Subverse News

The wait is over - the Huntress boss fight has been uploaded to the closed beta!





Here to discuss some behind-the-scenes action from development is none other than our lead SHMUP programmer!

"Hello again, FOW fans – HungryJJ here.

I’m really happy with how the Huntress boss fight turned out. One thing I have learned working on games is that there comes a point where it's best to let a character's personality lead you to the gameplay.

Since this is a dogfight with an apex predator cephalopod, we implemented a vanishing system that allows the Huntress to compete with the F3N1X in terms of mobility. Her squid girl status influenced the look of the particles we created for this, making them resemble ink clouds in a space environment.

We also used spline tracks so the Huntress could effectively move relative to the player’s position. Getting this to feel natural required the use of spline movement, curves to control speed, the strategic injection of lag and finally...a lot of time obsessively staring at the screen to fine tune it all.

The goal was to make her feel evasive and deceptive while still allowing the player a chance to fight back and land damage once they figure out the patterns.

In terms of sound we wanted to achieve a bit of horror movie atmosphere with the action, which resulted in more deep, pulsing tones that shift along with the visuals throughout the course of the fight to invoke fear and intensity.

I can hear Fow-chan's stiletto's approaching, so it's time to go back to spending all day and night chained to my PC making cool shit for you all to play. Enjoy!"


Download the update now to face off with the baddest bounty hunter in Prodigium. As always, please give us your feedback about this fight. The one thing we're concerned about most is knowing how you felt about the difficulty. We intentionally toned things like boss damage and the overall length down due to previous surveys, so let us know how we did, and if this feels better or not.


[h3]Extreme MC Makeover[/h3]





We recently completed the final opti passes on all the rooms of the Mary Celeste, and they're looking absolutely fantastic. To us, this was a critical task. After all, the Mary Celeste is your home - this is where you'll be hanging out, planning and executing intergalactic revolution, and getting into your waifus in more ways to one. The game's central hub needed to look and feel right, and we're proud of how well it all came together.


[h3]Cooming Soon[/h3]

The next dev diary on the 28th of September will feature the full release of the Kloi and Fuccbott factions in grid combat. This is a massive update! Until then, stay safe!

Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff

- Senior Poonmancer

Posted on: July 28, 2020

Boy oh boy...do I ever have something sublime to share with everyone this week! Courtesy of the artist Luna L, here's an undeniably yummy work of fan art of the lovely Dr. Lillian Margaliss showing off why she's such a valuable asset to the revolution...





Those stockings...dem curves...major mmph!

And Lily isn't the only waifu that stopped by to say hello this week. Please join me in welcoming the lovely Fow-chan to show off her brand new designer dick chompers and make an important announcement.


[h3]KICKSTARTER CREDITS REWARD[/h3]





"Hello Darlings!

As you may have heard, our discord has passed the 80K mark (Horrayyy!) We are so excited to continue our climb to that triple digit deliciousness of 100k.

If you haven't joined up yet, you totally should! A big giveaway will be coming soon too!

And now to get to the most important reason why I'm here, which is to announce the ability to change your name in the credits (£20 base reward)!

I looked at the list and realized there are a LOT of names that we cannot use. Please note we reserve the right to remove any of these from the credits list. Overly dark/vulgar names, copyrighted material, impersonations (both real-world individuals and fictional characters) and racist/derogatory comments are not welcome.

That's why Taron#0030 is here! DM her on our Discord and she will guide you on how to change your name for this reward. Below is an example from our amazing mod known as c0nfus3d:





You will only get ONE name change, be sure to use it wisely.

Surveys for the £20 tier are now closed and will NOT be recorded. Please use Taron on Discord to add or change a name!"


[h3]SHOWING SOME SKIN[/h3]


Customization is an important part of any waifu game, so we're currently working on some skin concepts for the characters that will give them a variety of unique looks for everyone to enjoy.

Take a look at the awesome preview concepts below courtesy of our art director to see what we have in mind when we talk about "skins!" There will be more info about skins closer to the launch date!





[h3]GRID FEEDBACK[/h3]


Recently, one of our biggest tasks has been compiling all of the best feedback provided by everyone during the recent Subverse grid combat beta launch. We're happy that once again outside of a few very clear items that we knew going in would need improvement, the overall reception was once again quite positive! You guys provided so many helpful suggestions, and we've noted every single one.

The programmers have been working to implement many significant changes to the game like installing an upgraded UI to provide range and damage type indicators. We're also experimenting with how reinforcements work and a few other balance changes that we think will really help to give grid combat that extra shine it deserves.


[h3]THE SHMUP RISES AGAIN [/h3]


I'm also happy to announce we will be reintegrating the SHMUP into the closed beta soon. Every faction will be available to fight, and we've even made significant changes to the Pirates. They were the first enemies we ever worked on and we've gotten much better at implementing A.I., particle effects and designing attacks since the start of production. Naturally, we wanted to give them another pass and we're happy with the results.

I can also confirm that our new and improved testing waves are all set. You are guaranteed to fight every ship in a faction by wave 10, and the first 10 are much easier. After those, things will start to get challenging. It should also help our more casual players get the full experience while still providing the testing difficulty our veterans crave.

Finally, we've also made updates have also been made to the Tibold boss fight after your feedback. We totally revamped the difficulty level as well as the third phase of the fight into something much more mortar-riffic!





That's all for this month! Stay tuned for some juicy details about the artbook in the next dev diary.

Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff

- Senior Podracer

Per our 2020 roadmap, the next major milestone in development will be a 1v1 fight with none other than the Captain's arch-enemy, THE HUNTRESS!

Ever since we met the "Squidgirl" stretch goal near the very start of Subverse's Kickstarter campaign, we were thrilled to be able to include our vision of a character that continuously stalks the Mary Celeste throughout the game, setting up one intense ambush after another (much like the Nemesis in the Resident Evil series, tentacles and all).

We took great care throughout development to make sure that each encounter with the Huntress would feel like an intense rivalry and require focus and good execution from the player to overcome her tactics.





Your first encounter with her is a fierce dogfight where you'll be dealing with complex attack patterns, swift movement, area denial traps AND a mechanic unique to her ship that allows the Huntress to take down her prey with puzzling efficiency.

And the gameplay's only half of the fun! Over the course of the game, you'll also bear witness to one of the most complex character arcs as the Captain and the Huntress's relationship evolves. Eventually, everything culminates in a recruitment quest that parodies an obscure yet awesome 80's sci-fi movie and sets up some seriously heartfelt dialogue alongside all the dicks and titties jokes.

Closed beta participants will be able to throw down with the Huntress upon the publishing of the September 14th Dev Diary.


[h3]Fuccbotts and Kloi and Dread Queens...OH MY[/h3]





Grid combat is set to receive a huge update on September 28th.

First off, we hope you're all ready to get your hands on Cuntbeard Crimson herself as Killision makes her way to the battlefield!

While Lily filled the archetype of a support unit with ranged energy damage, Killi is a melee berserker that deals physical damage and is capable of putting a savage beating down on enemies by forcing them to fight her up close with crippling attacks. She can also take out several of them at once with her AOE ultimates.

This will be the first time you get your hands on a melee waifu, so let us know how she feels!


[h3]New Challengers Approach[/h3]


Along with Killi, we'll also be adding two new factions - the Fuccbotts and the Kloi!

As you all know if you've seen the SHMUP combat, we want each faction to feel unique when you fight them. While the Pirates were a jack-of-all-trades faction that doesn't require specific tactics to fight, both of our newcomers are far more specific in design.

The Fuccbotts, just like in the SHMUP, are a swarming faction that are relatively weak alone but typically appear in large numbers. You'll need to plan out your turns carefully against them since the most common unit you'll encounter is the Suicide Squirter - a droid that furiously faps to generate an AOE electrical shock whenever they get near your units.

If you don't manage to keep these away before you kill them, you'll suffer damage from their self-destruct passive. The best way to avoid this is to keep your units at a distance and spread out, and leaving the killing blow to ranged characters whenever possible.

However, if you line up your shots just right, you can turn that self-destruct passive into a tool since it damages fellow Fuccbotts as well.

Proper movement and target selection is key to surviving an encounter with these maniacally masturbating metal misfits.

The Kloi are the obligatory glass cannon faction - they deal some of the highest damage but are quite easy to kill...that is, if you can get close enough. The majority of their units are ranged and have higher than average initiative, so expect to eat some opening salvos when facing them.

Front-loading the damage of the Kloi in a turn forces the player to immediately consider their own health as the most important resource.

The best way to fight the kloi is to get up close and take out as many of their smaller units as possible at the start of the battle, as well as cut off the potential movement options of those that manage to survive.

Since they have the ability to counter even ranged attacks, melee units are preferred against them. Physical damage is also particularly valuable since they mostly use shields for their defensive measures.

The team has already completed a variety of QOL and design improvements for the grid combat as well. The most requested features from your feedback such as range indicators and damage previews will be live in the update.

Another critical gameplay piece that received revision is the reinforcements. Units can now spawn on the map even when other enemies have not been fully cleared, which allows for far more interesting gameplay scenarios. We also removed the reinforcement method where entire waves spawn at once and get to immediately take their turn, which allowed them to totally blindside your team.

We feel grid combat is now much more consistent and fun now as a result of these changes, but please let us know if there is anything else we can improve!

Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff

- Senior Producer

Posted on: July 14, 2020

As advertised, we're returning with a smaller update than last month, but it still contains lots of important information about Subverse's progress!


[h3]Top Tier Tits[/h3]

We've been receiving glowing feedback for months now about how good Subverse looks and how well the closed beta performs, even on lower end systems. It's crucial to us that this quality extends to every part of the game, and that's why many of our waifu models recently received an upgrade pass on their materials and shaders for their naughty bits. We obviously can't show them here, so you'll just have to wait and see!


[h3]Mocap Madness[/h3]

We're currently ass-deep into the mocap pipeline so we thought we'd give you an update on it.

Mocap is reserved for the SFW sequences in Subverse such as storyline cutscenes and cinematics. Fear not, though - all the sex scenes are still animated by hand as we have been doing since 2013. But in order to meet the challenge of delivering the cinematics, we have switched to a virtual production environment using Unreal. Through a combination of storyboards, in-engine shots and remote feedback sessions, we're able to give our performance artists clear direction to produce the performances we need.

I really can't stress enough what a major time saver it is to be able to capture something like a character walking vs having to animate walk cycles by hand, and this process is going to allow us to execute some fantastic footage. Seeing the characters of Subverse in motion doing all sorts of badass things adds a lot of production value to the game.


[h3]Open Wide & Say HHHNNNNNGGGGG[/h3]

Recording for Subverse's script has been one hell of a ride. The actors and casting director are having a great time going back and forth, bringing their characters to life and getting the best possible takes of the script so all of you can laugh, cry, and spray your pants (though hopefully not all at the same time).

Assembling all of the audio for this game is quite the task. We're at over fifteen hours of recorded dialogue at the moment and we're not even finished yet - quite the accomplishment for a porn game! We are using FMOD to integrate the audio into game and its proving to be a huge timesaver.


[h3]COVID-19 Update[/h3]

Thankfully, our production team has been thus far fortunate enough to avoid the COVID disaster. Dwelling in our basements glued to our PCs working on the game every day of the week probably has something to do with it.

While that doesn't mean there weren't some setbacks due to the worldwide disruption in general, we're proud to say that the team is still accomplishing our goals for the month.

We also want to remind everyone (especially in countries where COVID has not yet gone into remission) to please take care of yourselves and those around you by observing proper social distancing and wearing a mask whenever you go out in public.

Sincerely,

Mr. Kristoff

- Senior Producer

[h2]The Hatchery - by Butcha-U [/h2]





The fourth Subverse manga is here, brought to you by none other than the final boss of grotesque monster fornication himself...Butcha-U! His work inspired our Code Valentine movie so getting to finally collaborate with him was a hentai dream come true. Our unholy alliance spawned a 30-page FULL COLOR doujin that will bring a single tear to the eye of xeno aficionados everywhere!

Just like every other release, links are hosted elsewhere due to the rules. Visit our Discord sever and check the studio-announcements section to find a download. Otherwise, you're welcome to visit Luscious hentai, Pururin or Sad Panda and search for "Subverse."


[h3]TACTICS ASSVANCED[/h3]


The wait is over - Subverse's grid combat is here! The first closed beta has been released with the tutorial and two levels where you'll face off against the Pirate faction.





[h3]DESIGN PHILOSOPHY[/h3]


To put it simply, this not XCOM or Phoenix Point. From the start of production, we've strived to keep Subverse's gameplay fast-paced and casual-friendly. That's why you'll find a typical grid combat scenario in Subverse can be cleared in five minutes rather than 30 like in most tactics games.

However, it still allows for the most skilled players to be rewarded. Correctly utilizing your team composition and making the best decisions will result in faster, more efficient clear times where all of your units survive, which will in turn earn you better grades and higher rewards for your efforts.





We've taken the micromanagement of equipment loadouts out and the enemy composition is rather simple. We've also limited the amount of abilities, which helps to increase the pace and keep the action going.

(Note - the grading criteria function is not fully implemented and will likely be in the next major build.)


[h3]PRO TIPS AND BATTLE TITS[/h3]





While we've put together a solid tutorial for the beta that will teach you almost everything you need to know, here are a few extra tips that will help you succeed:

- Most importantly, you can get detailed unit info by right clicking any unit or clicking their portrait in the turn order bar. This will help you find out what type of damage they deal, what passives they have, etc.

- Ranged enemies cannot attack adjacent tiles and suffer a damage penalty when counterattacking. All units can only counterattack once per turn.

- Turn order is determined by the initiative stat, and the units with higher amounts go first.

- Using the WAIT option will not skip your unit's turn, they will instead be sent to the back of the turn order bar.

- Each unit has 1-2 passives that give them extra abilities. You can see what each one does on their detailed information screen.

- Movement can be undone by using the button on the bottom right side of the screen.


WE WANT YOUR FEEDBACK


This is our first beta build for grid combat, so your feedback is essential. What do you think of the gameplay? How's the pace? What changes or additions would you suggest? Let us know so we can build the best possible tactics module for Subverse.

Also, please note that we will be disabling the SHMUP scenarios for a few weeks while we do routine bug maintenance and implement some A.I. upgrades. We'll also be installing new waves that will allow players to see every ship in a faction by wave 10. Expect these changes to go live and all five factions to be playable again in endless mode by this time next month.


[h3]WHAT'S NEXT?[/h3]


After all this hard work, we're going to step back and assess your feedback while working on cleaning up some animations that have been needing our attention. Expect a smaller than usual entry for the next Dev Diary and we'll return to our usual format on the following 28th.


StudioFOW