This is the initial release for Sucker Punch, a new VN that I have been working on for "a little while". Technically, I've been working on this for a lot longer than a little while as I've worked on planning, storyboarding and proof of concept efforts for nearly a year. But I wrote Workin' Out as a learning experience and it was my first published product; Sucker Punch has always been one of my first actual game/VN efforts. 

Sucker Punch is more of a full-fledged AVN, where user choices drive how the story develops. In the prologue I am trying to join the storytelling of a VN with a more interactive action style "game".  Realistically, calling the fighting system a game is a bit of an overstatement on my part... I originally had loftier goals, but in the interests of a quicker development cycle I scaled them back a bit and went for more stripped out minigame style gameplay... but it's not just a clicker style game - there's a bunch of player/opponent stats and modeling going on under the hood. As you play the game and develop your character it does affect how the fight system works (so I've always got the option to further evolve the fighting system). That may be something to discuss further in later devlogs.

But back to the issue at hand: this release.

This is a proper AVN (unlike Workin' Out), where dialogue choices affect how the characters interact with you. The effort to pull this off is... large. The prologue already clocks in larger than the entire 5 chapters of the Workin' Out AVN... and the prologue is still a bit limited in terms of story lines being told. Despite that, the development cycle for the prologue was approx. 4 months.

As with my other work(s), I use Stable Diffusion to generate the visual content... for better or worse. It's an artistic/stylistic choice at this point, I'm interested in seeing how far I can push AI generated imagery. I'm aware there are critics in the itch.io userbase of AI generated content... I'm actually one of them. I am not a fan of the churned out base model bloatware currently being published. There are a lot of guilty parties publishing stuff that I feel gives the (AI) medium a bad wrap. And it's so obvious when you know what to look for. Let's just say the overly popularized Pony model for SD has a definite look -especially when used to fill in the background. Prefectious is only slightly better...

However, AI generated art is a new medium that I'm more interested in working in than Blender or Poser or whatever other 3d tool space is current. I'm using the same techniques I used in Workin' Out, only taken to higher levels. The character LORAs now go through 2 rounds of training, first to establish the base character model and the second to fill out expressions and facial details. The results are... better; but some of the expressions are still quite exaggerated. Likewise, for the backgrounds I'm pushing the base SD model and frequently using additional source material and Control Net features to try to create something unique.

If AI generated art isn't for you, please accept my humblest apologies. However, if you aren't put off by the visuals, or are willing to overlook that and want to experience the story please do check out this game and let me know what you think.

Thanks for downloading my work. Comments, suggestions and critiques are always appreciated.

Without further ado: Sucker Punch: Prologue

Enjoy,

Insomniac