Let me tell you a story...

Hi everyone.

Without the ability to render, I thought I might devote today's piece to a few words on the creative process and how the stories come about. This is a behind-the-scenes post, which I'm hoping some of you will find interesting. If you're just here for the progress report: not much has changed since Monday except for a little writing.

Pic is unrelated, but it occurred to me that those of you not following me on Deviantart might have missed it. ^^

Spoilers ahead for the content that's already released.

Way way back many centuries ago...

I've mentioned before that the whole idea for Missy came about almost by accident. I downloaded RPGM one day, started messing about and learning to use it (the panties on the floor of Missy's room are the first thing I ever put in the game and were basically me learning how to do it, but I've left them in to this day.) Initially, I was going to create a silly little game where you wandered around Missy's house getting in trouble for things. You could walk into Stacey's room and get tied up (though that was implemented properly later) and Karen's office and get spanked.

Then I hit on the frankly insane idea of letting you go to school and creating an entire school day system. Could I really do all that? By this point, I'd come up with the characters of Abbie and Jessica, and was keen to get them involved. I came up with the Reign of Jess at this time, but realising it would need to come later, put it on the back burner. Abbie's arc was originally intended to be dragged out a bit longer rather than have her become your girlfriend after one quest, but by this time, I'd decided she made quite a good first relationship quest as she was the easiest to seduce, being Missy's best friend already. (The friend zone isn't a thing in Sapphory, apparently.)

I've talked before about the evolution of the idea of Jessica from her early posh popular girl concept to the bratty little psychopath we all know and love today. I'm especially pleased with how she ended up turning out.

Now one of the elements of the game I regularly receive praise for is the storytelling and character development. This is because these are things I enjoy and that come naturally to me. I've run many years of tabletop campaigns and always prefer a focus on storytelling and making fun and engaging NPCs. If my game ends up a wasteland of inside jokes and references, then I consider my work done! I find collaborating with my players to tell a fun story, rather than just putting it on rails works best for me.

A new challenger appears

I also brought this style to Missy when I began listening to feedback on 0.1 and using it to course-correct. So here's the big, breath-taking reveal: Poppy's story wasn't in the original plan for the game.

Now Poppy isn't the first popular character to have come about almost by accident. Mary was destined to be a nameless, faceless schoolgirl in a minor yard event until I decided I needed a character model for the image of her kissing Missy when you save her and started fleshing her out from there. But in Poppy's case, early feedback had been that players wanted to either sub to the bad girls or stand up to them - and so 0.2's focus was decided, and The Bad Girl's Bitch and Down with the Bad girls! were born.

Similarly, it took quite some time for the idea of Angel to fully crystalise for me. She even went through a few different names before I settled on that one. In early versions of Avenging Angel, Malia was the one calling the shots, then later I wondered it it should be Melanie, as I didn't like the idea of Malia bullying Missy given the backstory between them.

In the end, bringing a new character into it served a dual purpose: it kept Malia and her friends' hands clean, and meant I could make a dramatic enslavement ending for Poppy's victory which did not have quite the same effect on the overarching story and left my options for the third part open. If it had been Malia on her knees in the Fallen Angel scene instead, that would have greatly altered the state of things going into that third act. Malia and the other Fourth year popular girls remain untouched, but Angel's fall gave a clear impression that their dominance was unravelling.

Who's slave am I today?

Which brings us to the Reign of Jess. Now I think the implementation of Poppy's story has actually worked out a lot better than the Reign of Jess, owing to those course-corrections made through collaboration with the community. The choice-based nature of Poppy's story lent itself neatly to being a side questline that doesn't affect the main story. Because the events of Reign of Jess are critical path, they have to happen this way. There was no version in which Missy could stop Jess during Chapter 4, because then what would she be doing now? Enjoying her weekend, presumably, not having to be a slave or go to Fivaviana for a massive adventure there!

What I'm driving at is that because this story hasn't changed since I wrote it before the release of 0.1, it felt a bit more jarring than those quests that have evolved organically as the game has. I still like it, and those of you playing the game to see Missy get dominated will LOVE what's coming next, but could it have been done in a slightly more choices matter way? Maybe.

Still... you're going to have some fun in Fivaviana. I'm sure of it.

I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse behind the scenes of development, but if you have questions, feel free to post them, and maybe answering them will form the basis of a future behind-the-scenes post.

Have a great weekend!

Trinian