A new month is here and we have new information for FluvStruck! In fact, we have the project lead himself today to answer several questions about the game’s direction. In case you’re not aware of what FluvStruck is, let me inform you. It’s a currently in progress campaign over on Kickstarter for a very ambitious dating simulator. How ambitious are we talking? Well, considering they want to be better than HuniePop that’s a serious mountain to climb. I previously covered the campaign this past week, and a member of the team took an interest in answering some questions. I took my good old time with the current demo build and came up with some hard hitting questions. The results are below. If you like these answers, feel free to support FluvStruck on Kickstarter so they can add more beautiful women to their game.
Formalities are important when addressing an audience. Who do I have the honor of speaking with and what role do you have on the development team?
You are speaking to Saber, the project lead for FluvStruck! Although I love to dabble in every field, my main role other than direction is writing and game design.
You call FluvStruck a Huniepop-inspired dating simulator. The current build of your demo features a lot of mechanics that many will recognize straight away. May I ask what exactly did you find so appealing about HuniePop’s formula that you end up using it as a base for your first game? What did you learn in the process of making it?
Huniepop is indeed a memorable game, it had a lot of fun features, one of those was my own enjoyment in a puzzle type game, aka – the match 3, in which you’d date the girl with a puzzle. It was fun, challenging when it needed to be and was very easy to get used to throughout the game, but I always wanted more of everything else, interactions with girls, story, getting to really date the girl. So being inspired by the idea to make something more, make something fun with a puzzle type mechanic as well as many other features that fill that gap.
If I’m allowed to be honest with you and the public for a quick question. When I saw your campaign, as sad as it may sound, my initial reaction to your campaign was “Oh, it’s another one of these”. The public has seen a lot of HuniePop clones and researching yours I now see a lot of potential. However, my question is how does the team plan to make FluvStruck different from those that tried and even failed while convincing those on the outside looking in?
With content that really stands out, I agree – I had initial thoughts that perhaps people would relate us to Huniepop too closely, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it’s very common to look at one game and think it’s similar to another, and although we’re inspired by the scene Huniepop created, we’re an entirely different game with content that will truly set us apart, so I hope everyone will look forward to that, while also enjoying some familiar mechanics.
These types of games live fully or die quickly depending on their character roster. To put it plainly, if the girls aren’t cute then why am I bothering to try and get in their pants? What steps has the team taken to make sure the girls are interesting enough to make it worth getting to know them? In addition, may I ask what are the inspirations behind the roster?
The character roster is a very important part and it certainly hasn’t been neglected, this game used to be a manga I was writing, it’s a story that has been developed thoroughly over the years and each character has a background, has feelings, has thoughts and really does feel like she’s part of the world. The girls are designed in a way to stand out from each other, a lot of design choices were made from experimentation, working with different outfits and hairstyles to make sure they look the part, as well as make some characters have a deeper, darker background despite their outward cute appearance. It will not only be looks that draw you to the girls but their stories and personality.
There are two unique things about FluvStruck that I really want to touch more on. First, I’m talking about the ability to be a female main character. Secondly, the previously confirmed addition of a futanari heroine. Considering that this is a very lewd game in the making. Thanks in advance. What sort of lewd scene variety will we get with these two very big things? Will the story play differently as a female main character? What can futanari fans expect from this special surprise?
Yes! The game will certainly play differently as a female, although not enough that it feels like you’re missing out on content – it makes you actually feel like the gender you’ve selected, and the girls will respond to you sometimes in a way that makes it personal to you. As far as the futanari character, you will be able to toggle her from being normal to futanari in case that’s not for you, this is a fantasy world where demons, angels and many other secretive people exist, so it’s not far fetched that a girl with the futanari trait exists. There will be specific futa content with her toggled that way, or specific human content if toggled the other, so you won’t miss a whole lot.
As an adamant fan of the lewd fine arts, I have to ask you more about the kind of spicy content we can expect in FluvStruck. In particular, how do you plan to spice up these text messages and how do you plan to distract and hopefully destroy our focus during the sexually climactic final dates?
Although I’d like to keep most of this topic a secret what I can say is that you’ll have plenty of scenes that distract you, however the dates and relationships you have with the girls won’t necessarily mean you’ll get to the same scenes at the same time – each girls “route” has different points in which you’ll get to have that fun, some may be sooner than others, some may be really far in – it’s all unique and interesting, since we wanted to keep it feeling a little more personal.
I know I’m asking a lot of heavy questions, especially when over 500 people have come to your aid. Let’s tone it down a bit and ask: Has the Kickstarter campaign surprised you? What were the initial thoughts before the page even launched?
It has certainly surprised me, the campaign has been wonderful and I love to share the game with everyone and see their excitement. It’s fun to engage with the community and share my own thoughts too. I didn’t really have too many thoughts before we launched the page, It was mostly just thinking about how to show people what they’ll be playing, what kind of game and environment it’s set in.
This certainly isn’t a solo effort. With so much to think about and much more proper execution needed to pull this off successfully, what has working with your staff been like? What’s the approach now that the game is going to be funded?
The game has indeed been funded and we’ve hit some amazing goals! I’ve been so grateful not only to the supporters but the team working with me to create this game! They’re all wonderful people, lovely to talk to and work with and incredibly talented. Our approach is to push the demo away and start working heavily on the next builds of the game, getting Amber in next alongside new mechanics to get people excited for the full release. We’ll be redesigning a lot of the UI and making the screens that we haven’t seen yet, so be on the lookout for that in the near future!
It ain’t easy trying to deviate from a formula that works, so let me ask you a couple more things. What has been the most difficult part about making FluvStruck and what’s been the most gratifying part?
I’d say the hardest part about making FluvStruck has been turning a story into a game through design elements, the very beginning of the process started out with a lot of experimentation and finding good resources to learn from. We had so many different ideas of how the mini-games could work but getting through all of that felt very good and I also think that in of itself is the most gratifying part, seeing it all come together has been amazing.
Is there anything you’d like to inform the fans? Whether new, old, or on the fence about FluvStruck as we head into the final week of the Kickstarter campaign?
There isn’t a whole lot I’d like to say as I think most things have been covered with your questions, but I will say thank you all for being so supportive of our game and helping bring it to life! We couldn’t have done this without everyone, so please do look forward to what you get to play later down the line!
