Sapphire Safari News

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!

Photographers, I hope you’re ready for a spooooooky Sapphire Safari patch! v022d is our LONG awaited update, offering new mechanics around familiarity, exploration, polish, sounds, and fixes! Buckle up!

[h2]Spooky Time[/h2]
First, let's chat about the new seasonal content we have added to Sapphire Safari! The Pink Moon Haunt is the first “global event” in the game. Events are a new mechanic based on the time system. Normally, events are “localized” to a particular region, but “global” events occur all over the Island. The Pink Moon happens every full moon (every 14 in-game days).



When a full moon appears in the sky, the landscape fills with toxic aphrodisiac spores, driving all the native species wild with lust. Predators, Prey, Humans, it does not matter, the only thing that does is ejaculating. The Pink Moon global event is a fantastic opportunity to photograph the natives under this new effect called “spored” since otherwise, it is a rare occurrence. Just be careful as the natives are very very eager to taste you.



To make the Halloween event feel good we have included a special button on top of the Campsite which will speed up time and force the Pink Moon event to spawn, regardless of the lunar state. So enjoy being swept away! This button will only be here for this patch. You can also summon the Pink Moon by using the beds at Camp to skip forward in time.

[h2]Familiarity and Monsutra[/h2]
Oh yes, it is finally here. The long-awaited system and mechanics for player progression and sex. These two new systems work hand in hand to give players an engaging system to reward their photography skills. Here is how it all works.

1. As you photograph the island natives and submit them to Monpedia, the species' Familiarity score increases. The amount depends on the quality of the photo.
   
2. Grow the Familiarity score enough that the species levels up from Feral to Curious, Curious to Friendly. With each tier, the species will react differently to the Photographer if they are spotted.
   
3. Instead of fleeing, they will now pose for photographs, and if you’ve managed to become Friendly they will even allow for several interactions. Headpats and any discovered Sex Acts on the island.
   

The discovery tool Monsutra is a collection of sex acts the Photographer has managed to photograph on their adventure. Unlocking a sex act in the Monsutra allows that act to be recreated with Friendly species, you can even choose what role you wish to take during the animations, top, bottom, or somewhere in the middle. It depends on what tools your character has (hehe penis) and what the creature you’ve approached has.



Combining the two new systems we have a unique and special way to interact with the wildlife on Sapphire Island. The crazy part about this is just how much more content we can add to the game, we are launching this with a modest amount of animations, but we already have plans to expand the number of animations as more builds are added. This system is very robust and is a perfect complement to our small team's art pipeline. Thank you all very much for helping us get to this point, we experimented with a lot of styles and systems over the past 3 years, and this one is just right for us.

[h2]Tools for Feedback and Reporting[/h2]
In the previous builds, we had some very interesting crash reports that we were unable to reproduce with our test hardware. To help with future crashes that come up we have built a brand new EXE file that produces crash reports if the game does crash. So now we can quickly and efficiently see the cause of major problems going forward.

I ask that if you do experience a crash, no matter how small. Please report it to us so we can work on fixing all issues. You can find the crash logs on your PC here: "C:\Users\{userName}\AppData\Local\SapphireSafari\Saved\Logs" and I would urge you to email them to [email protected] or join our Discord community and submit them there.

Given how rushed the last part of this patch was so we could hit the Halloween deadline we expect there are a couple of things we need to polish up in a hotfix following this launch. So if you find anything please let us know!



Changelog v022d

• Pink Haunt global event added
  
• Added temp Pink Moon Event spawn button above camp
  
• Familiarity system now tracks Monpedia photo scores per species
  
• Familiarity tier system added, changes to species AI per tier
  
• Familiarity interaction menu added for Monsutra panel and Headpats
  
• Monsutra functionality added, tracking Sex SO discovery
  
• Monsutra interaction panel added
  
• Added autofellatio masturbation animations
  
• Added grass flattening to masturbation animations
  
• Added tiny classification Female and Male animations for Hunting and Spored purposes
  
• Added Photographer jumping locomotions and systems
  
• Added Cliff jumping system, running against cliffs is safe, and jumping from cliffs allows falling
  
• Photographer Audio added for key prompts, sex, and idles
  
• Species Sex Audio added for Bunnets, Rudier, Lecho, Hoereno, Sweedee Caiadaly, Kokai, Furloin, Malous
  
• Spore plant added spawning rates and radius of spores need tweaking
  
• Spored species state added
  
• Hunting and Spored states now appear on photographs
  
• Monpedia Mating Tab categories changed, Sex Sleep removed for Hunting Acts
  
• Removed watch Radial Menu
  
• Removed gallery filters
  
• Removed favorite filters
  
• Removed delete from gallery
  
• Modified photo storage icon
  
• Added Guidebook UI icon and shortcut
  
• Added Map UI icon and shortcut
  
• Added Blue UI bounding box to Temp Photo Storage Icon
  
• Swapped Photo Submission to “Hold”, be safe before you attempt to submit
  
• Added Camera Options menu with tap “X” to view temp and saved photo galleries
  
• Added notification popup for submission attempt outside of beacon range
  
• Trap Plant SFX added
  
• Auto Save splash added
  
• Adult Content splash added
  
• Auto Save icon added
  
• Added additional tutorial prompts for new and upcoming features
  
• Added background blur to tutorial prompts
  
• Fixed camp tools tutorial prompt
  
• Penis size increased
  
• Added Campsite safe zone
  
• Map fixes for SO spawns
  
• Map fixes for SO optimizations
  
• Map fixes for food optimization
  
• Added new SO points for food
  
• Map fixes for bridge and walking paths
  
• New game fixes for Lunar Position
  
• Save fixes for time of day
  
• Modified Malous data entry
  
• Crash Log creation added to base EXE functionality
  
• Added EXE icon
  
• Fixed ADS softlock during capture bug
  
• Fixed player freeze softlock after using the option menu during gameplay
  
• Fixed camera handling issue post-capture
  
• Fixed camp under map post sex spawn
  
• Fixed options menu default reset button
  
• Removed hide player body option
  
• Corrected option texts for clarity
  

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

And so concludes the v022 aka the “sex patches” for Sapphire Safari! I originally expected them to be “micro-patches” which turns out was very foolish. Our attention will now turn to the launch on Steam, and the content needed there. This will be mostly focused on presentation, and the introduction sequence to the game.

I hope you all have an amazing Halloween! Stay safe!

Hello photographers! Welcome to another issue of the Sapphire Documents, today we have a whole lot to talk about so let's just JUMP (hehe) into it.

[h2]The Jump[/h2]
Yes, yes. I know. You’ve all wanted it, so we have added it. Jamie and Oscar can now jump within the game world. We had to make a few mechanics for the locomotion to work correctly and there are likely some bugs related to it but for the most part, the tech is functional and it opens up some great traversal options.



Previously you could only fall off “some” cliffs. Stuff that we deemed to be too high we just make the player navigate around. With the new jumping locomotion, we have created a system where you can just “leap” from any cliff you like. If you fall too far you will damage yourself resulting in the loss of any photos you are holding within the camera itself. So if you want to complete the Rune Challenge, you will need to take the long and safe route.

[h2]Familiarity and Monsutra[/h2]
Even bigger news than the ability to throw yourself from mountains is that Sapphire Safari finally has a working Familiarity system! Yes! That means you will be able to take photos, submit them, grow closer to your favorite species, and become intimate! The process for this is broken down into two photography systems.



Monsutra: If you photograph sex acts happening around the island you will now record the act within the database called Monsutra - short for Monster Karmasutra. As of writing this Document we have 18 acts you can find on the island, but we are going to be increasing this by a lot in the next couple of patches. Things like autofellatio, blowjobs (lots of these), more tiny animations, and a lot more lesbian-only animations too.



Monpedia: Photographing species and submitting photographs to the Monpeda now fills up the Familiarity bar for each species individually. The Familiarity bar takes into account the quality level of the photos itself, meaning eventually if you replace bad photos with good photos you will unlock the two additional Familiarity levels. In total, there are three levels to achieve with each species and they will start to act differently around the player depending on how familiar they are with you. You can have a mixture of species in a zone all acting independently in your presence and so far it works quite well.

• Feral: This is how the species currently operate in the public build. They see the player, the run from the player.
  
• Curious: After some time the player becomes something they want to know more about, if spotted the species will act in a unique manner, posing for photographs, teasing the player, but still not allowing them to get close.
  
• Friendly: Now that the photographer has spent time documenting this species they will allow you to walk close to them and interact with them. There are two options for interacting, the first is petting the creature (still a WIP) and the second is to open the Monsutra and start doing some Hanky Panky with the species in question.
  

Keep in mind you’ll only be able to do the sex acts you’ve discovered, and if you or the creature lack the required genitals or do not match the size needed for the act you will not be able to even attempt it. Jamie for example will only be able to be on the receiving end of sexual encounters for the time being. Whereas Oscar can choose which role to take.

[h2]Spore Plants[/h2]
Another big feature is the inclusion of the new Spore Plants on the Island, these are rare spawning plants that burst with a toxic spore in a large radius around the plant. Getting too close means you’ll be right in the center of it. Being spored turns any creature inside it (minus the player) into a feral, horny predator. They will instantly turn on the closest creature and mate with them. Players included.



[h2]The Soundscape and Vocals[/h2]
We have also been hard at work implementing a new level of polish to the game, each of the 9 monster species and Jamie/Oscar all have unique vocal work in the game. The player characters will say things as they enter stealth, or when they make new observations. They will moan and complain about being captured. When they are hurt, when they try to activate objects, when photos are good or bad.

That is it for now! We have a bunch of other fixes and mechanics in play that we are still working on. But the build is coming along very nicely. Remember we do offer a sneak peek into the upcoming builds by giving access to our Internal Builds for VIP members on Patreon and SubscribeStar, but these are unpolished and contain a huge amount of bugs. But before anyone gets annoyed at this, just know that the polished and public builds all release at the same time, this is only for those looking to see more about the development process and support Kinky Fridays to build this awesome game.

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

See you soon with more updates!