Shoujo City News

This is a small update fixing and improving a few issues.

• One new NPC in the school map: a girl running in the sports field. After completing the field track ten times, she will buy a drink and go towards map exit point.
  
• Two new uwabaki shoes (in the clothes store).
  
• New guardian statues of stone squirrels in the Shinto shrine map.
  
• Improved textures and UV maps for all tights and socks (better shadows and seams).
  
• New snacks: yakisoba pan (Taiyaki shop and Summer Town takoyaki stall), choco nuts ice cream, azuki ice-cream (vending machines).
  
• Schoolgirl NPCs now can actually buy and consume drinks and snacks in shops.
  
• In the Shinto shrine map, when all NPCs return to the bus, it will depart and ride away.
  
• Fixed a bug with tomato kissing simulation not starting in some cases.
  
• Rotation speed during walking is slightly increased.
  
• Fixed a water gun aiming issue (when used in "tank controls" mode).
  

New schoolgirl NPCs were added to Shinto shrine and school maps. They will walk around, make purchases in shops, and take photos. In the shrine map NPCs will also perform traditional Shinto prayer in front of the main building. This was done to make locations more lively and realistic. More NPCs with different behavior patterns will be added in future updates.



Dekopon (sold in Shoujo Mart).
Banana and strawberry crepes (sold in Taiyaki shop).

• Fixed a small texture error for green school jacket.
  
• Improved meshes for "Sandals A" (all colors).
  
• Shinto shrine map now has music (can be turned on and off by interacting with audio speaker, or by changing music setting in the in-game smartphone).
  
• New model of a city bus (in Shinto shrine and Summer Town maps).
  

Thanks to contributors, Turkish language is now available in the language selection menu (60% complete). All game languages, apart from English and Russian, are managed by volunteers, so their availability and completeness depend on whether there are people willing to help with languages they know. If you know some language and want to help translating the game, please contact me by email.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvCuGRe1yI8

There were no major updates for Shoujo City 3D in a few months, so I wanted to show a small preview of what I’m currently working on.



This is how a new Akihabara map currently looks like (50% complete as of December 2018). It will be released in the first half of 2019. There are no outsourced or store-bought assets in this map, all 3D models and textures are created from a scratch by me personally, so it will take a while as yet to prepare everything required (and that’s why there were no major updates in a while).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQNIxJWWvIc
The map is an accurate recreation of the real UDX Akihabara area in Tokyo, and includes the Akiba bridge, Dai Biru & UDX complex, JR Akihabara train station, and surrounding area. Alongside with the main Chuo Dori street (where most anime, manga, and game shops are located) this place is a well-known Tokyo landmark for all anime fans, and for decades contributed to shaping anime and otaku culture in Japan. The map was also prominently featured in ai sp@ce MMO (which was the original source of inspiration for Shoujo City), so recreating it always was one of my main goals for this project. You can check the actual map here:

Akihabara UDX on Google Maps



From now on this is a pure yuri game. Originally I planned to add an option to play as a male character, but this feature is cancelled, due to these reasons:

• Most people who asked to add males didn’t want as much to play as males, but rather wanted to have an option to date males. This is by far more complex feature to implement (compared to just choosing to play as a girl or a boy) and would require not only new assets for characters and clothes, but deep reworking of many game mechanics, animations, dialogues, and gameplay ideas.
  
• Realistically speaking, full implementation of “play as a boy” feature would extend game development time by about one year, and full implementation of all gender dating options (girl x girl, girl x boy, boy x girl, boy x boy – that’s what most actually asked for) would require about two more years of work on top of what is planned already. So the final game would be released in 2022 instead of 2020, at best.
  
• I don’t think I can keep people interested enough to actively follow development of this project for that long. This game is quite an ambitious project for one person already, and since it never gained any wide popularity and recognition after initial release, there isn’t any chance already that at some point in the future it becomes popular and profitable enough to expand development team. Whatever development goals I set, I will be the only person to carry them out, so I should concentrate on what realistically can be achieved by one person. Otherwise there would be a high probability that this game joins the vast mass of “good concept, never properly executed” other Early Access games with ever slowing down development progress and ever dropping interest from players. And never finished.
  

Long story short, I think it’s much better to have a complete game with smaller scope than to keep dragging development for years and risk having it never finished.



There are a lot of things to work on as yet. Here are the most important goals for 2019:

• Adding NPCs in all areas with different behavior and more interaction options with NPCs.
  
• Improving girlfriend’s AI and behavior patterns so she acts more realistic.
  
• Adding more interaction options with one’s girlfriend (including school clubs).
  
• Most importantly, building clear and logical gameplay based on improving one’s skills and completing dating activities, so that players have real goals to achieve throughout gameplay and can finish the game. While the game visuals improved a lot compared to the first alpha release in 2017, gameplay didn’t do the same progress. That needs to be worked on.
  

The final version of the game is scheduled for release for summer of 2020 (hopefully).

Finally, I want to thank all people who decided to support this project by buying Steam (or premium mobile) version of the game. Every purchase is a direct contribution towards the future of this project. It is alive and keeps developing thanks to you.

In addition to kissing while standing and sitting on the ground, now it's also possible to kiss while sitting on benches.

When your girlfriend is in a mood for a kiss, sit on any bench and wait until she moves closer to you. After that, press action button to start the pocky/kissing mini-game. If you date a pillow, sit on a bench with pillow in hands to start the mini-game.

The pocky/kissing game has a new selection menu. Now you don't have to place a pack of pocky in hands to play the pocky game. Instead, when you use action button on your girlfriend, there will be a new menu to choose between pocky game (if you have pocky in your inventory) and direct kiss (unlocked after level 50 for girl, and available at any level for pillow).

Pillow doesn't have an option for pocky game, only for direct kiss.

• Fixed several minor weight painting issues for shirts and dresses, clipping issue for tall boots (when used with tights). Old boots will be unusable after this update, so if you had them in inventory, put them into recycle bin, and buy new boots.
  
• Christmas decorations in all locations.
  
• One new hair style.
  
• In addition to squirrels, seashells and pine cones now can be exchanged for money at Shoujo Mart.
  
• Improved textures for various road and building elements in all maps (pavements, railings, stairs, utility poles, pillars, floors).
  
• Fixed an issue that didn't allow to cancel a Ferris wheel ride if you had a water gun or swim ring in hands.
  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd_4Yy2pyiQ

This is a very small technical update to remove temporary objects and decorations for two October events (Halloween and water gun mini-game).

Next major update will be a new Akihabara map, but due to complexity and size of the area it will take a few months as yet to prepare all required assets. That's why, until Akihabara map is ready for release, next few updates most probably will be relatively small additions.

Updates in this version:

• Water gun mini-game is moved to a new permanent place in the Summer Town map.
  
• New clothes: tall boots (fashion store), miko dress (Shinto shrine shop).
  
• Walking in shallow water now has a separate sound.
  
• The mechanic of increasing relationship score to unlock girlfriend's equipment slots is removed.