Orion Runners (pre-alpha) RPG Rouglike (update 2016-11-12)

[pandoramail]

First of all, hi, hello!

Updates:
(2016-11-12) - added character creation screenshot

Backstory:

I've been lurking in this forum for almost as long as I discovered CoC which was over half a year now I think, and I was amazed that there is a true ero-game dev scene! I've been tinkering with such concepts for a long time making mostly private prototypes of various types of naughty interactive content, but I never felt that there would be an audience for such things, it was mostly for my own... "amusement", heh. While I started as a CGI guy and knew NOTHING about coding and making games, with years the experience grew, heck, right now I'm sometimes even making some commercial-grade products under a different name. The point is: I always wanted to make games, making erotic / porn games was my second goal, but I felt alone in both development power and audience for such things. Now, with such a wonderful place it's almost impossible not to try my strength and give it a go! So, here's my current project. As it's my first public game (and making those is HARD) I'll try to make it simple, accessible but fun. Note, that this is a pre-alpha stage right now, so no public releases yet. Don't worry much, the progress so far is very promising... Oh and also... I'm sorry for such a huge-ass post! >_< I just... needed to share some things that I've been working on and brewing in my mind for far, far too long. If you're still reading this and will make it through most of it I'll give you a cookie, I promise.
​

Current status (2016-11-12).

Version 0.021 PRE-ALPHA (non-public):​

Building additional UI elements and graphics for the game. Most of it is functional. Map generation is functional. Event generation is barebones. Most of the character creation process completed. Game runs smoothly, but there's nothing fun to do yet. Database is barebones. Compatibility without issues. The UI layout / style is not yet final!
​

Thanks for reading all of this! Any input appreciated. I'll post the story and FAQ down below.

 

[pandoramail]

Orion Runners - Summary

Story / setting.

"We don't even remember where we came from, or how long was it... But show me one person on Orion-7 that actually cares about that! Blasted to space by someone, for some stupid reason, we drifted in space for what seems to be thousands of years and as the time passed we gradually lost the purpose of this one-way journey, our history, most of us even our sanity.

It wasn't always like this, you know? Orion-7 was probably something else, one day... A part of something much, much bigger. But one of those freaks that other freaks put of charge of the ship decided he wanted to make a bathroom stop or something, in the middle of nowhere. Guess what - the others probably didn't wait for us, considering that Orion-7 has rebelled. They didn't even slow down to fight us. I think that they just didn't care much, as we did. Yeah, actually, I keep saying "we", but it's more like our grand-grand-grandparents. Or even grander.

So we stayed. The massive ship stopped completely in its tracks, no longer were the nukes constantly pushing us through the vacuum of space, slapping the ass of our Orion with gentle explosions. It's not that we didn't have more - far from that. The bastards just shot them in the opposite direction. What? It's not like we even remember our mission, if they was any in the first place. Why drift indefinitely, when you can just stop and do whatever the hell you want to?

Well, it's not that simple, is it... What CAN you do, stranded on a 8 million tonnes of metal, wires, nukes and psychopaths, each one falling apart more and more with passing time? Luckily, the idiots that stopped the ship had some luck, or maybe they just seen the first nearby planet and decided to make it their tombstone. By the way, did you ever gone to Tombstone? Nah, didn't think so.

It's a nasty place, but we're working on making it our own, our new home. It'll take more than a lifetime to tame that rocky beast, but at least some of us are trying, right? Some 300 years ago we started to go down there, bringing back resources to make fixes to the Orion. Later, we started to expand it. As it is now it probably doesn't look anything like the original. Still, it has its limits. You can't possibly house a million people on such a piece of junk forever.

The only possible option of survival was to go down there and make the damn place into a habitable zone, step by step, and we had some progress with that. A few complexes, a couple mines, the industrial zone, heck, they even have brothels down there! Oh, you heard stories? Yeah, right. I'll tell you - it's pure chaos down there, as it is up here.

The only thing lacking now is the new ruler, a boss of some kind. Over the years many factions appeared on the Orion, some grinding themselves to a drugged-out starvation, others prevailing over time and gathering not only strength but significance. It makes me wonder - how the hell those junky Steel Breezers even have a hierarchy they can remember? Anyway... as I said, it's pure chaos. We have differences, quarrels, conflicts, nobody has settled on who is to make Tombstone their own. And we need that, each one of us. That's why the Run is happening.

The Run was not our idea, it was mainly the old Stratus who thought about this thing. He adapted an old Tombstone mine complex and made it into some kind of a techy maze with traps and stuff that probably would put even those masochistic Vescs to shame. He called it a game. A game that'll settle which one of our puny fractions will take over for the next 100 years on Tombstone. One participant from each faction, each female, our choosing. The one that makes it to the end and has the most arbitrary points wins, her clan wins. And he'll even broadcast the whole thing to the ever-bored audience, to make things "fair and transparent"!

To be honest, I don't care about why this fucked up AI conceived such a twisted plot just to appoint one of us the new master of that hole, but I know this - if any of us would oppose him and take the rule by force, he would crash the Orion straight to the surface, along with him and all of us. He might be old and insane, but he still controls some of the station's systems... not to mention the nukes. Ha, we would make a beautiful mess of an explosion, wouldn't we?

Anyway... it's time for you. They'll take you to the surface in an hour. I don't need to mention how much it means our clan... no, for all of us up here, do I? Do your best, girl. I want to see you back here."

(I'm so sorry for the wall of text! >_<)​

 

[pandoramail]

What it it?

Orion Runners is an adult RPG dungeoncrawler. The player leads a character through randomly-generated maps with growing difficulty, develops the character and tries to keep her safe / sane.
​

What form / platform is it?

It is a Windows standalone (.exe) application. It runs on DirectX 9.0, so consider it a minimal requirement to play the game, but it also means that it runs at smooth 60 FPS without lag and such (no Flash shenanigans). You need to have be able to display resolutions of 1024x768 minimum. Mouse required.
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Will it be free?

Heck yeah! I plan to put it on Patreon when I'll have something tangible to share, but that's just to speed up / smoothen the development. Patreon supporters might have some additional /beta features for some time, but as soon as it'll be deemed stable and fun it'll make it into the public release. Short story: no $ for dis.
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Game Features

Character creation.

I wouldn't do it the other way (I love to play as my OC's or old crushes ). At the beginning of the game you can customize your character's:

• name, surname, preferred nicknames
• skin tone, hair style, hair color (reflected on the in-game representation)
• height, body dimensions (weight etc. is calculated automatically)
• distribute stat points (STR, AGI, VIT, IQ) that will drive your character
• spend points on skills to survive!
• choose a fraction you represent - each one comes with it's bonuses and flaws
• setup your character's mental attributes - how irritable is she? What are her fav things?
• if you want to - customize your opponent's names and appearances! See how they progress in comparison to you, or maybe they'll try to spend their points on making your life even more harder than it already is?

I'm trying to cram in as much things that seem they would make its use in the game and provide some fun angles on some different situations, or just to make your character look and behave they way you would.
​

Goal of the game.

The goal of the game is very simple - just reach the end of the hellish sci-fi maze in one piece and score higher than any of your opponents. If you manage to survive the onslaught of twisted robots, traps, devilish machines in which you'll be stuck for hours breaking both your body and mind, forbidden drinks of alcohol and drugs, forced injections of liquids or nanomachines that will try their best to permanently "improve" your sexy figure - conglaturations, YOU'RE WINNER! And if you lose...? Oh, you still have some options, but don't your character won't like them... or will she?
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Difficulty / fun factor.

Oh it will be difficult, I promise. I'm part sadist, part sub, so I like when characters must struggle. It won't be impossible to win the game and gain freedom for yourself and power for your faction, but still - you'll need to work for it. And considering that I'm looking into introducing perma-death (earning clone-saves will be an option) to the game the stakes will definitely be high. Mind your choices and thread lightly: it's easy to get broken by the Orion Maze... or maybe you're a daredevil looking towards to it?
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Fetishes.

Ah, yes - the good stuff. I'm still collecting ideas and plan to introduce a "hard switch", which would turn off the harder stuff, making the game a little lighter-themed. So far, I've decided to include those little gems:

• body modification (breast expansion, butt expansion, belly expansion - both gases, liquids and body mass)
• chastity belts and forced wearables
  
• humiliation in various ways
• stuck on machines of various kinds (exhaustion / body modification / mental stress)
• drugs, alcohol, nanomachines
  
• addictions (substances and actions)
• willing / unwilling penetration and sex activities with various form of robots and lifeforms (non-humanoidal)
• elements of bimbofication
• rivalry (player vs other "contestants")

I probably forgot some, so forgive me, it's been a long day. Other than that - feel free to suggest what you'd want to see added, considering that you're even interested by this project. Can't promise anything, but it'll make me think about it, so who knows.​

 

[Bronzechair]

It sounds very interesting, and the screenshot looks excellent. I don't have any particular questions or comments at the moment, but consider me excited. I'll be keeping an eye on this one.

 

[Mightykitten]

A big plus from me is the nice GUI

 

[Mad Maru]

Now this screenshot looks promising! The interface seems tidy and easy to read, I love that. For some reason, quite a lot of games don't get it right. Anyway, can't wait to play it! I'm looking forward to some delicious and naughty encounters.

 

[Kei]

I'm quite interested in following the development of this gem. =3

 

[Burny]

Sounds pretty cool and the UI looks great, too.
Any plans on making it possible to play as a male character?

 

[ZTP]

Count me in for testing on release. I love me some clean GUIs

 

[pandoramail]

Sounds pretty cool and the UI looks great, too.
Any plans on making it possible to play as a male character?

Thanks! I really spend my time on the UI, cause if it's a mostly text-based game, so not only it should look somewhat attractive but also should be easy to use as well. As for playing as a male character - I gave it some thought when I planned this one, but right now I might reconsider my decision. You see, in my opinion there's plenty more you can do with the female body, more fetishes we can enjoy end explore... and for a male character? I really need to do some research, don't know what the player might enjoy best or expect. Will there be enough in-game content to make a male character playthrough comparable to a female one? If you have any ideas that might help - I'd appreciate them.

 

[Musicfruit]

Sounds good, I will keep an eye on it. How is the chance of finding friends and allies or will it be mostly an cruel adventure?

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Thanks! I really spend my time on the UI, cause if it's a mostly text-based game, so not only it should look somewhat attractive but also should be easy to use as well. As for playing as a male character - I gave it some thought when I planned this one, but right now I might reconsider my decision. You see, in my opinion there's plenty more you can do with the female body, more fetishes we can enjoy end explore... and for a male character? I really need to do some research, don't know what the player might enjoy best or expect. Will there be enough in-game content to make a male character playthrough comparable to a female one? If you have any ideas that might help - I'd appreciate them.

The main focus of the game from an adult content perspective sounds like it's all about seeing your PC getting fucked up in different ways by machines and traps. Depending on the player, this might be more appealing to see happen to females or to males. I think it's almost certain that most players are going to be more interested in seeing a female PC getting fucked up than a male PC, but there are always exceptions. Also, as much as a loath the concept personally, male to female transformation is also a very popular thing, which could be used to start the player off as male but then still have the game be about a female PC getting fucked up.

More options is good for the players, but it also means more work for the developer. So you have to decide if it's worth it to add options like a male to female TG mode or a male mode to the game. Games focused on niche appeal tend to be better games and are usually easier for the author to work on since they're doing one thing they really like. On the other hand, broad appeal games reach a wider audience, but they're much harder to do since authors often need to do stuff they don't personally find arousing to give that broad appeal.

 

[pandoramail]

The main focus of the game (...)

Thank you very much for the input, DarkMaster, I really appreciate it!

I never want to even pretend that I know best about game design, so please have that in mind that what those are just my thoughts and I might be absolutely wrong about this. I feel that you had a strong point in saying that most people would enjoy seeing a female character going through perils, as female form is universally more attractive to both males and females (with exceptions of course). I don't deny that I'm tempted to introduce the possibility to start as a male character, more and more so every day, but there are a couple things that I'm afraid to tackle at this very moment, and mostly it's game balance - the amount of game content should be about equal for both M and F characters, and considering that the female body is build in a way allowing for more "interactions" it would be hard for me alone to come up with things to give the male player to go through at this point. "Doing stuff that I don't feel personally arousing" is not much of a problem for me, seeing how I spend years doing commissions, even the weird ones.

If we could come up with adult themes and ideas that would fit the theme of the game and work in the game itself in seamless manner, not feeling forced or out of place - sure, more options is always good! I don't really mind adding male stuff to the project, but having in mind that this is my very first public game project I feel like keeping it "simple" to the point will allow me to complete it in a way. The worst thing that could happen would be if I'd keep adding things to the point it would be too complex mess of ideas which won't come together, effectively rendering the project never fully completed. I hope it to be my first game, not the last one, But saying that there's also hope in the tunnel - that if we don't see themes that especially don't fit with this game in this current project, they could transfer over to something different in the future. I'm against putting every single fetish in just for the sake to have it in.

So summing things up - I'll review my fetish list and see how can I balance the game and which fetishes would go for both genders. I'm on the fence of introducing cross-gender transformations at this moment, but who knows. Another update today should give you all more info on what I'm thinking of implementing.

Thanks again,
pdr

 

[pandoramail]

Sounds good, I will keep an eye on it. How is the chance of finding friends and allies or will it be mostly an cruel adventure?

At this moment there is no human-NPC interaction on a friendly grounds, as the theme doesn't really consider the maze being populated with allies, it's more like an endurance test. But there is this buzzing idea in my head about interacting with other opponents, forming temporary allies, depending on you actions and the clans you're in.. Hm... interesting.

 

[ZTP]

having in mind that this is my very first public game project I feel like keeping it "simple" to the point will allow me to complete it in a way. The worst thing that could happen would be if I'd keep adding things to the point it would be too complex mess of ideas which won't come together, effectively rendering the project never fully completed.

I think that's the most important thing you can remind yourself going forwards. I don't feel anyone should add something to a game if they know it won't work just because some people will like it. If ti's niche, it's niche, and someone will eventually come up with something for it. for example, I'm probably a 1.5 on the Kinsey scale, so writing M/M scenes is difficult for me. I'm including them in my work, but I know they're not going to be as good, and I'll warn people as such.

considering that the female body is build in a way allowing for more "interactions" it would be hard for me alone to come up with things to give the male player to go through at this point

A thought, then: Why not make adding a dick one interaction? That way you don't have to go through and define a new set of everything for a male character, but could still allow players to play as a "male" herm. I know being a herm with a flat chest and big dick isn't the same as being male,. but it's a start.

-Z

 

[pandoramail]

Added a screenshot showcasing the current character creation process, hope it's not too confusing. Most of the stats are calculated based on your main stats (STR, AGI, VIT, INT) and each perk has it's own additional modificators. The player has some points he or she can spend on either the main stats (1:1 ratio) or on picking up a perk (1:5 ratio, each perk costs 5 points). The physical looks also influence the weigh and some resistances, but not as greatly, and can be changed without using points to a certain degree. The stats represented with colors (PERFECT, GOOD, NORMAL, BAD, PATHETIC) don't mean that you have only 5 tiers of a stat, it's just a round-up representation for the sake of a little bit of mystery. Disregard the "vaginal" and "skill" stats, just bad labeling in current version.

 

[TheDarkMaster]

Thank you very much for the input, DarkMaster, I really appreciate it!
...

You're welcome. I always like giving advice for new developers so they don't have to fall into the same pitfalls again and again.

You're absolutely right that sticking to a small scope is key to finishing a project, especially a first one. So it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick out a set of things you'd like to do with the game and stick to just those. The character creation is probably a bit too extensive right now, unless you plan for there to be around one trap, maybe two, that hits each fetish. Go for enough scenes/enemy verity, you don't need more than that. The other thing to be careful about with fetishes is that the more fetishes you add, the more likely someone is to run into something they don't like. Since the player isn't always going to be able to pick and choose what enemies they run into or are downed by, this is especially important. With the current design you probably don't want to be letting players turn certain things on or off, since that would mess with the game balance. So picking a small set of things to defend against would make a lot of sense.

For male PCs, the easiest way I can think of to implement them would be to try and keep the fetishes down to a specific set so that only one or two of them can't be applied to a guy with minimal changes to the scenes. Then swap those fetishes that can't be applied to a guy (say vaginal or lactation) with ones that can (replaced with anal and penis milking). When you run into traps based on those fetishes that can swap, which scene plays is then determined by the sex of your player. If female, this trap/machine is a breast milker. If playing as male, the trap is instead a penis milker. That sort of thing.

 

[BobBright]

Please, tell me this is still going on...

 

[Savin]

Please, tell me this is still going on...

HMMM, considering the last post was in 2016... I'm gonna go ahead and so no.

 

[Dragooner1]

Although according to his/hers patreon it's still being worked on.

https://www.patreon.com/pandoramail/posts?tag=game (although best to ignore me)

 

[lightningshifter]

Although according to his/hers patreon it's still being worked on.

https://www.patreon.com/pandoramail/posts?tag=game (although best to ignore me)

By the looks of it we can expect a very long dev time on this one before a working prototype ever sees the light of day. If it sees it. I was checking out the patreon link and noted the last posts from the dev were dated back in February. The dev seems to be serious about it but it is clear they are working jobs and only have so much time to put into development. That is provided they don't burn out on the solo dev gig and just let it die out too. Either way I wouldn't hold out hopes for anything unless they start posting again.

On a side note.... it is kinda like a Trapquest clone although possibly darker toned than TQ. If the backstory explanation is anything to go by. I didn't exactly feel comfortable noting their minimum pledge level was $10 for this one either. That kinda paywall to see whatever content may or may not be out there is kinda risky for the potential patron don't you agree?