carnal_instinct

Development Status: Full Scope & Timescale

Published: February 11th 2023, 3:55:02 pm

Hi all,

So we're finally ready to put some dates to our release schedule, as well as giving you a peek under the hood. This post should help explain our decision making as well as what we want to achieve with the finished game.

When we started making CI there were no end of limitations we imposed on ourselves; we had to try and design our ideal game without knowing what level of support we could expect from the community. This led to our initial plans which - whilst broad scope - were very shallow. They had to be, as we had no guarantee that we could fund the project beyond our initial timescale of 18 months.

Those constraints fell away over time and we began to expand the scope of the game, both to bring it in line with our own ideal vision as well as community suggestions. We're in a position where we're now able to fully realise that vision of CI without the limitations that held us back at the start of this journey. 

Timeline Until "Finished" Game

So what does this mean for development timescales? Well we want to overestimate our times from here on - having had to delay one we don't ever want to be in that position again. We think that we're realistically looking at around 4-6 months of development time until we leave Pre-Alpha, with a further 6-8 months until we leave Alpha. This then leaves us Beta and final release content, so in total we think that the Pre-Alpha/Alpha/Beta to final release will run for approximately 18-24 months from today. After that time the game will continue to receive some content expansions however we'll consider it a complete game, with the expansions representing the equivalent of DLC but not "core" content. We would also intend to be working on whatever our next project is at that time, with patron subscription gaining access to the builds for both projects.

As for specific dates on when each phase will end, these will be announced 2-3 months in advance. 

How Will The Map Expand Over Time?

The total playable area of the map (excluding the Helios Archipelago) is approximately 50 square kilometres, that's 1 & 1/3 Skyrim's in old money. The map development will roughly follow the boundaries of the eight ancient Nome, key provinces of Sabu;

• Amentet-heq aka “The Westlands”
• Behid-heq aka “The Throne”
• Ephos Tjeb-heq aka “The Breadbasket”
• Inebu-heq aka “The Pale Walls” (home of the Inquisitors of Bast)
• Khaset-heq aka “The Bull’s Shield”
• Khensu-heq aka “Hefer’s Reach” (or sometimes “Hefer’s Rump”)
• Ta-Ur-heq aka “The Great Dunes”
• Wased-heq aka “The Sceptre” (home of the Anubites)

The map is colour coded, with the hues approximately matching the development phases in which we expect to deliver each section. Yellow is the zones which will release with the initial UE5 launch, green covers the areas added in the following 9 months, brown is the areas which will be delivered following that, and finally red are the areas which will unlock up to the "final release" (Helios Archipelago is out of bounds on this map but would be red).

Development won't follow the boundaries precisely, as some areas are needed for earlier quests and other areas are for late-game content only, but this gives a rough guide. The two-tone areas are those which will start in one phase of development but will be revisited later on.

Additionally the areas won't just appear all at once, rather once province at a time will be added along with quests, tombs, romance NPCs, and other content.

How Will This Impact the Main Story?

Unlike in UE4, the UE5 build of the game breaks the faction quests into their own questlines. The main story will unfold in a linear fashion as the world expands, with the side factions becoming available as their territory is made playable. The first of these will be the Merchant's Guild, as their "free city" resides in The Bulls Shield.

UE5 will also feature the "story intro quest" rather than dumping the player unceremoniously on the docks. You'll have a chance to uncover the world anew, with far more lore to discover, enemies to encounter, and secrets to obtain - there are countless rewards for those interested in the history of Sabu and keen to explore.

What Features Will Be Available From UE5 Launch?

This is by no means an exhaustive list, however the following will ship with the first UE5 build;

• Intro Cinematic/Quest
• Multiple Additional New Quests
• RPG Stats (Including Fertility/Virility)
• Sailing (Single Option at Launch)
• Riding (Single Option at Launch)
• Upgraded DSS
• Player & Romance NPC Pregnancy
• Multiple New Enemies (Several Desert Creatures, New Cursed Beings, Enchanted Constructs, and Boss Fights)
• Additional Genital Customisations (Including Piercings)
• Flaccid/Erect Genital States
• Tal-Senet and Mehden Islands (Yellow on Map Above)
• Upgraded Item Interactions
• Shrines for Buffs (Enable/Disable Pregnancy, Combat Boons, etc)
• Enemy and/or Consumable Applied Debuffs (Poison, Bleed, etc)
• New Harvesting and Plant Types
• Romance NPC
• Form-Based Bonus Attributes
• Overhauled Combat AI
• New "Fluids"/Mess System (Including Washing).
• Magic Casting (Including Mana System)
• And More...

What Content From UE4 Will Be "Missing" At Launch?

There will not initially be as much playable content in UE5 as there is in UE4, however the UE4 build will remain available indefinitely so nothing is lost. The UE5 build will start players at the beginning of their journey, rather than at the midpoint (as in UE4). The weapon options are far more limited to begin with, as are genitals; these things will be earned and discovered over the course of the game (alongside all-new ones). Forms must be unlocked with essence and various other content simply lays outside the playable area for now.

We want it to be more significant when the player obtains an enchanted longsword, or an heirloom khopesh, so these won't be littering the dunes in the starting zone; in UE5 the tombs will serve as the primary source of powerful unique items. As these are added it will mean players only enjoy the rewards once they take the risk. The same is true of rare forms, which can only be found in the most dangerous depths of forgotten catacombs.

UE5 should be considered a large chunk of new content that will gradually expand to encompass all of the UE4 content, as well as bringing the new story quests and other playable additions to the world.

When Will Players Be Able To Get Their Hands On UE5 CI?

That's the real question we expect people are here to have answered, so we want to avoid equivocation and provide a realistic date we know we're able to meet. To that end we intend to launch the UE5 build in May 2023.

This is clearly longer than we'd initially scoped, and for good reason, so we'll cover that a little here.

• Firstly, once we make the move to UE5 we don't want two months of "nothing but bug-fixing". This version has been in the works for a loooong time and has a lot riding on it. The last thing we want is performance issues or broken quests in what should be a fairly polished release. Obviously it'll still have issues, but we want to take far more time than usual to squash what we can ahead of time.
• Secondly we really want UE5 to wow everyone from the get go. Not a "oh that looks better" but a "f*ck me how is this even the same game?". This means we want to carve a solid month for our art team, including our new dev, to add a wealth of new environment details. These things aren't strictly necessary, but they make a massive difference to how alive the world feels and elevate the experience immeasurably.
• Thirdly we need to still release playable content for UE4 in the meantime. We don't push features to UE4 any longer whilst we build UE5, but we still need to give our supporters something each month to get your teeth into!
• Finally we're simply waiting on a massive amount of new voice acting (not the aforementioned recordings, this is even more new stuff). There are a host of new NPCs that we haven't yet had delivered, as well as some new player audio (both male and female). We want the game to be as close to a "vertical slice" as we can make it. This means we want to put the icing on the cake before we serve it, rather than slop some icing on your plate whilst you're already eating; it's a clumsy metaphor but hopefully it makes sense.

We're not yet going to pin to a specific day, there's too much movement this far out, but we will give you a specific date approximately 30 days ahead of time. Plenty of room to get hyped.

Devblog When?

In around a week's time. Expect beauty shots.

I know it's further away than we'd hoped for our "expedited timescale", but we plan to deliver a much more polished upgrade than we'd otherwise be able to. Thank you so much for making this possible - it's entirely down to you that we now have another seasoned artist on the team along with a junior writer.

We're on the cusp of an incredible step-up in quality, scope, and depth.

Team Carnal Instinct