Maids & Masters (& A Release Date For v0.18)

I have somehow managed to reach a point where the new content is more or less complete as of writing this. One of the optional Estates still needs to be filled out a bit with the usual slate of hidden items and it's own special events, but that's less than a day's worth of work. That leaves me the rest of tomorrow and one more day to bug hunt and polish. Not nearly as much time as I'd like, but ultimately not all that different from the amount of time I've had in the past.

I've already mentioned this to Patrons and Subscribers, but given the progress I've made, I'm ready to commit to v0.18 releasing this Friday, November 8th. I'm happy I'm able to commit to this for a number of reasons, the first one being that this is a Halloween update and Halloween has come and gone already. I do have a slew of other reasons I want to get this update done and released that have nothing to do with development directly as well, but I don't feel the need to get into that here.

Though as a somewhat important and relevant aside that I want to at least mention, one of those reasons is that I'll be busy with family again for a little over a week. This technically starts before release day, but I'm taking steps to make sure the release can happen with minimal interruptions before I'm out of town and unable to work for a while.

v0.18 is made up of three new segments of the wilds, two new optional Estates, plus the new story segment. I want to leave out the cult segment for the update, because while you'll have to walk yourself to the Ambrose Theater to begin it, the game will go straight from the cult meeting to the Freeze. I feel this might be somewhat unexpected, and I want people to be able to catch up on Haunt-related content before the Freeze update starts. This also comes with the added benefit of me not needing to trap you in your Estate at the start of the Freeze with no new Freeze content to interact with.

Looping back to when I mentioned Patreon and Subscribestar, that's where the updates are going live first, both early access and the free builds. If you want to get your hands on it as soon as possible, give one of those links a click.

And hey, if you think I've earned it, maybe consider becoming a Patron and/or Subscriber. It comes with more benefits than just early access, and I'd really appreciate any amount of support. It is quite literally what keeps me going.

Maids & Masters (& Progress on v0.18)

There are still a few things I need to fill in before I can call it complete, but the story segment is down to needing not much more than the story dialogue. It's otherwise mechanically complete and ready to enter the testing/bug fixing phase. The critical path is the only bit that close to completion, but that's the goal right now.

 

I'm still not totally sure if I want to go with this "no enemies except the one chasing you" setup, but there aren't a lot of ways to do a "stalker" type of enemy in RPGM that both keeps stakes high enough that you care to run away and doesn't become an annoyance. A lot of games that use the mechanic have the stalker hand you a game over on contact to force you to run away, but I don't like that idea. Forcing you to run makes the first few encounters intense, but after a handful of appearances, it becomes a notification to stop what you're doing and leave the room or do whatever other mechanical thing the game lets you do to end the chase. It's not really engaging gameplay, and can start to feel like the game is built for you to disengage in order to progress.

 

That's why I'm not sure if I want regular enemies. I'm sure the variety would be a good thing, but I feel like adding regular enemies to what I have will result in the same issue, with the stalker becoming annoying or frustrating more quickly. Especially if you dodge around the regular enemies on a first pass through the room so it's an obstacle later. The first few times might be a solid, intense chase, but if it results in a game over (or an engine bug that I can't fix that happens when two combats trigger simultaneously and the game crashes), it's gonna stop being fun real fast. So hopefully the more complete test build will provide some feedback. While I am pretty happy with how it works so far, I haven't gotten any yet, so it remains to be seen if this segment is going to be a fun change of pace or a giant pain in the ass for people who aren't me.

As for the rest of the update, the optional content should go fairly quickly. Most of the work I managed to get done before leaving town at the beginning of the month was making maps, so while I might need a few new enemy types to stop these new maps from being more of the same from v0.17, what's left is the sort of work I should be able to get done in a day or two on each area. With only two more wilds segments and two more Estates, that should turn out to be less than a week of work and the side content for v0.18 will be finished.

Though I do still want to focus on the critical path, like I mentioned last week. Getting that done and polished first still feels like the best way to get this update to a reasonable state for both testing and a relatively quick release. I don't want to put a date on it and jinx it, especially with the backlog of bugs I need to find and fix, but I'm optimistic.

In the mean time, there'll be a considerably more complete test build going up on Patreon and Subscribestar on Friday for VIPs to mess around with, and patch notes with more details on the build going out to everyone else. If that interests you, give one of those links a click.

Oh, and happy Halloween!

Maids & Masters (& Starting(?) on v0.18)

If the lack of a post last week didn't make it obvious, I've been out of town and largely unable to do much in the way of work, including getting a blog post up. I am now back home, mostly caught up on things, and able to resume work as normal. And as a quick aside - I don't know where all of you new Patrons came from, but it's great to see you. If you aren't one of the new ones, there's still plenty of room for more if you want to take a look at being a Patron or Subscriber.

Shameless plug aside, I have gotten some work done on v0.18 already. Mostly in the form of blocking out some maps and working out what I want for new mechanics (because I cannot and will not be stopped from experimenting with something in each update), but it isn't what I would call a significant amount of progress. There are also a number of bugs that need addressing from v0.17, some of which are going to take some investigation before I can call them addressed.

Where I'm caught up right now is that I don't like leaving bugs unaddressed, but I also don't like the idea of going yet another week without having a test build while I do all that investigation. I also really want to get the mechanic I have in mind in someone else's hands. Both for testing purposes and to see if it feels decent to someone that didn't invest dozens of hours into making it function and may have a bias on how good it is because what it is in the test build is thousands of times better than the jank it first came into being as.

This leaves me in a place where I actually need to focus a bit on what I'm developing. Usually there isn't a lot of rhyme or reason to the order I do things in. Obviously I need to make maps before I can start putting events in them, but once a map is made - whether I start filling it with events or writing out the story or making a new map or switching gears to render something or make or balance an enemy - it's almost entirely random based on what I feel like doing. If I want to get a test build out for Friday, I'm going to have to focus on the critical path (the bits the player is required to go through in order to progress), otherwise I'm not going to have enough done to really justify a test build.

I've also been trying to plan things out in my head for the side content for this update and how future story will factor in to one of the new zones. I didn't initially want to, but I may keep v0.18 to one zone instead of opening up two. Given how close to Halloween we are at this point and how far I still am from having a complete update, it feels like the better decision. From both a time standpoint and from a development standpoint. Holding off on putting the region together until it's relevant to the story means I don't need to put a bunch of extra checks in place to make sure future story doesn't trigger out of order in a more complete version of the game. It also means I don't need to spend days or weeks building all of that content when I have seasonal updates to put out. Even with my Patrons voting to have builds be complete regardless of development time, the more I think about it, the more it feels like the better decision.

Besides, I don't think anyone wants to wait until December for a Halloween themed update.

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Maids & Masters v0.17 Release

I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something, but aside from not having the time to add in any optional content, I also can't find anything important that's actually missing.

So let's get this release out in the world and one of you will tell me what's missing and I'll be mortified about it.

(and for posterity; it's not the cult segment - the story for this update is meant to happen inside of a day (not counting travel time) so not enough time has passed for a cult segment to be here)

Anyway, here's the change log.

v0.17
Added the next story segment - the South Desert. Including:
- Three new Estates to explore: The Fairweather, Emmerich, and Wickham Estates.
- Five new desert Wilds maps, each with secrets to find and featuring 8 new enemy types.
- A new trophy to earn, awarded for clearing the optional stealth mission without being found.
- A shop selling Contracts for the final two tiers of equipment, as well as Emily’s Contract.
Added the missing Estate Info entry for Iris.
Added a bugfix feature to add Iris’ Estate Info entry on talking to her in the kitchen.
Added an event to put you back in the Ambrose Estate Grounds if you left prematurely.
Fixed a bug that prevents progress if repairs are skipped in the second half of Repairs Part 1.
Fixed a bug where transfer events wouldn’t respond correctly during parts of Repairs Part 1.
Fixed a bug that caused the throne style plinth in the customization room to not loop choices.
Fixed a bug that caused a bugfix message to appear in the wilds leading to the mountains.
Fixed a bug in the Big Dick’s Barn Attic event that prevented it from registering as complete.
Fixed a Trophy Codex bug that displayed the “unknown entry” message for newer trophies.
Updated the position of the title screen window to not overlap with the game logo.
Updated Reckless Blow to resolve the guaranteed critical not applying to damage correctly.
Updated Contract Selling to include the missing items from recent updates.
Updated some conversations with Vicky to acknowledge the Opaque Monocle.
Various other minor event, map, and dialogue updates.

Maids & Masters (& A Release Date For v0.17)

Well, the test build was buggy, but it wasn't completely broken. In too many places. 

I still have a good deal of testing to do, but now that I've actually done a little bit of it (and have had some help from my VIP Patrons (shameless plug: Join Today!)) I'm really happy with how the new detection system works for the new stealth segment. Same with how "stealth optional" the segment is.

See, I'm a gamer myself, and as a gamer, I know how gamers feel about forced stealth segments. Especially long forced stealth segments. That really conflicted with how I wanted to handle this update, because with how the characters involved behave, it being a stealth segment is really the only way it was going to work. So, not only is it an optional quest (meaning you don't need to do it at all in order to continue with the story), it's also stealth-optional. The new trophy does require you to actually stealth your way through the mission, but if you don't care about the trophy (or you get the trophy and decide to double back to eat all the enemies for XP) you can just fight everyone without caring about consequences. I even went another step further and made it so you don't fail the stealth requirement by getting caught; you only lock yourself out of the trophy if you defeat an enemy. Granted, running away does set you back at the start, but you still get a second chance. Or third, or however many times you get caught and run away.

Other than that, the simplest solution seems to have ended up being the best for the new shop. I still need to give it a bit of polish, because as it stands right now you get a snippet of BGM that you shouldn't, but everything that needs to work for core functionality works just fine. Contract Selling should be all caught up as well, though like I anticipated, that plus a bit of playtesting is all I managed to get done today. I also need to actually implement the new animations in Evdokia's Estate; they're done, they just need a quick edit to fit the screen size of the game and to be placed within the game files, but I haven't actually done that yet.

But the TL;DR of all this is that the update is finished and just needs a few days of polish and bug fixing to bring it up to snuff. I'm happy to remain committed to the Friday (October 4th) release date.

Then it'll be on to getting this year's Haunt update, v0.18, done. Which will hopefully not take as long as this update did because it'll have less going on, but I'm sure I'll find some new mechanic to torture myself with as I experiment with translating what's in my head into actual playable game.

If you want the update right away on Friday, go join my Patreon or Subscribestar. The latest update always goes out to my Patrons and Subscribers first. They also get patch notes to accompany the test builds and extra development news and the ability to vote in polls and a bunch of other stuff, but I know the updates are what you really want.

Speaking of shameless plugs and game updates, Maids & Masters is in another mega-bundle. There's some good stuff in there, click here to check it out. It's free!

Maids & Masters (& Shops & Stealth Missions)

Apparently I've decided to take a "bottom up" kind of approach to filling out all these maps. Rather than do the story-relevant bit first (which is effectively an extended stealth mission; kind of a combination of the aggressive path for Viridius and the catacombs part of Griselda's segment), I've decided to make a bunch of new animations for Evdokia's Estate (there's four right now, but I may make a few more once everything else is done) and work on the bit for Emily's Master.

Emily's Master is a bit of an exception when it comes to Estates. It isn't explorable like other Estates (which there is a narrative reason for, I'm not just being lazy about making another dozen maps, honest), so it basically functions as an extension of Emily's shop, and an excuse for a new means of purchasing things to be added so I can get around an engine limitation I discovered while updating the new customization options in v0.15.1/2. The trouble with this is that the accommodations I need to make for the new system to work without either breaking something, neglecting something, or sacrificing something are a little more complicated than anticipated. Which in turn means it took longer than I'd have liked to make progress on it.

 

The good news on that is that it's nearly done at this point (and should be complete tonight), and thanks to my Patrons being generous with me, I can focus on development work for the rest of this week, get the test build out to VIPs on Friday, and focus on fixing any bugs next week (provided no more wrenches get thrown into the gears and cause a delay). Once I get it finished, I'll also never need to mess with the shop setup again, as it's built in a way that includes the final tier of equipment before you have full access to it. Provided I don't have any bugs in it that need fixing, anyway.

 

Which just leaves that stealth segment. I know how gamers feel about forced stealth missions, especially long forced stealth missions, so - trying not to spoil anything - there is something in place to accommodate that. If you don't want to do the stealth mission, you won't be forced to in order to progress the story. You will have to do it if you want the full story for the new area, but it isn't going to be required reading. I still have a few more maps, enemy types, and mechanics to build out, but I should be able to get at least the majority of that done for Friday. It might be missing the actual ending, but that depends on how smoothly/quickly things go. All I can really say right now is that I'll do my best to get it all to a point where I'm happy with what will be in the test build.

If you want to get your hands on that test build, all test builds go out to VIPs on both Patreon and Subscribestar. If you don't want to shell out for the VIP tier, all the other paid tiers still get access to the patch notes, which goes into a little more detail of what's in the update and what to expect than what you get in the posts I make here. All tiers also get early access to each build at the same time, so if you want to play v0.17 as early as possible, give the pages a look and consider joining a tier.

Maids & Masters (& v0.17 & Evdokia)

I'm definitely not sick enough to actually consider myself sick anymore, which would be great news if it weren't for the lingering headache that still haunts me every time I try to get work done. I'm doing what I can to mitigate it, because I genuinely want to get v0.17 done in as timely a manner as possible, but it's a struggle. I'm also tired of talking about not really being sick, but still having trouble getting a decent amount of work done. Hopefully this will be the last time I mention it affecting development and I can actually get the other Estates in the region done and get v0.17 out.

On that note, Evdokia's Estate is nearly done. I still need to finish populating it with events and hide the various Estate goodies around, but the maps are done. Then I need to get some new animations rendered, because Evdokia has more or less served her purpose in the story at this point, which leaves her Estate really only existing as an excuse for more lewds. There is still a meta trophy that her Estate is a part of, but other than the usual rare items you can find at Act 2 Estates, there's not a lot going on there. 

Which is actually going to be something of a theme with this update. Without spoiling anything, the story segment for this update is going to be a short one, and the other non-story Estate is basically only going to exist as an extension of Emily's shop. There's still plenty of content to find in the update, and I expect doing everything to take at least an hour for most people. A lot of it is optional, though, so I'm also expecting a certain type of player to be a little disappointed at the comparatively few minutes of story there is in v0.17.

 

I'm pretty happy with where the region is right now, though. I still want to find a few more places to fit in combat, because my testing has my Maids around level 28, which is still two levels shy of where I want them to be. That might resolve itself once I get the story segment done, but even if it doesn't, it's probably close enough.

That said, I'm not sure there'll be a new test build this Friday for VIP Patrons. The wilds segments are at a point now where I think I can safely call them complete, and Evdokia's Estate is at least completely explorable, but that's not a lot more game than what was in the last test build. I'm hoping I'll be able to get the other non-story Estate done this week, and if I do, that feels like enough to justify a new test build, but I may not. The remaining Estate is going to be a lot of math for me to do, and I need to copy over a lot of infrastructure from Emily's shop to make sure everything works as intended. Not to mention updating Emily's shop itself so you can actually pick up all the new stuff you can buy. What I want to do is double down and get everything done over the next two weeks, have the next test build be the final one, and leave myself a week to playtest and focus on QoL.

It's a good thing the Patron poll seems pretty well decided on the "it'll be done when it's done" option, because not only does that take some pressure off, that preferred timeline above puts v0.17's release on October 4th. I also had some client work come in, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take me to get through that yet. I've been told that it's relatively low priority, so it shouldn't affect development on Maids & Masters and hopefully v0.17 won't be any later than the 4th. If you do have an opinion that you want heard, that poll is still active until this Friday, and is available for both Patrons and Subscribers. Even if you're in the minority, I'd rather you say something - even if that's just leaving a vote - rather than be unhappy with the outcome in silence.

Maids & Masters (& v0.17 & Being Sick)

Much to my chagrin, the cold that I caught over a week ago at this point is still clinging to life. While I do feel well enough to be able to get at least some work done every day, what's left of the cold makes it much more difficult than I appreciate to concentrate on work. All of these wilds segments should be done by now, and while the vast majority of the work is done, what's left are the bits that require me to be more able to use my brain than I currently am, which has made reaching an endpoint on them an exercise in frustration.

The good news is that I think I'll be able to justify getting a test build put out this Friday. The wilds may end up still missing a few finishing touches that make each section feel more unique, but I can at least get someone else's opinion on how much of that is needed or if I'm just mentally stuck on it.

I've also got another two enemy types built out since the last post, bringing the total new enemy types for the wilds up to five. Most of these enemies also do things besides just poison you, too. If nothing else, combat will hopefully feel a little more varied than in previous segments of the wilds that only had one or two new enemy types, and only maybe three enemy types total.

I'm also hoping combat will feel a little more rewarding. I'd originally wanted the Maids to be somewhere around level 30 at this point in the game, but obviously the mountain regions didn't have a lot of opportunities for combat. Even if you've been keeping up on the combat that did exist, most of your Maids are probably going to be around level 24 on the high end. I haven't tested all the combat available in the new maps yet to see approximately where levels will be if you complete all of the new combat encounters, but I made an effort to make the new enemies worth a meaningful amount of experience. Hopefully without making them overly difficult to fight, so if you happen to be a little behind on levels, it doesn't prove overly difficult to catch up by fighting the newer enemies.

While I'm busy hoping for things, is it too much to hope you'll click on a Patreon or Subscribestar link? That poll I've been talking about is going to be running for all Patrons and Subscribers for a little more than another week.

Maybe I'll stick to hoping I wake up tomorrow to find the last of this cold has finally left me.

Maids & Masters (& Starting on v0.17)

Well, I'm finally taking some actual time off, but it took getting sick to do it. I'm fairly certain I'm already over the worst of it, so I should be back to normal before Friday. This Friday's Patreon/Subscribestar post is a poll about development anyway, so I don't feel too bad about not having enough done for a test build. And with me being sick and not getting as much done this week, that poll is going to be all the more important.

To avoid being vague, the poll is going to be replacing the "which Estate is next?" polls that I held for the first half of Act 2, and instead is going to be more about how I want to handle my usual monthly releases, since there's an increasing likelihood I won't be able to finish v0.17 before the end of September, and v0.18 is likely to be of similar size and complexity. This might apply to v0.19 and beyond as well, since what I want to do with the first half of Act 3 is yet again something I've never done before.

I have still gotten some work done, though. Something I'd wanted to add more of but never got around to adding to the mountains - segments of the wilds - are already blocked out in a general sense for the South Desert. There's five segments in the new region, one of which is already map-complete. There are also four new enemy types - so far. I wanted to take a crack at making wilds maps that weren't just paths with sections of mazes, but without a decent variety of landmarks and enemies, they might actually be "big empty maps" like some people like to complain about. I take enough pride in my work that I don't want that to actually be true, so I still want to find at least two things to make unique about each map that gives you something to find or do besides fight enemies, and I might still make another enemy or two to try and round things out a little more.

But so help me, if I get the complaints anyway, v0.18 is going to have maps so big and so empty it'll make the Deep Wilds look like Times Square, and I've already got the lore justification for it.

The three Estates in the region are also a little different than usual. You've already met Evdokia and know everything about her that the story needs you to know, so exploring her Estate is entirely optional. Then there's the Emmerich Estate, where you can finally meet Emily's Master and unlock the opportunities to invest in tier 4 and eventually tier 5 gear (which will unlock a little non-linearly; he'll explain it when you get there). Lastly, there's the actual story segment for the update with the ancestral Wickham Estate, home to Viridius' older brother, Aridius.

The other two Estates will probably still get their own blog posts as I develop them, but I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll be doing my best not to talk about Aridius' Estate too much. Though I will say that it, too, is going to be a little different from the way you've been interacting with other Masters up to this point.

It was actually based on that difference that I was starting to become hopeful I might be able to get v0.17 done more quickly than I was anticipating, but that was before I got sick and lost two and a half days (so far; it's likely I'll be losing the rest of day three and most to all of day four), so there definitely won't be a test build on Friday, and it's impossible to say how that'll affect the rest of development for v0.17 in general.

That feels like it should be the end of this post so I can hopefully get more sleep and get over this cold faster. If you wish you could send me soup and nyquil, maybe consider becoming a Patron or my first paying Subscriber. It's basically the same thing if you think about it.

Maids & Masters v0.16 Release

Finally release day.

Despite having what I thought was a decent amount of time to playtest and make sure everything worked as intended, I (and a particularly helpful Patron) already found a handful of bugs in the new content just in the time it's taken to get the first few uploads done.

This is going up a lot later in the day than I'd like because of that, but releasing a build with known issues before uploads are even complete felt terrible. I don't want ya'll to have to sit through bugs or download and apply patches when the bug has already been fixed. Even if it means I have to babysit uploads for a cumulative 16 hours.

If you any more bugs (though I hope you won't), even if it's as small as a typo, please let me know so I can fix them for v0.17.

Here's your change log:

v0.16
Added the next story segment - the Ambrose Estate. Including:
- A new Estate to explore, including Ambrose City, featuring multiple unique shops.
- Some shops allow the direct purchase of equipment, other shops offer special events.
- The opportunity to recruit a third optional Maid - Iris.
- The fifth cult segment, featuring new repeatable scenes unique to the cult segment.
- Several new trophies, both for new and existing content.
Added an event to the 1st floor of the Ambrose Tower Hold to explain the door on your first visit.
Added the missing Trophy entries for partially implemented trophies.
Added Trophy 31, which can be earned in Uncle Gil’s Estate.
Added the first affection quest for June, Chloe, and Iris.
Added additional dialogue to Chloe’s love shack scene.
Added a secret boss fight related to Trophy to Lalita’s hidden attic.
Fixed a customization bug where the wrong statue could appear outside the servant quarters.
Fixed a customization bug where the wrong statue could appear outside the guest house.
Fixed a bug that caused the Location entry for the South Mountains to not be discovered.
Fixed a bug that prevented June’s love shack animation from being displayed properly.
Fixed a bug that prevented Chloe’s fireside chats from becoming available at the love shack.
Fixed a bug that caused an image to not display correctly during Chloe’s love shack scene.
Updated a handful of things in the trophy room, mostly for clarity and ease of use.
Updated the Trophy Codex to match changes to partially implemented trophies.
Updated Lalita’s hidden attic to have an indication of progress toward unlocking the secret boss.
Updated Tiny Spiders to have less health, but an increased chance of inflicting poison.
Removed the “end of content” message from v0.15.
Various other minor dialogue and event updates.