In 2023, on 18th of December, I've published first Alpha version of Sex Purgatory. This was a special day to me ever since. That day, my heart was pounding in my chest. I've been afraid, nervous, buy I wanted to do this, because I knew if I hesitate, then my journey as an indie game developer will NEVER start. But somewhat things got well enough to me...

Today is also a special day - the First Anniversary of Sex Purgatory. Of course, I've been developing pre-alpha versions of the game earlier, tested a lot of things alone, and only sharing tiny fragments of my work on my Newgrounds page, but at this time I was afraid that the game was not be seen by other people. I was afraid, that I never will be able to share anything I love on the Internet, that even If I do it, the others will be laughing at me and my project for it being too inappropriate.

You know, creating an adult game is not an easy task. Especialy, when you want it to be not just another shallow porn game, where the only thing the player can do is clicking "Continue" button repeatadly to read more and more text balloons, just to see another static image of your character engaged in clichè sex position with some random character.

I wanted to create something more... "elevated". The ambitious game with vast universe lore and ideas that are balanced and logical. The lore of the universe that can give birth to countless horny stories of Champions, the masked human spirits of Purgatory, who use sex not only to receive pleasure, but to get stronger and to change the world around them. I want to create something that will encourage the player to play just a little longer, even after climaxing. Something unique and immersive for those who want more.

I know, nothing is perfect. Even if I wanted to create as much content as possible, I've only published 8 updates this year. Some people will say that's a nice score, others would complain that the game is still ugly as hell, and it can be barely called a porn game because of only two sex interactions (or three if you count one alternative jacking off animation). Yeah, I've had lots of hiatuses between updates, lots of placeholders are still in the game. I know I was sometimes too lazy to open the project to work out just a little bit of progress. I know a lot of things were distracting me, or I had just too little time to even think about what to do next. Likewise, I was thinking about what the lore of Sex Purgatory is supposed to look. Adding the elements of adult universe to match the existed elements of Sex Purgatory was sometimes very cumbersome and annoying. For the development there were a lot of obstacles: millions of UE crashers, bugs, hours of compilation time just to meet another crash screen, countless days of learning something new in Unreal Engine to push my work forward, lots of life obstacles, like college, regular work, but the worst of all of this was facing my fears. Especially the fear of other people judgement. To this day, I also have the apprehension of what I'm doing now is pointless, that the people won't ever understand my vision and love for adult games. But I want to fight for my teenager dreams of being an adult game developer.

But, from my perspective, I can now tell the difference between my skills from the year ago and now. I know a lot more about Unreal Engine, the 3D pipeline, animation and lots of other game industry topics. I evolved, as a developer and as a person responsible for their life. Furthermore, I feel I overcome lots of issues. The game received a lot of progress and I managed to get in place a great part of the foundation the game will rely on. Speaking of, I wanted to elaborate some of them, tell the process of creation and what they are doing in the project.

Warning Screen

The first thing you will see in the newer versions. The easiest part was the idea I had when I first created it. I thought it will be funny if text on the buttons "Enter the game" and "Quit" will be randomized. For me this suits SP very well 😁. The hardest part was the warning itself. What to write here? I asked myself. After some research, I found "House Party" warning screen. It is so true. The games about murdering and torturing aren't censored, but any sex or nudity must always have a warning ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. So, after a while the warning screen was done.

Options

It was a needed from day one. The UI design I wanted to chase is an action comic-like one. So I thought the best way to depict options panel is to make it look like a simple comic balloon. I feel it still needs some graphic improvement, but for now it works pretty well.

Free Camera

The feature, I think it still needs a lot of polish. It is supposed to give the player an opportunity to look at the 3D scene from more angles and, since the world is mainly seen from the character eyes, add the possibility to show your character. In the future, obviously, Free Camera will be limited to certain distances and won't be able to no clip through the world.

Crafting

This one gave me the hardest time. It not only depends heavily on UIs but also on where the items are supposed to be stored, the possible reactions and behavior of item slots on clicking. The worst part is that you need to click the button to confirm the crafting, but there is no other way to show the products before in the output item slots. I want to rework the crafting system in the future, that the ingredients would be stored in some input section, the crafting station then will be showing quantity of material you have and possible recipes.

For example, you would put 3 wood logs (3 x 15 wood points), 5 planks (5 x 7 wood points) and from them (45 + 35 = 80 wood points), and you can do 2 barrels (2 x 40 wood points) or 3 chests (3 x 25 wood points, the remaining 5 wood points would be stored in workbench for later use).

Game Over Screen

When I was younger, I played lots of Flash games. One day, in my early teen days, I've spotted one unusual game that was called... :the game: (yes, brilliant name). Since I'm not a native English speaker (probably you can tell by reading some of my posts 😅) I had trouble to decipher some of the game's complex jokes or references to other media. The years were passing, my English skills and cultural knowledge were improving, and from time to time I've been revisiting my favorite Flash games. I must admit, I'm charmed by the :the game:'s trilogy (especially the second part - REPLAYING :the game:). So as I'm feeling a certain nostalgia, I decided to incorporate a particle of this game in Sex Purgatory as my gratitude to the author. And now, the idea is, every cause of game over (I can't say death because technically the champions are dead by definition) will be commented in :the game:'s style of humor.

I'm recommending playing this trilogy at least once:
:the game:
REPLAYING :the game:
Reimagine :The Game:

The Nicky's (the author) website: ncase.me

Interaction Options

With Free Camera, I want to allow the player to interact with the game world in a more advanced way. Think of the interactions in The Sims series. You click on the object and options are shown to precise the certain interaction. The art design of this screen is inspired by the game Bonfire created by Hogswild Prasetto (Patreon). In the future you will be able to control Sex Battle by clicking on certain body parts of the participants.

Voxel Terrain

This one is cool. With the voxel terrain, the player can build structures and terraform surroundings. I let you guess what inspired me the most ;). In future updates, the NPCs will be living in the structures build from blocks, like towns and villages.

Fun fact: this is one of the first features in the entire development of Sex Purgatory.

Mod System

The last, but certainly not least. The mod system is my long-made promise to myself. For now, it allows you to add custom items, buildings, 3D meshes and textures to the game. This is the main feature of Sex Purgatory, and I will constantly develop more and more ways to make the game as much customizable as possible. I've recently created a first tutorial which will enable you to begin your mod adventure.

What I want to say...

So yeah, this year was wild.

What I want to say?

Thank You.

Thank You all for positive comments, feedback, and your patience. It all means a lot to me. I hope in the future the game will be much more polished and all of you will be enjoying much more adult content. And for now I want to wish You Happy New Year and your dreams will come true as soon as possible.

Til next time,
MindOrBody