SkyCorp

r23 – Mod support for Entities and Clothes

r23 is now released to all private backers and includes the ability to mod in your own items and clothes into the game! These can be simple text-only mods, or can be driven through LUA code. The new build can be downloaded via the Researcher Intranet.

There's a number of new sample mods available, including the cursed weight gain pendant which will cause you to gain weight continuously. Try them out, and then make your own. If you get stuck, ask questions on discord.

Note that while the mod system supports well over a hundred game functions currently, there's still a lot of stuff it doesn't support yet. Notably, species TF support isn't in yet, but is planned. If you run into a wall due to functions not being exposed to LUA, please leave feedback on what you would like to build with the mod API but can't due to current limitations. This helps inform future revisions of the mod API.

r22.5 WIP – LUA Modding

r22.5 WIP is now released to WIP backers via the Researcher Intranet. It contains the basics for LUA modding. It’s not full featured enough for any serious modding, as there’s only a handful of exposed functions, but it lets you poke around with the new modding tools and create code mods for the game.

To get started, try a sample mod or learn about how to create a new entity.

Also, editing on the wiki was broken for some amount of time, but it’s fixed now. Sorry if you ran into that issue!

$15 Tier - the name has changed slightly, but it's the same reward

I've changed the $15 "Full Game (One Time Purchase)" tier name to "Full Game (Permanent Access)".

Nothing has actually changed! That's just to hopefully make it clearer to people that Patreon works on a monthly system and you have to unpledge if you don't want to continue to be charged. As always for the $15 tier, you only have to buy a copy once -- you can remove your patronage after your purchase has been charged and continue receiving builds through the Researcher Intranet.

Of course, leaving the pledge active for more than a single month does support development and is much appreciated!

Nov 1 Patron Access

Patreon was super fast this month with the charge cycle. If you backed on Patreon for the billing cycle on Nov 1st, that’s now been processed and you should have access to your builds in the employee intranet. Thanks for your support!

There are a couple users who had their cards declined — if you manage to work that out with Patreon and get a successful charge, give me an e-mail, discord PM or Patreon note.

WIP on Mods

Here’s a little demo of the upcoming modding system, still very much a work in progress. In it, you can see me exploring the possibility of mods that include… custom code! This feature would allow modders to have a great deal of power and flexibility on what custom items (and eventually transformations) would be able to do, beyond the current limitations of mere text & variable substitution.

TF Mods Wins the Poll

With nearly double the number of votes of any option, player created transformation mod support has won the backer feature poll.

This is going to be a large feature to implement, and I plan to develop it in two phases:

Phase 1 (WIP) - the initial release will be a proof of concept build that contains the core ability for the game to read transformation mod files and create transformations based on them. I will also release one or two sample transformation mod files. As this will not contain any instructions or easy modding tool, this initial release will only be for adventurous WIP backers. However, if you're crafty, you can try looking at the plain text JSON file format and reverse engineer how it works and maybe make your own mods based on that. Be warned there may be some changes to the mod file format before Phase 2 is released.

Phase 2 (Full Game) - I will create a system similar to SCLab for defining transformations so you don't have to write code. There may also be some updates to the file format to add support for additional transformation types, etc. Once the tools and file format are complete, I'll make the full transformation mod system available to all full game purchasers. (Similar to the monster mod system, it will not ever be available to the demo version).

I expect this feature request to take a while, so look for a WIP build with Phase 1 sometime next month.

Feature Vote Reminder

Gonna close the new feature poll on Monday, so if you haven’t voted and are a $5+ patreon supporter, go vote!

Hotfix Release r22.01

Thanks for the bug reports for r22. A bug fix update to public & private builds are now available to address the following issues:

• Fixed issue that prevented loading the game after having any food items in inventory/world
• Swick description of ‘could not load text’ fixed when encountering Swick in public builds
• Proper room description added for Sewer Shrine (now Sewer Treasure Stand)
• Added existing dragon related TF items to a new debug derg room (including dragon gem)
• Neuvobreast now drops for sluggirls instead of foxgirls
• When player is in sluggirl form, can no longer reset lust below 50 through masturbation scene per the existing text description
• Becky no longer turns the lights off twice in the intro
• Fixed issue where sluggirls referred to your ‘missing’ when player is female

October Backer Poll

It usually takes a day or two for Patreon to process all the transactions, so while we wait, here is a backer poll for the next community requested game feature.

Public + Private r22 Release

Public (Demo) and Private (Full Game) flavors of r22 are now available.

Public

Updates for public players since r20:

Frog TF

Now the frogs in the swamp chapter can now transform you into one, too.

4000+ words of chapter 2 content including different scenes when the Naga Queen defeats you based on what form you’re in. The minions are a bit smarter too, and won’t try to transform you if you’re already a frog or slug (unless you’re not 100% in that form, in which case they’ll try to re-transform you if you’re of the matching species). Frogs and slugs also now leave a slime trail wherever they go, which can re-transform you if you use it (it’ll eventually evaporate). If you track slime into Nixie’s shack during the swamp quest, she’ll comment on you making a mess of her place.

Frog form is another in the all-fours category, since frogs can’t stand upright. As frogs naturally gain weight over time to get that nice frog belly, that can eventually cause their movement to be difficult. At larger belly (and optionally breast) sizes, it will drag on the ground beneath them and sometimes get stuck in the slime as they travel. If you go farther and intentionally max out belly/breast sizes… good luck moving at all.

UI Updates

The new layout is DPI-aware, and is much better for mobile devices and high-DPI PC screens. The extra width on the buttons is easier for fingers, and gives a bit more readable button text space on PC too. Also, when you start the game, the character stats are no longer shown until you’re in gameplay. The map and self description panels size themselves intelligently, and at low res, the self description panel becomes a separate button.

Wait Button

A button now let’s you wait for the next turn, instead of having to move back and forth repeatedly to pass the time.

Private

For private build players, here's the changes since r21.03:

Save/Load Fixes

Due to a particularly nasty save/load bug affecting a bunch of chapter six entities, save files from r20.5~r21.03 aren't compatible with r22+. (This bug is now fixed in r22, but it breaks save file compatibility for those entities in past versions.)

This is also why some people were seeing weird save/load behavior between different versions on 21.x

Please load an older save file or create a new one near where you left off via the chapter skip menu. I apologize for the inconvenience!

Entity Selector

Finally a way to look at more than three entities in a room! If there's more entities in a room to look at then free button slots available, a dropdown button will be displayed. The new dropdown menu supports touch scrolling as well as hotkeys (1-5, Q-T, and ESC).

Dragon Queen Tuning

Dragon queen pregnancy is now more closely tied to having the body of a dragon queen. Now even if you lose the collar, your body will still continue to produce eggs. Conversely, if your body becomes almost entirely non-draconic, you'll no longer produce eggs.

Misc

• New post-TF Mark spawning code. Should more reliably spawn Mark after he's TF'ed.
• Added Patreon link to splash page.
• Added legal page with necessary lib attributions.
• More clearly indicating 'public build' -> 'public demo' versus 'private build' -> 'full game' in various places. Not a policy change, and doesn't indicate any change to content release plans, it just more clearly indicates what the builds are.
• Fixed various texts.
• Slightly different way of receiving hotkeys, may make hotkeys more reliable.

Known issues

• If you're milky and start chapter 6, bad things will happen.

Please report bugs! Almost all of the the bug fixes above are from player bug reports. Thanks for all the reports so far.

I plan to share the public build out to e6, FA, TFGS, etc tomorrow if there aren't any major bugs found, so any testing you can do is very helpful.

Bug Fixes - r21.03 Private Build Released

Thanks for all the bug reports in comments and Discord!

Private build r21.03 includes these fixes since r21.01:

• Added Thornton Clothes Pile to prevent getting stuck in strip club.
• Save/load dinoian pregnancy state.
• Adjusted Doc Nalf text.
• Fixed bug where beating chapter 3 crashed the game.
• Added reduce cream to hospital shop, and as an item occasionally dropped by foxgirls.

Backers may download it at the researcher intranet.

r21 Ch6 / Private Build Released!

Chapter six: "Dinoian Desert" is finally complete and ready to play! r21 is available for download for all full game / private build backers at the researcher intranet in both SWF and APK flavors.

This build includes the release of:

Dino Chapter

At the conclusion of chapter five, you incapacitated Thornton by transforming him into a catgirl, leaving him trapped to work in Mulberry's strip club while you steal his identity. You're now able to sneak into his convoy, which will allow you to cross the vast underground desert to scout out SkyCorp's research laboratories for the rival faction, VCiV.

What should have been an easy ride across the desert turns out to be much more than you bargained for. The convoy rides on specialized creatures that are genetically engineered to withstand the tough conditions of the desert. These dinoians could best be described as a distant anthropomorphic cousin of a velociraptor, or perhaps some sort of wingless riding dragon. One of them, Hanako, is planning her prison break, and you haplessly stumble into her plans.

Soon she's stealing your identity. She forces you to wear her old leather bindings, transforming you into a dinoian that looks just like she used to. She had unintentionally acquired the reputation of convoy slut, and now that you have her identity, she intends to make sure you live up to her old behaviors so as to not be suspicious. Every time you disobey her, she increases the size of your cleavage, making you hornier as you're forced to expose your nearly-naked body to the world as she rides you. To make matters worse, thanks to your monstrously large dinoian vagina, you won't derive any joy from copulating with humans -- so your body will work against you to force yourself to mate with your fellow beasts. But they're in a similar predicament, former humans trapped in lusty bodies that have no choice but to serve their riders and their base desires.

Try as you might, dinoians are forbidden from speaking thanks to their vocal cords which can only make animalistic noises. Though you desperately want to explain your situation, no one can understand you. Even removing the bindings themselves is impossible as they self-replicate to ensure you can never be freed. Stick around long enough, you'll start to enjoy serving your rider. You may even begin to enjoy being tied up with your wrists bound, further restricting your opportunities for escaping this life.

Will you succumb to your dinoian need to be filled up and lay clutch after clutch of eggs? Or will you find a way to escape your fate and complete the mission?

Backstory is revealed about the history of The Underworld, along with the factions that vie for power inside it. Three endings, one for each faction, are available -- each with their own puzzles to complete. Can you find all three?

Clocking in at a massive 30,000 words, this chapter is nearly three times as long any that has come before!

Frog TF

Now the frogs in the swamp chapter can now transform you into one, too.

Frogs and slugs will leave a trail of transformative slime behind them. As frogs naturally gain weight over time to get that nice frog belly, that can eventually cause their movement to be difficult. At larger belly (and optionally breast) sizes, it will drag on the ground beneath them and sometimes get stuck in the slime as they travel. If you go farther and intentionally max out belly/breast sizes… good luck moving at all.

UI Updates

The new layout is DPI-aware, and is much better for mobile devices and high-DPI PC screens. The extra width on the buttons is easier for fingers, and gives a bit more readable button text space on PC too. Also, when you start the game, the character stats are no longer shown until you’re in gameplay. The map and self description panels size themselves intelligently, and at low res, the self description panel becomes a separate button.

Waiting

A button now let's you wait for the next turn, instead of having to move back and forth repeatedly to pass the time.

---------

Finally, I'd like to say thank you for everyone's kind words and encouragement during this massive chapter's development, whether that be in blog comments, discord, or wherever. I've never tried writing anything this huge before, and I couldn't have pulled it off without you cheering me on. So thank you, and I hope this chapter brings you much enjoyment.

PS - how long does it take you to complete the chapter? Post in the comments below!

r20.5 WIP Released – Ch6 missing text build

WIP build 20.5 is now available. This build contains the full set of functionality for chapter six, however, doesn't have much of the text to go with it. This means you can now beat chapter six with this build, but without the text to hint at the solutions, it will be very difficult to do so.

As always, it's recommended to save to a different slot for WIP builds. Some of the text is copied into the save file, so some missing text will carry through save files if you play on WIP and then play on a Private build.

Here's some new features of note:

Dinoian pregnancy - dinoians are highly fertile and will usually lay one set of eggs per mating session.

Alternate voice - thanks to their extra girthy tongues and saurian vocal cords, dinoians cannot speak english. Instead, they make expressive warbling noises. Some NPCs will try to understand from your hand gestures, while others will mistake you for a beast and shoo you away.

Wrist bindings - when your wrists are bound, you are unable to pick up or drop most objects, and will not be able to use certain other objects.

Monstrous vagina sizes - two new vagina sizes have been added. At these monstrously large sizes, you won't derive any satisfaction from sex with normally endowed individuals -- instead you'll need to seek out exceptionally large partners. Not all NPCs have been updated for this system, but NPCs in chapter 6 are configured appropriately.

If you backed at the WIP backer level for the September 1 Patreon cycle, head to the employee intranet to download your copy. Otherwise, chapter six will be done soon including a private build release.

Sept 1 Patrons Processed

If you backed on Patreon for the billing cycle on Sept 1st, that's now been processed and you should have access to your builds in the employee intranet. Thanks for your support!

There's about six things left to complete until the ch6 functionality is complete, and then I'll release a missing text WIP build. Then I'll get the remaining text written up and release the full private build. It's a bit ambitious, but my goal is for both builds to release in the next two weeks.

Midway through the writing phase, I might also release a teaser snippet of the writing to patreon supporters as a non-interactive text story, and then sometime after ch6 releases, post that snippet publicly (similar to the snippet from chapter 4).

Probably will also do another community feature vote at the end of the month also, so keep on brainstorming ideas and I'll choose my favorites for the vote.

Discord Patreon Rewards

Finally got around to setting up the Discord rewards for patrons. There’s special roles for the Supporter tier and the WIP build tier. The roles grant you a special chat color for your name and access to a hidden chat room (#research-lab).

If you’re a patron, click here to learn how to get your role.

In future, I’d like to add a role + room for all private / full game backers – possibly one for each faction so you can represent your favorite. But that’s all going to probably require writing a custom discord bot, so it’ll be something I worry about later.

Planned Chapters

Chapter six is coming along great and should release to all private backers either at the end of this month or the first few weeks of next month. Prior to the private release, I plan to do a missing text release to WIP backers once the chapter is functionality complete but before I've written the remaining chapter text.

I realized it's been two years since the last new chapter, and I think that has to do a lot with the scope creep for this chapter -- the number of new systems implemented / to be implemented for it got a little ridiculous (ie: multiple map support, large map support, text editor, pathfinding, movable NPCs, hands being bound, ability for you to ride certain npcs, ability for certain npcs to ride you, etc)

Anyway, chapter 7 should be lighter than chapter 6, so hopefully will be able to get future chapters done faster and actually finish the story. I do want to get to a point where this is a complete game, and most essential to that goal is completing all the story chapters. The overarching story was mapped out years ago, but for some reason I never shared it. So for the first time I'd like to share the final planned chapter list:

• Chapter 1: First Transformation
• Chapter 2: The Swamp
• Chapter 3: The Dragon Temple
• Chapter 4: Cowgirl Farm
• Chapter 5: The Pound
• Chapter 6: Dinoian Desert
• Chapter 7: Aquatic TF / Aquarium
• Chapter 8: Latex Doll TF
• Chapter 9: The Big Finale
• ( Chapter X / End Game )

By the end of chapter nine, all the story threads should be neatly completed. At between 20~60 minutes per chapter, that puts one playthrough of the game probably somewhere around five hours at a guess. I also want to have chapter 9 have one ending per faction, so depending on how you beat the chapters with faction-specific endings (Chapter 6 has three different endings, each with their own strategies for unlocking), that'll affect which ending you get later on (note that faction points currently aren't being tracked, so you'll have to re-beat chapters 1~8 before 9 comes out).

If your favorite TF isn't saurian, aquatic, or latex -- don't worry, I'm still planning to add additional non-story enemies and transformations, so keep those suggestions coming.

Chapter X is in parenthesis because it's tentative. It's not a story chapter so much as it is my secret plan for adding a lot of replayability and letting you experience the content from chapter 1 ~ chapter 9 again in a different way. It's also a massive amount of rework, so I'm not going to guarantee it'll happen for sure yet. Even if chapter X doesn't happen, you'll still be able to replay chapters 1~9 and go for each of the three different faction endings.

There's some other large projects, like mod support for custom TFs and areas, that I'd also like to get in -- but due to their size don't want to guarantee yet. My goal right now is to get to a complete game and try not to let myself scope creep too much along the way.

r20.4 WIP Released – Frog TF

Frog TF won this month’s poll option. Based on how excited the comments for it was, I tried to make it extra special, so you can look forward to 4000+ words of content including different scenes when the Naga Queen defeats you based on what form you’re in. The minions are a bit smarter too, and won’t try to transform you if you’re already a frog or slug (unless you’re not 100% in that form, in which case they’ll try to re-transform you if you’re of the matching species). Frogs and slugs also now leave a slime trail wherever they go, which can re-transform you if you use it (it’ll eventually evaporate). If you track slime into Nixie’s shack during the swamp quest, she’ll comment on you making a mess of her place.

Frog form is another in the all-fours category, since frogs can’t stand upright. As frogs naturally gain weight over time to get that nice frog belly, that can eventually cause their movement to be difficult. At larger belly (and optionally breast) sizes, it will drag on the ground beneath them and sometimes get stuck in the slime as they travel. If you go farther and intentionally max out belly/breast sizes… good luck moving at all.

If you backed at the WIP backer level for the August 1 Patreon cycle, head to the employee intranet to download your copy. Otherwise, the next chapter will (finally) be done either at the end of this month or beginning of next so expect private build soon (almost there!).

August 1 Patreon Backers Access Granted

For the backers who pledged last month, private build access has been granted if your card was successfully charged (download at the employee intranet).

If your card was declined, then you did not receive private build access (but also weren’t billed anything either).

Thanks for your support!

r20.35 WIP Released

Slowly getting more systems in place for chapter 6. This build contains:

• Roughing out several NPCs for chapter 6, namely Swick & Hanako. No dialogue for them yet though (expect lots of “COULD NOT LOAD TEXT” messages!).
• Added a warning not to overwrite save games from stable builds with save games from WIP builds.
• The beginnings of the ‘Ride an NPC’ system:
  • You can now mount & dismount our main Dinoian NPC, Hanako. Head to the north of Haven and talk with Swick, then you’ll be able to mount Hanako in the room next door.
  • You can ride her in any of the Underworld areas, but not in overworld areas like Mulberry.
  • Still needs flavor text, as well as all the planned actions / scenes Hanako will do as you travel together.
  • It does not work with the save system yet.
• Standing on the hot sand of the desert areas will now damage you unless you’re either riding Hanako or are a Dinoian yourself.
• 64 character password support.
• Fix for room tags not being loaded during load from save file — this manifested as sometimes respawning in the wrong place after loading from a save file (a fresh start worked okay).

If you backed at the WIP backer level for the July 1 Patreon cycle, head to the employee intranet to download your copy.

July Feature Vote

The primary focus of development is on chapter six content, but I'll try to get one extra feature done. What should it be?

July 1 Patreon Backers Access Granted

For the backers who pledged last month, private build access has been granted if your card was successfully charged (download at the employee intranet).

If your card was declined, then you did not receive private build access (but also weren’t billed anything either).

For WIP backers, the upcoming build will have a proof-of-concept system allowing you to ride Hanako. You’ll now need to either be riding Hanako or have Dinoian Boots in order to not get hurt while traveling on the scorching hot sand of the desert (one of these options is more permanent than the other ;)).

There’s also a bug fix incoming for room tags not being loaded during load from save file — this manifested as sometimes respawning in the wrong place after loading from a save file (a fresh start worked okay).

Private Build r20.01 Released

If you saved during chapter 5 and are encountering a problem loading the game, try the new r20.01 build. This is otherwise the same build as r20 but with a fix for this savegame issue.

Available now in the Employee Intranet in SWF & APK.

r20.3 WIP Released

Build r20.3 is now uploaded to the employee intranet for WIP patrons. It includes:

• Dinoian TF, UI/DPI Scaling and Multiple Map / Large Map Support.
• A new settings page, where you can adjust the scale of UI elements vs size of text, and toggle on/off touch controls.
• A bug fix for an issue where save files in chapter 5 could become unloadable.

Because the load bug is particularly irksome and chapter 6 still has a ways to go, I’m going to see if I can backport the fix back to the existing private build this week.

Clothing Item Suggestion Form

Here is the link to the suggestion form for requesting a new item of clothing to the game! Please fill out your idea at the link attached.

(This form is for the patron cycle to be charged on June 1.)

May Feature Vote

The primary focus of development is on chapter six content, but I'll try to get one extra feature done.  What should it be?