Monday transparency report

Hey guys!  This week I pushed the new art requirements out to our illustrator lovely Victoria, and got some alpha testers to play through the new Malaysia scenes for the first time.

Feedback on the alpha was positive, with some very helpful improvements suggested for clarity and characterisation.  Most of the suggestions were small tweaks that will make a big difference – thanks Behbeh, Mariam Hallows, Lizzie Mitchell, XG, The Lost Engineer, Bread Pitt and Lara for playing through and contributing ideas.

Art is underway.  Victoria is currently working on some avatar improvements I requested – sneak peek of that soon but some stuff she sent me over the weekend is looking greta – and I also sent her 15 other art requests that she’ll move onto next.

Next episode outlining
There are two big set-piece scenes planned for the next episode:

– new scene: the (optional) wet t-shirt contest at Choppers Bar

– new scene: the heroine’s try-out shift at Hard Cock Cafe

These were only vaguely outlined, so I carved out some time for detailed planning of both scenes (including creation of five new NPCs).  This was exciting creative work and I absolutely loved doing it.  I worked on it for longer than I’d planned to, but I think when you’re lucky enough to get a burst of wild inspiration you just need to ride it out and make the most of it.

I’m so excited because I’m now confident that both scenes are going to be stupidly fucking hot.  Normally I’m not sure if people are going to like upcoming scenes, but I think these two are going to be the #1 and #2 hottest scenes the game has ever had.  Cannot wait to get these working in the engine and out to you guys.

The new try-out scene also let me make some improvements to the Connor recruitment scene – which coincidentally got a lot of discussion in Discord this week.  Some players hate how rape-y that scene is; some worry that sugarcoating it might harm the story.

Of course, you can’t please all the people all the time, but I redesigned the scene in a way that I think both (a) cuts down the ick and (b) is actually much, much hotter without (c) losing the boundary-blurring, “casting porn” vibe that I think was hot about that scene in the first place.  Again it’s going to be really hot. 🥵 Thanks to everybody who discussed it in the Discord, your timing was perfect, I was keeping quiet (so as not to interrupt) but I was taking notes the whole time.

Next steps
Lovely Victoria is busy with artwork.  I would love to start writing the next episode but I need to finish up the things I mentioned in the last report – filling out some stub branches, pushing in some alternate branches, and fixing up the “connective tissue” between scenes and branches.  None of this stuff will require new artwork, so I’ll be working on this while V sexes up the avatar.

I know I said I’d aim to get a detailed checklist of remaining tasks out in this report but I didn’t do it – I was too busy scene planning the next episode.  I’ll definitely produce and publish the checklist in the next report.

Okay, that’s it for this report.  I’m actually going to just chill out this evening so I’m fresh and recharged to restart work tomorrow morning.  🦀❤️‍🔥