0.60 Reflection and 0.61 Preview

Hi, perverts! It's been a busy month for me, mostly in areas that don't contribute directly to the next update. I'm working on the finale and the new character in the background, plus a lot of non-Ruin-Me-specific work that will make me better able to work on this and other projects in the future! I appreciate your patience as I work on less visible things.

This all means that there won't be a (non-hotfix) update in June. I'm trying to adjust my release schedule so that I'm putting things out a bit closer to the middle of the month, so hopefully it won't be another four weeks before you see new stuff!

Reflection on Zaftig Salvage

Somehow I feel like this was one of the weirder Ruin Me updates. Transformation fetishes have never been a core interest of mine (unexpected for a trans person, I know), but the night music dreams are a good place to explore stuff that's less in my comfort zone. I can do things that are appropriate to the game in theme and tone without needing to fit them neatly into the narrative. I think I did a pretty good job at it, and I intend to expand the existing night music scenes a bit more to add new options over time.

The Salvage side activity is the last one I'm adding for now. To give a broad view of how I'm thinking about these things: I want each "major NPC" to have the same rough layout of activities associated with them, represented by the four big buttons in their conversation screen: Chat, Investigate, Play (sexually), and a fourth activity. Byron's asexual, so his play and activity are combined into his dice/hint game, and the bar has the toilets for sex scenes. Arthur has Geography, Esther has Exploration, and Cathy has Salvage. I'll likely update Meg to use the new interface and put her meal options in the activity slot. I have ideas for Pappy's activity, but I need more time to figure out how they fit into the rest of the game. Shelby, for now, has a unique position as a sort of minor NPC: I don't know if and when she'll get expanded more.

I like the feeling of having these three big side activities in the game in place of more simple grinding for Ken. I think of them as places that I can "hang" other parts of the game: I can use them to add new locations or luggage to the game in a way that feels like you're a researcher working to find things rather than a tourist spending your paycheck on tickets to a new attraction. I hope that this comes across to players; if you have thoughts about it, please let me know!

Next Update

I postponed urethral sounding training from 0.60, so I intend to release it as part of 0.61. That'll also open up the option to penetrate Terry's cock in the "Zaftig March" night music. I decided to take more time on it in part because it's one of the more physically risky kink activities I intend to portray in the game. I like sounding, but it takes a lot of care to reduce the risk of injury or urinary infection, and it seems to be one of the activities that people in the real world take the most unnecessary risks with. One of my goals with Ruin Me has always been to portray the non-supernatural sexy stuff honestly and safely, and I'm taking some extra time to make sure I do sounding right as well (including the different risks for folks with different anatomy).

The most popular development priority right now, by far, is everyday "life simulator" stuff: evening visits, breakfast, routines, and that sort of thing. I'm taking a look at those things and filling in some spots I left incomplete and places where there's room for expansion or polishing to bring things up to date with the rest of the game. It's a lot of smaller stuff, and I'm not sure exactly what will end up in the next update, but I hope to make the day-to-day parts of the game a bit more fleshed-out. This may come with some expansions or additions to play scenes with Terry.

Beyond all that, I continue to work on the new character and I think I'll be able to release the initial stuff with him sometime soon: if not this next update, the following one. He'll have additional scenes and options released over time, in a similar way to the existing major characters.

If you have requests of your own, continue to let me know! I give Center of Attention requests priority, but I welcome suggestions from everyone. You can comment here, post on the discussion board on Itch, DM me on Patreon, or email phanes@phanes.me. Thank you so much for your support!