Technical Demo Development Log

Written by ♫Dex, published 2023-09-04

Note: This article was written on 2025-01-03, as a summary of the events happening on Discord back during this development log

Project Mirabelle started as a technical demonstration of character assets I was creating during some vacation in 2023. Originally, the project was simply called "3D prototype", and I didn't intend to turn it into a full game. However, by the time my vacation had ended, I had something good enough to be released as a "technical demo" at the beginning of september.

For creating the character, I mostly followed this tutorial - with some tweaks on my own to make it work for my context. This took the main bulk of my vacation, starting around August 9th and ending around August 15th.

On August 15th, I finally had a character ready to be added to the project:

The same day, I implemented a simple "dungeon" map, as well as a "wall tie" animation:

Over the next few days, I finished implementing the "boxtie" binding, as well as a simple door system:

Then, on August 19th, I started implementing a set of carry animations:

Which ended up, the same day, with the system fully implemented:

This was quickly followed by a hopping system on August 21st:

A few days later, around August 25th - 26th, I started working on a grapple animation ; starting with a prototype idea that was sadly beyond my skill at the time:

Image of a prototype grapple animation in Blender

But I did end up with an alternate "grab from behind" animation which, this time, I could implement - as well as a 'wrists tie' animation for grappled characters:

Which I added to the game, here played in a "demo room" I used for testing features:

On August 27th, I started adding stealth mechanics, with the ability to see "character outlines" ; line of sight was not yet implemented. (Also, fun fact, me posting this video inspired Ada to add this feature in her own game, Kinky Dungeon!)

I took a few days of break from the project, as my vacation ended and I worked on other topics. I still did some things, such as adding a new outfit specifically for the player on September 2nd:

Image of the new corset outfit in Blender

And playing around with a technique called shape keys to modify an outfit based on bindings, here with an untextured prototype dress and a crotchrope:

Image of an untextured prototype dress outfit with a crotchrope in Blender

Which promptly ended up inside of the game:

Image of the same dress, textured, inside of the dungeon map

On september 4th, I added the last thing to what would end up being the "technical demo", a suspension tie animation:

Which, added to the game, had everything ready for the "technical demo" release!

And that was it for the technical demo! Over the next few weeks, I ended up working on other topics that would end up in what I would end up calling the Pre-Alpha 1 version of Project Mirabelle.