Progress Report and Story Preview

"Your wallet. Give me your fucking wallet!"

One hand grips the knife, trembling, while the other reaches for her. 

She raises her own hands. Slowly, deliberately, one hand grasps the buff she wears over the lower half of her face while the other removes her shades. As her face is revealed, the man's gaze is transfixed by the impossibility of it, by the terrifying implications. The sight drains the blood from his face, and his knife clatters on the wet asphalt. He loses control of his bladder, and warm urine flows down his leg to mix with the rainwater on the ground. His mouth produces nothing but a gurgling noise as he backpedals into the puddle of his own fear.

She does not move at all. She will if she must, but in her experience, there is rarely any need. Things will play out as they usually do.

The years of abuse the man's body has suffered take their toll at last. A choking sound escapes from his lips as he clutches his chest. His life wanes away, and he topples backward, dead before he hits the ground.

Greetings, everyone!

Since last week's progress report, I've been focusing exclusively on writing, trying my best to push through the four opening chapters in the game. You can play these chapters before the title screen even shows up, and they are quite substantial. Three of them are mandatory before the titles, while the other can be played at your leisure later if you like. These four chapters are the ones I expect to be the most challenging to write out of everything I have planned for the game's first update, with everything after this much more manageable. 

Thankfully, I can now say that all these four chapters are done! Well, at least the first drafts. Adjustments, both big and small, are likely as they transition from scripts into the game with full audio and visuals, but that's the nature of the best. And as you can see, I've decided to preview some of the writing in this update.

"Phoebe, so good to hear from you!"

I almost mean it. Phoebe is what you might call a frenemy, but not entirely. I find her genuine and undoubtedly gorgeous to look at, but she also clearly does not care about me or STALWART if there is breaking news to be had. Our relationship is one of friendly animosity, mutually beneficial, but also inherently risky. Primarily for me since any interaction with her could end up in the news.

If I have one trump card in my dealings with her, it's that I know for a fact how much she wants me. She tries to hide her hungry looks when we're off-camera, but I have too much experience in such matters to miss the cues. She desires me, and as long as I possess something she wants, I have power over her. That's why I can't let her get too close, or I might lose my single greatest asset against her.

The three excerpts in this post are lifted straight from my first draft and come from three chapters, each told from a different viewpoint. There is one POV each for Michael Sharpe and Anna Morgenstern, while the third excerpt is told in the third person due to neither being present to witness it. The entire game will be told through these three perspectives, so it was important to me that this first preview shows every variant. 

There's not much sexy stuff happening in these previews, with only a little teasing in Anna's chapter. This is intentional. Supermodel will be a slow burn when it comes to the porn, though I have been able to sneak in a bit of nudity early on to keep things interesting. The primary purpose behind these four opening chapters is to establish the story hooks by introducing the setting, the characters, and the initial conflict they will face. And that conflict takes several dark turns, with the darkest events occurring in the chapter I have not previewed in this post.

In any case, I expect to continue writing for a bit longer. I've been looking forward to the next few chapters since they get the primary gameplay loop going and set up the photoshoot concept, which is barely even hinted at in the intro. One of the central characters, Sybil, also does not appear in the first four chapters, but she has several other chapters in the first update almost entirely dedicated to her. I'm eagerly anticipating writing her dialogue. 

I hope this preview leaves you excited about the storytelling of Supermodel. I'm sure you can already tell that the writing style is markedly different from that of Long Live the Princess, and this will continue to remain the case. There will be rapid dialogue exchanges like you're used to in that game, but as you can see, there will also be a lot of narration going on, something I never allowed in LLtP. Also, while the excerpts are short, I can assure you that the chapters they are lifted from are substantial in size. I expect each of them to take about 10-15 minutes to play through if not more. Considering that I plan for the first version of this game to contain 10+ chapters, it starts to add up fast. 

Anyway, that's enough for this week. I'll dive back into the writing now.

Until next time!

Someone just messaged me. I really should focus on the bacon, but this could be important. I fish the phone out of my pocket and look at the screen. What I see leaves me confused.

"You're in danger. Get down on the floor, now!"

The sender is anonymous, and the message is ridiculous. I'm about to ignore the whole thing and put the phone back in my pocket when I get the most intense sensation as if every hair on my body stands up at once and my brain goes on high alert.

If my life had a narrator, this is the moment in which they would point out that everything is about to change forever. This is the catalyst when peaceful normalcy is forever replaced by events way above my pay grade. Something is extremely fucking wrong, and I have no idea what it is. I can't even describe what insane notion makes me do it, but I instantly throw myself on the floor, eggs and bacon be damned. The hard floorboards knock the breath out of me, but I don't have the time to even notice.

A window and the coffee cup I left on the counter explode instantly, shards flying everywhere. In the midst of it all, I hear the whizz of a bullet immediately followed by the sound of a gunshot. My brain can't keep up, and I simply lie there, defenseless.