The Lust Society (TLS) is a project I started working on since the summer of 2017.
In the beginning it was nothing but a small game I decided to make for myself, merely an experiment.
As I was working on it, though, many ideas were popping up. So I've asked myself: why not get serious, make something more ambitious and share it?
The Lust Society, as of today, has had 124 commits, more than 800 hours of work and a couple thousand dollars poured into it. It needs way more refining and effort, but has reached the necessary maturity to enter what I hope will be a very brief Alpha stage.
Story
The Lust Society is an adult, story-driven, RPG game set in weird, not-so-distant future.
At a first glance, it might seem a post-apocalyptic one, but as you will see, the game is not set in the usual dark background, and on top of that there might be more than meets the eye.
I'm not spoiling anything else here and the Alpha itself just contains a portion of the introduction.
Gameplay
TLS borrows a lot from Milovana teases and winks at Cock Heroes.
Going around, speaking with NPCs, the player will be challenged to complete teases to both survive the consequences and discover the mysteries of the so-called Anomaly.
There are trainable attributes that will affect the gameplay, affinities that modify the relation to NPCs, resources to be taken care of (a pinch of survival genre), and much more.
The most important feature of all, though, is Arousal Tracking System. It will adapt to the player over time aiming at enhancing its teasing experience.
Technical aspects
TLS is an adult game with elements radically new to the genre.
Engine
Let's start by saying that is built using the power of Unreal Engine.
The game is not yet another visual novel build off of fancy renders. Sure, graphics suffers a bit as it is real-time rendered, but the player will be able to actively explore and interact with the environment.
Graphics
Almost every asset, from the NPCs to the environment are unique, with small reuse and outsourcing.
Meaning: no DAZ models that are making adult games graphically identical one another.
Controls
Path tracing, auto navigation and elements of both first and third person action games come together to enable the full control of the character with the mouse only. The keyboard is basically used to only open menus.
This leaves one hand completely free to take care of the joystick between the legs during teases! (No more lube on mouse and keyboard!)
System Requirements
TLS currently supports Windows-only machines without requiring much hardware power or disk space. In the future, the support might be extended to more operating systems.
The only requirement is an active internet connection, why? The answer is in the paragraph that follows.
Models and Teases
The 3D models will be designed to be as look-alike as possible to real-life erotic models.
In fact, their 3D avatar will be used on everything but teases!
When in Tease mode, the game acts as an automated web browser (that’s why the internet connection is required). It will stream predefined galleries provided as advertising material by erotic and porn websites to their third-party partners and freely available on the web.
The player gets to stroke to real models, not ray-traced 3D renders!
- Spoiler: show
Community & Patreon
This is definitely the most important aspect I would like this project to tackle.
It all starts in Milovana, for sure, but I would like the game to be enjoyable for many more players, not just a niche. Its origins will not be forgotten as the implementation progresses, but the story and the gameplay as a whole will always be designed with a broad audience in mind.
Let me start by saying that The Lust Society will always be 100% free to play and easy to download from multiple sources without any fee. Always!
As you may imagine, though, It takes a considerable effort to implement, improve and expand it.
Because of this, when the Beta phase starts, I will open a Patreon page for those who want to support the development of this creature. Let me be clear: there will be no different levels of access to the game: everyone, Patron or not, will always have access to the latest version, at the same time and with exactly the same set of features.
Patrons will gain the right to decide in which direction the development will move, for example by participating in surveys to prioritize the introduction of a certain feature or the addition of some model they would like. Those who’ll decide to contribute the most, if they want, will be privately heard to share their opinions and suggestions with me.
Alpha Stage
The access to the Alpha stage is exclusive to the Milovana community.
The intent is to macroscopically test the main features of the game on different machines.
What can you expect?
- Bugs: those are part of every software development cycle and the more are found during the Alpha, the better.
- Story: just the bare minimum introduction and related teases. No real spoilers.
- Arousal Tracking System only partially enabled: the adaptation will not be active. Teases will have all speeds and patterns enabled, a decent amount of randomness but they might feel still quite linear, starting from slow beats up to the fast ones. All speeds needs to be tested and all deserve some feedback before enabling the adapting algorithm.
- Incomplete environment: just a very small portion of the main building will be accessible.
- Simplified GUI: the interface will lack a few perks and debugging info will be present here and there.
It depends. Hopefully not too much. I planned it to be very short with respect to the early development stage. I want the beta out as soon as possible to give access to as many people as possible.
Said so, I’m not planning on starting the Beta with macroscopic issues still to be fixed. I want them to be solved first. So it will take... as long as it takes.
Beta Stage
Once the Alpha stage is completed, other features will be enabled for the first Beta release. Those include another portion of the story, some more characters, a more detailed environment, a bunch of optimizations and minor improvements.
Every subsequent Beta release will expand the game some more, considering both my own development plan, and the feedback from the community.
How long will it take for the first full release?
It truly depends on the support of the community, if any.
I’ve planned the Beta to last roughly three years in total. I have a minimum amount of objectives in mind and I’ll try my best to achieve every single one of them.
In other words, the Beta stage will provide an already enjoyable experience that will be progressively longer and better with every new released version.
With enough support it might take a bit less, but I want it to be clear that I'll prioritize improving on the quality of the project and number of secondary/side features to include, over reducing the time it’ll take to implement the minimum set of objectives I‘ve planned.
Challenges and Future
I’m a Software Architect for a living and I plan on keep on being that. It pays well and of course I will put my main job first, I have a family to provide for (which I am thankful for the unbelievable support, by the way!).
The development of the game will proceed when I have/make time.
Programming
I like to think to Game Programming as a natural extension of my mind, an extension for which I have some innate, obsessive, self-destructing passion. And I couldn’t care less, because I really enjoy it. So yea, no real challenge there.
I’ve put aside a lot of secondary features that I would like to integrate sooner or later. Maybe after the Beta? We’ll see about that.
Storytelling
Story scripting takes some effort, but I’m mostly ok with it. I will concentrate on the main story with just a few side-quest to add some variance.
Many more can be planned and developed, even during the Beta stage, if the right conditions arise.
Modeling
The hard part for me is definitely 3D modeling. I bought some tools and frameworks to improve my workflow, I have fun with it, but it still takes a lot of time and effort.
At the beginning, this will be the area I’ll cut the most and, yes, I’ll take a bunch of shortcuts to hide missing details in the environment, but I will still try my best to provide decent models with the resources at my disposal.
Given enough support from the community, there is definitely a lot to improve here, both during and after the Beta stage. We shall see!
Alpha? How can I help?
Access to the Alpha phase has currently been closed.
I might still send some private invitation to those who ask.
The work on the first version of the Beta has started and is progressing well.
Thanks to everyone for the support and feedback!
Can I donate to the project during the Alpha?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: There are a few fundamental features I want to implement before giving people the possibility to donate. Those features will be available in the first Beta version.
If you have the time, simply help testing the Alpha. If you don’t, hope to see you during the Beta!
