Course of Temptation Dev Diary #72

Hello friends! Been a bit since the last proper dev diary Friday, what with release notes Friday happening instead. But here we go!

First, looking back a little, I want to talk about the ClickbaitTV mini-career just added in the March update. The last update was mostly about updating existing content, but I don't think that really gets people excited on its own, so I like having a headline new feature or two even if it isn't a huge addition.

A career centered around creating and uploading videos has been a common request since the streaming career was added. This one isn't nearly as in depth, of course — not only was it a monthly update addition and not a whole major update like the streaming career was, I allotted about two days to get the first version done... probably unwisely... but it mostly worked out! It's something I will iterate on in the future with more video types, more possible outcomes, and features like comments as well as some events related to it.

As you might have noticed, I generally like the careers in the game to have a little bit of distinct character, whether it's in their storyline or in their presentation. I really enjoy playing with presentation when I can, making a little bit of a minigame out of things. At the same time, I don't want to create overly complex mechanics, whole games unto themselves — they take longer to develop, and anyway I'm not sure the game is well served by having careers be difficult to learn to play through.

My first vague thought about ClickbaitTV was... card draw mechanics! You would draw cards based on your skills and inclinations and whatever other characteristics, then be able to play them and thereby assemble a video. After some thought, I went with a slightly less complex implementation that somewhat reversed this idea — you would decide what type of video you wanted to assemble, then draw a related card based on your abilities.

Video segments come with particular characteristics — informative, engaging, funny, sexy, boring — and part of succeeding with a video is matching the video's type to the prevailing character. Some things are not entirely under your control, of course. Nobody wants to draw a boring card, but it can happen if you don't really know what you're doing. And the "happenstance" cards are not under your direct control at all, though you can influence them in some obvious ways.

I might one day revisit these basic mechanics and make it more like the card game I'd originally envisioned, but for now, I think it's a decent mini-career for bringing in some mostly passive income.

Onto the new stuff! I've been back to working on the Greek house stuff this week, which will form the basis of the next major update.

I've been doing more infrastructure type stuff, first of all, like working on the player's room within their chosen house. There was some discussion about this after the last diary — at least for the time being, I don't want to gate off any content behind year advancement, because most players don't play past a year anyway. Once the school advancement roadmap update is done, that may change, but for now... living in a Greek house will tend to unlock later in the first year, but it will be the first year.

And there's also fun stuff! Traditionally — in the movies, anyway — pledging to a house is a wacky, sexy romp, and we want it to be no different here. I think previously I mentioned the idea of having a variety of tasks that the player could choose from to make progress towards joining a house. With the help of some people brainstorming in Discord, I've assembled a first version of a task list.

This is absolutely a proof of concept and I will be prettying up this UI sooner or later, and certainly revising and adding to the tasks themselves, but you get the idea. Many tasks are sexy, as that is after all the game, but those who like to play more PG have some opportunities too. I'd also like to have some tasks be specific to certain houses, to make sure they're showing their character.

One idea I like is to have some major heist-like task that's worth many points. Stealing a rival school's mascot, there at the bottom of the list, would be one of them. I see these as a multi-stage task with a big payoff.

Besides beginning to define these tasks, I've also started writing the events that introduce the player to the Greek houses and start getting them involved. During rush week, the player will be able to visit each house, talk to people, and learn a bit more about it. During pledge week is when the player works towards joining their chosen house by choosing these tasks, and that will take them as long as it takes.

Okay, I have rambled enough. I'll be getting more work done on Greek house stuff for a few more days, then it'll be time to think about the April update! But I'll talk more about that later. For now, I'll just say I appreciate you as always and your support makes this project possible, and I hope you have a good weekend!