you were affected by the bronze bug. Due to this, there are a couple of options to remedy the situation:

1) With each game update, a backup save file should have been created. If the file was created successfully and you still have it, it can be found here.

C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Subverse\Saved\SaveGames\
Example Save Game Slot 1-Backup-Dec 2 2021 1_55_03 PM-Version_ 0.3.0.sav
(Look for 0.3.0 as this was the save prior to where the bug was introduced on 0.3.2)

Backup any existing saves and make a copy of the save file associated with the 0.3.0 version and remove everything after the slot number so that you can restore your save prior to the update if you made progress. As a side note, you can change the numeric value from 1-3 as there are 3 defined slots in the game as of now and this will allow you to overwrite the correct one.

Example - Save Game Slot 1.sav

2) If the first option is not feasible, we will be providing save files for various points of the game so you are ready to go for the Taron’s block (which is next). These can be used if you notice that you are missing resources to unlock all the content or you would rather start from one of these points. You can place the save file here:

C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local\Subverse\Saved\SaveGames\

The saves will be provided in the bug-report section of the StudioFow discord channel.

If you feel you didn’t miss anything, you can simply resume playing the game.
Our ultimate goal is to of course ensure that everyone who owns the game gets to experience it without issues. We always aim to maintain the integrity of progress, but the risk of these kinds of things happening is a reality of Early Access as we tweak and add new features on the way to a 1.0 release. Our sincere apologies to anyone that was inconvenienced, and we will be extra vigilant in the future to spot these potential bugs. Thank you for your continued support!