Zanith
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0.5 Development Update 25
🕑 Added 2021-06-11 21:21:41 +0000 UTCHey, folks!
The update is shaping up nicely. Unfortunately, it looks like I won’t be able to sneak in a sex scene, but the first part of the new Cait’s arc is well underway.
Unfortunately, most of the scenes are half-done at best, so there aren’t many previews I can show you, but here are a few.
First of all, there will be an optional, but strongly suggested visit to lady Sirenia, and here’s the first look at her casual outfit:
Then, there will be the usual conversations:
And you’ll be able to hug Cait!
I'll leave the most important event of the update relatively unspoiled so there’s at least something unexpected in the build, but have this shot of Sirenia’s butt for no reason.
Alright, that’s all the previews, now I’ll whine for a bit.
You may have noticed the words “optional” and “skippable” appearing more often lately. The core promise of the game since v0.2 was that all the girls’ stories are independent and you will not be forced to advance any particular girl’s story unless you want to. Suffice to say, I’m regretting this now. Don’t worry, though, I’m not walking back this promise, but man, does it add a lot of headache.
There was a semi-throwaway line in one of Rae’s personal events that has a lot of impact within the Cait’s upcoming arc. I can’t really make Cait’s events dependent on this event completion, and I can’t just pretend it didn’t happen either, so instead of one event chain I have to split it in the middle and add a few extra talks and encounters to account for all the possible story states. Not looking forward to playtesting that bit.
I can’t justify spending the time to make both routes through this chain equally developed either. I’ll do my best to direct the narrative towards the “canon” route, but it still feels janky. And this is still one of the easier timeline conflicts to reconcile.
One way to solve this once and for all would be to just stop involving girls in each other’s event routes. But I so don’t want to do this. I believe that the cross-connections between stories add too much to the feel of the game to just abandon all this.
I guess I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing, but do expect a bit of a whine from time to time, too. And expect v0.5.7 next week.
Oh, right, Wednesday Nipple!
See you soon!
Comments
Draco59
I like the cross-connections (I'm polyamorous after all!). I don't plan on excluding any of them. I understand some may choose to do so. I wonder how many people excluded Lyriel without allowing her her progression.
Zanith
The poll can't hurt, I suppose.
Followfocus
Maybe it time for a poll to check? I don't mind interlocking stories.
I would personally abandon independentce of girl's stories. Cross-connection offers richer overall story and I think that is more important.
Jacob A
How do your patrons actually feel about that initial promise? Are you keeping a promise nobody wants you to? I for one don't mind having to advance stories for others to unlock - this game makes it easy in that I want to unlock all the stories anyway :) Do a poll maybe?
Wild Bill
Yeah, the cross-connections are good. But also, keeping doing each girl optional is a good design goal even if I do all of them. If it might make it easier, you could try to minimise each girl's story scenes from being affected by other girl's story progress, but include more non-story crossover events that might require a certain amount of progress with both girls to unlock. It may or may not require more work overall in developing (depending on how much goes into doing a branching version of a story event), but it would certainly be simpler.
Cory F 41
Personally, I like the cross-connections as well.
