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!

 

 

Version 0.3! 

 

    I hereby dub this the "Now we're getting somewhere..." update. I think the game is starting to take shape a bit more. Compared to V0.2, this is a BIG update internally and hopefully the game is starting to feel a little more fleshed out. Lots of bugfixes, difficulty changes and combat improvements. 

 

First off, here is the download. I have again included a save that picks up where the last version left off. If you use that save, you must go speak to the mayor first to progress:

Click to download the update 

Second off, here is ANOTHER poll! PLEASE don't fill it out until you've played the 0.3 update and seen the changes:

Click to fill out the feedback form 

 

 Part of the reason this update has taken so long compared to 0.2 is because I've gotten a lot pickier about animation quality. I've redone the new enemies multiple times to try and get them just right... I think the new animations for the new enemies blow the old ones out of the water, and it isn't even close.

 

    Canines are a big part of this update... You will encounter a lot of canines. On the other hand, there are a couple of enemies that could be considered more "normal." It is unlikely that I will make many more enemies like that from now on, but I felt like I had to include them narratively. When you play you'll understand. I think you still might like them, and I think they have their place and fit into the game pretty reasonably. Their ability to talk might reveal a few things about the MC and the whole desire curse under certain circumstances... But that aside, don't worry. This games purpose will not change and it will always primarily be about the weird stuff. I simply need to make sure it's a convincing world.

 

 

There are going to be a lot of words from here down, proceed only if you care about the finer details. I WARNED YOU.

 
The big things:

-The Fox, Mouse, and both deer have been given completely new animations! They also have a special new animation when the player ejaculates (alongside all of the new enemies in this update)... Maybe you want to revisit them?

As such, their old animations are gone... For now. I may see about uploading the files somewhere or putting them elsewhere in the game if people miss the old animations.The other forest critters will likely be changed in the next update as well. I am considering replacing one of the squirrels with something else entirely. Please see the feedback form if you think I should reconsider this, or instead maybe even change more of the creatures to something else (play the update first though).

-Most enemies are now capable of starting the battle with various states at random, which may make your battles harder sometimes in different ways, depending on what type of creature it is... 

-SOME defeat scenes have been remade (though not all of them yet), and they are a lot more personalized for each enemy. I think they are a lot better now. These defeats more heavily capitalize on the enemies traits, and some are more brutal than before. Most new enemies in this update also follow this standard. This was a lot of work, and probably one of the most time-consuming aspects of this update, so I hope defeats leave more of an impact from now on... Old enemies will continue to get their defeats remade until all of them are at this new standard. I hate to leave some defeats in an improved state and others not, but I really just wanted to get this update out. I promise, all defeats will eventually be reworked. There are likely more features to come for defeats in 0.4 as well... But you'll have to wait and see for that. 

-ONE defeat in particular from 0.3 has a primitive form of a new type of display system, you'll probably know when (If) you see it. The idea behind this system is that animations are kind of limited in the types of situations they can portray, so this new system may allow for more creativity... But on the other hand, some may feel it just makes things worse because the animations do not reflect what is being described. Without outright revealing what this system is it's hard to really talk about this, but you'll see it if you lose to a certain enemy. I'm curious what people will think of this idea, so lemme know what you think... I plan to expand on it if people like the idea.

-I got reports of the screen freezing upon ending or encountering battles sometimes in V0.2. I have not been able to replicate this but have tried to implement a plugin to fix what I believe may be the problem. Please let me know if you encounter anything like this while playing the update. It seems to be a rare occurrence, so if I don't hear that it's happening to anybody anymore, I will assume it has been fixed. To be safe, I urge you to save often just in case until we know for sure, because this is essentially a game crash.

-The house that you can buy is only PARTIALLY implemented. It's very, very barebones right now. Grind one out if you wish, but don't expect much. It will be updated periodically as the game continues to be made.

-Skipping dialogue and events by holding down the control key has been removed. I did not WANT to do this, but it can break things like cutscenes. If the removal of this truly stings for some people, perhaps a way could be found to simply disable its usage at certain moments. But for now, it is gone.

 Lets talk difficulty and balance:

-The forest maze has been nerfed a bit. It has less branching paths and less enemies. The paths to the orbs in the maze have been made a bit more clear as well.
-Additional resource gather points have been added throughout the game.
-The forest, cave and sewers have been nerfed a bit in terms of enemy density/placement.
-Early game enemies now do less damage to your sanity.
-The guard captain now hands you 3 potions and an MP potion when you tell him you're going to leave town, in an effort to lessen the resource deficit early on.
-Enemy hp has been lowered across the board. Most existing enemies have received a notable hp nerf.
-All weapons now give you slightly more attack power.
-The players base defense curve has been lowered... SLIGHTLY. I felt like hp damage was not particularly threatening a lot of the time. Don't worry, it's not a lot and shouldn't be very noticeable.
-The damage dealt by the standard "attack" option has been increased slightly.
-A small shortcut has been added to the forest left of Kadith.

-Prices of most of the items/equipment in the game have been changed around. In particular, the price of early game equipment has been lowered quite a lot, and some adjustments were made to iron/steel 
items because they were breaking the economy a little too hard. I do not want crafting to be able to break the economy, so even though it doesn't make much sense, crafted equipment will not be worth much.

-Gear progression is being slowed down a little bit. An extra material will be needed to craft steel now that you can't get until later. This is because it kind of feels pointless to craft iron armor when steel is right there and available from the getgo, even if it's more expensive. I feel like the player is moving up tiers of armor wayyy too quickly. Ideally gear progression is more like, full shoddy armor around the time you reach Aldren... And that's when you should be starting to work towards crafting iron armor pieces. Which, while yes, can be grinded out, is meant to be the best armor you can get for all of the things that will take place during Aldren. I will likely be taking one last look at early game equipment for the next update to streamline the process a little bit more, because it's kinda messy.

-The exp curve in this game is a little aggressive, plus battles take longer once you get a little farther into the game... so some enemies have had their exp rewards increased. 

 -Enemy arousal will now increase SLIGHTLY faster because I want it to be a more pressing factor in fights. I have also added an additional way to reduce it. There will likely be more ways in the future. The vibe should be "end things quick, before they get too determined to see things through..."

-Added a field armor repair kit. The way you get it is a little convoluted, but this is to limit the players ability to restore armor. You start by crafting a new item called armorer's supplies, of which you can hold an infinite amount, and take those to an anvil to craft the new field repair kit, which you may only carry ONE of at a time. This new kit can be used to restore 50 armor from anywhere.

-Bind has been buffed to now stun for two turns instead of just one.

-Heal 1 cost of learning and MP cost has been reduced.

-Heal 2 now properly restores some sanity/exhaustion with a special caveat that it can ONLY be used in battle, and has an 8 turn cooldown. I don't want sanity to be easy to restore.

-Heal 3 has been removed and replaced with slow, which debuffs enemies and gives them a chance to miss their turn for 4 turns. It has a 9 turn cooldown. It's pretty much a gamblers version of bind.

-Every skill description now lists the associated skills cooldown if applicable.

-A new passive state has been added called resourceful, which increases the potency of ALL healing items by 15% permanently.

-Exhaustion is getting a complete rework, because it functionally has no impact really. It pretty much just... exists. It doesn't really stand apart from sanity. So now, 3 things:

1. If you get exhausted, it will now function similarly to sanity in that you will be completely unable to act. You're too tired out! (it used to only reduce defense by 50%). It will also make you move slower outside of combat, so you're easy pickings for any
nearby enemies...

2. Exhaustion will AUTOMATICALLY DEPLETE as you move. Enemies will still be able to affect your exhaustion in combat just like before. Sounds scary right? Well, to remedy this new mechanic, I decided it should be easier to recover than sanity, so shops will now sell coffee and you can now craft energizing gel. Both will have the effect of recovering exhaustion. This may sound like an annoying system, but it should actually be pretty lenient. As long as you prepare properly, this reworked version of exhaustion should not complicate your matters as much as it may sound like, and it should be very easy to stockpile coffees. It just challenges the player to be more properly prepared and keep a higher awareness about their stats before starting a fight, but it should not come across as super oppressive on your ability to traverse. So as usual, lemme know what you think.

3. It took me like 4 hours to make it so sanity and exhaustion are immediately available information when you open the command menu (they used to only be viewable by going to the status window), so I hope you appreciate this convenience compared to having to go down to the status menu to view your exhaustion every time. I did this to make it less annoying to monitor your special hp stats outside of combat since you may want to do that now. This menu change is suuuper scuffed and the way it works is kind of hilarious, but it works.

 Let's talk about the combat system display: 

 -Movies sometimes have been playing slower than intended for a while now and did not accurately match the intended speed of the enemies attacks. This is also partially responsible for why enemy animations sometimes seemed to not match the speed of the sound effects. Of course the SE's won't always be a 1:1 match of the animation, but all enemies should seem a bit more lively now... This has been incredibly annoying to try and fix, so I hope it's noticeable. That said, let me know if you see any weird animation errors going forward.

-The maximum play speed of movies has been slowed down slightly. It was TOO fast at its highest speeds...

-A little bit of additional work has gone into the movie system, and now SOME enemies can play a special animation whenever the player is made to ejaculate. I might slowly go back and change some of the old enemies over time to include this if it's well-liked, but for now i'll just try to do it for new enemies going forward. I kind of like it, it makes the enemies look a bit more excited about beating you. On the other hand, it kind of appears a little jarring sometimes because there can be sudden/abrupt animation switches during defeat, so lemme know what you think. Perhaps it can be fine-tuned in some way, like some clever white flash event might make the transition a little less sudden for example... So other small changes may be made later to make this look more seamless.

-In addition to this new ejaculation animation, some enemies have been given special animations that play during certain situations in combat... Can't say what though! Going forward, certain enemies may 
be given additional love in the form of extra animations if their mechanics warrant it...

-I have added a new system to better sync up sounds that play during sex relative to the currently playing movie.

-Enemy animations have occasionally been flickering for brief moments when changing to different movies since the first update and it's been so god damn annoying because I couldn't find the issue, but I think I mostly resolved it.

-States on enemies were not being properly displayed before. This was a critical issue because it withheld information from the player. Now a picture will indicate the enemy states in battle. I could use words, but I think it's more fun if people learn what states do more naturally by eventually associating just the pictures with certain battle effects, plus I really want to minimize the amount of stuff that is on the screen in battle so you can see the animation. But I will see about adding an in-depth pdf that explains everything more clearly in the future if some people would prefer to not have to find things out the hard way.

Let's talk about everything else:

-Fixed the bridge in a forest area that let people walk off of it in unintended ways.
-Armor upgrade items can no longer be used in combat, because it was unintentional and they did literally nothing.
-Fixed a bug with explosive arrow that caused it to crash the game if you lost a battle before the explosion actually went off. Very sneaky bug.
-Both of the throwing spears now work, and they are both quite powerful. They should hopefully feel worth the materials they cost.
-Antidotes can now be used outside of battles. That was not intentional design lol.
-If an enemy gets stunned, the sex sound effects should now stop.
-You can no longer climb the ladder in a certain sewer area to explore the top of the walls.
-A torch has been added as a craftable item, which will temporarily illuminate dark areas (For 5 minutes). This will have uses, trust me. I also wouldn't be suprised if it has
some bugs, so lemme know.
-Due to an unavoidable bug with a movement plugin, the way you exit Aldren has been changed slightly.
-A treasure popup plugin has been added, this should make it more clear on what materials you are gathering. Chests generally no longer use a text box to list the rewards, since this plugin covers those as well.
-Added a tranquilizing gel which can be crafted to reduce enemy arousal.
-Added an energizing gel which can be crafted to restore exhaustion.
-Coffee has been added to shops which can be bought to restore exhaustion.
-If the player became nude in a battle and lost that same battle, they would have the incorrect sprite upon respawning in town. This should be fixed.
-Item restrict finally works and if an enemy uses this on you, your ability to use ANY item is temporarily restricted. Quite dangerous.
-I decorated the sewers a little more, they looked kinda basic. 
-Having 0 sanity or full exhaustion now causes players hp to tick down a little bit each turn. This is simply to prevent an endless loop of enemy attacks if they don't hit you very hard.
-There is now a respec NPC in Aldren that will allow you to unlearn all of your chosen skills and return your JP back, for 1500 gold.
-The cave salamander got 1 of its animations redone, because the old one had some weird visual issues. I took the opportunity to give it a new cum animation while I was at it.
-Endless mode has been removed. I'm sorry! It could not be made to work the way I wanted it to. It felt clunky and awkward.


The only other thing I think I have to say is that... 0.4 will likely take even longer than 0.3, but will be even bigger. I have a LOT of things planned for this next update... And while 0.3 served to hopefully flesh out existing systems a bit more, 0.4 will do this even more, while also introducing a whole lot of new, hopefully already fleshed out, systems. I'm planning for there to be like... atleast 15 new enemies in 0.4, on top of reworking the rest of the existing ones that still need it. Plus I need to finish the better versions of defeats, I need to make the maps, quests, items, skills, I want to clean up the early game some more, etc... Point is, I have my work cut out for me! I hope you enjoy version 0.3 for the time being.




Annnnd... That's all. You survived the giant wall of text.