Maids & Masters (& v0.12 Poll Results)

For those of you just getting here, v0.12 (as well as the next 3 major updates) are non-linear. That means you can complete them in any order once they're all in the game. Since I like involving my community however I can, I thought it'd be fun to have my Patrons vote on what order I develop these segments in. The first poll closes now in a tie between the murder mystery and Ella's first Master.

After trying to figure out how tie-break this thing, I thought the fairest way to do that would be to give more weight to my VIP Patrons' votes... which still resulted in a tie. No matter which way I go, there's an extra Folk village to build as well as a new Estate, so I can't really justify one thing taking less work than the other and using my own vote to break the tie. I don't like randomness making decisions, so we're not doing a coin flip. I think what we're going to say is the squeaky wheel is the one that gets the grease, and I'll go by the comments on the poll, which makes the winner Ella's first Master. Well, I say winner, but I doubt he'll feel like a winner once you're done with him.

 

Once v0.12 is done (which, going by my usual dev cycle, will be in 3-5 weeks), the poll for v0.13 will go up with the options that didn't win to decide the next segment. If you want to be the tie breaker for the next one, I'd appreciate it if you considered supporting me. All tiers get to participate in these polls.

As for what else you can expect in v0.12 - I've spent this last week fixing bugs and building things out for the content that isn't dependent on which segment gets developed next. Thankfully there weren't many bugs to fix, so now the Cumhaill Vernus Festival is a thing that exists. The Grow affects farmland the same way it affects trees, and the Folk use this as a means to stockpile food. Since they don't have a way to easily preserve all of it, they have a feast, trading some of it away for things like beer, and using the excess wood from all the extra trees to build a fire as a centerpiece. You can even ask the elders about playing tag with the village kids if you want, but fair warning, they'll team up on you.

The other bit will be starting on the thing this story has been building up to for far longer than I initially intended - infiltrating the cult and investigating your parents' murder. There will be one of these sections after every introduction you complete, which will serve as a through-line to further the story of the second act and answer some lingering questions left over from the first act. Things like what Griselda actually wants with you, what Lothario's role in all this is, and maybe even where your uncle has been this whole time.

While all these politics won't be quite as dense as they were back on the Amaira Estate, all that experience with Griselda will definitely come in handy. I hope you're prepared, but more importantly, I hope you're looking forward to it.

Maids & Masters (& Promotional Material)

First, some news for v0.12. Since Act 2 is going to be a bit less linear, I've decided to commit to the idea of having Patrons vote for which segment gets developed next. To give you an idea of what these segments will be, we have four options:

 

Option 1 goes into Jack's past. Wait, Jack? Yes, Jack. The sculptor Butler hiding out in Cumhaill. This will be a bit of a murder mystery, with you arriving shortly after a succession crisis has been resolved, leaving this particular Estate (and the attached Folk village) in turmoil. It'll be up to you to figure out exactly what happened to secure this potential ally's place in his Estate - good practice for when you start investigating the murder of your own parents.

Option 2 digs into Ella's past. Her first Master is someone who has perfected the art of convincing Folk to sign their lives away to be Servants, treating the nearby village he built as less of a village and more of a puppy mill, leaving him a little too much autonomy to indulge in the very worst that hubris and hedonism has to offer. This will be less about making friends and more about destabilizing him without making it too obvious, lest your own reputation suffer.

Option 3... also digs into Ella's past. Yes, I know, but she's been through a lot, okay? Give the girl a break. This Master trained Ella, along with a surprising number of Commorance's other Maids. If Servants have ever felt like hollow shells just going through the motions of being polite, that's probably because of this guy. He's been doing this since the war with the fallen Queen, when he was training soldiers - for both sides. Expect this one to be fairly combat heavy unless you're very careful... or find something to use against him.

Option 4 looks more into Commorance's history and economy, and will be a little lighter in tone. Explore a vineyard, sample some wine, maybe get drunk and sample a few other things, learn how the political climate has shifted as Commorance recovered from the war, and gain some insight into the status quo. You'll still need to be careful, though. Just because someone is friendly doesn't mean they have any intention of being your friend.

And now, the promo material! These were built as forum signatures for people to use to help spread the love (or just show off their affection for their favorite Maid), but I figure they'd be fun to share for anyone to share on any other forums this sort of thing is allowed on. And if you want something a little spicier - a few variants are available on the Discord server. If you want in there, you can get access (as well as vote on the upcoming poll for the options above) by becoming a Patron.

Maids & Masters v0.11 Release

Fair warning, this is easily the shortest update I've put out. The story content is only about 15 minutes (depending on your reading speed), with roughly another 10 minutes of content for the Grow (assuming you know exactly where to look for the trophy). It should be closer to 30-45 minutes for ya'll since you don't know where everything is already, but most of the development for this update went into preparing all the new areas and doing writing ahead of time for things like the Estate Info. To compensate, I made more lewds - Vicky has her first scene, there's two futa scenes (both in Evdokia's audience hall), and the trophy scenes (of which there are four) all have unique animations instead of using the same animation for each.

With all of that preliminary work out of the way, I can actually focus on building out each new Estate as their own updates, which you can expect to be sort of halfway between Griselda's segment and Lalita's segment. If I build them right, with the added benefit of your actions deciding your path, rather than purely conversational choices. I still need to decide where to start, but I think I'll take a week to try to catch up on background events (like that Folk Grow festival for Cumhaill I wanted to build) and put up a poll on Patreon next week so you can vote on which Estate you want me to do next. If you want in on that, click here - I really do really appreciate your support.

But that's next week. For this week, here's your changelog:

v0.11
Added the next main story segment, introducing Act 2 and the final season - the Grow.
- Includes 22 new maps, a new trophy unique to the Grow, and a new Maid to recruit.
- The Grow adds new things to old areas, including more flowers to make hidden paths clearer.
Added a step to The Color Green and Green With Rage to clarify progression.
Added the hexagram scene for Willow and Bianca (plus a Haunt version) to their room.
Added a bugfix feature to discover missed Hold Writ entries on entering the relevant Hold.
Fixed a bug that prevented progression if the “skip” function was used in Repairs Part 1.
Fixed a bug that could cause a game crash after viewing Emily’s second scene.
Fixed bugs that could cause Emily’s animations to continue playing after the scene ends.
Fixed a missing image bug in the Edgerton Estate’s issue of Stay Clean Quarterly.
Fixed a missing image bug when communing with the Dark Mark after the first Freeze.
Fixed a bug that caused Melissa’s extra Freeze objective to not complete in some cases.
Fixed a bug that played Bianca’s dungeon table scene instead of her hedge maze scene.
Fixed a bug where the entries for some Hold Writs were not added to Estate Info.
Fixed missing image bugs for Iris and the random event in the Estate kitchen.
Fixed a bug where the Butler’s Tie would decrease maximum HP and TP instead of increase.
Fixed a bug that caused customizing the Master bedside table to not reflect correctly.
Fixed a number of bugs that caused some equipment items to appear in incorrect categories.
Fixed a bug that caused one of the Folk caravans to not correctly recognize Weighted Rolls.
Updated Cave Bats to have lower health and agility.
Updated the post-second-Freeze chats for Willow and Bianca.
Updated the cloth trader in the wilds near the Estate to complain if you try to trade 0 items.
Updated the Estate’s Master bedroom wardrobes to all work the same way.
Updated Headstone Material to be an inventory item so the amount can be viewed in the menu.
Various other minor event, map, Task List, and dialogue fixes and updates.

Known issue - existing saves that have completed the second Freeze will incorrectly display all of the objectives for Journey To The West in the Task List. This is corrected after completing the first objective. New saves and saves that have not reached this point are unaffected.

Maids & Masters (& A Release Date for v0.11)

I still need to do some final testing and editing, as well as making some new renders and maybe an animation or two, but v0.11 is now more or less complete. It's highly unlikely I'll have the time to build any of the Folk festivals I wanted to build for the Grow, but that does mean the early access release for v0.11 will be this Friday, the 14th.

v0.11 will also feature a small amount of new content that I've been planning on including since I first started working on MnM, but haven't talked much about because I know it can be divisive - futanari. I don't want anyone to be surprised about it being there, so I also want to take this as an opportunity to make the public aware so that questions can be asked and any concerns can be addressed.

Thanks to Theurgy, I have an excuse to have the extra equipment not be physically present at all times. Narratively speaking, the characters in question are women who can be Ordered to spontaneously grow said extra equipment. Mechanically, there will be an in-game switch pertaining to the new party member coming in v0.11 that will default to off. As long as that switch is off, there will be no futa content for her. In order to turn that switch on and enable the content, you'll need to go through a handful of steps (not all of which will be available in v0.11). It will not be possible to turn it on accidentally, nor will it be forced upon you. Her scenes either won't be affected by the switch being off, or will have alternate versions, so you won't be missing out on any content by leaving it off.

 

As for other futa content you might run into - there will be clear choices before you see anything. The default options will be to avoid it. It will never be "on male." It will not suddenly become the focus of all future lewd content. The idea is that you'll know where to look for the content if you want to find it, and you'll be able to avoid it just as easily if you don't want to see it. It effectively won't exist unless you go out of your way to make it exist.

 

If there are any other questions or concerns, please leave a comment. I openly welcome feedback, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Maids & Masters (& Progress on v0.11)

Development on the second act of this story already feels a little unusual compared to the first act. Mostly because I've got all these areas to set up that aren't going to be used immediately. I'm not sure how often I've talked about it publicly, so now feels like a good time to cover it.

Act 2 of Maids & Masters is going to be less linear. I'm still debating on whether I want to lock you into completing a segment once you start it (part of me doesn't want to, but I probably will for the sake of timing other events), but the general idea is that where the first act saw you moving through the eastern portion of Commorance more or less in sequence, the western portion will be opening in two big chunks, allowing you to approach the different Estates however you see fit and in whatever order you see fit. With v0.11, this first big chunk opens, but not all of the locations within that chunk will be open.

There will still be certain events that take place in a set sequence. For example, the story coming in v0.11 will always happen first. There will also be intermediary events that happen after you complete each Estate, and those will happen in a set sequence (they have to, since that's where the main story will progress). Other than that, though, there are five Estates across the three new regions, and you'll be able to approach those in any order you like. 

As for how those will go individually - it will depend on the Estate's Master. In addition to the usual aggressive and diplomatic routes the game has used in the past, there will also be a third route. The third route may be a mix of the two paths, or a more espionage-focused path that avoids both combat and diplomacy, or something else entirely. I also want to make these paths more dynamic, rather than dictated by a single choice or determined by the outcome of one event, but it remains to be seen how well I'll be able to manage that. But that's all for later.

Getting back to v0.11 specifically, I've got nearly all of the assets created. There's still a couple face sheets I need, but all of the sprite sheets are done, and I've got all except one of the 3D models built out. The side content is about 85% complete now, with the main story content being closer to 70% complete - that still needs two major events and a handful of new maps (and if I have time, hopefully some smaller events). I'm not sure I'll have both the main story and side content complete by then, but I'm hoping to have at least the side content ready for a test build for my V.I.P. Patrons this Friday, with a sneak peek at the new Maid coming for all Patrons.

And for my fellow Americans - Happy 4th of July!