Sapphire Safari News

Hello Photographers!

Our Sapphire Island is where every researcher gets to experience unique events featuring wildlife, rare species of furry creatures, and untold secrets. Some of them are too spicy for us to mention here! Wishlist now and play the demo during Steam Next Fest to get your first small taste of our lewd and wild adventure!

Get your camera lens clean, aim for the best shot, and capture the wonders of lewdness on our safari. Discovering these unique creatures will leave you curious and, according to the logs... horny?

Join the hunt for the best photo and start playing now! ːsteamthumbsupː

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

We’d love to hear your feedback!

Please drop all your inputs and feedback. What do you like and dislike about the demo, what could be even better? And share with us your wildest discoveries! Drop us a DEMO review here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3510910/Sapphire_Safari_Demo/

Hello Photographers! In today’s issue, we will be talking about a few new mechanics we will be dropping alongside our upcoming Demo. That is right, a demo. Finally. After three years of development, we are ready to let everyone experience Sapphire Safari for themselves! The date we will be launching the demo is…



Oh yeah! It is worth mentioning here that this demo will be exclusive to Steam for the first few weeks as it will be premiering during the February Steam Nextfest, a unique event all about demos for upcoming games! You can expect to play the introduction of Sapphire Safari and have a small space to explore, the demo is also limited to four of the nine plains species, along with only a handful of the Monsutra (unlockable sex positions) to unlock. But any progress made in the demo will carry over 100% to the full game.

Now let's move on to the new new!

[h2]Photo Stacking[/h2]
In order to combat player Monpedia being filled with very similar photos from quickly snapping 3 or 4 really nice photos that apply to several categories we have created a system called “Photo Stack”. Think of this as a balance change to help with the ease of scoring better photos.



How it works is that if you take several photos at once in the same location, the game will “bundle” those photos together in a stack. When you go to submit your photos, you’ll be limited to choosing one of those photos inside a stack. The concept is to give players a chance to snap lots of photos, but choose only one to submit.

If you move around after taking several photos it will automatically stack those photos together so you won’t accidentally have several different photo targets in one stack. Not to say that doesn’t happen, we will be tweaking this as we go.



When you’re inside the submission window you’ll see the stacks lined up and ordered from highest scoring to lowest. You can press the Q button to shuffle through the available photos and be able to choose what target and what photo you want to submit.



Our hope here is to use this for future upgrades the camera will see, including shooting modes like burst shots and such.

[h2]Monsutra Animations[/h2]
We have doubled the number of Sex animations in Sapphire Safari, a lot of the new content adds more Predator animations, Oral animations, Threesomes, and Female on Female content.



[h2]Collections Tab[/h2]
Now you’ll be able to view the Collections Tab inside the Guide Book. Here will be the collection of Expedition Logs you’ve found and a way to replay them. Along with a space for the upcoming Achievements feature space.


The Achievements will be designed to work inside and outside the game with storefront-based achievement tools and API’s. So Steam and GOG players will have their achievements on their platforms, but JAST, Itch, and Subscriber releases will have the same tracking available in the game. Eventually, we want to use the Achievements to unlock game content, but not right now.

Here is a quick look at the icons we have for the related species Achievements.



[h2]Jamie Futa[/h2]
Yes, you want that girl dong. So here you are. It will be added to the game very soon, it will be accessible via the options menu in game and come in two flavors, while also being reflective on her costume as well.



[h2]Main Menu Overhaul[/h2]
Originally we were considering how Tourist Mode will end up in the game, but now that we have the Narrative Content in game (at least the start of it) we no longer need to have the two separated. To reflect that we now have returned to the old menu style with buttons for Bug Reporting, Socials, the Roadmap, and a quick link to read the latest news posts!


[h2]Other Updates[/h2]
In other news, we have finally admitted defeat against the lightbox bug caused by the fluid simulation in the game. As such (and the FPS drop during fluid creation) we have decided to remove the feature entirely. We will be building a particle-based ejaculation system as a result, it should have all the same features, but it might take a little time to mature as a mechanic.

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

This will be the last update before the demo drops, so I hope to see you all in the game very soon!

Welcome Photographers! Version 023 is a girthy girthy boy, and there is a tremendous amount to go over in this patch. So I won’t tease you any longer…

NOTE: v023 of Sapphire Safari will require a new save file to function correctly. You will not be able to load previous saves. Too many new things were added and we won’t be able to troubleshoot complications from using older versions.

I am honored to show you all what we have built over the past two months, we originally suspected the new content would change or shift how the game came together, but it has been a smooth transition into adding quests and narrative functions. We are super excited to build more after we launch on Steam.

[h2]Introduction[/h2]
When you start a save inside Sapphire Safari you are now greeted with a nice introduction cinematic and quest line. The cinematic itself will likely go under a lot more polish changes and fixes since we are doing something the rest of the game likely won’t see much of. The quest introduces 6 characters. Frida, Jamie, Oscar, Chaddington, Sarah, and Murphy. These characters comprise the Photography and Expedition Teams that traveled to Sapphire Island to document and unearth its discoveries. Each character has a voice actor, and they have all done an amazing job bringing the characters to life!

• Chaddington - Gianni Matragrano - https://x.com/getgianni https://x.com/WetGianni
  
• Sarah - Baku Satsu - https://x.com/bakusatsuho
  
• Murphy - Existential Angst - https://x.com/AngstyExistence
  
• Frida - KumBomb - https://x.com/KumBomb
  
• Oscar - HiJenx - https://x.com/HiJenxVO
  
• Jamie - Mimi Hung - https://x.com/MimiHung_VO
  

[h2]Basic Photography Tutorial[/h2]
The first of our guided tutorial experiences in Sapphire Safari, this skippable tutorial has your rival (the character you do not select at character selection) explain the very basics of handling your Camera, Controls, and Operations.


[h2]Campsite Activation[/h2]
Part of the new introduction forces the player to activate the Campsite Radio Beacon before they can continue to play the game, I know a lot of players lost track of this core function of Sapphire Safari so now you cannot avoid it.

[h2]Expedition Logs[/h2]
The first Expedition team made up of Chaddington, Sarah, and Murphy left a series of Expedition Logs strewn around Sapphire Island. These logs are audio recordings of the findings and discoveries the team has made within the 4 weeks they are left alone on the island. In total the full game will have players hunting about 100 of these spread across the entire playspace, but for the Steam launch, there are only 19 available to find. Future patches will open the “Collectables” tab inside the Guide Book to track the completion of these logs and offer the ability to replay the audio.


Additional controls will be coming in a future patch for skipping, pausing, restarting, etc along with getting the full UI built for the tool. For now, you’ll have to put up with the temp UI.

[h2]Perfect Photo[/h2]
A brand new addition to the scoring mechanics of Sapphire Safari. The core of this is that photos taken will be scored on their contents, generally, you will not score higher than a “B” ranking. However, with Perfect Photos you will now be able to elevate that score to much higher levels. All it takes is a little patience, as the ability to take these photos is set to a limited time window based on what the Creature is doing. Position yourself correctly and wait for the perfect moment to strike. You’ll be scoring big in no time!


[h2]Audio Soundscape[/h2]
All creatures and Characters (Photographers included) now have their full audio vocal libraries turned on. You will wander around Sapphire Island and be able to hear all the sounds the wildlife has to offer! Your chosen Photographer will react to things, speak on the photos they take, moan, and grunt to fall damage (and other things).

[h2]Bugs and Fixes[/h2]
The Mysterious Tablet bug that was plaguing everyone on lower-end hardware has now been fixed. It was related to how view distance was handled in the game with the Unreal Engine Niagara system. We also fixed a very obscure bug about a blinding white box appearing on the map randomly, this was caused due to an artifact inside the fluid system we use for ejaculation. And Creatures should no longer spawn in giant clumps of fluff at the borders of the map! Hurrah! A lot of other bugs were squashed as well, check the changelog for more details.

And now that v023 is out we can mark off two of the Roadmap items for Phase One of our release schedule! Check out the updated Roadmap here.


So many new things were added to the game this patch, and a lot of them will still be tweaking as we come closer to launching on Steam. The next step in our progress is to make a demo available for the public to experience the game, we will be participating in the February Steam Nextfest, so expect that to drop around that time.


[h3]Changelog v023[/h3]
New Content

• Added new introduction cinematic with full voice acting and visuals
  
• Added new character selection portion with full voice acting and animations
  
• Added credits section to the introduction, credits for Dev Team and Voice Actors
  
• Added phone call “Facetime” mechanic
  
• Added introduction quest “Adventure Begins”. This includes new map configurations, character animations, and timing events
  
• Added Photography Basics guided tutorial with full voice acting and action prompts
  
• Added main quest “Maintenance”. This includes guided directions for campsite activation and narrative exposition
  
• Added “End of Content” phone call to signify the end of the Main Narrative content for the patch
  
• Added Exposition Logs mechanics for opening Boxes
  
• Added animations and lighting to Hidden Boxes
  
• Added lighting and SFX effects to Radio Beacons
  
• Added 19 Exposition Logs in the plains region (4 additional logs coming later inside main quests)
  
• Added “Loading Screen” transition to the game, currently works post-player capture scenarios
  
• Added “Perfect Photo” mechanic and tutorial popup, score bigger during key moments inside animations
  
• Added “Clean State” campsite
  
• Cluttered up “Dirty State” campsite
  
• Added Photographer vocals and cues for Positive and Negative Scored Photos
  
• Added Photographer vocals and cues for Sex Photographs
  
• Added Photographer vocals and cues for “Interesting” Photographs
  
• Added Photographer moans and cuming sounds
  
• Added Photographer idle sounds
  
• Added Creature full suite of audio reactions and sounds. 20 categories of audio cues were added per species.
  
• Overhauled Main Map with new Beach Landing area and Rivers
  
• Added WIP Nests for several Creatures
  
• Camp teleportation now deletes Camera Temp Storage
  
• Added Letal Fall Damage states for big jumps
  
• Added Letal Fall animations
  
• Added Letal Fall SFX and sound cues
  
• Heavy falls delete Camera Temp Storage
  
• Added Notification of Camera Temp Storage deletion
  
• New Jamie Hair
  
• New Jamie Eyebrows
  
• New Frida Hair
  
• New Frida Clothing
  
• Added several new standard Smart Object animations
  

Tweaks

• Corrected compass orientation to match Sun orientation
  
• Added hard stop to sex acts after Pink Moon Event ends
  
• Tweaked AI logic during the Pink Moon Event
  
• Added removal of the spored state from post-coitus NPCs
  
• Move Rune Stone to the beach landing area
  
• Tweaked transition for Tutorial Popups
  
• Tweaked photos and wording on Tutorial Popups
  
• Tweaked Photo Scoring tech to categorize photos into “General” and “Lewd”. So far it does not affect players, but it will in the future (sorry if you notice scoring oddities during play, it’s a work in progress still)
  
• Tweaked saving points during the tutorial
  
• Moved tutorial popup triggers
  
• Added movement tracking mechanics to match animations to Creature walking speed
  
• Added “Weather Effects” to the SFX volume slider
  
• Added Main Menu music to the Music volume slider
  
• Arranged Futa Spawn Rate system options for clarity
  
• Changed Futa Spawn Rate default to “High”
  
• Prey after being toxic-spored now revert to Prey after completing a sex act
  
• Added more resources to finding Creatures through hitboxes increasing Focus Target acquisition
  
• Removed locked tags from Creature after a sex act
  
• Moved the “saving” icon to the left side
  
• Added additional distance checks to Creature spawning
  
• Added audio SFX Logic system to eliminate duplicate SFX or overlapping SFX from a single source
  
• Added audio level normalization to all spoken audio
  
• Added higher-quality attenuation to all NPC spoken audio
  
• Reverted Main Menu buttons to the standard version and removed mention of “Tourist Mode”
  
• Increased Familiarity score requirements for Friendly level
  

Optimization

• Added pause frames during photo render for texture optimization
  
• Recreated Sapphire Island using World Partition for increased stability
  
• Optimized Ragdoll start code
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Mysterious Tablet spawning crash
  
• Fixed Fluid sim white box brightness bug
  
• Fixed Animation pop during Smart Object use
  
• Creatures no longer spawn on map boundaries in clumps
  
• Eyeball popping fixed on all animations
  
• Fix photography scoring not identifying Creatures
  
• Fixed tutorial popup’s being blocked by Predators
  
• Fixed Pink Moon animation decoupling
  
• Fixed Music transitions looping Pink Moon Music
  
• Fixed photo score border colors
  
• Fixed game freeze on Predator spawn
  
• Fixed Creature collision with Ragdoll
  
• Fixed Main Menu map foliage
  
• Fixed cliff jump area around the large waterfall
  
• Fixed sex animation eyeball rotation
  
• Fixed Rudier modeling poses eyeball rotation
  
• Fixed penis IK for Creatures with less than 5 fingers
  
• Fixed music override for Campsite fast travel
  
• Fixed Monsutra enabling sex acts without correct genitals
  

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

Happy Holidays everyone! It’s been a hell of a year for team Kinky Fridays, we have been hard at work smashing out Sapphire Safari for you all and honestly, we are so close to crossing into the beta territory (beta as in, base mainline mechanics are all operational and now we focus on extra mechanics and main content). We have never been this confident in our game and it is all for one reason alone.



Yes, that age-old wiggle stick of a word has reappeared. In Sapphire Safari, narrative means a pretty simple Point A to Point B while collecting this and that type of system. It does not need to be complicated, but we have designed a system to distract the player from that experience. Which is what the last couple of years have been focused on. Internally we call it the Three Pillar Experience, three core mechanical systems designed to pull players from one another.

Narrative (main quests, side quests).
Exploration (mystories, puzzles, travel).
Collection (monsutra, monpedia, collectables, expedition logs).

Anyway long intro short, we have built many of those systems already, with the final pieces being the Main Quest and Expedition Logs being built right now. So that's what this Sapphire Issue is about! Told you it was a long intro…

For myself and the team, the narrative is less about the words said, and more about the vibe and atmosphere set. We wanted to show this straight from the get-go, hitting New Game will now push players into the Introduction Cutscene. It establishes the trio of characters (Frida, Jamie, and Oscar) arriving at Sapphire Island and goes through character selection.


Followed by their disembarking and a quick refresher on how to do basic photography, which you can skip if you're skilled already.


This tutorial was a huge pain to get right, we worked on timings, UI elements, UX feedback, positioning of assets within the environment, built new systems, and put together new SFX and jingles just to ensure it all worked out!



Lastly, the narrative elements dip their toes into directing the players into correctly activating the Campsite Core Beacon, which was a pain point for some users. Our final piece yet to be made is the Expedition Log unveiled at the end of this quest, which will hopefully push players into seeking them out around the playable space.


After all that is done, we will be locking off the narrative content until we launch on Steam on March 7th next year, as our focus will go into polishing and bug-fixing the content we want to display first and foremost. So we hope the meager portion of narrative content will give everyone a look into the quality we aim to hit and the mystery of the island to uncover!

For now, we are gonna take some time to relax over Christmas, and we hope you all do the same as well! One final piece of encouragement though.

If you are running into a bug that crashes your game because you completed the Rune Stone Mystery Tablet, we know what is causing it and a fix will come within the next patch. For now, you can simply set your view distance to “Epic” in the game options and it will no longer crash.

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

Merry Christmas and Happy Gaming!

Hello Photographers! We have been working overtime to get the game ready and perfect for the upcoming Steam release, and after much deliberation, we have landed on our exact window for the launch here on the platform.



There have been some hints that we would be able to launch sometime in early December this year. However, we have been advised to hold back the release to avoid the massive Steam winter sale. This will help us polish the game to a fine edge and allow some extra features to be added before we launch. Our ultimate goal is to bring the best possible version of Sapphire Safari to Steam, and pushing it out too early will only hurt us in the long run.



We will also have time to whip up a fantastic Demo to give you all a taste of the game before we push out. Something I am very excited about, as more people being able to experience just how unique our game is will be a massive boon! Not to mention a Gameplay trailer too.

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

So onward to March 7th!