Scipio Captions Launched!

I'm excited to announce the launch of a new sister-site to Scipio Games: Scipio Captions!  While any games I complete will of course be posted here, I'm starting my very own caption blog for a more immediate release of creative energies, and hopefully your enjoyment!  Psst, don't tell the folks over at Scipio Captions, but it's also a way for me to practice my image manipulation and composition!  Games require a lot of images, and cranking out several finished images every week--whether directly related to a game or not--is a great way to toy with techniques, find awesome source material, and generally become a better illustrator all-around.  In addition, it frees up "game-creating time" for actually, you know, creating games, rather than fumbling with all that other stuff at once.

Why a separate blog?  Because I know you lot came here for games, and I'm not looking to suddenly clutter up the newsfeed with constant caption updates.  If you want to check out some of the captions I'm making (or want to submit some of your own!) come on over and join the party.  If captions aren't you thing, they'll be out of sight and out of mind.  Everybody wins!

In short:  I really look forward to sharing some cool pictures with you folks, and I hope you'll join me over at Scipio Captions to check them out.  Your comments, criticisms, observations, jokes, family recipes and gypsy curses are all welcome and encouraged.  So too are any guest submissions you'd care to cook up.  So, without further ado, here's the link.  Let's get this party started, shall we?

>Scipio Captions<

Annnd... we're back!

Stream is back up, for the moment. We'll see how it goes.

Technical difficulties

So, the live stream was chugging along pretty well with only minor hiccups for the first twelve hours or so, but I lost connection again about half an hour ago and this time I haven't been able to get it working again.

I'm looking into it, but for now, the stream is offline. Sorry! I'll update again if anything changes.

Live Streaming

As the deadline for the Fall Contest at TFGamessite approaches (yes, I realize it's December, I didn't pick the contest theme) I've still got a long way to go on my entry. So, following in the footsteps of AnonymousMan's popular segment (check the link to the right!) I figured if I'm going to be doing a ~24 hour marathon session anyway, why not set up a stream?

It's nothing official, and I promise nothing: if the (computational) strain of streaming gets in the way of my actual work on the game, I may have to end it early. That said... hopefully that won't happen!

As for content, it'll be somewhat varied--most of my time will be spent coding in RAGS, some will be spent modifying images in Paint Shop Pro, and I might even take a couple of short breaks to play some Shattered Steel. Feel free to ask questions, make comments or whatever in the chat--I'll do my best to respond, though I will, of course, be somewhat distracted.

So, with the understanding that as this is my first session things can and probably will go wrong... let the 24 hour marathon begin!

Tune in here:

http://www.livestream.com/scipiogames

or try the embedded player below.

scipiogames on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

Poll: Which is your favorite initial form in Witch's Minion?

I ask because, while there will be basic solutions available to every form, certain options--particularly those tied to a wardrobe requirement, and by extension requiring illustrations--will not be available in every possible body. I would like to ensure, however, that the most popular forms have at least a decent amount of content available beyond the basic path, or, more precisely, that the additional content I write will be distributed along the paths where the greatest number of players will be able to enjoy it.

(Note that the incomplete forms do not yet have illustrations and as such have been intentionally omitted. If one of these forms is nonetheless your favorite, feel free to say so in the comments.)

Public Alpha 2

Here it is, at long last: ALPHA Release 2! This build isn't as complete or bug-free as I'd have liked (and for an alpha release, my standards were quite low), but as I'm going away for a few days and will be unable to work on the game until at least Monday anyway, I thought it better to put what exists out there before I left rather than make everyone wait the duration of my absence plus however long it actually takes to finish this section of the game when I return.

Alpha Release 2

Many, but not all, of the bugs reported in the playability alpha have been corrected. While I don't have a separate release for readers of the blog this time, I do still have a treat: testing commands! These are commands that will not be present in the final game, but which I've added at one point or another for testing purposes. They are blunt and highly specific, written into the game when I was feeling lazy and writing a new action was faster than playing through the game manually to get the effect I wanted.

• SKIPINTRO - Teleports the player to the Dingy Apartment. Does not apply transformation effects, so doing this as a male will probably break things.
• SHOW RED BOX - Intuitively, displays a red box of the proper dimensions in the main illustration window. Is used primarily for testing images and UI layout.
• BUFF DIGNITY - Adds +100 to the player's dignity score. Will probably break some things, and not others. I was very inconsistent in the way I check dignity and other stats.
• MAKE COP COSTUME - gives the player a police costume, sized to fit the Brunette with 1 bust modifier.
• TFTEST - Runs the witch's transformation immediately. Used for testing the mansion without going upstairs, manually taking the key and running the witch conversation.
• ERICATEST - Runs the witch's transformation after setting the player's variables to 1 bust item (and nothing else).
• VERONIKATEST - Runs the witch's transformation after setting the player's variables to 2 bust items (and nothing else.)
• JANATEST - Runs the witch's transformation after setting the player's variables to 3 bust items (and nothing else.)
• FAITHTEST - Runs the witch's transformation after setting the player's variables to 3 bust items and the golden hairbrush.
• YURIZANTEST - Runs the witch's transformation after setting the player's variables to 3 bust items and the Chili pepper.

There are also two new non-testing commands: INVENTORY OFF and MISSIONS OFF. (and, of course, their counterparts INVENTORY ON and MISSIONS ON). These commands disable the inventory and missions windows, which can function poorly when players have an extreme number of items or missions or for users playing at an unusually small resolution. This should help avoid an experience-ruining bug where the player is forced to hit space for "more" every single turn when the inventory or missions window is full.

Playability Alpha Patch Notes

Thank you all; the responses I've gotten from this playability alpha have been invaluable!  Particularly enthusiastic thanks to Chandra Magic and Zephyr!  Here's what I've been able to fix so far:

Fixed portrait illustration runtime problem caused when drinking pink potion.

Fixed Compass Rose spacing.

Removed stray clothing from stores.

Fixed Hospital Receptionist conversation loop.

Second floor staircase should now function properly after seducing the policeman.

NPCs should now react properly to a player who has imbibed the pink potion.

Purchasing weapons and the climbing gear should no longer be repeatable.

You should no longer be able to stumble across Jacob without first investigating to find his location.

And here's a little of what remains to be done before I release public alpha 2:

It's possible to get stuck with some branches of the Kelly and Ted conversations.

At least one resolutions to the Jacob mission other than transforming him needs to be completed (in case the player uses the potion personally).

Other things, like filling in the remaining missing illustrations, and adding the ability to use the potion on more people, are on the agenda but won't delay the release of Alpha 2.

Again--and I can't say this enough--thank you!