Announcements

Letting you know that yep, there's going to be a delay on the demo.

 It's probably not going to be ready until some time after Halloween, which means yes...November.

My deepest apologies, guys.  I'm still trying to shove lots of stuff in there that wasn't in the old one. New art, new writing, new interface, etc. etc.  It's nearly like building Coming Out On Top from ground up again.  The people I've been working with have been all wonderful however...and very tolerant of both my neurosis and imbecility.

So yeah, still working on it. Yeah, I am so anxious for you to play it.

I've also got to slap another video together for Kickstarter.  Not only did the old video have the old demo, but it had my face on it.  While I was fine having my visage attached to a gay dating sim, being attached to a game with some seriously...*cough* graphic content, gay or straight, is a whole other story.  I'm not ready to be shunned by my local community.

Yet.

Thanks for bearing with me.  You all are the sweetest, smartest, sexiest fans ever, with much larger than average sexual organs.

Anyways, finished coloring up a Halloween sketch of Mark and Ian for god knows what reason. I guess I felt the need to apologize with a full-color picture.

No, I don't know what's happening either, other than Mark looks like he's in rut and Ian, who grabbed him at precisely the wrong moment is now regretting it.  If you have a better explanation, let me know.

Any similarities to the Ambiguously Gay Duo are entirely coincidental, I swear. 
Have a great Halloween, guys!

Bareback vs. Condoms: Results

Whoa...the poll got buggy all of the sudden, but I have a snap shot of it before it closed.

Out of approximately 140 votes:

Before it went buggy:

• about 75 in favor of condoms
• 55 for bareback
• and about 10 for "it's complicated"

Thanks for participating everyone!  There seem to be strong feelings about condom use and barebacking.   It seems like a popular suggestion was to toggle condom use on or off.  I'll go ahead and proceed in that direction.  Thank you much for the suggestion, suitablyemoname!

As for updates on the demo:

Getting more art stuff from the artists, and updating the script.  I'm really hoping to get this out by Halloween >.<.

Looking at everything that's being done, writing and artwork, this demo maaaaaaay be headed for some level of notoriety.  There are some scenes I've put in there that, well, you just don't see too often.

Thanks much.  I'll keep updating you as as we head closer to the demo release and Kickstarter launch.  Another poll should be appearing as well...

Last Day for the Current Condoms Vs. Barebacking Poll

Answer the poll on the right if you haven't already!  ---->

If you've got any comments, leave them here!

Review: Young Earth Road Trip

I have a list of visual novels I've been wanting to play and review but promised myself I wouldn't until I finished my demo.

Well, I broke down today and finally played one close to the top of my list, which is Young Earth Road Trip, something visual novel-maker Saguaro made over a weekend for a Ludum Dare Solo competition.  (For those of you who are curious, Ludum Dare is where indie game developers crank out a game in a very limited amount of time.)

I wanted something short and entertaining, and Young Earth Road Trip perfectly fit the bill.  I think you can finish this little gem of an adventure game in 10-20 minutes.

You can tell the art assets were done quickly, but hey, it was a weekend-long competition.  I thought they were quite sufficient for conveying the story, and had a certain MS paintish-charm.  It reminded me a lot of South Park, actually.  Maybe even more so because of Matt and Trey's Book of Mormon.

In short, I pretty much snickered through the entire thing, even though my friggin' dogs went running for the living room every time I had to ring a doorbell in-game.  This happened a total of 7 times, in the span of 10 minutes.  You would think that would be funny, but it was aggravating.  Anyhoo, Young Earth Road Trip ended up tying for Third in humor for the overall contest.  Nice!

*edit: Wow, looking this over I realize I actually didn't give the game much of a review.  So here it is: it was hilarious and Saguaro's a fantastically funny writer, especially considering this was put together within 48 hours!!!   It was a fun, cohesive little game.  Highly recommended!

Saguaro has also made the graphically cool Locked-In, which is also available for download from his/her website.  The two games look like they were made by completely different people...which makes me think Saguaro is some kind of mad genius. 

(Saguaro, incidentally, is assisting me with a lot of the technical/GUI-related aspects of Coming Out On Top.  I think of him/her as a MacGyver of sorts, basically solving programming problems in ten minutes that would take me several sober lifetimes to figure out.  Basically what I'm saying is that I'm really, really freaking lucky to have Saguaro's help.  Thanks, you mysterious creature!)

Two Games Under Development That Might Be Of Interest to You

Hey guys, as you await my demo I thought you might want to check out two more indie games under development that feature gay male characters in title roles.  They'll be out sooner than Coming Out On Top, and should provide plenty of entertainment and a little something different from your average big budget video game.

The first is Break Chance Memento which is a mystery/time-travel game set in Japan.  The art is gorgeous, it's most likely going to have jaw-dropping twists, and Auro and Camille are just lovely people in general.  Check out their blog here: http://cyanide-tea.net/.

The second is Dodgyville's space adventure game, My Ex-Boyfriend The Space Tyrant, which looks like tremendous fun.   Check out Luke's tumblr here or his twitter here.  I don't think I've ever seen anyone rock a helmet the way he can in his Twitter profile photo.  :-P

*BTW: the poll on condom use in Coming Out On Top has inspired some really cool discussion.  Chime in by voting on the right or leaving a comment!

More About What This Game Is and Isn't

I guess as the word starts getting around about this game, I feel like I should clarify a couple of things!

1) It's not a porn game.  I think I mentioned that, but I want to reiterate it.  I think there are a couple of gay flash games that are porn oriented, and this isn't one of them.  There's an actual storyline, and I have sweated blood trying to write true-to-life characters.  But yes, there's nudity, and yes, graphic sexual content.  You can't be under 18 to play the demo.

2) I don't think it's what most would consider a traditional yaoi game, with submissive and dominant characters.  All I know is I wanted to make a game about college-aged guys that was entertaining, funny, and realistic.  Just regular men who happened to be gay (and coincidentally super attractive ;-D).

3) I expected more criticism about this third point, but so far I've only gotten one comment about the fact I'm a woman.  Yep, I'm not a gay man.  I'd like to think I've done enough 'research' (& I swear my 'research' doesn't ALL consist of gay porn), enough so that the game is pretty grounded.  So far all the feedback I've gotten from gay men who've played the old version of the game has been incredibly positive.  And generally, people seem to enjoy it, whatever their gender or sexuality.

Anyways, I think the work will speak for itself, but if you've got any issues with any of the content, I'd love to hear from you.  I am deeply interested in improving my games any way I can.

Well, hopefully my computer's not gonna crap out on me again and I can get the demo to my testers this week.  And ultimately over to you.  And take the poll on the right if you haven't already!  Thanks!

Condoms Vs. Bareback

Hey guys, just created a new poll sparked by an interesting discussion I'm having tonight with other visual novel makers. I was planning on including condom use in any anal sex scenes in the game. What do you think? Poll is towards the right --->! If you've got more to say on this issue, comment here! Thanks much. Still chipping away at the demo...

Hairiness Poll: Results

Thanks for participating, folks!  In descending order, 450 voters wanted:

1. Diversity in hairiness - 241 (53%)
2. Treasure trail - 238 (52%)
3. Stubble - 232 (51%)
4. Pubes - 193 (42%)
5. Chest hair - 176 (39%)
6. Leg hair - 178 (39%)
7. Arm hair -162 (36%)
8. Little/no hair, smooth -155 (34%)
9. Beards - 106 (23%)
10. All men to be shaved/smooth - 101 (22%)
11. Butt hair - 70 (15%)
12. All men to have body hair - 53 (11%)
13. Back hair - 19 (4%)
14. All men to have wookie-like hairiness - 18 (4%)

This data is super helpful.  It seems like back hair and butt hair are not exactly very popular around these parts.  As for the rest, I'll be thinking about how to incorporate them into the full game.  It seems like the boys will have different levels of hairiness, depending.

I wonder if there should be an easter egg, so you play the game with super hairy or hairless guys, LOL.

This is Stubble? For Reals?

Whoa, one day left to vote on the hairiness poll!  Let me know how hairy you like your men if you haven't already.  (God, I really hope that wasn't one person voting 400 times.)  Anyways...

Speaking of hair, I'm doing more tutorials on drawing hair, specifically Mark Crilley's How To Draw Facial Hair youtube tutorial.

He calls it a tutorial on how to Draw Razor stubble, but after following his instructions, Alex's "stubble" looks kinda like a beard to me, don't you think?  Or for you bear fans out there, is this merely a manchild on the cusp of adolescence?

I sincerely hope I get enough money when I launch the Kickstarter for an additional artist to help me with these sprites.  Just think, you can have a professional artist drawing hair instead of me, a lifetime learner at Youtube University.

Also--I really like Crilley's videos.  They're simple and fun.

Quick Update

Just working on the demo with additional artists on board.

I try to update all my feeds as much as possible, but if I'm quiet it's because I'm actually working.    XD

And by the way....

Thanks for all your continued support and feedback, folks.  I'm really astonished and humbled.

Stoked, I Am

I now have two people lending their exceptional talent to this project.

A Question About Ian

But...he's...your...best...friend...

LOL

Heh, I shouldn't have combined Mark's crazy grin with the stubble in that last pic.

He's got pervert written all over him.

Practicing Hair

Before anybody starts threatening to flay me alive (or thank me)...Mark is pretty hairless in the actual game and definitely doesn't have this much hair.  Sorry/you're welcome?  I'm just practicing since I'm working on Mark's expressions at the moment anyways.

I'm really unused to drawing body hair & it seems like you guys want at least a couple of hairier characters (as indicated by the poll thus far.)  So he's my guinea pig.

*I should add that I'm still adding test hair to this sprite...OMG...I think the hairs are starting to grow hairs...

What The Schedule Is Looking Like for The Demo

I'm gonna say the demo will be ready end at the end of October, to be safe.  Apologies to those of you who are waiting eagerly for the revised version.  I want to make it as awesome as possible, and because my art style has changed significantly in the past few weeks (those of you who played the old demo know the deal) I'm tied up with a lot of revision work.

To add to that, I just took two weeks of (80% unpaid) time off to work on the game.  Now that I'm back at work, it seems I've suddenly been scheduled additional days to make up for all the time I took off.  Eff me.

Rest assured...I do nothing other than work on this game, as I have been for the past seven months.  It is seriously my one passion in life--even during breaks at work, I'll be hiding out in a corner sketching a full-on erotic scene, paranoid somebody's standing behind me.   (& how the eff do you explain something like this to your coworkers?  "Oh hey, I just like to draw guys blowing each other...helps me relax.  What about you?")

Nobody's caught me...yet.

THE RISKS I TAKE FOR MY ART.

Love you guys.  Hope you love the demo.

Quick Update

Right now I'm trying to get most of the art together so I can send it to the wizard who'll help polish up the game a bit.  (Can I mention your name yet, or what?!)  He/she's probably gonna get the half-naked sprite version because I'll still be working on their clothes.  (Haha, I don't even know this person's gender.  I just love their work so I asked them to help me out.)

As I'm refining Mark's character sprite, I'm kind of torn because I didn't intend to make the main character a sexy beast.  Personally I think he's cute (he's not my 'type' facially), but at least a couple of you think he's pretty strikingly hot.

WHOOPS.  Mark was supposed to be the kind of guy who is good looking but doesn't really know it.     He also can't just walk into a room and have a throng of dudes wanting to bust him open piñata-style.

Sorry for that ridiculous metaphor. I have serious sleep deprivation.

Let's Have A Serious Discussion. Body Hair.

I have heard your cries.

Please answer the poll on the upper right.

If your preference isn't listed, please leave me a comment here.

(Sorry whoever voted earlier--I barely got within 2 seconds of posting the poll when I realized I had to add more preferences.  Jesus, you guys are fast.)