Purple Dream: Clothing Styles Part 1

Here is a brief first look at clothing styles!

I uploaded the video for it on Twitter/X.

Link to the video: Link

A heads up, I was hoping to also showcase the relevant gameplay interactions that result in the clothing style change here, but they aren't quite ready yet. Right now I am forcing the interaction outcome through code for the clothing style changes.

So, clothing styles. A really important element of the game. Clothing styles are essentially variants that some clothing pieces have available. They are generally caused by NPCs doing lewd things to Aika/Shizumi during the various event types and interactions. In the video you can first see that Aika's shirt has a set of clothing styles where buttons become undone and Aika becomes progressively more exposed. Then there is a knit turtleneck garment which doesn't have buttons, but it does have a style where it's lifted above Aika's breasts and leaves everything below it exposed.

Two different uses of the system. The shirt with the button stuff is a whole progressive branch of styles where each one takes it further. In this case, with each one of the styles unbuttoning more buttons. Then, there's the turtleneck garment which has a branch with a single style where it's lifted. A single clothing piece could have multiple style branches.

Each and every single clothing style is an entirely new piece of clothing. Each of them is its own data file with its own 3D model, its own data such as stats, play types, etc. This means that clothing styles aren't just cosmetic changes, they have actual implications in gameplay. All clothing pieces have their set of stats that affect events. Clothing styles also have their own stats that reflect the lewder appearance, which will spice up gameplay beyond the aesthetics. Then there's the "play" types. I am calling the various lewd interactions and things that can happen "play". That's more of a subject for a different post, but as an example, the unbuttoning of the shirt is a type of play. The garment has that play type in its data, which is what allows the unbuttoning interactions from the NPCs to happen, but then the final style in that unbuttoning branch of clothing styles does not have the unbuttoning play type, as there are no more buttons to undo. All in all, clothing styles aside from the visuals, they greatly influence gameplay through stat changes, but also by being able to completely change what can happen by allowing play types that the base outfit or previous styles didn't allow, or by disabling certain play types. There's a lot of possibilities.

Wardrobe implementation. A really cool thing about the system is that some of these clothing styles will also be available in the wardrobe for Aika/Shizumi to wear, and start events with that style already equipped. There is the cosmetic and visual side of it of course, but aside from that, being able to wear a certain style by default also serves as a sort of shortcut during gameplay, as you would be able to start gameplay with a certain level of lewdness appearance wise, with all of the implications that entails, or it could also help you to speed up the progress towards later styles that may not be available in the wardrobe, or styles that you haven't unlocked yet in the wardrobe. That's another thing. Some clothing styles will not be available in the wardrobe. As shown in the video, the unbuttoning clothing style branch is available in the wardrobe, but something that wasn't shown in the vid is that the last level of that unbuttoning style branch isn't available in the wardrobe, and can only be accessed mid-gameplay. The knit turtleneck lifted style isn't available in the wardrobe at all.

Clothing styles are locked behind certain criteria. They are mostly locked behind trait progression, and serve as a cool reward for levelling up the traits.

Most clothing styles can be accessed by the player during gameplay while playing certain events types and activities. Using Aika's shirt as an example, aside from the NPC interactions, Aika can button her shirt as well as unbutton it herself. When it comes to the knit turtleneck, once it has been lifted, she can fix her appearance by bringing it back down. Clothing styles essentially allow you to increase, but also decrease the intensity of the event at will. I will go more in depth on this in another post, but there is a good degree of managing just how far you push Aika/Shizumi during events, and part of that care is the ability to fix your appearance during events.

The ability to change clothing style mid-event to a lewder style is also a trait reward. Aika wouldn't be willing to unbutton her shirt early on, but after some progression... maybe she would be willing to undo one or two, and as the game goes on she would be willing to undo more herself. It goes hand-in-hand with unlocking them on the wardrobe and serves as another cool reward for levelling up traits and general progression.

Some extra details. Not all clothing has clothing styles available. There are some styles that aren't available through NPC interactions, and are only available through Aika's/Shizumi's actions. Some clothing styles aren't accessible at all during event gameplay, and can only be used by equipping it in the wardrobe beforehand.

It's a really fun system. The clothing styles and clothing system as a whole are arguably the most important part of all of the interactivity with the NPCs, and as I mentioned, beyond NPCs, there is also a great degree of freedom to alter the outfit yourself as the player, whether its the actual outfit pieces, or the clothing styles.

The extended gameplay side of this will be its own dedicated post. I was hoping to have a couple of interactions here, but September was rough. I also ended up adding some additional depth to these smaller interactions. WIP, but it's almost there.

As I had briefly mentioned in the wardrobe post, this system has been really complicated and hard to implement. If you are wearing 5 pieces of clothing in-game, there's maybe a total of another 10 other clothing pieces that come along with them in the form of possible clothing styles that can come into play at any second during gameplay, and drastically alter said gameplay. As I mentioned, each of these styles are all functionally entirely new pieces of clothing, each of them with their own 3D models, a lot of them are added into the wardrobe, they various styles can change completely how NPCs and events interact with Aika/Shizumi, etc. If I touch the model of any of the styles in a branch or the base clothing piece, the rest of the relevant styles need to be fixed as they are all their own separate models. A few days ago I did a small change to Aika's height, and that not only entailed adjusting and reimporting the 10 or so clothing pieces I do have in active use in-engine, but I also had to fix and reimport the other 20 or so clothing style models as well. There's a lot going on. It's complicated, but I love what it does for the game, and it's looking good so far.

Sorry for the delay on the post. Heavy month this time around. PC essentially died mid-month, which is a whole can of worms. Minimal info and progress loss fortunately, but getting everything back up and running has been a massive pain. Just yesterday, I was going to upload this post, but forgot I hadn't reinstalled the video editing software yet... many such headaches. There was also some additional work that ended up happening over on the side of Frail Flower. I did lose all of the text/effects/etc work for part 3, which all had to be redone. There is also work being done on partially reworking some of the later pages. The contents aren't changing, but things are being moved around and redistributed in order to give more space to the panels, as things became a bit cramped in a few of the later pages. It's still a bit of a WIP, but so far we are looking at an additional 2 pages.

Anyhow, that's it for the time being. I will see you in about a week with part 3 of Frail Flower!

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