State of the Game - Getting Romantic

Evening all, it's time for the monthly State of the Game! Tonight I'll be talking mostly about what I've been working on for the past month, which is the player-directed 'Romance' scenes. (Note: in case you can't tell, a few terms have been adjusted to keep things public-post friendly.) A few pics have been attached and a short gameplay vid can be found here, as usual, all graphics are preliminary, text output is placeholders and set up for debugging, etc. That said, I'm glad to say that I've successfully implemented almost all of the code functionality required for this feature! To explain how it works, here are the basic highlights of Romance Scenes:

• Romance scenes will take place between the player character and a certain number of NPCs, the introduction's scene is a 2-participant event, but I currently have things set up for up to 3 NPCs. More may be possible, but there are questions of GUI and available screen space. In the future there may also be options for scenes that are entirely NPCs with the player only observing.
• Scene activities start with selecting a position, which is based around some core pose. For example, 'Missionary' is based around someone lying on their back, while 'Doggy' involves someone on their hands and knees. The position can then grow from there into a full-blown party, with up to 6 or 7 participant poses in some cases, though as noted currently only up to four can actually be filled at once. In the picture attached, you can see that the second-in-command ('FirstName' in this test scenario) has been assigned to the core Bottom pose, and the Player character can now be assigned to one of two different poses that branch off from that. With more participants, there would be more poses that would branch off of those.
• Once you're in position, you can then perform various Actions, which are based on body parts and the particular poses of the player and the selected recipient. The player can perform actions on themselves (such as taking care of things manually), or on anyone within reach. Multiple actions can be performed at once, but only one with each body part. NPCs will also take some initiative of their own and occasionally initiate actions on their part.
• Once actions are in play, it's time to climax! ...Hopefully! For starters, some actions are only good for foreplay, or only for 'finishers' - foreplay actions are good when arousal is low, while finishers are good when arousal is high. But climaxing is a tricky feat, your goal isn't to max out arousal, but rather to keep it in the O-Zone for a certain number of turns. Character stats will affect how large it is, and it's currently indicated by pink on the arousal meter. Once a character climaxes, their arousal bottoms out, but depending on their stats they're likely to be able to keep going for a number of rounds.

The numbers involved as far as getting to and staying in that good zone are still preliminary and may see balancing for a while to come, but the systems are all in place, including character traits affecting how much pleasure an action provides. That said, what haven't I done yet?

• I currently only have a single pose implemented, Missionary, which is a bit short of the 3 I'm aiming for for basic functionality. Also, this month's poll was overwhelmingly in support of me taking the time to get most of the poses done in this development stage, so I'll be spending a fair bit more time on poses in general. In case you're wondering, the current list of planned positions is: Missionary, Doggy, Standing Doggy, Cowgirl, Reverse Cowgirl, Seated, Reverse Seated, Kneeling, Standing, Solo (a bit of a special case, this one, as it will end up assigned to anyone not assigned to the main position), 69, and Tower, with a few more future positions planned which will require BDSM furniture.
• XP gain isn't currently set up, mostly because XP isn't much of a concern during the introduction, but will need to be added eventually.
• To note another future planned feature, you'll eventually be able dynamically adjust your available actions via the use of toys or Figura shapeshifting, but this isn't on my immediate to-do list.
• NPCs can currently initiate actions, but I also plan to set up a system where they can request specific positions and poses, and get bonuses if you agree. Characters with certain traits may be able to take the initiative of even that on their own.
• Far more flavor text is required, at the moment every action only has a single printout for the log, which would obviously get old fast.

So, lots to do, particularly with the data entry of setting up positions, and a dire need to add much more flavor text to everything. However, it may not be the only thing I work on this month. In the event that I finish that, or just need a break for a while, I may also begin work on some of the minor pieces of functionality the game requires, such as a start screen, save games, options, and so on. Also, now that I have begun to get in some of the art assets for character portraits, I'll need to revisit my character creation setup and begin to integrate the artwork into it. It's hard to say which if any I'll end up hitting this month, I'll be sure to let you know more in my next update. As far as art goes, the portraits for Harians and Vox are now in progress, and I'm optimistic that all of the player races will be portraited before too long.

I think that's about all I have for tonight, so until next time, thanks again for all your support!