malixegames
patreon
[Test Release] Steps 4 Happiness Demo 02 - The Besties
🕑 Added 2025-09-24 02:08:17 +0000 UTCHello again, everyone,
Here is the trial version of the second demo: “The Besties.”
Download: Mega, Pixeldrain, Workupload
It's the opening scene of Step 2, where Nicole tries to help her friend Angel relax. The big feature here is the photo-taking and sending system. The photos Nicole takes of her and Angel will be saved in the phone's gallery, and it will be possible to send these photos to Nicole's contacts and have different conversations with each one.
How to share photos?
To share a photo, open it in the gallery and press the share button in the middle, then choose who to send the photo to.
Of course, Nicole won't want to send just any photo to anyone. So check the tips in the yellow notebook at the top left of the HUD, and you'll know which photo to send to whom.
Feedback is welcome
Many thanks to those who left feedback on the previous demo. I haven't had time to read everything yet, but I'll do that next. Please do the same with this second demo if you want; it helps me a lot.
What about Demo 03?
I'll post the third demo tomorrow.
Thank you all very much!
Comments
MaliXe
Hi, This scene is so complex, and it was so difficult to create an editor capable of facilitating the configuration of all the elements that connect and interact, that I confess I forgot to spend time simplifying the player's life and making everything more intuitive. I created a specific component for moaning and heavy breathing, but I didn't apply it in this demo. Come to think of it, I didn't apply it in demo 3 either. My mistake, it will be easy to fix that. I'll check the bugs you reported and try to fix everything for the public version. Thank you very much for your help.
MaliXe
Hello, I'm glad you're enjoying it. The eye issue is a good observation. I think I just need to limit the movement according to the focus distance. I'll test it here, and maybe I'll implement it for the public version of this demo. I'll check the other issues, but you can scroll through the photos by clicking on the gallery and moving up or down. Thank you very much for your feedback. Be sure to test Demo 3, which has already been posted.
Aargh
Again a great step forward over the older Versions. Here some things i noticed: The eye movement is a little exessive at times but still looks great. But if a character is focusing on a thing, like a phone for example, or looking at another person, it would look better if the eye movement was more focused into the direction of the current object or person looked at. When taking pictures the color tint of the phone screen changes depending on the angle the phone is held at the moment. It switches from pretty pale to more reddish colors. It occurs when the camera pans around too. When browsing pictures on the phone using the scroll wheel is waaaaay too slow. At times the mouse cursor does not render in the game menu.
MaximumKinn
Hi hi, TLDR: The picture taking might need some rework, sometimes the objective was not clear on what to do or if it was a bug. But nontheless: It was nothing gamebreaking IMO, still looking forward on whats to come! Pros: + Nicoles back in great shape, yay! (Still little reddish but its not too bad) + In this demo I noticed how good the textures are Cons: - Great voiceover, but no moaning? (Or bug?) Features: - For the picture taking, would it makes sense to add some kind of indicator when exactly the focus is at max or at least "good to go"? Maybe just a dot in one of the upper corners that showas a gradient from red to green in which state the focus is. If it works reliably in the future, not needed Bugs: - Main menu, is it inteded that you can start the game/continue while you are in the options menu? - Some Nicole hair clipping here and there - If you load into a save, like in the middle of some "action", clothes appear until the next screen, except when the actors are already naked. Seems like they spawn at first with the last clothing state or something like that - The first picture is impossible to take, its a blurry mess currently (but after a reload it worked nicely even though I failed again) - If you fail and try again, on the right, bottom third of the phone where Nicoles arm tattoo is, there is something weird clipping - I really did not get how to take the phots. Isn't it that you try to make it as clear as possible? The one I took was really blurry but it seems like it "looks sexy" :D - If you spam click while taking pics of Nicole, the "flash" goes off before the phone is in position - If you click somewhere to walk to and hover quickly the mouse over Nicole behind here she will stop walking and when you do that two times, she moonwalkes if you click to walk again - There seems to be an encoding problem with Nicoles text messages, only squares instead of emojis while Brendons work - In your post you mentioned that the yellow notebook lists tips about which photo to send who? For me its empty, maybe I took the wrong dialogue path - The "change camera view" button is a nice addition, though currently a little buggy. When in front of the ground floor stairs it works as inteded, at the dining table it does not do anything. In the living room it disappears as probably inteded.
