v0.16 is mostly in the map creation stage at this point, but between following up on getting v0.15.2 out the door, having enough content to justify a v0.15.3, and wanting to get rolling on the rest of this game's story, there's still plenty to talk about.
For the content that I had wanted to be in v0.15.2 (and could make v0.15.3, but we aren't doing v0.15.3), there's obviously June's and Chloe's affection quests, but v0.16 is also introducing the last (planned) optional Maid, and she'll need her own affection quest eventually. Plus there's trophy 31 that never got implemented, and I've been wanting to do that for a while. And then there's a whole extra wave of love shack content.
See, love shack content is meant to evolve as you complete affection quests. The cabin scenes change in some way after completing that Maid's affection quest (what changes varies depending on the Maid), and new fireside conversations are meant to open up. I've also meant to add a second fireside chat for each Maid for a while now so there's less repetition in conversation even before completing affection quests, and after completing affection quests there's meant to be a choice tree conversation that gets added to the pool of random conversations so you have a little more control over seeing all the dialogue while keeping chats randomized.
And that's before getting into the second (and third, and for some Maids, fourth) wave of affection quests, all the love shack and extra content those are meant to unlock, adding more random events to the Estate (both related to and unrelated to affection quests), and figuring out exactly how to implement some of the more unique rewards that are meant to come with later affection quests.
Though not all of that can be added right now, as some of those quests (like Ella's and Emily's) will require you to have access to the desert regions north of the mountains, and like I've mentioned, I want to get rolling on the rest of the game's story.
Which brings us to finally visiting the Ambrose Estate, which is a little different from every other Estate in that there's a proper city attached to it. Where some Estates have villages attached (like the Read Estate and Roich, and the Bancroft Estate and Magach), the Ambrose City is a place of commerce as much as it is a place to live, and offers Servants a means to work and earn a living for themselves without working directly for a Master (though they do qualify as Ambrose Servants, so don't get any funny ideas).
This also gives me an opportunity to do something I've never done in the game before - make a normal shop.
Of course, the pricing of things is going to be a little weird. Buying individual items is going to come with a ridiculous mark-up compared to getting shipments through the Contracts you can buy from Emily. That said, it'll give you a way to just outright buy things like Scrap material or early tiers of gear, as well as opportunities to get rid of early tiers of gear you've grown out of in exchange for materials or maybe even Silcrow.
There's also a few shops that aren't strictly commercial that I want to turn into their own set of randomized events, like a tea shop you can buy a membership to and then sit down with a random Maid for a little time off, provided that's a thing you decide you want to do in the middle of Archibald's Estate.
My overall plan right now is to finish everything I want to do with the Ambrose Estate/City, finish the story for the segment, and get that last optional Maid implemented to get v0.16 to a "finished" state, and depending on how long all of that takes, start adding in content that was meant for v0.15.2. It's still too early to even know if I'll have a test build ready for VIP Patrons this Friday, much less how much (if any) of that content will make it in, and I don't want to miss putting out a monthly release, but you best believe I'll be trying my best.
If you want to find out about that test build for yourself (and see the patch notes for the test build), I'd really appreciate it if you considered taking a look at my Patreon. Continued development wouldn't be possible without my Patrons, and every little bit counts.
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