Sapphire Safari News

Giddyup explorers! Another issue of our developer diary series is ready for ya butts.

[h2]Humies and their humie ways.[/h2]
So we have done the possible, we have built, textured, and rigged the first batch of human characters for Sapphire Safari.



From left to right…

• Professor Frida: Main quest giver and photo judge. Voiced by the lovely KumBomb.
  
• Jamie: The female playable protag.
  
• Oscar: The male playable protag.
  
• Bunny: For scale.
  

Oscar is playable in-game right now with our internal builds, with Jamie coming soon. In terms of clothing, we are doing it as layers so during the intimacy scenes the player can choose what to remove and the system can remove items that get in the way. It is not likely for v008 that we will get the torn clothing options in, but expect that each character will have a “post-ravaging” look as well with the default appearance soon.

[h2]Animal bonding fitting just right![/h2]
The internal build is progressing really smoothly, with the focus mostly on making penetration partners working with the IK Doll system. It looks great right now, the next steps include making animations work with the bodies and then face shapes.



Lot’s more to build on from this point but getting everything lined up and working out of the box is the first step!

[h2]Expedition retirement screen[/h2]
An extremely important UX issue we have for Sapphire Safari is what happens when the player finishes exploring whatever island they are currently on. How all the systems need to come together to both reinforce game mechanics and respect the player’s time and independence. No one likes extreme hand-holding, that's for damn sure. So here is our first proposed user flow for that experience. Likely to change, or not, who knows.

1. player clicks retire in the menu, with a confirmation prompt
   
2. screen fades, and opens up on Professor Frida, Frida displays run statistics (expedition length [game time], number of photos taken, numbers of interactions, distance traveled, number of species identified)
   
3. monpedia/quest submission page, highlights entries that can be submitted, if an entry exists already, compare the new photo and the old
   
4. after approving everything, the player is shown the familiarity bars for affected species growing and any unlocks for that growth
   
5. Frida judges the 10 highest-scored photos and displays them in a gallery, players can favorite and shares photos on steam API or social media, following this another screen similar to page 2 shows the PP being added to the research level, leveling up unlocks new island locations
   

As I mentioned earlier, we will likely change the layout and maybe even the flow depending on feedback and game feel. Not sure when this will be ready for public consumption but the work on the flow has already started.

[h2]Another staff member added![/h2]
The last point I want to bring up is the addition of a third programmer to the development staff of Sapphire Safari. His role is mostly as a supporter to the main staff since it is a part-time position, his first task is coming up with a scoring system for the photographs that do not reward players who take dog-shit photos. We all know what I mean by that, the absolute minimum quality. We want to reward good composition and artistic focus. This work will span over a couple of builds most likely.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1526900/Sapphire_Safari/

And that's all! Thanks for reading!

Much love,
Kinky

Welcome back explorers to another Sapphire Documents! Let’s go over what we’ve been working on so far, considering we have spent a whole lot of time on optimization for v008 we want to do allllll content. All good, all content, all the time. Yeah!

[h2]The Humans of Sapphire Safari[/h2]
We have hinted in the past, our game will feature a dual main character system. Choosing one will make the non-selected, the rival, and an NPC in the game. The October patch will include the first passes at these characters. The female is named Jamie and the male is called Oscar.

The female on the left is our company mascot Frida who will be taking on the role of the Professor on the island. Her model needed some slight updates to match the style of the game over the current model in the game.



Regarding our plans for customizations, hairstyles and outfits are the major focus for that. Both of which will be items you find in your explorations on the islands. We will talk more about the other options later once we have something more concrete in place.

[h2]The Island Updates[/h2]
What October patch wouldn’t be complete without something a little spooky. The natural design of Sapphire Safari was always intended to go down the path of a day and night version of each map, each version would keep the same unlocks - so if you found a camera upgrade on the day map, it will be already found on the night version, however day and night cycles have different objectives, and Monster Girl spawns. The upcoming build will include the depart menu on the boat which will allow the player to make a selection on what time of day they wish to explore.



Obviously, we are still tweaking things, we will likely manufacture some light sources, like flowers that illuminate the surrounding areas, glow bugs, etc.

Prop-wise, we were not super happy with the current tree look, as it is not super ideal for a jungle to look like normal trees. So our goal moving forward will be to move to a more unique-looking area.



The above diagram showcases what we are aiming to do, the canopy leaves are as designed but we needed to go back to the drawing board for the trunks of the trees.



As you can see by the model sizes this is more in line with what we are aiming for. We will likely change the base of the trees to be easier to navigate around, but mixing in some of the understory props we have built now along with the ground floor fauna will very likely hit the jungle experience.

[h2]The Other Stuff[/h2]
Naturally, we have more in store for the v008 build, new Monster Girls, new intimacy mechanics, and other things. I will go over those once we have more details about how it all works. For now, check out a friend's game featuring our lovely Bunbun as a special guest. She is hidden quite well in the game, so best of luck trying to find her!

https://twitter.com/kinkyfridays/status/1576937900922785792

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1526900/Sapphire_Safari/?curator_clanid=36878805

Much love,
Kinky

Welcome explorers! Welcome to our new build! v007 is here, and we have a license to thrill, so let's just jump into it without delay.

We originally started building 007 to include our partner tech for the Doll system, but due to customer feedback, we were pushing more towards building a vastly more optimized game. So we went back to the drawing board and looked deeply into what was drawing so many system resources. Long story short, the new lumin lighting tech in Unreal Engine 5 is fantastic, but, it means customers on smaller and older systems and specifically those without a dedicated graphics card. So remade our island, swapped to an older lighting model (saved about 20-30 fps), created a LOD (level of detail) system using imposters (fake trees at massive distances), and decreased the number of times a monster girl checks to see if they’ve seen the player. We also have auto detections for system settings on first use.

This should make the game run way better on all systems, and hopefully, make the game run way better on GPU-less systems. Time will tell thought!

We did also get time to add a bunch of really good stuff! New jungle assets, ground foliage, and tree leaves. We created a whole new UI system for the player's hologram watch (goldeneye anyone?), along with overhauling the doll systems and flow.



The UI is now all tied into the player watch, which will allow you to interact with your current photos taken in a session and then save them to your favorites gallery. If you leave a session without saving the photos will be removed. Don’t worry, you’ll be reminded before you leave.



The new Doll system has a new UI and an overhauled bone system. Limbs now snap into place and follow the ground better. Along with a new controls scheme and camera controls!



The new map is also blocked out and is currently in testing. There are a lot of blocked-off areas but the current explorable area is nice and large. Enjoy the map for now, as a lot of it might change in terms of looks and foliage within the coming patches.



And that is about it, lots behind the scenes which should hopefully fix a lot of issues for a lot of our fans.

Changelog v007

• Missionary doll frames updated to new tech requirements.
  
• Additional in-between frames were added to Missionary leg and arm poses.
  
• Doll Value snapping: Poses can be snapped to predefined points.
  
• Doll input rework: Changed input flow and camera control to make the doll system easier to use.
  
• Doll slot auto assign: If only one valid slot for a character automatically selects it, this fixes the perceived double input bug from the previous patch.
  
• Doll input smoothing added: Light lag to imply weight when dragging limbs.
  
• Lighting overhaul: Switching engine lighting version to attempt wider hardware support.
  
• Additional Renderer support: Added DX12 launch option.
  
• Changed engine performance target and antialiasing modes to attempt wider hardware support.
  
• Custom foliage assets to improve visuals and flesh out jungle theming.
  
• In-game watch menu added.
  
• Fixed waterfall shader not being affected by camera distance blur.
  
• Additional Renderer support: Added Vulkan launch option.
  
• Fix hardware detection on the first startup.
  
• Add basic photo management functions. Saving and deleting photos from the gallery.
  
• Foliage performance: Implemented LODs and imposters for trees.
  

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1526900/Sapphire_Safari/?curator_clanid=36878805

Looking forward to your feedback!

Cheers,
Kinky

Welcome back, explorers! Today we have more development content to break down! Also keep in mind this post will be a little lightweight as our focus at the moment also includes fixing loading issues that lower-end PCs and integrated graphics hardware have running Sapphire Safari.

Let’s talk Tech!
This might have been obvious from our Main Menu designs, the tech level for the game is just a little bit futuristic. Meaning we have our sights set on holographic displays and such for delivering the user information.

As such the player will have a smartwatch of the future as their official tool and companion! As a demonstration here is the very first look at the in-game menu tied into the watch.



The eventual goal is to make all communications, interactions, information, directions, inventory, etc be done via this menu. We are making it controller friendly (hence the radial menu) and this will also allow things like conversations and phone calls to happen while the player is moving around. What do you think?

In the Jungle…
Starting in September we have officially brought another team member onto the main development staff for Sapphire Safari, his only focus is to build custom-made environment assets to use in the game. Up until now, we have been basically mixing existing assets together, while the look is… nice? It was not exactly optimal for what we needed.



The work already is amazing and fits our light pastel-like color scheme perfectly! The game has just been elevated to a brand new level!



We are still hard at work for the Jungle map as well, here is a sneak peek at another waterfall area.



Hope you enjoyed a little update!

Cheers,
Kinky

Hello explorers! Welcome to version 005 of Sapphire Safari! This patch was focused on two things. The first was our development team responding to feedback from our customers and followers have given. The second was to build the Doll System into the game. How did we do? Let’s find out!

[h2]Menus Galore![/h2]
The biggest feedback we received was about the lack of game settings, so a big focus was ensuring we nailed it on v005. Now we have built a full 3d menu experience, complete with concepts for visualizations, along with a functioning Gallery and Settings menu.

The Gallery
Here you’ll find all the photos you’ve taken in Sapphire Safari, eventually, we will have a very detailed system for filtering and managing your photos. However, in v005, we will only allow players to view a full-sized photo and delete photos from in-game. You can access the full photos via the shortcut in the game directory still.



The Settings
Here you’ll be able to tweak your game experience, resolution, keybindings, and much more. We have a special “game” tab just for setting up how large your photos will be and how much Futa content you be exposed to. You can turn Futa off completely or, make it all about the dong. Your choice.



We will expand this menu to include a lot of our other features and such, but for now, you can get a good idea of where we want to take this game just from the basic menu layout. So have fun exploring that!

[h2]Furries on their Backs![/h2]
Introducing the first integration of our Doll System! Right now the system is quite lightweight, but give us a few more patches and this feature will be BURSTING with lewd and customizable content. For now, the keybindings menu does not contain the buttons needed to access the Doll System, so please read below for the keybindings.

Let’s break it down. First, find yourself a tasty Monster Girl and get close enough to interact with her using the “F” key. You can have up to three followers at once!



Second, find a nice spot to lay her down on her back (since we only have missionary in the game right now). You do this by pressing the “TAB” key which will spawn a hologram of the position and orientation the Furry of choice will eventually take up. Press Mouse 1 to lock it in, this will bring you to the Doll Menu.



Third, within this menu, you can use the mouse to spin the camera, and the mouse wheel to zoom closer. Hitting the “E” key will allow you to choose the follower you want to assume the position on the ground. Hit the “Enter” button twice to confirm.



Lastly, with your chosen Furry on her back being patient you will now be able to rub your mouse cursor over her and move her limbs however you like.



In the future partners will be added to this scene allowing for a full spectrum of sexual content from 1 on 1 love making to dirty cum coated orgies. Just have to take it one step at a time.

[h2]Girls of all Colors![/h2]
You might have noticed a few different colored Monster Girls in our photos above because now they all have about 5 different variations they can spawn in! There are some that are really rare and very difficult to find. Eventually snapping photos of each type will be part of the Monpedia but for now, just enjoy the different flavors of Monster!



[h2]Linux Build[/h2]
We also managed to get Linux working for Sapphire Safari this build! Users will have to make sure to mark it as executable in the properties tab of the .SH file. There might be a few oddities like the viewfinder in the camera flickering, but it should work fine!

Changelog version 005:

Additions

• Main menu level added
  
• Settings options added
  
• Photography quality settings added
  
• Futa visibility functions added
  
• Gallery functions added
  
• Temporary Monpedia added
  
• Temporary Quests menu added
  
• Temporary Gender Selection menu added
  
• Landscape tweaks to demo map
  
• AI Follower behavior added
  
• Doll system added - Early preview
  
• Random monster color variations
  
• Linux SKU created
  

Optimisations and Fixes

• Minor lighting and sky color and cloud cover changes
  
• AI Execution flow changes
  
• Perception Sight overhaul fixed - drastically reduces GPU lag
  
• Material Search Iterations reduced to 20 - potential performance improvement
  
• Navigation mesh change from full dynamic to Modifier only - potential performance improvement
  

Hope you all enjoy the new patch! I will make another post once we have discussed our plans for the Month of September!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1526900/Sapphire_Safari/

Cheers,
Kinky