Sapphire Safari News

Time sure flies huh? Today Sapphire Safari turns 3 years old! What an absolutely crazy ride it has been so far. The team is still hard at work building the dream game, and this year alone has been a massive step forward for the game!

As a birthday gift to you all, Sapphire Safari will be 50% off for the next 2 weeks! This will be your last chance to grab the game at this price since we won’t be dropping so low ever again! Also, today marks the day that v022c has been released, which is most definitely the patch everyone has been wanting for so very very long.

First, let’s quickly go over what's new in v022c!

[h2]Hunting, Predators, and Sexual Flowers[/h2]
Sapphire Island just got a whole lot more dangerous. This entire patch had one major focus, make predators as threatening as we could. This is a very big step for the game, as now Prey and Predator classification actually has meaning.

Prey will fluff around the island, being cute, hanging out, and interacting with each other. You’ll see them making sweet plaps, and being cute while being lewd.
Predators are much more elusive, they will sometimes spawn thirsty and being to hunt down Prey that tickles their fancy, stalking them through bushes, until they find the perfect time to pounce. Capturing their target in a bundle of lust, using them however they want, and discarding them when they are done.

Documenting this event will be very tricky as if the player is spotted at any point during, they will now become the target of their hunt. And yes, you’ll get stuffed and grinded upon without mercy. If captured players will be used over and over until the next day, waking up sore and covered in cum. Sensitive photography equipment will break and any photos held in temporary storage will be lost.

Predators are also extremely dangerous outside of hunting mode. If the player is spotted by a Predator, they will instantly desire the exciting new creature, chasing until you manage to elude them or get caught.



We have also activated the new Prev Plant on the island as well, these stationary flowers will reach out and grab anyone close enough. Predator, Prey, Photographer. The flower does not care. Much like the Predator capture, this will result in a failure state. So do be careful.



[h2]AI Overhaul[/h2]
To help add the correct feeling to the game, the AI around predators and reactions has been drastically updated. Prey will flee if they spot you, or if you trigger any noises. Predators will try to find the source of sounds or alerts. Prey will be cautious of Predators walking around outside of hunt mode. And reaction speeds in general have been sped up unless they are pleasuring themselves.

[h2]Tutorials and Help[/h2]
We goofed in the last patch, leaving in old Tutorial Popups that were no longer relevant to the systems inside the game. In this patch, we over-corrected this and built all new tutorials explaining new systems, and how scoring works, and improved the look and feel of the tutorials in general!



Changelog v022c

• Added Tentacle Plant Spawn/Activation AI
  
• Added 4x Tentacle Plant Sex Animations
  
• Added Tentacle Plant IK Focus
  
• Added Tentacle Plant Warning SFX
  
• Added Tentacle Plant Failure State for Player Capture
  
• Added Monster Sex Sleep State and Ragdoll
  
• Added Predator Spawn/Activation AI
  
• Added Predator Hunt AI and Behavior
  
• Added Pink Smoke Eye Flair for Hunting Predators
  
• Added Prey Caution AI for Predators
  
• Added Predator Hunt Locomotion and Capture Animation
  
• Added 4x Predator Sex Animations
  
• Added 9x Monpedia Mating Tab Photo Categories and Animation Tags
  
• Added nearly 100x general animations for general activities.
  
• Updated all existing Sex Animations
  
• Updated all IK hold points and interactions
  
• Changed Furloin Nest Location
  
• Fixed Walking Slopes on Radio Beacons
  
• Added Player capture state skip
  
• Added Player torn clothing models - use wardrobe in Camp to repair clothing
  
• Added Oscar vocals
  
• Added Bunnets vocals - currently used by all Species
  
• Changed Jamie model - new tanlines and hair color
  
• Changed Oscar model - new skin texture
  
• Updated Jamie breast physics
  
• Updated Jamie butt physics - her ass claps so nicely now
  
• Updated testicle physics
  
• Added New flee and alert AI
  
• Added New noisemaker AI
  
• Adjusted reaction speed and systems for awareness
  
• Prey Awareness mode added
  
• Mating Tab additional tagging added
  
• Added Sex Skeleton optimizations
  
• Adjusted New Moon and Transition Moon brightness at night
  
• Added Player Capture camera
  
• World Respawn on Player Capture transition
  
• Several Map upgrades
  
• Fixed Player NG spawn-facing
  
• Fixed Malous spawn rate
  
• Main Menu overhauled to include Tourist Mode and Story Mode buttons
  

This patch was massive for us, and now our focus turns to Familiarity. The last bastion of open-world sex mechanics left to build in Sapphire Safari. Here is a quick sneak peek at some of the “modeling” poses higher familiarity species will jump into when you’re spotted!



We are also in the middle of overhauling the introduction sequence to the game (where you select your character) and making a CGI Trailer to show off the game in a better light. We realize up until this point we have had zero gameplay trailer or anything of the sort, and that is coming, we just need to steamroll these last mechanics before we focus on that.



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

Happy birthday to Sapphire Safari once more, and we hope you all enjoy the new patch!

Hello explorers! Just a heads up, we have updated our Roadmap for Sapphire Safari, it can be seen on the main page or directly below.


This is not the end of the full content roadmap, as following Phase Three are two additional biome regions planned, a Snow Biome and a Tundra/Volcano Biome. Each region is intended to be just as big as the Plains area. This includes new Species, Events, Nests, Side Quests, etc.

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

We hope you all intend to stay with us on our journey as we near the Early Access launch on Steam, we are trying to add as much functionality as humanly possible to the game before launch.

As always, direct your questions below.

Welcome explorers! Lots to talk about today, needless to say, we have been very very busy. Our focus has been entirely on the new Predator system, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt, that this feature will be one of your favorites.

[h2]Time to Hunt![/h2]
Predators will now spawn thirsty for a sweet treat, entering hunt mode which a pink mist around their eyes can indicate (don’t worry this does not show up in photos). They will stalk their prey and wait for an opportune time to strike, leaping into the air and taking what they need.


If the player disturbs a Predator during a hunt they will now become the focus of their sexual aggression. You can attempt to run, you can throw rocks at the Predators, you can even try to hide from them and break line of sight. But eventually, you’ll slip up and become a twinky for these aggressive Monster Girls. We are still building this feature right now so that the thread of Predators extends to those, not in hunting mode, our goal is to make every single Predator the player runs into a threat.


If you are grabbed you will now lose all temporary photos being carried and the time of day will change as the player passes out from being used as a sex toy, all creatures on the island will also reset as well.

Both Oscar and Jamie have had visual upgrades to their character models, both now have tans from being outside, with Jamie having tan lines from her bathing suit. Both characters now have “ruined” alts for their base clothing which happens to their clothing after being caught by aggressive Fauna and Flora. You can revert your clothing using the wardrobe in the campsite.


[h2]Better Behaviours[/h2]
Prey now has a vastly improved reaction to seeing the player, previously they would kinda run back and forth, kinda being unsure of where to go. It has led to some very interesting scenarios where the total number of alerted creatures would include just about all spawns. Now, when girls spot you only the creature who finds the player will react, the other creatures will just flee, and when they flee they leave the area as quickly as possible.

The result is that being spotted, means that the possibility of taking photos drastically goes down. There have also been a lot of tweaks implemented for the speed of creatures discovering the player and it is all starting to feel correctly tuned. We are still working on how the noise makers alert the surrounding areas, as it tends to put all creatures into the same animation pose and feedback loop, which is not intended.

[h2]Mating Monpedia[/h2]
Our team has been hard at work building the new animation and tagging for the Mating Tab in the Monpedia. Each species now has access to 9 more photo categories related just to the new sex acts in the game.


[h2]Pretty Sexy Flowers[/h2]
We have also created a new AI around the Aggressive Flora on the island. The Perv Plant as we are calling it internally will reach out and grab anyone passing by, including players! Depending on the genitals of the grabee the animations will change. I have even had a Perv Plant grab a leaping Predator out of the air saving my behind from being grabbed!


There are a bunch of other smaller changes we have made to the game which I will go over in greater detail once the patch drops. I also wanted to let everyone know that if you’re looking to support our development and want to access our internal development builds (filled with an assortment of bugs and incomplete features) you can do so by becoming a VIP in our supporter programs on Patreon or SubscribeStar. This is only for the most diehard supporters and no one is missing out on content by not applying for this. We just wanted to give more back to our community, and to those who really want to help this game succeed!

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

We will be dropping this soon, just we need to make sure all the bugs are squashed and all the content is working as intended!

If you have not joined our community Discord now is the time to do it! We recently had an open development meeting for Sapphire Safari to discuss our new roadmap for building towards an Early Access launch on Steam. I am going to go over the numerous changes to our plans with you all here.

Let’s get this out of the way. We had a rough couple of months with some of our staff changing which pushed our schedule back a whole bunch. Originally we were hoping that by November of this year, we would have our Early Access launch. Given the amount of work left in the current roadmap that is no longer feasible, so it means our scope has to change. The goal was to launch with the entire Plains region fully completed, meaning narrative, side quests, unlocks, etc. If we were to do that now the release date would look like Q3 2025. So what does the new scope look like?

[h2]Tourist Mode[/h2]
Tourist mode is our answer to that question! Tourist mode is an open sandbox experience designed around letting the player engage with systems without needing to gate or unlock features. We will focus on completing this experience for the launch of the Early Access content and the “Story Mode” will be the focus post-launching.

After v022 is completed the team will move into creating all the work and polish needed to make that game mode feel incredible. This includes overhauling the introduction to the game and implementing a very small section of the tutorial we have pre-recorded.

Once we have this complete we will also be able to release a demo of the game with some limited features and species list.

[h2]Diegetic Mechanic Changes[/h2]
First on the block for a slight tweak is our original plans for Familiarity. Previously as you level up a species they progress through 4 tiers, slowly becoming more accustomed to the player, while also unlocking a gallery viewer of player interactions. It would have been 5 new animations per species which would have been 45 animations in total that would be a once-view type reward.

The diegetic version of Familiarity works a little differently. The player now has 3 tiers to progress through

• Fearful - Girls flee once the player is spotted.
  
• Curious - Girls pose for photos but flee if approached.
  
• Friendly - Girls pose for photos but can be interacted with if approached.
  

Leveling a species to Friendly will allow for Player X Monster interactions, interacting will pull up a new feature we are currently calling Monsutra. Within this new UI panel, the player can select from any sexual animations they have discovered in the game. To discover a new sex pose, you simply take a photo of it for the first time, much like how species discovery works.

[h2]A Better Sandbox Experience[/h2]
Core functionality aside like tutorialisation and such, the goal is to take some of the elements we wanted to build in later patches and push them into the new Tourist Mode dev cycle. I’ll quickly list off a few of the stuff we will be building ahead of schedule:

• Nests - Each species has its nest location. Activating Radio Beacons will uncover these areas as a point of interest for the player. Exploring inside during the species' sleeping hours will be a small stealth puzzle to navigate. Exploring until the end, the player can witness a very unique sex act performed by the species which will unlock inside the Monsutra.
  
• New Tools and Toys - Found inside the player campsite is a tool chest, filled with new gadgets and toys to use on the wildlife. This includes Sex Toys to throw around, Toys like beach balls, or teddy bears, Bait to lure particular species around, and Fake bushes to help with stealth and sneaking.
  
• Map Functionality - Teleporting to camp polishes for fast travel and the like.
  
• Motion Capture Animation Overhaul - We suit up and add a couple hundred new global animations to the game.
  
• Perfect Photo Functionality - Tied in with the new mocap animations, scoring photos gets a huge boost for taking the photo at the right time!
  
• Polish - New loading screens, Detailed save file information, Animation tag overhaul to stop duping.
  

And loads more! We really hope that our decision to focus on the quality of the first launched product instead of rushing to build the content for Early Access won’t rub too many the wrong way. Our goals for the narrative won’t ever change, we feel the pressure from you all to get this game on Steam sooner rather than later, so we needed to compromise to make that happen.

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

Finally as a spoiler for something fun that grew from our Discord meeting, here is a new slime creature we will be adding to the game as a way to “elevate” some of the animations without spawning in something too random. Why lean on a magical rock, when you can lean on a squishy little guy who likes milk?

Welcome explorers! Yeah I know, dev times for this “micro patch” were f’n brutal. We sincerely apologize to those expecting a quicker turnaround. We had a lot happen during this patch, stuff like lead staff leaving and new staff coming in, moving houses, funerals, etc. Sometimes real life just kicks you in the gonads. However, the dev part of the patch also threw us into a loop, the proposed timeframe for updating the doll system to its final form was 2-3 weeks. In the end, that whole process, including the debugging and tweaking took 3 months.

[h2]Time Well Spent[/h2]
So why did it take so long? The older doll system was pretty unique, for one sex pose - let's take doggy in this example - required a start/intro, a slow, medium, and fast core loop, a finisher, and post-finisher animations for each pose, for each participant. The game using its tracking and needs data for each NPC would then choose which animations to play based on their stamina, their lust, etc. It was stupidly complicated and created a lot of tech debt and jank. Mons would not be synced correctly, or they would not animate long enough for player discovery.

Instead, we ripped all that away (including the NPC needs), and built the sex system off the back of the Smart Object system. Now when a monster spawns, she is given 3 tasks, she seeks one out and does it. If someone enters a sex Smart Object, another mon is pushed to seek out and join, and voila, the sex magically works, jank-free. The removal of the old system required a lot of cleaning, and the new system needed a lot of tweaking. Some interesting examples we had to contend with during development include:

• Too many girls wanted to get some fuckywucky and it made the world very underpopulated.
  
• Too many girls are obsessed with coming over and over.
  
• The bees are too horny and ruining threesomes by overcrowding.
  
• Girls sliding around the world jerking off.
  
• Girls gain the power of flight after they cum.
  

17 unique sex animations are being added to the game which include Female x Female, Futa x Female/Futa, and Futa x Tiny (bee). It is worth pointing out that while we do support the removal of all Futa content from the game your play experience will be vastly different from the intended design. For the best results please use Medium or High Futa spawn rates.


It is also far from being completed as well, we made the unfortunate discovery that because our generic animation rig is too different from what the monster girls look like, every animation is off by like 10 centimeters, so penetrations are not what we intend for them to be. The solution for this is to redo all the animations with a monster girl-sized animation rig instead, so that will be pushed into the next patch.

[h2]New Features for v022b[/h2]
After all the doll system overhaul, there is a lot more added to the game that is worth discussing. The first big addition is the new fluid cum system. Now when the ladies goo they actually goo! Naturally, we have a few different ways this can impact the performance of your computer as it is a fluid simulation that mathematically sticks to models - very difficult to build that - it will shoot from the right place, cover whatever it lands on, combine, and stick to models. If you turn off the fluids to save GPU power you will instead get a sprite spray which, won’t stick to much, but it still looks nice. Especially the Bee girl, she can get absolutely covered in batter.


We also fixed the floating hand jerk-off issue as well using an IK system which directs the tip of dongs into the right holes/hands. However, because model sizes are slightly different the actual execution will vary. We plan to normalize all the models going forward so these slight deviations won't be an issue.



Grass now dynamically flattens around sex acts in the game, we might need to come back to this as it can look a little wonky at times when you zoom in from a distance but the flattening is very useful for taking clearer shots when you’re on the same level as your subjects.


Sex now has sound! Plaps, slaps, penetrations, and ejaculations are now dynamically added to the audio soundscapes, you will be able to find sex happening around you just by keeping your ears open. We have also added a temp vocal track to the sex as well, which is mostly used to give us an idea of what exactly needs to be recorded via actresses as it is also a dynamic system.

Plus a bunch more smaller fixes!

• Jamie has a brand new locomotion which makes her far more feminine.
  
• Monster Girls will not be aware of the player's presence while they are asleep, they will wake up if you make noise or startle another girl.
  
• Upgraded the engine to Unreal v5.4.2.
  
• Corrected a boatload of shapekey errors for Monster Girl faces.
  
• Updated lighting models to improve nighttime visibility.
  
• Map light sources and props have been overhauled.
  

And that about sums up everything in this “micro patch”. Our next focus should include a lot more interesting gameplay mechanics as we will be turning our attention to the Predator AI system and how that flows into the current gameplay. Here is a short list of our next patch goals.

• Mating tab for Monpedia for all species.
  
• Predator AI system.
  
• Predator spawning system.
  
• Predator capture and animation system.
  
• Failure state for capture.
  
• Torn clothing system and dripping fluids.
  
• Temp action on wardrobe to replace torn clothing.
  
• Implement tentacle plant capture and penetration animations along with bee and activation AI.
  

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

I hope you all enjoy the patch! Be sure to send in feedback if ya got it!