0.4 progress and feedback form results:
Hello... Update 0.4 is coming along. I want to be transparent with you though, this update still has a ways to go. This will, by FAR be the biggest update yet. 0.3 was big... But it's nothing compared to THIS. There are so many things that I would like to share and tell you about, but I don't want to ruin the planned surprises. Now, I talk a lot about things that are coming in the discord, but I am hiding quite a few things from you right now ;)
I cannot even give an estimation on how long it will take at this time... Work and life often get in the way, and the workload on 0.4 is currently so large that it's hard to guess. But I assure you I am not burnt out, and working very hard. It'll be done when it's done.
It's been a little bit of time since 0.3 came out now, so lets go over some of the questions on the feedback form again. Oh, and even if you haven't answered the feedback form yet, I will still be checking it after this blog post so don't feel discouraged to send me your thoughts!:
This is a lot better compared to how people said difficulty felt in the last update. There might be some minor adjustments and potentially a small nerf to the wolf cave, but everything currently in the game will likely remain relatively untouched.
Exhaustion is a hot topic right now... And it's kind of on the chopping block. I would like to deliberate a bit further before outright axing it though. If there's a way I can make it feel like a meaningful stat, I would rather do that. If I can't manage, I will remove it.
Arousal is actually kinda already implemented... So it's here to stay. All that remains is, what to do with exhaustion...?
Literally ZERO people said that they outright didn't like this... It will be expanded upon in the next update in a few ways.
I asked these to kind of gauge peoples interests... Based on these results, I am leaning more towards making beasts and monsters pretty rough with the MC more often than not, and making them act/look an appropriately intimidating way. Though, there will continue to be a bit of everything and it will remain situational depending on what kind of creature we are talking about.
Not a huge amount of pushback on these two! Of course, I have always claimed that this game will be about monsters, animals, etc... But I figure a little variety doesn't hurt and helps keep things fresh. I also like to be thematically appropriate with locations, and a gang that's knocking on the door to a city...? Come on, I had to stretch my rules a little bit to make that work. Above all else, my philosophy for this game is putting a male character in the context that female characters get placed in on rape games. That primarily means creepy monsters and savage beasts, yes... But getting attacked by fellow humans or human-like species is not out of the scope of this either, like at all. So with that in mind, there may be some "normal" enemies here and there, but expect them to be quite uncommon. They are NOT the main focus and never will be... But they have their place.
Very happy to see these results on this question. Is the whole "reverse knot" thing kinda weird and abstract? Yes. Did I also have a lot of people telling me it was a super hot idea? Also yes. I did have some people saying that it was a bit difficult/annoying because you aren't informed on the progress that the wolf has made, but that's kinda the point of it. If it warned you, you could easily counter their special ability by just reacting to the warning message. I prefer the idea of the player being unsure if they can get away with not using pullout for another turn or not, and it keeps you on your toes a bit more by forcing you to track things yourself. The game never explicitly states how many turns you have before getting stuck inside a wolf either, but that's also the point. Trial and error reveals the nature of the mechanic to you in an appropriately brutal way. It's okay to lose fights, and I do not want the game to hold your hand when I believe you are perfectly capable of figuring these kinds of things out. But regardless, expect more unique traits from other various species in the future. And yes, any canine you may encounter going forward will always have this ability... So watch out.
Happy to see this, I am very glad that the extra time and effort is worth it. I don't want to be lazy with defeat scenes anymore, so I have been slowly chipping away at various old enemies that deserve better defeats, and all new enemies will retain this higher standard going forward!
When I made this system, I wasn't sure how people would feel about it... But most seem to like it! This is nice to see. It is a lot of work to do and not every enemy will make use of it, but expect it to be expanded upon here and there. Some feedback I got about it from some people is that 1. The pictures come and go a bit too quickly, and 2. The white "flash" that pulls it up is kinda sudden and a bit much. I will see about making some minor adjustments to how pictures popup on screen as well.
Not much to say on this, other than that I'm glad that the new ones seem to be mostly popular. The rest are coming in 0.4... With a few small caveats that I will get into in the next question.
Interesting results, and pretty split. More people would like to see some of the animals replaced, but there's still a notable amount that want them all to stay the same. I actually already have a solution planned, and it's this:
-The smaller squirrel is getting outright removed and replaced with something else (that isn't an animal)
-The skunk and raccoon will "share" a spawn, to make room for one additional enemy that also isn't an animal
That's it. I may consider giving the two deer a similar treatment to the skunk and raccoon, but at that point i'm starting to really oversaturate the amount of enemies you encounter early on. The fact is, I don't want to outright REMOVE too many enemies that function perfectly fine as it is, but I do want to increase early variety a bit more... So that, combined with the feedback results, had me settle on this solution. Perhaps in the future if I were to extend the forest sections of the game to include an entirely new "area," I could do a bit more here... But for now, this is the planned solution.
I'll be honest, I really don't want to reuse the old animations ingame... But if enough people wanted it I would've budged. They simply don't display properly and a lot of them are kinda poor quality in my opinion. However, I WILL include a bonus content folder that has all of the old animations for you to view if you wish, alongside all 'scrapped' animations of new enemies going forward.
Also some interesting results... I expected more people to care about artstyle direction, but those that do seem to mostly care about the new "style" that was present in 0.3. So based on this, I will try to mostly maintain that style... But I also won't let myself be stopped from putting other styles in the game if those situations arise.
Ah, this question... When the poll first launched, it was a very close 50/50 split for a good while between the two choices. But it seems like more people want a party member than not now. Honestly, I thought it would be a blowout for yes on the party member, but it wasn't. various people have also given me some interesting insights that cause me to think otherwise on the topic of adding a party member. So, going forward... Haha, just kidding. I will not reveal my decision on this! You'll have to wait and see. There MIGHT be one, MIGHT not be. It MIGHT be in 0.4, it MIGHT not be. And if it isn't in 0.4, that MIGHT be because I MIGHT'VE scrapped the idea altogether, or maybe it MIGHT'VE just been because you simply don't meet them yet. Okay, you get it.
This is a special question that only showed up if you answered "yes" to the previous one. I'm simply showing the results, no comment on this from me right now.
Annnd.... That's it. I skimmed over a couple of questions but this should be the vast majority of the feedback results. As always, I welcome your feedback openly. Even if I disagree with what you're saying, I am willing to entertain your ideas in my head as bias-free as possible, or simply explain my perspective. So please, keep giving me feedback on places like discord! It truly does help shape the game to a very high degree.
Next time I post here, it will most likely be the 0.4 release... But as I've stated, that's quite a ways away. If I were to truly make a shot in the dark guess, I would say... A month and a half, to about two months. That is just me winging a guess though. It could be quicker, or longer. Bye bye for now!



