Maids & Masters (& A Winter Poll)

There's still not much in the way of development news that I can actually share, but I'm slowly making something I think I can call progress. It's a bit slower than I'd like, but I'm taking it as a sign that I need the rest I'm letting myself have.

To help get the engine running (and because I'll have need of some promotional renders in the near future), I've decided to make a batch of bonus renders, and you get to vote on which Maids are in those bonus renders. 

You have to join, because I'm a jerk, but if you join for free (no, you don't have to give me money to participate), you can vote on Patreon (or Subscribestar) for any number of Maids you want to see in these vaguely Christmas-themed bonus renders. There's even a little twist you can read about in the posts I've linked.

Each render will have variants with and without the game/developer information, as well as lewd variants. The lewd variants have to go behind the paywall, though. The platform makes those rules, I can't have too much skin in public-facing posts. Sorry. If you want those (and early access and a Discord invite and everything else that comes with supporting me), you'll need to join a paid tier.

The poll results will be announced this Friday, with the renders going up the following Friday. And hopefully by the end of that, I'll have a test build worth sharing and you'll have v0.19 either just before or just after Christmas.

In other news, I've picked up a new client. The project is still pre-v0.1, so there isn't anything to share yet, but I'm excited to be joining it. Client work has been incredibly slow this year, and considering how much I rely on it to support myself, it's probably one of the biggest reasons I've felt so burnt out for so long. It feels good to be actively working alongside someone again. I'm not sure how long it will take to reach v0.1, but I'll definitely be sharing what it is and where you can find it as soon as there's something to share.

 

I hope something in here gave you something to look forward to. And if you're in the northern hemisphere, stay warm. It's cold outside.

Maids & Masters (& Starting on v0.19)

I did not intend for this to go up so late in the day, but, well...

For context, there's a post over on Patreon (and Subscribestar) that you can read. You don't even have to join as a free member to get access to the post. It is kind of a long one, though, so here's a quick tl;dr: 

I'm worn the hell out. 

I'm definitely not calling it quits, but development news is likely going to be pretty slow over the next few weeks while I work on v0.19. I'm doing my best to recuperate so I can get back into development in earnest, but trying to "relax harder" feels like trying to incite either anxiety or depression, so I just have to accept that it'll take some time. Once I've managed to catch my breath, I'll get back to it.

Though I do want to be clear - I am still working on v0.19. I'm organizing notes, brainstorming events, and trying to keep myself caught up on other background work (and non-development work) that I've been neglecting. There's just not a lot to say about completing that stuff, even for someone like me who has a talent for using a lot of words to say very little.

The silver lining to all this is that I have a very solid plan for what's going into v0.19, and there isn't a lot of non-development work that needs to be done on it short of renders and animations for the new lewds that'll be coming with the new Freeze events for the new characters. 

As a bit more summary from the post linked above, since there are only four new Maids for this Freeze compared to the last two averaging out at 8 each, the new content shouldn't take me a ton of time to get made and tested. That'll leave me more room than usual to bugfix and playtest, which is a very good thing, because the last few updates haven't gotten as much bugfixing as I'd have liked to give them. I've still got a list of things to address that I haven't had the time to give any attention to. All before the end of the year.

The last thing worth mentioning if you didn't read the post above is that after v0.19, it's hard to say how long individual updates will take to make from a sheer content perspective. v0.18 is the end of Act 2, with v0.19 acting as a sort of interlude before v0.20 kicks off Act 3. With what I want to do in Act 3, it would be bordering on impossible to cleanly split the arcs into smaller updates, so what's left of the story is likely to come out in as few as three updates. Obviously that's going to take me more time than usual to develop, so news may continue to be sparse as I move forward.

If you want to keep up with development news, both Patreon and Subscribestar have free options so you get notifications (even if you don't pay for access to all the juicy details), and I announce when posts go up in places like Bluesky, so you can also follow me there if you want to know when updates become available even when news is sparse.

And one last thing to mention from that post linked up top - thanks for being here. I really do appreciate it.

Maids & Masters v0.18 Release

I was hoping things would've gone a little more smoothly than they did, but that's life for you. v0.18 still entered early access and v0.17 still went public on Patreon, Subscribestar, and itch, but not having the time to work as I usually do, it wasn't exactly on time. I've only got a few hours today, which is why you're only just now seeing the change log. Sorry if this is confusing or frustrating. I've been a little frustrated, too.

I'll continue to be out of town through the rest of this week, with the posts on Patreon and Subscribestar likely being a bit late again, and since I won't have been able to get anything done between now and then, I won't have much (if anything) to post here next week, so if there's no news when you come back, that's why. Hopefully (with the exception of holidays) everything will be back to normal in the last week of November and I can dig into v0.19.

For now, here's the surprisingly short change log that goes with the recent update:

v0.18
Added the next story segment - the third Haunt. Including:
- A new region, the North Desert, with 3 new Estates and 3 new wilds segments to explore.
- A new trophy, awarded for fighting off a seemingly unkillable shadow.
Added missing Estate Info entries for the South Desert Estates.
Added a bugfix feature to address visiting Evdokia causing an incorrect transfer.
Fixed a bug that prevented teleporting from being used after completing the Wickham Estate.
Fixed a bug that left the player in the wrong costume after completing the Wickham Estate.
Fixed a bug that sent the player to the wrong map when attempting an audience with Evdokia.
Fixed a bug that allowed a gift to be purchased multiple times.
Fixed a bug that caused the South Desert Estate Info entry to have the wrong map.
Removed the “end of content” message from v0.16.
Various other minor dialogue updates.

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.