Maids & Masters (& The Road to v0.2)

Work on v0.2 is now fully underway. I'm busy spending what is probably far too much time on a quest that people will likely find tedious and skip, but that's game design for you.

More bugs and placeholder assets were found and fixed, as well as even more necessary map adjustments to get rid of some of the jank, but I'm fairly certain I've gotten all of it now. For the maps that exist within the released version of the game, anyway. For the biggest current issue involving key items - it was pointed out by a couple people that it was possible to use those items, which would do nothing except delete the item from your inventory. Those items have been fixed so they cannot be consumed, and the dildo event has been re-written for the next phase of the game to check whether or not you have it in your inventory. So if you took "eat a dick" too literally and gobbled that thing down, you can just go pick up a new one. For the funeral trophy, you'll be able to talk to Setri (the mother) and she'll give you a new flower. Steps have also been taken to prevent trophies being consumable going forward, so no more gulping down everything in sight to break the game. The one thing that can't be easily fixed is the girl's body; if you ate that, you need to use the debug feature to get a new one, or you need to start a new game.

If you are one of those people that ate the body and broke your game and you don't know what or where the debug feature is and you don't want to restart your save, feel free to contact me however you see fit and I'll tell you how to unlock and turn on the debug feature.

For other random bugs, one bug I've found is that sometimes an ally will evade a buff. This shouldn't happen ever, but after digging around in my database a while, I found out why it might have been happening and changed some things so that it shouldn't be possible for buffs to "miss" any more. The other was the game returning "cannot divide by 0" under certain circumstances. I've never told the game to attempt to divide by zero and after some research, the issue seems to be linked to the game trying to find something that no longer exists. A few rounds of playtesting later, and I noticed this was only happening in one specific area, so my guess is that this was happening because two combat instances tried to trigger simultaneously and the post-combat event running couldn't happen until after the second combat resolved, which caused the crash. So I deleted one mob and moved a few others around, and starting with v0.2 it shouldn't happen unless you try to make it happen. And if you're breaking my game on purpose, there's only so much I can do to help you.

The maps for three new areas are complete, including the first portion of the world map, the first optional dungeon, and a map that is easily the largest map in the game so far - the deep wilds. For reference, the map for the Estate grounds is 60 tiles by 60 tiles, and the deep wilds is 120 by 120 tiles. I don't want to get too far into what's left, but I'm looking at easily another two weeks of development, and that's assuming I don't make any mistakes along the way (so it'll probably be 3-4 weeks before v0.2 is actually ready for release).

For those of you who just want more things to be horny about, there will be at least five new scenes coming with v0.2. One will be very short, but all of them (as with the others already in the game) will be repeatable, and two of those will be with characters that have not yet been introduced. The current issue of Stay Clean Quarterly that can be found in the library will also finally be getting the renders that it has been missing. While you won't get to interact with those girls directly, you will be able to browse the magazine to your hearts' content. I don't want to over-commit, but I am also currently working on a way for you to subscribe to Stay Clean Quarterly, so you'll get new renders of new girls on a semi-regular basis (if I'm able to get that working the way I want to - otherwise new issues will be more of a collectible hidden in the world).

Past that, I think I've finally settled on a final iteration of what the shop system will look like. It isn't a normal shop where you buy items directly, it will work on more of a "supply line" basis. I'll include lots of in-game info about how the shop works, but just to cover it quickly here: When you purchase an item, instead of the item itself, you'll get a Writ. Once you have the Writ, you will (by default) receive a number of the items per game phase increase (the number of items you receive will vary based on the item itself). If you decide you don't need any more of a particular item, rather than selling your extra items, you can change your Contract so that you receive silcrow every time the game phase increases. This makes the shop less of a traditional shop and more of an investment office. If this system sounds convoluted or bad to you, it should be pretty self-explanatory once you get access to it. If you just don't like it, there will still be various opportunities to trade for items directly with the Folk, though their offerings will be more limited.

Lastly, I want to mention the character portraits vs custom busts poll. With v0.2 development underway and custom busts being in the lead by 10 votes (which I know doesn't seem like much, but I've only gotten a total of 18 votes), it looks like that's the direction I'll be going in. I've gotten no negative feedback about the custom busts, and one person gave positive feedback about them, so I'm confident in going with that direction. The poll will remain open for another 7 days, so if you hate this decision and wish to rage against the Hourglass, now is the time to do so before the sands run their course.

No other current news. Just look forward to your first non-combatant Maid, getting your fourth party member and fifth Maid, and the next batch of story content that brings those things your way.

And more importantly, stay cultured, my friends.