Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Maids & Masters (& Progress on v0.6.2)

Oh, shit, it's Wednesday. I was supposed to write this yesterday. Whoops.


If that isn't enough of an indication, v0.6.2 is keeping me busy. I decided to rework the uncle's Estate first, because I have non-rework things to get done still and I expect reworking Lothario's Estate to take more care and attention. It took me the majority of the last 5 days to get done, but it is now (mostly) done. I still want to go through it all and spruce things up so it feels more content-dense, but the maps themselves are now done. 


As for what's changed, the maps are 30-60% smaller, and one map has been removed entirely. Some of them still have the same issues as their previous iterations, such as the Servant's floor - there are over 40 rooms, and only about half a dozen of them have unique events, and only about another half dozen have something worth finding in them. I'm still at a bit of a loss for how exactly I can fill them out (or at least make them unique enough that the curious don't feel like they're just wasting their time), but I've got a couple ideas that might at least help a little. I'll probably go back and forth between that and my next point. One last thing before that


Onto Teely. Teely is a Folk girl living in Adhauga who looks up to Maids and fantasizes about one day being one, but sees herself as far too clumsy for a Master to ever consider her. She's is the second (though for new players, the first you can encounter) optional Maid. Once recruited, she'll serve as a door Maid - she'll stand immediately next to the entrance of your mansion, and offer to escort you to different places as they open up. This means if you want to go home to sleep, rather than walking all the way up to the bedrooms on the second floor, resting, then walking all the way back down, you'll be able to just chat with her. I'm also working on a way for you to be able to toggle whether or not she greets you when you walk inside (and depending on affection levels, you may be able to change how she greets you, if you catch my drift). This is all in development, so I can't say for certain all of this will make it into an actual release, but I'm hopeful.


As usual, I've also got a number of smaller changes to implement. If I've got the time, I'll be adding in the repair quest for the love shack in the hidden grove, which - once completed - will be the first real feature to utilize affection levels. Most of the planned content related to affection levels was never intended to be implemented before act 2, but as development has continued, affection levels are turning out to be higher than I thought they'd be. This would be fine if they were used, but currently the only thing they affect is the dialogue you get when you ask Melissa for a check-in, and one of Emily's scenes in her shop. There's also a QoL improvement that should make picking up large amounts of items on the ground feel smoother/quicker, and a couple of visual improvements through custom sprites I'd like to make, but the visual improvements are very much on the back burner compared to Teely and the QoL stuff.


Phew. Anyway. Public release for v0.6.1 is Friday!

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Maids & Masters (& More Progress on v0.19)