DommeBreaker News

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2468300/DommeBreaker/

🚀 A new community post about the development of Dommebreaker is out now!🎮

Check it out and stay updated on the latest news!

This month has been a bit of a mixed bag, with some personal challenges along the way (including some family matters), but we’re pushing through and making progress where we can! Here’s a quick look at what we’ve achieved and what’s on the horizon:

Progress This Month:

• The final Jitsuko Victory Scene art, programming, and testing are all wrapped up! With this, all combat and victory scenes for the three base game Dommes are done, except for some balancing tweaks in Stage 3 combat.
  

What’s Next:

• The artist has started working on additional art for the upgrade scenes we’ve recently added. For more details, check last month’s update that covers everything we’re aiming to complete.
  
• The upgrade scenes will include Stacy and we'll also have separate scenes for the Control 2 and 3 upgrades for each of the three Dommes. These will take a bit of time, but we’re sure they’ll be worth the wait!
  
• Up next, Hana’s combat and victory scenes and the ending will mark the last part of the base game before we dive into the Shizuru release DLC.
  

Since we like to tease our fans while simultaneously proving we're making good stuff, here’s a little something to enjoy:



Even though there was a slight hiccup with last month’s poll, which we probably forgot due to how much was in that post, we're gonna keep going and bringing those back!

Roadmap Update:

DONE:

• Jitsuko Victory Scene 3 art, programming, and testing.
  

CURRENT:

• Stacy Control 2 art.
  
• Editing Control 2/3 texts for Dommes.
  

Thanks for sticking with us! We’re committed to making a great, sexy experience for the players and, honestly, also ourselves. Not gonna lie, there's been a lot of testing so far and it's been really enjoyable.

Today, I come to you with explanations. No, not excuses. I'm here to make you understand why DommeBreaker is taking so long and will still need quite a bit of time. When we are done here, you will either believe we are wasting our time or you will see the dream we're trying to build, but there can be no doubt that we are hard at work. No sob story, no "we're doing our best, but making a game is hard" or any of that. Cold, hard facts and numbers. Let's begin.

Full list of characters in DommeBreaker base game:

• Michael (player character)
  
• Richard (friend of Michael and crucial to the plot)
  
• Hana (Richard's wife and Domme, who sets the game's events into motion)
  
• Emily, Jitsuko & Tomie (the 3 Dommes Michael has to defeat)
  
• Stacy (Hana's friend and the Upgrades girl)
  

Initially, we were going to have 1 or two character sprites for everyone but Michael (he's the pov character, so obviously doesn't see himself in story scenes). This has remained true for Richard and Hana. The 3 Dommes, however, now have 3 outfits and a 'broken' variant of their third outfit after defeating them completely. Designing these and having the artist make them took some extra time, but nothing too extreme. The character sprites were finished first and have been done since early 2023.

Not much has changed in the backgrounds since the initial concept other than that we added a park and public pool, so that we could use those for specific scenes as well. The backgrounds have been finished for quite some time.

Combat art. This is the big one! From the very start of the design process, before Zee even discussed the game with the artist, we settled on 3 Stages with 3 Phases each. Initially, each Phase would be a single image. Attacks from the Dommes would be related to what was depicted in the Phase art. The whole thing was going to be fairly straightforward: 3 Stages x 3 Phases x 3 Dommes = 27 pieces of Combat art.

Then our brilliant artist sent back the first couple of combat sketches and asked us which we wanted to use. We had a problem: they were all good. We couldn't decide. Couldn't pick a single one per Phase. So we discussed our options: stick to the simple plan and settle for mediocrity or let our artist show what they can do and time/budget be damned. We discussed this for several days and finally came to the realization that this game had too much potential to take the easy way out. So we changed the plan and started having the artist draw a different piece of art for each attack the Dommes use.

Here's where the math gets overwhelming: 3 Dommes x 3 Stages x 3 Phases per stage x 2-3 Attacks per Phase. Suddenly, we were looking at closer to 70-80 pieces of art compared to the initially planned 27. The crazy part? All of the combat art for Emily, Jitsuko and Tomie is done as of late June. Seriously. When we started working on DommeBreaker, we had intended to release it by the end of 2023, but that was based on the 27 combat arts idea. Make no mistake, if we'd stuck to that, the game would be done. Long done. It would also be nowhere near as hot as what we're making now.

Then there's the Victory Scenes, which would be scenes the player is rewarded with for beating a Domme in her current stage. Those have largely remained true to the original concepts. Where they've been changed, they've been expanded slightly. These changes have not had a significant impact. Only Jitsuko's Victory Scenes still need to be drawn along with the final ending of the game.

Player upgrades scenes. Initially, there would be one scene with Stacy in the tutorial and that was it. We also didn't have many ideas for upgrades early on beyond just more health for the player. Over time, we came up with the additional upgrades. Then it became clear we would need completely different Stacy art to reflect what happens in those scenes. 3 Variants of blowjob art for the Stamina upgrades and 2 completely new scenes (the aforementioned pool and public park) for the Control upgrades. These have yet to be made, since the artist was already working on the Combat arts by the time these upgrades were designed. For the Control upgrades, each of the 3 Dommes will also need their variants of those 2 scenes.

Lastly, we felt we had an anti-climax problem in the initial design. As explained in last month's post about game balance, beating one Domme at a certain Stage awards enough upgrade points that the other two become easier. It felt like a complete downer to have the last fight be easier than the previous two. Our solution was to add a final boss type fight after beating all 3 Dommes in Stage 3: A rematch with Hana where she's not holding back. This still has to be designed before we can even start on the art, but we're balancing the 3 Dommes first, so we know how to make Hana harder, but still beatable.

In short: the game as it was initially designed would have been done a long time ago. The combat has been greatly expanded and the art that has come out of it is worth it, I promise you. The additional art for the final Hana fight and the new upgrades scenes have yet to be made. Believe me, when you get to that Tier 3 Control upgrade where Michael fucks Stacy in a public park as she recounts one of her crazier sex adventures, you will understand why it was worth the extra time and effort.

We're gonna get one chance to blow people away with this game, so we want it to feel complete and be as hot as we can make it. Yes, we're still gonna need months, but we're not willing to compromise on this. We will take as much time as we need to make DommeBreaker a game we can be proud of; without feeling like we missed chances or left great ideas on the cutting room floor. Let me also just be 100% transparent: we have ideas for so much DLC content to release in the months and years to come; both Chapters and Girl Packs. We want to make all of those, but nobody will even care, if the base game doesn't prove that we're serious about providing a level of quality that's worth your money.

You made it all the way to the end? Wow. Okay, well, here's a little something extra for you:


Now that the special announcement is over, we return to the Roadmap update:

FINISHED:

• Jitsuko Victory Scene 3 edit + fixing
  
• Jitsuko Victory Scene 2 art
  

CURRENT:

• Jitsuko Victory Scene 3 art
  
• Jitsuko Control 3 upgrade scene writing and editing
  
• Editing every other Control 2+3 scene
  
• Programming and testing Jitsuko combat (all 3 stages)
  

Dear Players,

We are excited to announce that we have finally created a Developer Page on Steam! This page will be the go-to place for all the most important news and updates about our games.

Please follow the Developer Page to stay informed and make sure you don't miss out on any exciting announcements. Your support means the world to us, and we can't wait to share more with you.

Thank you!

Today, as per the most recent poll, we will discuss our balancing philosophy for the game and the reasoning behind it. Our core principal when it comes to balance is that everybody should be able to complete the game, whether they're good at the combat or not. The point of a kinky hentai game is getting to the sexy scenes and art, obviously. It doesn't make sense to us for an adult game to be overly difficult or grindy, but that doesn't mean it can't be challenging and reward perseverance.

As mentioned before, each time you beat a Domme, she'll progress to the next Stage out of 3. Each subsequent Stage will be stronger than the last and each Domme will use more varied abilities based on their unique style of combat. In order to keep up, the player can unlock various player upgrades and power up some of their combat abilities. These unlocks are being designed to fall into Tiers that match the Stages of the Dommes. Tiers 2 and 3 will not only let the player level up previous unlocks, but will add more options to increase the player's strength or weaken the Dommes.

Stage 2 therefore has proven to be much trickier to balance just right than Stage 1. As we continue to test the game, sometimes we encounter hiccups. I mentioned a couple of months ago that nobody had tested a purely defensive build yet. I did that this month. Turns out, after unlocking all the defensive abilities, pure defence was super busted to the point it was impossible to lose. Rather than redo all the abilities for the Dommes, we nerfed the player's defensive abilities. This then required some re-testing of Stage 2, but we feel fairly confident that the Stage 2 fights are now where we want them to be, although we will take tester feedback into account for potential tweaks.

Stage 3 is, if we're being perfectly honest, still kind of a mess. The abilities for Stage 3 are designed, but we need to test them a lot more to tweak the values. Also, we expect players to get better at the game as they figure out strong combinations of abilities, along with understanding each Domme's combat style and learning how to counter it. This, then, brings us to the actual explanation of our intended balance and the reasoning behind it.

Stage 1 will logically be the most lenient, as players are still mastering the mechanics. The player can theoretically beat Stage 1 Dommes with no unlocks, but should have no problem beating them once they've managed to grind out the Tier 1 player upgrade and one or two combat abilities. So far, 1 of our 3 testers has managed to beat the Stage 1 Dommes with no unlocks purchased. We're happy with that result, because it proves that it can be done, but it's certainly not easy. With all Tier 1 unlocks, it's practically impossible to lose.

Stage 2 Dommes should not be beatable with only T1 unlocks. Players should be able to make it to Phase 2 with Tier 1 unlocks and testing has shown Phase 3 can even be reached with only Tier 1 unlocks, depending on strategy and RNG. Players should lose a couple of fights at Stage 2, because this is where the Dommes start to show their unique combat style and buffs/debuffs. We've found that it's just barely possible to beat Stage 2 Dommes with just Tier 2 combat abilities, but unlocking and using all Tier 2 player upgrades makes Stage 2 beatable even with misplays and bad RNG.

At Stage 3, players should be getting their butts kicked with only the Tier 2 unlocks; barely making it to Phase 2, if that. Domme health will out-scale the player's Tier 3 combat abilities and their damage will out-scale the player's Tier 3 health upgrade. Not to fear, because the additional player upgrades, combined with the Tier 2 upgrades, will give players considerable strategic advantages. How many of those advantages you need will depend on your skill, but unlocking all of them should make the game beatable for pretty much anybody.

The costs of unlocks are also balanced around this Tier/Stage link. So Tier 1 abilities will require very few points, since losing a fight at Tier 1 will reward hardly any points. Beating a Domme at Stage 1 will reward enough points for a Tier 2 unlock or several Tier 1s. This incentivizes beating all 3 Dommes at Stage 1 before moving on and will make the other 2 easier after beating your first.

We expect each player to have a preference for one of the 3 girls. Ideally, players will start out challenging each Domme once in Stage 1 before figuring out which one is their type and use the points from those first 3 losses to then win a Stage 1 fight. The player will then beat the other two at Stage 1 and repeat the gameplay loop in Stages 2 and 3; just with sexier content and more complex combat.

Ultimately, we want players who get the combat to feel like it's worth figuring out and trying their best, but we don't want anybody to miss out on content due to difficulty. We're still considering how to balance the endgame, but we may also add a 'bonus' upgrade that massively increases player health, if people are struggling to beat the game. We'd rather add a safety net than lower the overall difficulty. After all, if a game is too easy, why bother putting any effort in?

For next month, there will be no poll. Why? Because we want to take next month to explain how the game has expanded and grown since it's initial design. Hopefully this will make it clear why the game is taking so long (certainly much longer than we initially expected) while simultaneously getting you all excited for all the stuff we've added and are still planning to add.

Let's not forget the Roadmap update:

FINISHED:

• Jitsuko Stages 2+3 Combat art.
  
• Jitsuko Stage 2 Combat re-design.
  

CURRENT:

• Jitsuko Victory Scene 1 art.
  
• Jitsuko Stage 2 Combat re-test after re-design.
  
• Re-writes and additions to various scenes.