Beta Branch - v027.3307

[p]Greetings my photo snapperinos! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Years! [/p][p]2025 has been crazy for Sapphire Safari, we managed to have a fantastic release, we won two awards Best Monster Game 2025 from Sex Positive Gaming and Top Furry Game 2025 from tophouse adult game awards. We even managed to clear the secret special chocolate tier from Steam and were gifted a box of really nice French treats! We even have a best-selling plushie connected to the game! [/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]I, personally, had some goals that we absolutely smashed to bits. I wanted to get to 1000 reviews on Steam, which we nailed within the first three months (crazy). Our player base is closing in on 1.7 million players now thanks in part to the breathtaking people at GOG and their support to fight back against censorship. Yours truly was even able to standup in Australian parliament against the overbearing control credit card companies have over what customers can and cannot own. It was a year of ups and downs. We lost our ability to sell on numerous stores, but Steam has been very supportive to our game and it makes building new things that much easier.
[/p][p]But enough yap, let’s get to the plap.
[/p][p]Since the drop of v027 in September we have been working around the clock to push out the next big features for Sapphire. The team originally wanted to focus on the new AI Lifestyle Director but figured that the camera upgrade system would be done in a faster time so we could get another update in before the end of the year. And that, ah… kinda worked out? We were able to get in version one of several new features, keep in mind these are all the most basic implementations of the mechanics, simply because we underestimated the complexity. It cascaded into countless new changes and overhauls. One example was that to make new camera lenses we first needed to recreate the photo-saving system so FOV could be applied to images the engine can save. Originally it was using a screenshot tool inside Unreal, but not being able to apply filters, FOV, etc., means we outgrew how simple it was. Hence, needing time to build our own version.
[/p][p]So what did we add?
[/p][h2]Workbench & Shop[/h2][p]The new workbench system allows photographers to customize how their cameras perform in Sapphire Safari, you simply apply whatever modules you want to the inside of your camera and the system will take on the new enhancements. Version one of the bench only has a handful of options to choose from and the associated tiers for each upgrade (because, yes you can stack em). Space is limited inside the camera itself so once the system is fully designed and implemented you’ll need to make choices on what items you want installed to best suit your current needs. 
[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Obviously the art for all this is temporary, and once we find a nice design for it all we will be changing it all to suit what we require. So come in looking at this with eyes of understanding heh. Having said that if you have a cool idea for an upgrade for the camera systems you’d like to see, we wanna hear it! As part of this upgrade we had to make the baseline camera pretty crap compared to how you used to interact with it, but quickly upgrading the camera will make it feel very very powerful and responsive.
[/p][p]The shop is the next part of the equation here, currently it is only a “visibility” system but the core of it is to allow players a progression mechanic. See, when a player increases the Research Level of their current save, they will gain money. Every few levels, they will unlock a new shop tier, which includes all the tools, camera upgrades, and fun items the players can use and equip in the game world. For the purposes of testing this new system we have unlocked all modules for purchasing in the shop, but in the game proper you’ll unlock shop tiers when the Research Level increases to a particular point.
[/p][p][/p][p]Right now we are entirely focused on the camera upgrade systems and modules. The future is gonna be a lot of fun with this system with things like the lust grenade having blueprint requirements to unlock the purchase option (harvesting 5 spore plants for example). The shop also adds another element to the completion percentage of Sapphire Safari, with items being purchased counting towards that delightful 100% rating. You can see this via the Guide Book tab.
[/p][p][/p][h2]Camera Options[/h2][p]Part of the systems we needed to build was a better UX loop for enabling and disabling/hot-swapping camera options and tech. Stuff like being able to swap your lens on the fly or turning off and on nighttime lighting systems like flash photography (yes we have flash photography now). You can do all this via the camera options menu, which now has its button on screen to show it easier!
[/p][p][/p][h2]Bounties[/h2][p]You have your shop, but now you need to make money. Introducing the next new gameplay system, Bounties! This is a daily, repeatable photography miniquest focused purely on generating cash money. The goal is simple. Every new day at 9am in the game, you’ll receive a phonecall from the elusive Mr. Hands (played by the wonderful VoidSlut https://x.com/VoidSlutVA) who will present you with three new quests. These are photography bounties related to sex and adult imagery—take a photo of Bunets jolkin it as an example. [/p][p][/p][p]Currently, the system has a LOT of temp assets and such in there, including the bounties themselves. The final goal is to make the system randomly generate the bounties purely on what the player has discovered and make the system generic enough that it won’t be a hunt for specific photos like the Monpedia is. Ideally it would be doing . Lots of work and testing will need to go into it.[/p][p][/p][h2]Model Resizing[/h2][p]As you likely know, the dev team has been doing numerous things to solve models not correctly interacting with each other during sex animations, either clipping or odd faces etc. We tried solving it with IK systems and procedural penis generation, but what should have been a quick fix ended up making far more work than our small team wanted to handle. The answer to this was two fold, first, we hired renowned animator Wigfritter https://x.com/Wigfritter to help bolster our team. Second, we needed to redesign our animation pipeline. The first step to that was making sure all the models are the same size in terms of animation rig being used. Meaning all the models needed to be reworked. Here is the breakdown.[/p][p][/p][p]1 - Resize all rigs and models (including photographers).[/p][p]2 - Remaster all meshes to include missing features (buttholes, eye frames, etc).[/p][p]3 - Create a new standard animation rig that includes a penis.[/p][p]4 - Remaster all sex animations with a focus on penetration and making sure orifices animate correctly around penis models.[/p][p][/p][p]With the help of our new animator and our current team we are now on part four of the above breakdown. The animations will take a bit to remaster but we are already working on it and the success is great![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]Last Word[/h2][p]This is all taking place on the beta branch of Sapphire Safari, this will likely be pretty unstable so please enjoy at your own risk. Don’t expect your save files to come out of this alive, but we are doing all we can to not have everyone restart all the time (even on the beta). The team and I thought it was more important to show our progress and to get feedback on systems earlier. So, I hope you can all look past the very “in-dev” aspect of the build and see what we are aiming to achieve with it all. [/p][p][/p][h3]Changelog v027.3504[/h3][p]Major Changes[/p]

• [p]added shop system v1[/p]
• [p]added shop console to secondary tent in campsite[/p]
• [p]added inventory tracking to guide book (for completion percentage)[/p]
• [p]added camera upgrade system v1[/p]
• [p]added workbench to secondary tent in campsite[/p]
• [p]added camera options ui separation from remote submission ui[/p]
• [p]added lens toggle folder to camera options[/p]
• [p]added focus toggle folder to camera options [/p]
• [p]added upgrades folder to camera options[/p]
• [p]reconfigured camera systems to be tied into camera upgrades at the workbench[/p]
• [p]added focus level ui to camera ads[/p]
• [p]added manual focus module[/p]
• [p]added quick auto focus module[/p]
• [p]added flash lighting mode[/p]
• [p]added fisheye lens[/p]
• [p]added wide-angle lens[/p]
• [p]added dirty lens[/p]
• [p]added spectral camera filter (required for photographing Malous)[/p]
• [p]added temp photo storage increase module (tiers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)[/p]
• [p]added frame buffer increase module (tiers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)[/p]
• [p]added image processing speed increase module (tiers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)[/p]
• [p]added bounty system v1[/p]
• [p]added bounty board pc to secondary tent in campsite[/p]
• [p]added bounty ui tracking system[/p]
• [p]added Mr. Hands call and vocals for new bounty [/p]
• [p]added “money” to bounty system[/p]
• [p]added “money” to achievement rewards[/p]
• [p]added “money” to expedition log rewards[/p]
• [p]added “money” to research level increase rewards
  [/p]

[p]General Additions[/p]

• [p]resized all model meshes for upcoming animation overhaul[/p]
• [p]added breast bones to Caiadaly[/p]
• [p]added buttholes to all model meshes for upcoming animation overhaul[/p]
• [p]fixed model face shapes for upcoming animation overhaul[/p]
• [p]added 19 new general slot smart objects and animations[/p]
• [p]rebuilt image saving system to enable fov changes on images, photos also match ads ui better[/p]
• [p]updated ingame tutorials for Shop, Workbench, and Bounty Board[/p]
• [p]added DLSS video support inside game options[/p]
• [p]added FRS video support inside game options[/p]
• [p]added XeSS video support inside game options[/p]

[p][/p][p]Bug Fixes[/p]

• [p]fixed small bushes not hiding photographers[/p]
• [p]fixed music player pausing and breaking on tracks[/p]
• [p]fixed music player restarting tracks after pauses[/p]
• [p]fixed LOD specs for plant trap ghosting[/p]
• [p]fixed clipping issues during new game introduction[/p]

[p][/p][h2]Da Future[/h2][p]Thanks for reading this far, it was a long one, I know. So one final reward! Here are our plans for the next couple patches.
[/p]

• [p]polishing Shop, Workbench, Bounty systems.[/p]
• [p]adding more reworked sex animations.[/p]
• [p]adding in male variant models of the island natives.[/p]
• [p]adding in v1 of the photographer customization system.[/p]
• [p]and finally, starting work on the long-haul AI Lifestyle Director mechanic.[/p]

[p][/p][p]Here is a sneak peek of the photographer customization system, the image shows the extremes each slider will have, so you can tweak your preferences here.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]See you all in the new year! Bring it on 2026![/p]