VELVET FORGE

Build characters. Make scenes. Share it.

Velvet Forge is a very early 18+ sandbox for Android focused on creating characters, scenes and stories instead of just unlocking a gallery of pre-made content.

Customize characters, build environments, place lights and props, create conversations, switch between Edit Mode and Play Mode, save your scenes and share them with other players.

This is version 0.0.1. Things WILL break.

Support development / experimental builds: https://www.patreon.com/c/vazie

What can you actually do right now?

• Heavily customize characters using a large library of blendshapes
• Spawn multiple characters
• Edit and position characters in the scene
• Place, rotate and scale objects
• Use a small collection of furniture, architecture and environment assets
• Add lights, particles and basic geometry
• Create conversations
• Edit basic character inventories
• Switch between Edit Mode and Play Mode
• Save and load scenarios
• Export and import scenarios as JSON files
• Use the current procedural anatomical interaction system
• Try one experimental 18+ interaction included as a proof of concept
• Run the whole thing natively on Android

There are also some hair options.

Some look kinda fine.

Some are hella broken.

About the current interaction

Velvet Forge already has an experimental procedural anatomical alignment system underneath the scenes.

Right now only one interaction is exposed in the public build.

To start it, the scene needs two compatible adult characters with the required anatomical tags.

This isn't meant to be the final interaction system. It's basically the first public proof that the underlying procedural stuff actually works.

This is an EARLY alpha

And I really mean early.

The asset library is tiny.

Characters are heavier than I want them to be.

Some menus are unfinished.

The inventory system technically exists, which is currently more impressive than it being useful.

There isn't much pre-made interaction content yet.

Expect bugs, clipping, broken things and occasional decisions that clearly seemed smarter when I implemented them at 3AM.

I'm releasing it now because I'd rather have people actually using the sandbox while I build it than spend months polishing systems nobody ends up caring about.

The goal

I don't want Velvet Forge to become another game where the developer makes a bunch of scenes and you just unlock them.

I want it to become an actual creator sandbox.

A place where you can:

Create characters ->Build a scene > Animate it > Play it > Save it > Share it > Remix somebody else's scene

The current JSON import/export system is the first step toward that.

You can already share scenarios through the Discord:

https://discord.gg/cWP7jTdzCF

Animations

This is probably the part I'm most interested in building next.

Most 3D animation tools expect you to manually deal with bones, IK controls, timelines and keyframes. I fcking hate doing that.

So I'm working on tools that let the game solve more of that annoying stuff automatically.

Velvet Forge already uses procedural alignment for some character interactions, and the plan is to expand that idea into a much easier pose and animation creation system.

The goal is not to remove advanced control.

The goal is to make creating a decent animation take minutes instead of fighting a skeleton for an hour.

We'll see how badly I break everything while doing that.

Planned stuff

No fixed roadmap, but these are the things I'm currently interested in:

• Better posing and animation creation
• CLOTHES
• Character and memory optimization
• More character customization
• More props, furniture and environments
• Better dialogue tools
• More scene logic and interactivity
• Better importing and sharing
• More procedural interaction systems
• More creator tools
• Making the inventory system actually useful
• General Android optimization

If people end up using the sandbox in ways I didn't expect, I'll probably change priorities around that.

Android / Performance

Velvet Forge is being developed Android-first.

Small and medium scenes are obviously going to perform much better than stuffing the scene with a ridiculous amount of heavy characters and assets.

That's also part of why the game is a sandbox: if your phone can't handle some giant scene, you can still build smaller scenes, customize characters and use the editor without needing to load everything at once.

Performance and memory usage are active development priorities.

Public builds & development

Version 0.0.1 is completely free.

The public version is intended to remain an actual usable build, not a useless demo with every interesting button disabled or behind a paywall.

Development is supported through Patreon, where I'll post experimental builds, unfinished systems, prototypes and newer creator tools before they eventually reach the public version.

I don't want Patreon to become:

“pay $5 to see the one animation I locked.”

I'd rather have it be:

“I want to help this hot sandbox turn into something much bigger.”

so, patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/vazie

Feedback

Please tell me when something breaks.

I'm particularly interested in:

• Performance on different Android devices
• Broken character
• UX that makes absolutely no sense to you
• Save/import problems
• Scene creation ideas
• Animation tools you'd actually want to use
• Things you tried to create but the editor wouldn't let you

That kind of feedback is extremely useful this early.

Velvet Forge is intended exclusively for adults (18+).

All depicted characters are adults.