Prototype

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A screenshot showing the interaction system on one of the early builds (ver 2) of the game.

The Kemoverse game is a realization of part of the Kemoverse and the pre-Tuner story as a playable game.

The basic concept is an interactive, story-driven adventure/freeroam type game that tells the imminent story leading up to Tuner: Kat and Mika starting college together and gaining friends and enemies. The primary objective will be story progression, of which areas and in-game features are unlocked for free travel. Focus will also be on interaction with the world, such as moving things around, dressing up, or simply walking around.

V1 (Uni of Furries)

Reference sheet 1.

Reference sheet 2.

First version of the game featured a very rough outline of the desired interface, gameplay, environment and a player model. It was my first foray in to Unity and Blender so the models were simplistic. At this stage, I had a vague concept of the scenes, items and features that should be available, but they lacked a common theme except for the fact that this all took place at a school. The school idea stems from an earlier project that I had worked on many years back -- Furry Summer School, a renpy-based visual novel with drawn images. The FSS project failed beacuse I got overwhelmed by the amount of work needed to be done.

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  The very first 3D Paru to ever exist. (April 2017)

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  Testing Unity integration

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  Rough concept design of interface and model. (October 2017)

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  Indoors

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  Outdoors

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  Bookcases and computers (November 2017)

Around this time, I realized I needed a stricter and more coherent reference sheet to base my ideas of, so I tried to specify the idea on canvas. The basis for the game was born -- it would be a social online experience, backed by a visual novel for progression. I determined for sure that it would feature the Tuner cast as the story. With the help of User:ForwardIterator, a basic cat model took shape based on three planned races: Felinae, Canidae and Doragne. However, Forward went offline for quite some time with an unfinished model, which I ended up modifying to my needs (adding eyes, texturing, etc).

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  Forward's model with my clothes.

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  Comparison with the (fucked up) original model (December 2017)

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  Test import to VRChat (January 2018)

I kept adding various items and special effects over the course of a month, eventually adding up to two populated rooms. The code starting to suffer since I had not anticipated this direction in development, so I decided to redo everything in one new project.

V2 (Kemoversity)

For this version, I re-imported everything in to a clean workspace and made sure everything looked and behaved consistent. I polished the look, adding a bit more details, and generally just streamlined everything. I also developed more on the UI, adding loading screens and other useful elements. Paru model got a few different hairstyles and further improvements on the look. The outside world was dropped for the time being. Other than that, I did not introduce many new scripts or items, so it's fairly empty.

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  Re-import of every item.

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  Looking good. (March 22)

V3 (Vara)

Current status.

In the summer, I got busy with life/school and dropped this project in favor of others. However, in December 2018, I took a look at my project once again and decided that it needed yet another reboot due to the new Prefab workflow in Unity that fundamentally changes how you create premade assets. The Editor itself had also matured, which contributed to my decision. The plan is to make a formal design specification for the entire game, from start to finish, and to actually produce a demo that can be played for a showcase of the basic functionality.

As of April, about 30% of the demo functionality and 10% of the overall functionality is in place.

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  Overview of interface.

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  Starting to look like quality.

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  Somewhat finished room

Outline

Story Student at Vara College (pre-Tuner era) Goal is unspecified, but story is led by Tuner characters Gameplay Visual Novel style story progression No questing, cutscenes aplenty Unlocks activities and features Freeroam exploration Variety of scenes Interior: class, kitchen, etc Exterior: forest, lake, playground, etc Odd: dreamscapes, trash grounds, caves Rooms are separate map levels Give a sense of realism Heavy animations with lock Slow-paced navigation In-game phone for inter-character communication Local radius chat Draw with a stick on ground/pen on a whiteboard

Features Emotes Built-in emotes: dozing off when AFK, etc External emotes aplenty Emote builder, piece together parts of external emotes Duo emotes: hug with someone Interactable items Lots of interactable items Push, pull, carry, kick, interact with characters/items Customization Draw on player texture Face/Body adjustments Activities LARP fighting: PVP Improvised weapons in an imaginary setting Minigames Fishing Racing User Interface Red and black main theme colors Vector/2000s style: tiled backgrounds, aliased interface... Computer interface inspiration: marching ants, etc

Music Main identity, real scenarios: down to earth, indie rock-ish Xylophone: co-lead Light synths: feelings of harmony Snare drums: good backing rhythm Slightly distorted guitar: sense of relatability Secondary identity, abstract/mindful scenarios: Xylophone → Electrical interference samples/8bit Weaving, stronger synths: feelings of abstraction Semi-distorted guitar: feelings of a busy mind The more serious the situation, the stronger it gets Unreal scenarios, shock and disbelief: Xylophone → Bells: something impending Same as main identity More rhythmic (heartbeat) tempo Removed guitar: sense of confusion Letdown scenarios, sadness and regret: Xylophone → Harmonica: nostalgia Drawn out guitar riffs: sense of being drawn out Stupid and silly scenarios: Xylophone → Kon bark sample Trombone

Sounds Exaggerated noises Static noises: Cellphone interference, fridge, CRT, powerline, lamps .. Natural noises: Footsteps, gripping… Atmospheric noises: Wind, airplane, distant cars, water, trees… Complete silence at night Voiced grunts and sighs of the main characters Voiced lines for important cutscenes Network Low (50-100) player count Server-client with client authorative network model

V4

In 2019, I decided to port the game over to Godot instead and renamed it Kemoverse Online.

Outline v2

1. Customizable role-playing game for personal expression. .. to personalize your character and act it out as yourself Unique clothes with species-based variation from culture Animation editor: mix together existing animations Texture editor: combine existing texture patterns for clothes Graffiti/Postit/Paper plane message leaving Animated in-game speech: custom font and color Animation duos: interactive animations between players Push and pull: manipulate the location of dynamic objects including people Click to point: click real world locations to point hand (IK) or to look at it Body item slots: pockets, wrist, neck are limited but appears physically Inventory bag slots: Pixel grid inventory space system

2. Side-quest story progression with a point reward system. ... to purposefully grind game mechanics for self gratificating rewards Side-quests for Astra story and area unlock Mandatory low attendance (one class/month) with higher level classes Higher level classes gives less points but can reward special items Collaborative mini-games for gaining points Single is for students themselves to fulfill goals (class 1) Creative is for students to judge each others works anonymously (class 2) Battle is for students to battle between each others in a live environment (class 3) Culinary: make your own dish name and ingredients (hangman) Artistry: make a sketch, others guess it (sketchswap) Acting: make a convincing animation in a timeframe (charades) Chess, Cards, etc

3. Social online community for continuous engagement. ... to faciliate and encourage a living world where you are expected Anonymous rating of other players for social score Social score is for ego purposes, but can unlock titles System personnel creates in-universe events as their characters Seasonal events provides everyone with special outfits In-universe internet hosting player’s personal blogs SMS group and single for private communication LARP style fighting game battle Take and share pictures on your phone