Sapphire Safari News

Hello explorers! It has been a while since you saw a patch from us - just over 2 months. But we have an excellent reason for it! The long-awaited overhaul to the scoring functionality is finally in Sapphire Safari, and oh boy is it good!

[h2]Judging Photography[/h2]
I won’t get into the nitty-gritty too much here as those details you can read about in our last dev diary. But scoring previously was based on the distance to the target and how obstructed they are in the photo. What resulted was players being able to quickly close the distance to an NPC and snap a shot right up in their face and get the highest possible ranking - flat out did not work.

The new system is based on the Rule of Thirds and visual elements of NPC’s. So if a creature is correctly spaced within the photo, and has all its important features exposed to the camera you’ll get a higher score. With this new system, lower-scored photos will generally be the main results, only through patience and positioning will you get higher-quality photos.



The result is that scoring photos is very very consistent now. And if you learn the ways of the Third you will get reliable scoring metrics for the photos you take. You might even get better at photography in real life.

Future patches will include another system running alongside this called Perfect Photo, or PP (hehe peepee), which is an animation-based score multiplier. The exact moment the creature puts her lips to the cool waters and drinks, or the moment when their yoga pose is held at its peak. Taking a photo during this period will multiply the results, and this is the only way to elevate a photo score to above an “A” ranking.

[h2]Submissions[/h2]
With the scoring system in place, the submissions panel received an overhaul as well, separating each monster girl into its own score and allowing players to submit photos for any species that appears in any photo. That score is reflective of their position during the shot.



Future patches will include an output to score the photo as a whole rather than the individual NPCs within, as we will be including additional photo activities that require full photos with par scores.

[h2]Lighting and Weather[/h2]
This next feature is something we are quite proud of, the dynamic weather and lighting system we have just added to replace the old one improves the quality of our visuals. The basics of the system are that the Sun and Moon produce lighting for the whole island, and dynamic volumetric clouds can sit in front and behind the Sun/Moon blocking that light. The Sun and Moon move how you expect them to, rotating around the world, creating dawn, dusk, midday, and midnight lighting dynamically.



With the volumetric cloud coverage, we also have storms and rain effects. Puddles will dynamically cover the landscape and any creatures (players included) who are caught in the downpour will be slick with water and will drip water off their bodies.



The Moon also follows a lunar cycle as well. Starting from a New Moon (no moon visible) to a Full Moon (a full circle), this changes how bright the nighttime is during the game. With no reflections available during a New Moon the nighttime is vastly darker than other nights. This is why we have also included a new nighttime shooter mode for the camera.



This system automatically turns on and off and increases the brightness of photos taken while adding a bit of noise to the photo. We will be adding other shooter modes to help reduce the noise later, but it should be great for now.

[h2]Music and Vibes[/h2]
The final massive change we have made to Sapphire Safari in this patch is the new music and vibes of the entire game. Gone are the days of a silent exploration of the map, now your days and nights will be filled with a relaxed exploration vibe, your stealth actions will be punctuated with a daring sting of music, and entering the menus or submitting photos will have you bobbing your head to the soothing musics. A few other tracks are waiting in the wings to be added to the game, but needless to say this will help give you all an idea of what to expect in the future from us.

[h2]Other Updates[/h2]
Some smaller QOL features were added, things as a new Guidebook UI, map upgrades, and a model update for Jamie to enable physics for her hair, clothing, and buttocks.



[h2]Changelog v021[/h2]

• Jamie physics (hair, cowlick, buttocks, clothing sim)
  
• map changes (new caves, overhaul plains landscape, sightlines, cliff face overhaul, water replacement, nighttime lighting, and movement fixes)
  
• lighting overhaul
  
• weather system (volumetric clouds, rain, thunderstorms, dynamic puddle system, wet skin and fur textures, wet environment textures)
  
• lunar cycle added (moon changes from new moon to full moon offering unique nighttime lighting)
  
• sundial UI element added
  
• weekday tracking was added and a full day in-game is now 15 minutes
  
• day and weather systems saved for resuming
  
• nighttime shooter mode for the camera added
  
• music added (adventure day/night tracks, stealth track, menu and submission track, main menu/theme track, special area track, dynamic volume system, track swapping)
  
• guidebook system upgrades (exploration menu added for regional task tracking, still needs work)
  
• system settings back button fixes
  
• anti-aliasing options added to the options menu (TSR, TAA, FXAA, Off)
  

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

I hope you all enjoy the latest patch, it was a whole massive ordeal to get the scoring tech working as we wanted. But now that it is in we can adjust our sights to building actual game content as opposed to mechanics. We now begin work on the long-awaited Intamacy Update! Stay tuned for more information soon!

Hello everyone! It has been a few weeks since we dropped any information about our development for the game. The short version is that we are currently working on overhauling the scoring tech in the game, we have met some issues with specifically how Unreal Engine handles focusing and reporting that back to a usable state so we are building our workarounds.

That does not mean we have been sitting idle though, let’s break down some of the brand-new features expected to drop when the scoring gets sorted out.

Weather, Lunar Cycles, Lighting, and Time Passing
One great new feature of our game is a new lighting system. As of the next patch, the following will happen in-game:

• Weather effects have been added to Sapphire: Rain, Storms, Cloud coverage, and Fog. Other biomes will also have unique effects, but we won’t be tweaking those models until we get to that content.
  
• Volumetric clouds now affect the light within the world: Sun and Moon in the sky can be blocked by clouds, and the density and quantity of cloud coverage depend on the weather. It will be darker depending on how covered the sky is.
  
• Lunar Cycles progress per day: The Moon can progress from a New Moon to a Full Moon within Sapphire. We are still deciding on how long it will take to do so, as a major event will happen island-wide on a Full Moon.
  
• Day Tracking: Sapphire now has a 7-day cycle Monday - Sunday. Currently, this does not mean much, but updates to the bounty system along with the hotly anticipated intimacy update which adds in a variety of predator-related fail states, skipping days, or running out of time for objectives will be something that can happen. Island events can now also be tied to a specific day and time. To help with this a new UI system has been created, our goal is to include a lot of details in the system, so feedback on readability would be very much appreciated.
  

[h2]Music[/h2]
A nice quality update coming in v021 is the music system and musical tracks made just for this game. We will be launching the early access game with 6ish tracks that will bring a lot of charm and vibes to Sapphire Island.

These include:

• Intro: a track for the Intro and Loading Screens of Sapphire Safari, likely to be added to trailers and promo media.
  
• Day and Night exploration tracks: Music that plays during normal exploration of the island during the Day and Night.
  
• Menu: a track for when the player activates the menu or submits photos.
  
• Stealth: a track that plays when the player enters Stealth or begins exploring a Nest.
  
• ???: a special tack that happens ■■■■■■ and ■■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■■■ ■■ so be sure to keep your ears open for it.
  

[previewyoutube]Video link[/previewyoutube]

[h2]Scoring[/h2]
The elephant in the room is our scoring system. We needed to very much overhaul what goes into a photo score, and be able to score photos differently depending on the application. For example, a close-up of an open vagina won’t score well for a monpedia entry, but it will score very high for a bounty asking for a bunny girl vagina close-up. To do this we have created a color masking system, this means that the model's parts we want to track are colored, and a mask is used to filter out what the camera can and cannot see as a photo is taken. This leads to accurate identification of just what is inside a photo, meaning we can start to score photos better.


The basic rules are as follows:

• the more pixels are visible for a region, the more visible that region is.
  
• if we cannot see particular regions we can score things differently: Close-ups of faces can be scored differently than a full body shot, and a photo that considers landscapes applies scores for good use of the Rule of Thirds.
  
• for gameplay purposes, scores will be capped to a B+ unless the player takes a photo of the Perfect Point or PP of that particular animation. Hitting a PP on a drinking animation allows the photo to be scored much higher. Gameplay systems will be added to help the player identify the PP points.
  
• exclusions on animations now affect scoring: you cannot get a picture of a fox tail when they are drinking and have it be considered a drinking animation. Now a character will be excluded completely unless they have some of the scored areas visible in the frame.
  

As for the problems I mentioned above, the issue of focus comes about when the player wants to turn off the assistance systems we have and manually control ISO and DOF for their photos. We do not want to score a blurry photo the same as a well-focused photo so we need tools to understand if something is in the right focus. Hence why it is taking so long, the systems inside Unreal Engine 5 as a baseline do not give instant feedback, which makes it difficult to know the content.

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

Anyway, that is it for now. We will continue to tweak the systems until we can get it perfect. Sorry for the delay on all this. Expect a fantastic patch once it is ready though!

Hello explorers! Welcome to another patch day for Sapphire Safari. Version 020 is about stealth, and getting proper feedback for sneaking around the island. Let’s get into it.

[h2]Stealth and UX[/h2]
As hinted in the last two dev blogs we have been working on getting the UX and UI for stealth feedback working and feeling solid. The way monsters react to you needed to be completely reworked to make the system we will be launching today which is why it took us a little longer than expected to get everything together.

Here is the breakdown of how it all functions:

1. Monsters will now react to the player as they enter their awareness radius.
   
2. The closer you get to a monster the faster they will be made aware of you.
   
3. Crouching, sprinting, being spotted, and entering hiding areas will all affect the speed at which they will be made aware.
   
4. Walking over a noise maker (stepping on a branch, etc) will immediately alert all surrounding monsters.
   
5. Once the monster’s awareness meter is full, it enters a searching state, and will attempt to visually locate the threat it feels exists.
   
6. If the player enters the eyesight of the monster after they start searching the alert meter will begin to fill very quickly.
   
7. Once the alert meter is full the monster will react with a loud shock, this will alert monsters within earshot to your presence.
   

This UI of the awareness/alerted states will not show up within photos you take, so no need to worry about their presentation affecting your photo scores. Here are some other tips you should know about.

• Entering bushes will “hide” you from any monster girl becoming aware of you.
  

• Monsters will revert to a normal state if you remain hidden for long enough.
  
• While there are only vocal recordings for the Rabbit creature, alerting any species will alert surrounding monster girls.
  
• Currently thrown tools do not create sounds monsters react to, this will change in future patches.
  

[h2]Photo Submission[/h2]
We overhauled the submission UI for photos, allowing for a cleaner breakdown of the photo submission process. Simply choose which monster girl you want to submit for and it will show off what photo categories are currently applicable. We will be adding a whole lot more categories in the future, so this should help keep it all user-friendly and clean.



[h2]DirectX 12 Default[/h2]
There has recently been a Unreal Engine 5 update making DX12 performance a lot nicer, on modern machines we are looking at roughly 20 frames increase by using DX12 as a renderer. So as of v020 Sapphire Safari is using DX12 as the default rendering solution. Meaning if you have an older system you will need to launch the game with one of the included .bat files which is included in the main directory for the game installation. Please use either DX11 or Vulkan.

[h3]Changelog v020[/h3]

• Added new Stealth system
  
• Added awareness UI indicators
  
• Changed species behavior to match the Stealth system
  
• Set DirectX 12 as the default RHI
  
• Added improved Photo Submission UI
  
• Improved Camera Shutter delay time for photo tagging consistency
  
• Overhauled island water systems
  
• Improved shadow-based performance
  
• Fixed Hoereno wool patterns loading issues
  
• Fixed Hoereno wool colors
  
• Fixed Hoereno penis texture loading issues
  
• Added Nest/Burrows environment to Plains
  
• Added environmental narrative props to Plains
  
• Added new Guidebook UI elements
  
• Various UI cleanup
  

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

That’s all for now! Be sure to enjoy the new update! I will leave you all with some lovely cuddle photos I was able to take with the new stealth system in play.

Wassup explorers! Welcome to another behind-the-scenes on Sapphire Safari! Today we are going to go over all the changes we are making to the Stealth and Photo submission changes expected to come out in Builds v020 and v021 while giving a few more hints at the highly anticipated v022 and v023 builds that deal with sex and narrative.

Lessgoooo!

[h2]Stealth and Gamefeel[/h2]
A big sticking point for me personally (hi, me, being the director), was the reactivity to the player's presence in the world and the feedback for that reactivity. Anyone who’s played a stealth game would know, that user feedback on enemies awareness is crucial to making movement-based decisions. And that is no different in Sapphire as well. Getting seen means losing out on that perfect shot, or being pounced.

First, how the monster girls see.



It might seem a little confusing, but red lines represent their eyeballs, what they see. Blue lines are their peripheral vision, which would alert them to something new in their space to investigate. Green shows the blockage of peripheral vision, which if investigated is also blocking standard vision.

This is important to know as being seen changes how the monster girls react. Coming into a radius of any girl will begin filling in a bar that will change their awareness state. We call this their Sixth Sense or innate ability to feel something unusual within their surroundings. The charging increases faster if the following happens:

• The player moves closer to the monster girl.
  
• The player enters visual areas projected from the monster girl.
  
• The player makes noise (running, noise maker, etc).
  

There are other ways to influence the awareness charge speed:

• The player enters a hidden area (bushes) and does not move.
  
• The player exits the awareness radius.
  
• The player uses a tool to assist with their stealth.
  

There is also a difference between the player standing and crouching within visual range. This all comes together to represent the charge time. This is represented in a new UI/UX system that will emote the states above the girl's heads.



Once the awareness has been fully charged, the monster girl will enter a curiosity mode, in which she will search for the player, respond to new sound stimuli, and attempt to confirm their suspicions. Being spotting in this mode will very quickly fill the new bar, and once the curiosity mode fills up the monster girl will react to the shocking revelation she was not alone.

Any visual confirmation before the state change won’t affect them other than speed up the state change. Naturally, this is all subject to further testing, but the vibe inside the game has completely changed. Which brings us to our next point. What creativity this has created in the team.

[h2]Nests[/h2]
Now that there is a functional stealth system with a decent amount of player feedback we can move on to building systems to reflect the new mechanics. Enter, nests. Previously each species of monster girl in Sapphire Safari had a designated sleeping space, meaning once you found it, you just visited those locations, and SNAP you got your picture.

Now, you need to not only find their nest, but you need to sneak in, stealth around, find their sleeping space, and take photos. We are also adding in way more side activities, things like collectible items, species-specific orgy animations, and a case that would mark the nest as “cleared” for game statistics.



The key issue is that if you’re spotted, you’d be thrown out and would need to wait a full day for the nest to be active again. Each species would get something unique about their spaces.



These are being built out right now, but I don’t expect them to be functional for a bit of time.

[h2]Photo Submission[/h2]
Now for extra future content, let's talk about the new photo submission UX changes, which are coming in v021.

Setting aside the process for “scoring” which is being overhauled, the process for submitting photos has changed. Each monster girl within a photo that has a registered icon above their head (a grey box) signifying they are within range can now be independently scored. During the submission process, you just pick which girl you wanna submit for, clicking will then show which categories are currently available. By default, the girl who is pulling the focus (the yellow box), will be open.



Which leaves one big thing on the table. The OVERALL photo score. In the example above, the Sheep has a “D”, the snake has a “C-” and the photo itself has a “C-” score. So, in the future, you could have a closeup of a fox butt that, for the fox would be a great photo. For a photo itself would be a C+. Does that make sense?

This is pushing us into the next step, which is to make photo submission categories for regions. Much like how Monpedia is for girls with wobbly bits, the region category is for, well, the regions. For the current dev focus that means the plains area. But the full game will have at least 5 total regions to pick from. Within this new category will be the top regional photos that hold no scientific value, along with event sites, side areas, map-specific photos, etc.

[h2]Narrative[/h2]
So, the official script for the Plains region has now been completed! Woo! The total is just under 5,500 words, all of which will be fully voiced by two main characters, and two supporting NPC’s. If you include the already recorded dialogue for the hidden Expedition Logs (5,000 words) we have roughly 10,500 words, all of it is fully voiced. I would also say that depending on the main character you choose you’ll get a decent amount of variation in the dialogue as well, but some will be repeated. So the total recordings for the plains area is going to be about 13,000 words in total.

Not a bad number! Currently, the vocal work is being done, and once the raws have been submitted I will be sharing some of the combined work for the game. Exciting stuff!

[h2]Aggressive Hand Holding[/h2]
Lastly, I wanted to touch on the work being done for the upcoming intimacy patch for Sapphire Safari. This is the long-awaited update that will overhaul how sex works in the game, so let me go over our plans for it as it stands. Keep in mind it might change as we develop it all, mostly around the game feel and vibe. But here are the general ideas.

Predator hunting: The basic idea is that during all times of gameplay, a few of the species will have “predators” active and roaming the region. These are different from the director AI spawns in that they act more like players than normal monsters. They will hunt down targets for sexual conquest, with a deviation for the players themselves. The goal is first to stalk, then pounce on the target, forcing them into very aggressive 1 on 1 sexual encounter. Here are a few examples of the animations.



Physical Plants: We showed these off before, but they work like traps. Get too close they release tentacles and go to work.



Spore Plants: These are new, much like the physical versions, you get too close, and they spew spores in a cloud. Being caught in them as a player changes how they walk, if monster girls get caught in them they will enter a horny/feral mode and begin to seek out pleasure and sex.



The other content, namely the Player X Player stuff, and the familiarity scenes will come at a later date. This is more “gameplay” specific focused, as opposed to reward-focused.

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

Okay! That is it for now, thank you all for reading, we will continue to work on things and get it all dialed in. We hope you all are excited for things to come!

Hello explorers! Welcome to another Sapphire Safari patch! With Christmas right around the corner, we crushed hard to ensure this build was in your hands sooner, rather than later. Let’s dive into what's new!

[h2]A new Focus[/h2]
As I explained in the previous Sapphire Documents issue, we have changed how players control their trusty camera and created a few new QOL tools to help snap the perfect photo.

First though, a disclaimer. You can no longer take several photos within a quick amount of time.

What does that mean? Well, as developers we have an ideal way we want our players to interface with Sapphire Safari, our goal is to have players focus on stealth, making them more into peeping toms. The world needs to react around the player's presence and make it difficult to take photos, unless they are hidden and out of sight. So the first push toward that ideal comes in the form of a Photo Frame Buffer. This is a set time that the camera needs to process the last photo taken. Currently in v019 players can take two photos quickly before the camera needs to charge. In later builds we might reduce it further, once the player has an option to upgrade the camera capabilities.

These two icons on the bottom of the screen show how many photos you can take, they independently recharge, and the UI will hide itself after.



Next, we have removed the delayed focus in favor of manually selecting a target to focus on, this can be done with the Q button. To make this a viable feature we also added grey boxes around the heads of NPC within the viable scoring distance, this way you can visualize just what Monster Girls the photo will count for.



Lastly, we have added two additional features using an analysis mechanic. A full map tracking system and a photo comparison mechanic. To use both, simply select the target using the focus pull button “Q” and hold down the Analyze button.



This will compare the current animation the NPC is doing and the Variant to the photos already submitted in the Monpedia for the General and Variant tabs. Mating will come later, but the icon has been added all the same.

Next, the NPC can be tracked for a limited time. A new icon is added to the Compass and the Map function.



[h2]Directed for higher Frames[/h2]
The last big feature added to the game is the spawn director, for more details on how this works be sure to read the Sapphire Documents Issue 013, but the basic gist is that instead of a map-wide spawning system with nearly 100 simultaneous NPCs roaming and using system resources for pathfinding and needs, we now spawn the NPC’s directly around the player as the needs are met. The player won’t be able to see the seams of the system which is nice but it should drastically improve system resource use and make the world feel way more alive.

[h2]Other Extras[/h2]
A few more things to note:

1. New nests were added for the Rabbit, Sheep, Deer, Bat, Wolf, and Fox species. The use cases for these are still being tweaked so expect some odd behaviours around them.
   
2. Malous spawn puzzle foundation added to the plains region. More on this later, but you might see and hear some interesting things around the plains at night.
   
3. NPC sensitivity tweaks for the upcoming stealth overhaul patch, the girls just react a lot faster to sounds you make. Just keep that in mind for this patch.
   
4. Running is now a toggle instead of a hold, this is for our controller users out there. No more claw hold.
   

[h3]Changelog v019:[/h3]

• Added new Spawn Director.
  
• Added Photo Frame Buffer to photo UX.
  
• Added new Photo-scoring animation.
  
• Added Analyze tool to Camera functions.
  
• Added Tracking tool to Camera functions.
  
• Added Target identification to Camera functions.
  
• Added Manual Focus Pull to Camera functions.
  
• Changed Monster sound radius size.
  
• Added Monster tracking for SFX spawn on the player.
  
• Added Monster Nests for Rabbit, Sheep, Deer, Bat, Wolf, and Fox species.
  
• Added Malous Spawn environment puzzle foundation.
  
• Added new sightline props to border Plains regions.
  
• Removed compass from submission UI.
  
• Swapped Sprinting state to toggle instead of hold.
  

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

Stay tuned for the next patch! The roadmap will also be updated as we will be adding another smaller patch for v020. Enjoy!