The game, in retrospect

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for playing Transubstantiation Synthesis. It has attracted far more interest than I anticipated, given that this is a game with rather, shall we say, niche appeal. It's been a blast reading everyone's comments and seeing what everyone thought about the game.

In this post I'd like to take a minute to go over the project, look at what parts worked out and what parts didn't, and what my plans for the future are.

About this project

Transubstantiation Synthesis was developed for the Strawberry Jam 5, a game jam about NSFW games. While it's not a porn game per se, it dips into some hot and heavy situations. Certain lawyers may consider it unspeakable. As a game, it sits somewhere in between the Visual Novel genre, and the kind of point-and-click adventure games that were popular in the early 2000s.

The game was developed over a relatively short period of time, about half a month, after my initial plans for the Jam fell through. All the assets were created by yours truly, with some exceptions noted on the game's page (mostly the music, plus some stock graphics).

What went right

Overall, I'm happy with how the game turned out. It strikes a good balance between plot, world-building and outright horny content. My goal was to have the horny stuff suffused throughout the game, not cordoned off in its own section(s). It helps that this appeals to a very specific niche, which makes it easy to write lewd things without having to involve body parts.

The graphical style is simple, but it works. I especially like the character designs. They're simple but effective, it's easy to make people who look very different from one another, and of course the robots are very cute. It's a good base to build on, even if the graphics are a little rough in places (see below).

I've been actively trying to provide more audio-visual feedback in my games - sound effects, graphical hints and such. I think that mostly worked. The interactive hotspots could perhaps be a little more obvious, but I think it's relatively clear what game entities can be interacted with and which ones cannot.

What could be improved

The game is a little rough around the edges, as I'm sure you could tell. This is partially due to the constraints of the game jam, partially due to less-than-stellar planning on my end. This is mostly a question of time and production values, and could be addressed with more testing and polish. Plus I'm still learning the engine, and this was my first attempt to make this kind of game in Godot.

The gameplay, admittedly, is a bit on the thin side. There's only one relatively open section (the warehouse), while the rest of the game is essentially on rails, and there aren't any real puzzles beyond the warehouse section. There's enough gameplay to let the player inhabit their role, I think, but only just about. If there's a spectrum of interactivity with visual novels on one end and point-and-click adventure games on the other, I'd like the sequel to nudge closer to the high end of the scale.

The game also ended up being rather short. It ends up feeling like a first chapter, or a prologue, not quite a full story. It covers the introduction of the player to their new role (which was kind of the point) and hints at a larger plot, but doesn't end up interacting with that larger plot. The sequel, if and when it happens, should aim for a duration of closer to one hour.

Finally, I think the graphics could use some work. I like the character designs, but the backgrounds are simplistic and the graphics are somewhat inconsistent. Something to keep in mind for the next game. Perhaps I'll even find a proper artist; how exciting!

What's next

As I've hinted above, I have vague plans for an expanded game, taking place in the same universe - working title Reset Day. This wouldn't quite be a direct sequel, but the current plan is to have it pick up  roughly where this game left off. The game will focus more on the experience of inhabiting your new body.

Here's a sneak peak of what I have planned for Reset Day:

• A plot, spanning a series of events from the formation of the Construct Council all the way to Reset Day
• RPG elements, including a choice of character classes, from domestic servitor to open-source science platform to military drone; see the story from different perspectives
• See the old society die and a new one form, going from a hollowed-out modern society to cyberpunk to post-cyberpunk (the Stellaris title already hints at where the place is going)
• Release date: Hopefully by the end of Q4/2021; failing that, sometime before Q3/2022

In the meantime, thank you again for taking a look at my strange little project - and let me know if you have any further thoughts, since I always love to hear those. <3