It stated the .org domain.

@TheMohawkNinja, I think your feedback was probably meant to be constructive but came across to me as negative, which takes away from any constructive implications. However, I don't hold it against anyone to have heavy fanfeels about something they are into though. I don't have anything against you and really do want a successful project but I'm here to provide constructive crit from a consumer point of view to make sure things work out for something with potential. I mean, do you gripe at the guy at the drive in eatery for hitting the call button to complain that they didn't get his order to his specifications? I digress, maybe the popular opinion doesn't feel that this is the way a consumer should look at it but I have a fairly global standard of capitalism and consumerism.



Can't really compare or contrast as in my mind the game mechanics are what make the games and in that regard, all Eroge titles I've played have their pros and cons. I probably can't see it from your point of view. I'm glad XMP uses soft bodies and cloth physics as well as it does but it's kinda lost on me. I'm jaded by having utilized physics engines in development of my own. I will be impressed to see seamless animations between physics interaction, procedural and motion capture animations. That's a bit tricky to get smoothly in real-time with casual hardware. I wish I was interested enough to make what they have but it's beyond the scope of my own project time. So in that way, I'm grateful someone else is working on something I'd like to use or even make myself but don't have the time for.

I play mostly non-Eroge in-dev games. The're mechanics are solid in almost every case. Addictive and a good use of time/rewarding. The graphics, sound, and asthetics on a few are strange but some, like Starbound, are brilliant to me. This might be why it seems my standards are too high? Though XMP 2.1 might very well be one of the best ideas and the expected features of 3.0 and beyond sound great but I need more addictive mechanics. But back to "standards" IMHO of Eroge, standards are too low... the mindset is bad on both sides, devs and end users. Eroge Dev's typically (not necessarily xmoon) make as quick and dirty attempt to bank on people's dopeamine response to sex as they can. It's a little like drug dealing. Perhaps the general effect of reward in games and it's effect on the dopeamine release is so much less an experience than the sexual/visual release that most people are satisfied, or something. The fact that people hold "Adult" or Eroge to less standards than any other game irks me. They should be held in the same regard as any game and as serious as such. I discussed this, or tried to, in one of the non XMP specific threads on this board.



The funding was successful was my point. I would hope that the funds would have gone to a hiring a full development team to increase on hand idea generation and production. Maybe that's not how their business model was set up from the get go... I have no idea and no control over what they do with it but I do feel that you should set up a solid team in any business plan as a top priority... then again maybe it wasn't in the budget. That's beyond my knowledge but something I feel investors should and usually do have access too. That's one of my caveats to crowd funding, it doesn't hold the producer to as much legal standards like traditional investing does.



Sorry, I may have been too succinct in my post and didn't get my point across as well. It's not paying to support an in-dev that bothers me. Paying for an unfinished game doesn't bother me. But, I've never paid twice for any in-dev games that I have paid for, nor have I ever been told I'd have to at a later date. I should clarify, XMP 2.1, which has issues and lacks polish(shaders/shadows/skin detail), will no longer be updated without me paying something more. I thought 2.2 would take care of this and now it's not going to be released. This is my main issue and point in post. I'm disappointed that I'm paying again for something I feel is now indie industry standard bug fixes and promised features, regardless of the monetary value... it's the principal and my personal sensation of reward that matters to me as the consumer. Granted it's not as bad as that other Eroge nickle and dime operation that shall not be named, but I've avoided that from the get go and for the same reason it doesn't sit well with me. This might be fine for others but not for me. As far as math... you cannot apply a formula to money on the individual consumer level when personal value is the subject. Your $10 is not the same as my $10. Is that fair enough to say? If I lived in a Marxist society, it might be different, but that's beside the point. I hope to eat crow and gladly pay a small fee for something wonderful... but I'm not holding my breath now that things have been retracted. I'll just have to be humbled, pleasantly surprised and high five you if it all comes together.

Thanks for your feedback, sincerely! It's quality discussion that makes me feel this community does it's part in a project with potential. It's just I have a very different view of Eroge, I'm a bit of a Wonk for it and hope that just by yelling enough and critiquing the points I can, I can maybe get more people with like minds to come out about it. And don't be too mad at me. I'm not here to troll and piss off an emergent fanbase. Just trying to fit into the fanbase and relate how I think what can be done to make it a more compatible experience for me. If it doesn't work out, meh... such is so with many relationships.

As you said, it's VERY difficult to do seamless animations with physics. The math for it is comparable to the n-body problem in astrophysics (try calculating where a star will be in one day when there are tens of thousands of gravitational interactions on it). You will probably never see seamless animations in this game by the devs. You MIGHT see it (and I stress 'might') see such seamlessness with a very dedicated modder in the far future, but that's all you can really hope for. The only physics animations that I've seen that are seamless are Euphoria's, which is a tried and long tested game engine with many games behind it. XStoryPlayer's engine is being built from the ground up, so everything has to be done step-by-step. Plus, animations aren't their concern right now, as their concern at the moment is the responses of the characters, and their stories.



Non-sexual games have much more solid mechanics, because sex is a very complicated thing to program. Realistic virtual sex is soft body physics PLUS fluid physics PLUS (in this case) cloth physics. Non-sexual games tend to have only one of those, if that.

Secondly, while I do agree with you that most sex games tend to set the bar low, most sex games have AT MOST, hair and boob physics and maybe basic cloth physics. XStoryPlayer is setting the bar many times higher than any out there. They are going for a chat engine with soft body physics with fluid physics with cloth physics without a transition to an "h-scene", all with hi-res textures in first person. That is more mechanics than any game that I have ever played has. On top of that, X Moon Productions is making this game from the ground up in a programming language that isn't even meant for sex games (granted, I don't think such a language exists), unlike many indie games today that seem to all be going to Unity as of late (with exceptions in the 2D world).

Setting the bar high is one thing, but setting the bar so high that such a game that has so much yet to be unleashed potential (see blowjob scripting video in the modding area) isn't enough just begs the question: "What sex game do you hold in such high esteem that is above this one?"

I mean honestly, if there is a game out there that you put above this, let me know so I can play it .



$25k is not enough to start hiring people. You can't hire someone and pay them a fair game developer salary just because you got $25k. Game developers get at least twice that for one thing, and for another, they could only ever afford one person (one very poorly paid person at that). That's money that could be better spent on voice acting for character responses to make the game more immersive.



The devs are releasing videos and screenshots relatively often to prove that they are making quite a lot. I don't see why you think that a revolutionary, unique, sex game is in anyway "Standard".

P.S. As for how my voice comes off in your head, that's just the fact that you can't hear me talk in a calm, critiquing voice.

@TheMowhawkNinja, Would I seem lazy if I didn't quote you? I just kinda feel the look of my walls of text is off-putting enough with them and probably without them... :/

As far as the integrating physics, procedural and mo-cap, xmpadmin stated that was one of the things they are working on and that is why I brought it up. It's probably the only thing I can kinda see the need for making from scratch as I think most existing engines rely on the artist to make the animations "work". I don't think the feature exists in any animation/physics libs or engines... but there are way to many to account for and say it doesn't exist. I think it's cool that they are working hard on coding everything ground up but feel it's not necessary. I've implemented the physics features in physX, granted I didn't make a sex game but I had just as tight cloth collisions and probably tighter control of fluid physics. But maybe everything works much better in 3.0. Videos and screenshots aren't as valuable to me. I have to have hands on to give it the real testers gambit.

As far as sex translating into any more a complex game mechanic than anything else concrete... I disagree. The idea in any game development is probably to create a loose plausible simulation that is fun and will actually work on the intended users hardware. I find sex about as easy to do as Military Tactics or Space Travel... so I don't get your point of view at all and don't see how XMP breaks any molds in that regard. The fleshy and graphics part of any game, Eroge or not, is moot and they are not game mechanics/logic but visuals. I've played erotic text games that I've spent 30+ hours on. Graphics/Polish are important, sure, but not a mechanic. Even physics as a mechanic is arguable until it directly influences the game logic in a noticeable way. XMP uses physics to deform meshes, make clothes stick to meshes, and make little globs kinda stick but do weird stuff around more complex geometry... what I feel when playing is how I described it. I'm not having sex, taking a girls' clothes off (or having her take them off... sexy like), or giving her a pearl neclace/golden showers. The "chat" or rather text interface engine would have to be something fairly extraordinary that scores pretty high on the Turing test to be remotely sexy or be a brilliantly made illusion or gimmick of the like. I'm kinda repeating myself from another post I think... :/

For me, and based on gameplay, the Eroge I like best at this time is a toss up between Whore Master and Slave Maker. The Eroge I hold in highest regard in the looks department is AIOblivion: Complete Experience 3, which is more of a collection of mods for Oblivion rather than a standalone title but the experience has still garnered many more hours than combining time spent on most Illusion titles and certainly more than the quick run through of XMP's current stories and the few hours spent in Free Sex. At any rate if you haven't tried it, I recommend it.

As far as the raised money and budget I did say it might not have been feasible. The most I've ever been paid for working as a hired person for an indie title is $2k and the least is $0 and I'm frugal/low maintenance so I have no real idea what anyone else's needs are based on.

I don't really hear a voice on forums, it's more like reading a help file to me, but the dialog you presented made assumptions about me as a gamer and my "gamer ego" kinda felt offended, LOL... that's mostly what I was responding to as negativity. As far as your critique, it's fine and very well received. I'm not used to interest enough in my opinions to get critique or well thought responses when I explain or attempt to justify them, so thanks for that!

Going away from our topics and a more general one. It might just be the way I've learned, but I'd start with or code a solid 3d engine (meshes, textures, animation) and resource loading then implement the libraries that already exist... why reinvent the wheel? Or on the other hand why not just code everything in assembler? ... if I can be rhetorical to make a point. I dig the stance on not using Unity or Unreal Engine... that's just a waste of time and money. I've had a much better experience in using DarkGDK in C++ and just implementing libraries with it than using anything that comes with it's own IDE... 'cept for maybe 2D developing in Yo-yo's Game Maker Studio... I can prototype and even finish a cross platform 2D game in GM quicker than anything I've used yet.

Right... PhysX, Unity, and plenty other engines have cloth and fluid physics, but can they do unbuttonable/unzippable clothing? Is it easy to make a strippable character with PhysX? As for fluid physics, how does mucus physics or moist trails work in PhysX?

Above all else, do you have to buy PhysX to use it?

Even if it was better in ever way, the dev team couldn't possibly convert everything, since that would probably involve scrapping, or at least modifying many of the clothes, and redoing so much code that the release date would be pushed back way farther than the TBA date already is.

Many people have wanted Kerbal Space Program to get off of Unity and go to PhysX, since PhysX has stable 64-bit support, but the devs, and experienced programmers, time and time again, point out that the suggestion is pointless, because the game would for one thing probably play differently, and for another, the dev team would have to devote months to move all of the code, textures, models, etc, over and to debug the whole thing.



You compare sex to space travel, but in the context that it's easy? Newtonian physics, with patched conics (or God for bid, n-body physics) and a system that incorporates things like the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation (a very important equation in rocket science) is very complex to do. Going back to Kerbal Space Program (a space flight simulator), that game has been in development for years, and they are still having to deal with floating point errors in the patched conics system, randomly disassembling rockets (which should be solved in the current version of Unity), glitches with planetary lighting, and so forth. So sure, sex is about as easy as space travel when you look at it.

XMP uses physics as pretty much the full game. Sex is just applied soft body physics, more so in XMP than in any other sex game that I've played. Yes, the clothes are a bit 'sticky', but when it involves taking cloth on a moving semi-rigid body that can be altered, or even removed by the player, making a perfect collision mesh and non-sticky clothes isn't easy. Most games in general can't get a characters collision mesh without cloth physics to be perfect, so I don't expect such a cloth physics engine to do better. Which again, as I'll reiterate, is the only time a sex game has utilized such cloth physics to the best of my knowledge.



I'll go check them out. Free sex games are always a plus!

I do agree that the Fast Sex is a bit lacking right now. Granted, it was put there as a sort of "well, until we can give you tons of hours of stories, here is a sandbox mode to mess around in" minigame, but hopefully it gets some more love in the future.



Hard to say. I'm not in the industry itself, although I did consider it for a long time (in the end, I decided that spending hours and hours studying the stars as an astronomer is going to be more fun than hours and hours of debugging the last 15 minutes of code I just wrote).



I never used the term "gamer ego".




I always figured that they only made their own, because it actually be easier to make your own engine to fit your game's niche per se, than to try and get many different engines to work together nicely. I mean, poly-game engine games like The Force Unleashed worked beautifully as far as how the engines worked together, but that was ragdolls and material simulation, not multi-soft body physics with removable cloth physics on top and fluid physics somewhere in between, so I don't know how easy that would be.

I'm more surprised that the game doesn't run my CPU all that hot. I guess since it's only one character, the overall amount of physics isn't all that much.

@TheMohawkNinja: Kinda leaving the thread subject more and more but I like this discussion and if you don't mind, because it is your thread.



Bringing up Kerbal Space Program and your interests really helped me grok your line of thinking. It's probably one of the more complex games I've played and really do like it. I never meant to compare sex to space travel or the Military tactics in reality, I was generalizing and comparing the game mechanics of them and could have included any genres, the point I failed to make was emphasis on you don't have to re-create many equivalent to reality concepts to make the game complex and realistic. I understand your point of view much better on the point of driving the dynamics completely on the interactions of a custom physics engine. Still might not be the way I would do it, but I'm not doing it. If XMP becomes the KSP of Sex... then that might change things a bit. I don't know how much more interested I would be, because I'm more of the creative/artistic type and like words just as much as hot fleshy visuals... but that's just me. If I got a lot of complex mechanics that required me to establish an orbit around the girls, I might get frustrated quickly, LOL. But I dig the concept of driving the whole game with the physics engine and making that a core dynamic. The cloth physics are good, save for the weirdness and crashes I get, but I don't really see it as part of the game yet. My better understanding of your mindset of complexity in this as a physics based game sorta changes my initial thinking of things. When the girls react to you taking off the clothes, they actually can strip themselves, you can stick their undies(when they exist) in their mouths... or yours..., and rip the clothing (like with a nice solid whip stick swish, then it'll be more of part of the game. It's entirely possible on paper and I hope they make it happen.



PhysX is free unless you want to modify the source and isn't a game engine like Unity. Just a physics engine (library really) for existing game engines. Buttons, yes, anchoring cloth vertices like that and releasing the anchor could be done. Zippers... I haven't gotten how the XMP zippers will be working, but the same idea. (is there a video on that I'm missing?) I haven't explored the cloth tearing features enough to see if that were usable, but if you stitch and release vertice anchors... I think that's how I'd do it at least. Can't really say that there is a mucus strand feature... but wouldn't that just be very fluid like hair or thin cloth strands? I think it could be done and this discussion is getting me interested in trying some things myself. But yeah, at this time it would be foolish to switch. We aren't really talking about XMP at this point just my reasoning for PhysX. As far as making it the driver for the core dynamic, I'd have to try making a prototype before I could assume anything.

It may have not met the needs for something like KSP, but I think for a game with limited need for such physics it would be fine. PhysX doesn't mean too much for real physics simulations other than faking realistic visuals. The rest is math and I think that's where people's mindsets are wrong in wanting it in KSP. XMP would seem more like a good use of such visually, but now with the idea of running it entirely on a real world physics means... if that's what is intended, then I have to shift my way of thinking and get my hands on the results. But 2.1 doesn't reflect the concept. The physics in it are just eye candy, for now.



I used quotes in "gamer ego" because it's iffy and I don't think it was something I would actually ever say, non-sarcastically. Implying something conveyed in thoughts to text without paying attention, maybe... I just mean the persona I use as a gamer. (It's the only persona I have with an overactive hubris.) Sorry for any confusion.



It's a matter of understanding someone's MO without ever getting a good one on one I suppose. Some people only use a small part of PhysX, which to some degree would be really unoptimized but I think that's one reason to make your own system for handling things. Generally whatever decision someone makes is probably the best given the circumstances, unless they have no idea what they are doing. I imagine it'll be well worth it and this far down the road it's just speculation to wonder why to justify me thinking about writing stuff from scratch. To be honest I don't know if I'm that good of a coder to make something I felt was more optimized for my needs than something that already exists. I've never thought about mechanics beyond the easiest and stupidest way to make game_pieceX do actionX. I respect their decision and hope for the best. It is weird and newish to me. Mostly, real world like physics is eye candy in games these days, but if the actual system drives the game itself without illusions and runs optimally on current hardware then I'll be impressed. I'm under the impression that the way to do it is have physics visuals controlled by the game logic not the other way around, so that might be a different experience and helps me understand a little better.

I was wondering why they didn't take the intermediate approach like I do, because everyone that thinks they have the best way of doing something. But a person with their own ways should be knowing of any other way of doing it even if it means being humbled and maybe even educated. Being humbled is how I've learned many things. Firm believer of taking chances, making mistakes, and getting messy.

XMP does a fair number on my GPU for heat relatively speaking... but I imagine all of the physics work is done there. I might should see if it's unusual but it is a very old card, technology wise.

Still, I stand by my original point about the update and extra fees and I won't bring it up again unless I have a very explicit problem like feeling screwed over. I don't feel that way, just very worried. I just wanted to voice my opinion about how I felt and since no one really agrees I guess the majority wins in that regard. Maybe community faith is something to take solace in but I have a hard time going with the crowd...

I have since looked at those games you mentioned, and they really do show the difference between what you like in a sex game and what I like. I don't really care much for an animationless sex slave simulator whereby a sex scene involves a messagebox saying something like "You and Shampoo had a great time fucking each other". If you haven't yet noticed, I like to be totally immersed in a sex game, which is why I like XMP so much. It's a physics heavy, hi-res, first person sex game that can make me feel as if I was actuall doing the girl.

As for stuffing a girl's panties in her mouth, it's hard to say. Currently, the game only allows phallic objects to enter a body cavity. That being said, judging by the scripts in the custom scripts thread, you can specify what types of objects are allowed to prompt a body cavity to open, which could very well mean clothing.



From what I've seen, the mucus physics in XMP are going to act like drops of fluid with breakable connections between them. I can't be certain though.

As for the zippers, you should look up xpadmin's thread for Monica. She's one of the characters that will be in the next update, and as a new feature to the game, her skirt uses a zipper.



I would tend to disagree that the physics are purely eye candy, as the ragdoll mode in fast sex allows users to see what the limits are of the limbs, and how heavy a limb weighs.



While physics helps with the eye candy, a lot of people love the physics of games, as it allows people to explore what happens if you do X action with Y object. Even more importantly, is that unlike reality, you can modify the values as you see fit to see what the effects will me. For example, I've taken the mass value of a sports car in GTA IV, and added a few zeros to it so instead of weighing 1500, it now weighs 15000000. I can now hit any car I want and lose only negligible amounts of momentum. I've also made that same car's mass -1... to which the physics basically broke as the car teleported around randomly, and the result of any impact from another car was unpredictable.

In a sex game, while unrealistically editing the values probably won't be as entertaining, the physics can help with immersion into the game, as when you take a look at games from Teatime or Illusion, the vagina is either open, or closed. In XMP, the vaginas don't have such a binary state per se, but can dynamically open and close based on the force that an object puts on it. The cloth physics on the other hand, are mainly eye candy, but also allow the player to have a lot more fun with stripping, as I would imagine that a person would probably find it much more entertaining to strip a girl as if her clothes were real tangible pieces of cloth than to just click and *poof* it disappears.



Well that last sentence kind of sums up what XMP is doing. Making your own game engine from scratch while risking the success on a decently-sized project is taking a chance. X Moon Productions will and has made many minor mistakes in the form of a piece of cloth clipping in the skin here, and a misspelled word there, and as for getting messy... well... fluid physics is all I have to say to that.



Well, you shouldn't be feel screwed over, since in the end, a person who buys the game long after its released will have paid the exact same amount of money that you or I do in the course of this game's development.

I Just had to pop In and say I kind of like the discussion going on here :_) . I didn't buy the game yet as somehow visually it didn't feel "complete" for me. I know it has complicated physics like no other game as of now but I always need some fun factor in games than just ripping cloths or watching ai interact to your chat . as I also feel its not a finished project yet.

recently I got to game test the Veiviev new wip game. so far its not a game but more of a sandbox to keep character's with oculus rift support . its very similar to the infinite realitys demo's. but the engine seems solid and their idea of using human scans as a base to modify characters to look realistic but still virtual is something I liked

xmoon is taking a road that many of these games aren't taking. so I guess since its a road less travelled it might be a bit harder and take more time. well all we can do is wait and see. and hopefully one of the best games pops out from this. which will make x moon rich enough to have more to invest on what they want to do ahead. And I wish them the best. I will keep an eye on the forums for further updates