The Eye of the Sahara

The Richat Structure, known as the Eye of the Sahara, is a massive volcanic structure in the west-central Sahara Desert. You can learn more--and see more pictures--here.

Here's a cover of Hello, Again by JubyPhonic to enjoy while you read. Some of the lyrics feel apropos to the situation at hand, and it's a nice listen.

I meant to make this post several days ago, but getting sick caused me to delay it. I've made an ongoing commitment to honesty and transparency in the AW project, so I want to talk about my situation rather than try to gloss over it or pretend nothing unusual is going on. It's not a technical issue or a problem with AW, it's more of a personal problem on my (ThaumX's) part. However, this is affecting my portion of development (Besty is still working admirably). 

I'll go over the details and plans to fix things below, but first I wanted to let you know that the version 0.23.0 release isn't going to have all the content that was planned. In all likelihood, the version 24 won't as well, and there's a good chance that version 25 won't either. And while I don't think that there's much I could do differently or that could have prevented this, it's still my responsibility.

While these next few versions may not have the typical giant amount of new stuff, Besty will still be working full time. I'll be contributing as well, of course, but my output is probably going to be less than usual, and it probably won't conform to the normal plans for what I should be working on. We've still got some cool stuff for you in version 0.23: The long-awaited medical district and transformatives are making their appearance :D

If you'd like to stop or reduce your Patreon or SubscribeStar funding I understand and hope you'll rejoin us after the summer. Of course, Besty and I would appreciate it if you stick with us! (Also, AW is Besty's full-time job, so not having to dip into savings would be great, lol)

So, What's Going On?

To over-simplify things, it's basically a mixture of burnout, writer's block, and stopping ADHD medication (temporarily). Not all of the items are equal in terms of impact, and there's some interaction between them going on. I think the easiest thing to do will be to cover each individually... so here goes.

Burnout 

As many of you are probably aware, I worked some insane hours on AW for over a year. I fell out of touch with normal life, but worst was probably the impact on my health. This is something that I've talked about before, so I won't go into a lot of detail. I do think it's something that I've gotten a better handle on over the last six months or so. My health has improved a lot, particularly my heart, and I've been on a healthier 40hr/week AW work schedule.

I think that I've gotten over the worst of it, and I've started to recover more of my passion for the project as well as enjoy working on it more. I'm still struggling with some of the more administrative and less creative work like answering questions, replying to various messages, and even writing basic blog posts. This is mostly a non-issue, but it does increase the difficulty of the other issues.

The Plan: There isn't really a new plan for what to do here... It's mostly just staying the course with a healthier work schedule. It has seemed to be working, so I'm going to stick with it.

Writer's Block

Writer's block... I've always wondered if the various treatments it's gotten in sitcoms and other media has been the result of writer's block. Like "Man, I don't know what to do for this episode... hey, why don't we do a writer's block episode?!" 

Normally I have some go-to solutions to writer's block, depending on the exact variety of block going on. Because of the other issues, it's like I'm experiencing some new type of block. The lack of concentration makes the techniques I've tried seem to fail to actually get me through whatever is actually going on. I can write, but it's agonizingly slow. Too slow for my goals, which are asking for thousands of words per day instead of hundreds. They say the average novelist averages between 500 and 1,000 words per day, but that kind of speed doesn't work for my plans.

The block that's going on isn't related to ideas... I know exactly what is supposed to happen, and how it's supposed to happen. I have the main story plotted out, and I already know everything necessary to write what I'm supposed to be writing. Instead, this block is like some sort of failure in the process of actually writing. It's new to me. Everyone has their own sort of process and mindset when it comes to writing. For me, I enter what I call "the flow" where I translate the planned ideas into words.

I can't seem to get into the flow. It might be because of the medication, some lack of urge, or just difficulty concentrating on the actual writing. I'm not sure... But turning the ideas in my head into exposition and dialog is... not happening the way it "should". Instead, I have to deliberately take things word by word, and slowly construct things in a way I hope isn't totally awful.

I suppose the only interesting side to all this is that I've written some really strange stuff. Looking back, I feel like I should have saved some of it because it was like aliens pretending to be human talking to each other. 

I strongly suspect that a lot of this writer's block is actually my mind adjusting to my medication changes. Of course, the concentration issues also don't help anything.

The Plan: Keep working at it, try some new techniques to break through, and allow me to work on writing things that feel easier or more approachable rather than forcing specific content. My psychiatrist says that my brain will continue to readjust and I'll start to get better at handling things over the next month or two (the eventual plan is to take a new approach with medication starting in late July). 

ADHD Medication

ADHD is a giant topic all by itself. There's a certain stigma associated with it, ranging from people assuming it's basically autism (a high percentage of people on the spectrum also suffer from ADHD) to people saying that ADHD doesn't exist at all and it's simply laziness or lack of self-discipline. I have ADHD predominantly inattentive presentation (the condition formally called ADD).

It's worth noting that ADD isn't actually a thing anymore and that since the 1994 DSM came out, what used to be called ADD was included under the umbrella of ADHD. There was a good reason for this, partly that the impulsive element can be longer-fused, and that both conditions essentially result from the same sets of chemical cause.

There's plenty of places to learn about ADHD and other mental health issues online, so I won't go into a ton of detail. I personally had never been diagnosed until about 6 years ago, when I was already an adult with advanced degrees. It did make a big difference in my life and solved the other part of what was always still wrong after treating my lifelong depression issues. 

Because of the issues with my heart and overall health, I finally stopped taking stimulant medication in late April. I was on a lower dose since the beginning of the year, and that did alleviate most of the rest of the health issues I was having. Still, I thought it would be better to move away from the stimulants at least until I had a nice stable period health-wise and I got my blood pressure under control.

Unfortunately, I underestimated just how big of an effect this would have on me. I had learned how to deal with the condition naturally growing up, and I developed several coping strategies to help me. I expected that those would still be there, and it would just be some short adjustment to get used to how things were. After all, I was still successful and living a pretty normal life without any medication, so I expected things to return to how they were. A bit more annoying or challenging, but otherwise fine.

This is not how things went, lol. It was a bit like having the rug pulled out from under my feet. After nearly six years of not using those coping strategies, and not having to deal with the symptoms really, I got weak. I had forgotten entirely about little things I used to do like setting alarms for myself for important times at work, and using checklists during the day to make sure I remember to do everything.

I just talked to my psychiatrist about it, and she told me that it'll take some time for my brain and me to readjust. It's also likely a big part of my problems with writing and creativity in general over the last month (even my drawing/art has been affected, though that's way harder to explain). Right now I'm not capable of accomplishing the task of writing X thousand words of fiction that I assign myself.

The Plan: The good news is that I seem to be doing a little better recently and that I should continue to improve over the next month or two. The better news is that my plan isn't to stay medication free forever, it's to switch to a non-stimulant medication that affects dopamine and norepinephrine. This should be a more sustainable approach for me in terms of health. There's a newer medication on the market that my doctor has seen success with, so I'll likely be going with that. We'll be starting in late July. 

The non-stimulant medication does take longer to see the full benefit, much like when you start taking SSRIs or certain other medications. For that reason, we want to get to a nice stable no-stimulant baseline first to start setting the dosage of the new medication. It probably will take a few months to get things right, and then I'll be pretty much back to being a normal erolich. :D

TLDR: No New Fursuits!
AW will still be getting updates at the regularly scheduled time, but without quite as much new stuff as you're used to. This is a temporary thing while I get my brain working properly again. 

This is a reference based on the person responsible for Hentai Haven deciding to use all their donated server money on buying a new fursuit, which then resulted in them shuttering the site for a while. I don't think it's been updated with new videos since then, but the site is back at least. That's not the kind of thing that's going on with AW, obviously.

I think that transparency here is a good thing, and thus the giant post... I know that with some creators out there, actually admitting that there's a problem equates to cataclysmic issues, but that's really not the case here. I view it as more of a minor setback. 

Thanks everyone for all your support so far, I'm looking forward to bringing you more AW to enjoy!

o7

ThaumX

Plague Inc

Available in 1920x1080 for some reason

This is just a quick post to let those of you not on discord know that I'm still shambling around under my own power. Another shitty thing about Guam is that it's basically a perfect storm when it comes to catching a disease. Tourists, visitors, contractors, the military, and others are constantly arriving from different places all over the world. All those red "routes" above are places we regularly receive guests from, though we also get visitors from other places that stop at one of these places first.

Normally, if you catch a common cold, you get immunity to that strain. if you're re-exposed to the same cold or a strain that is still very similar, your body can just kick its ass without you noticing. A strain that is different enough may give you one of those "close call" colds, where you feel like you're getting sick, but it goes away after a day or so. It's not close enough to be immediately, defeated, but it's close enough that your immune system still has an advantage.

On Guam... we don't have the usual situation of experiencing a cold strain, and then not having to worry about it until a sufficiently different strain comes around again in months or a year. On Guam, we're constantly being exposed to different strains of the common cold, we get different regions of the US, Asia, Oceania, and Europe all at once. So... the people who live here get sick a lot. Including me, unfortunately.

I'm normally pretty happy to get one "real" cold every three months, some weak, some bad, just like anywhere else except more frequent. Well, this year it seems like 2 nasty colds in 2 months. (Plus a little 'almost' cold in between.) I started feeling shitty on Monday, and I'm into the "coughing phase" of the cold now, so much longer until it's gone, thankfully.

I injured some ligaments in my chest that connect to my sternum in the April cold, so now they're giving me hell again. Besty has been safe with his superb immune system, though he's off for the weekend for some sort of BDSM LARP adventure that sounds like fun.

My cold medicine-derived lucidity is quickly fading, so I'll end things here. Have a great weekend!

o7
ThaumX

Healthy Start [remix]

Healthy Start was originally posted on June 19th, 2018.

This post covers some of the peculiarities of Appletree and the overall setting of AW, and as such, I think it's worth sharing again as a "remix" post. There really isn't much that has changed or needs to be commented on with this post, so I'll just get straight to it.

Is The City really so dirty and polluted? No, and in fact, the air quality is probably better than a lot of cities. What The City is, is bleak and rather hopeless.

Economic depressions usually accelerate the trend of people migrating towards population centers. People move in the hopes of finding employment or lose their employment and find themselves trapped. While conditions have stopped deteriorating for many nations, there hasn't been a whole lot in the way of improvement, either. Politics, unrestricted corporatism, and plain greed continue to preside; measures taken by many governments are often half-measures that do little to actually solve problems. It's a recession without recovery in sight, and the uncertainty, fear, and distrust have stained everyday life for most people.

And then, there's Appletree.

Clean, vibrant, and even hopeful...

...but hope can be a powerful drug...

...and leads to ignoring the truth.

Whichever route you take to get there, Appletree is an interesting place. The population is unusual, with a majority of adults in their 20s, 30s, or 40s, and a relatively small amount of children (for now). It's very much a company town, with the Thornton Institute being the first, second, third, and fourth largest employer, if you count subsidiary organizations as distinct employers. The community is well-designed and meticulously thought-out, making it a nice place to live, but it also has a pervasive artificial aura. It's much like a Disney amusement park; an artificial veneer carefully built into a pleasant illusion. Like a soap bubble, the idea of Appletree pops as soon as you reach out and touch it...

And that brings us back to hope, and people's desire to hold on to that illusion as tightly as they can. With the exception of some of the youngest residents, everyone was born in the outside world. They've experienced it, and they know that they don't want to go back. Those that moved to Appletree in it's earliest days may even cling more tightly to the illusion, simply because they know that it's much worse than what they knew before. The residents don't take a lot of trips out of town, though The City isn't too far away. The occasional visit reminds those that have managed to forget what awaits them away from the Institute and Appletree.

For most citizens, there's nothing standing in the way of them simply packing up and leaving. The idea of leaving voluntarily is an alien concept to most, and even the thought of being forced to leave would provoke anxiety or fear in many. Appletree is something of a prison, though certainly a pleasant one. But unlike the concrete structures housing a few million Americans, Appletree is a prison of the mind... one the inmates don't want to leave.

What it means...

The world of Accidental Woman may seem like something quickly painted in broad strokes with various tropes, but underneath it's actually a pretty complex setting. The setting in fiction is quite important. Imagine a sci-fi flick where suddenly, with no real reason, there's a horseback battle against native Americans straight out of a western. It would completely break any immersion, and probably strip you of your suspension of disbelief.

While erotica is rarely associated with literature, AAA games, or big-budget movies, the same reality holds true. If it were just porn, visual stimulation to fap to, then the same tired (and usually comical) plots would do... But that's not what we're after. Erotica is a story, setting, and characters to build an erotic fantasy and tickle our kinks in a way that simple visual mediums can't hope to achieve. Interactive erotica, H-games, take this a step further. It's a pretty exciting time, all told, as this content grows and evolves. (And you are all a part of making that happen, so thank you!)

For Accidental Woman, I wanted a world that was close enough to the real world to share a more visceral connection than with fantasy or very sci-fi settings. Those settings are great because they give you an excuse to play out a wide variety of scenarios and kinks in a setting that can make them fit... basically without suddenly having a random western stampede show up. But you also sacrifice that connection to reality as a trade-off.

So what if you want to have a world where you can realistically pull off a wide-open range of scenarios and kinks, but you also want that world to be close to reality? And that's why Appletree exists, and why the setting is dystopian. It's also why Appletree is full of such strange things, and yet people act as if everything is normal. It's my answer to the question of how to pull that off.

You can be a dom or a sub, get pregnant a thousand times over, go streaking or peek in on your neighbor, and you can also do the stranger things. You could be a test subject, a captive, or what amounts to a sex slave or bioreactor. You could also be part of the opposite side, managing subjects or forcefully impregnating designated breeders. You could lead a cult or be the victim of one, go on a drug-fueled bender or explore erotic horror.

In a single game.

In a way that fits the overall setting and narrative.

The setting is wide-open to possibilities, and the product of our imaginations.

Appletree is a hell of a place, and I can't wait to share more of it with you.

Fun fact: the population of Appletree is somewhere around 88,000 people.

Happy Milf Day

Hello everyone, and happy Mother's Day (particularly to anyone reading this who actually happens to be a mother ;).

I think it's also fun to appreciate all the sexy young mothers out there, and thus we have Happy Milf Day. I can't resist the opportunity to do a little educating, so see the MILF section below if you're interested in learning more about these alluring creatures.

There are several things to cover in this update:

The first and most important is the bug that has been discovered in version 21 and which likely exists partially in version 22. It involves the "go to work" action button that can appear when you aren't actually scheduled for work. If you click this button to go to work on a day you aren't supposed to work, it will break your game. (So don't do it!) You will see follow-on errors after doing this, pretty much all over the place, though the game may seem like it's still working (it isn't). 

It actually took a little time to track down this issue because we kept getting reports of the follow-on errors in addition to the description of going to work being messed up (boss always saying you're late and such), so there wasn't an obvious cause. For now, you can solve this problem by not clicking the action button to go to work unless you are supposed to be working that day.

Second, it's time for a little progress update on what we're working on, and what we're planning for version 23. So far we've mostly been working on some bug fixing, as well as expanding the medical district, and some more asset and content creation as well. I'm assigning Besty to do some thorough bug hunting this month, but in addition to that, he'll be expanding the medical district of Appletree as well as adding doctor's offices and getting things ready for various treatments and transformatives.

Let's take a look at some of the pharmaceutical companies that will be providing these treatments to the town...

There are actually eight major pharma companies that produce the medication and other treatments you'll be able to purchase, each with its own background and... proclivity for proper testing. The game encyclopedia has a page listing information about all eight companies for your perusal. And if you happen to be wondering about nekos, the answer is probably yes.

Besty has also been setting up some of the locations we'll be seeing, such as the hospital, doctor's offices, psychiatrists, and hypnotherapists. 

Doctor Lecter is a reliable psychiatrist with a passion for cooking.

As for what's planned this month, I'll be primarily working on improving the content in the sex scenes, filling in the missing action text, as well as finishing the main route prologues as well. Besty will be working on the medical area, bug-hunting, and improving/updating some of the tutorials, as well as expanding them where needed.

Thirdly, I wanted to take a moment and talk about my post frequency here on the dev blog. Earlier in the project, I spent a lot of extra time writing blog posts, explaining different plans for areas of AW, how systems would work, what content was planned, etc. A decent percentage of people even said I posted too often, though the majority did seem in favor of them according to the polls.

But now a year and a half later, it feels like I've run out of things to write about. Mostly because all the basics have already been covered, so it feels like repeating myself if I rehash them... and the more advanced things are difficult to explain, particularly without a lot of background information first... On one hand, this means that a much larger percentage of my time is going toward developing AW directly, rather than writing about it. On the other hand, it feels like I'm neglecting all of you who are supporting and following the AW project. 

I've been thinking that perhaps I should start doing reposts of the old blog posts that cover various topics, that are currently only available in pdf form. Then I could add some updates and commentary in there to freshen things up. I think this would help the newer crowd get an idea of where things are headed, and also allow some better indexing of subjects online with tags for post topics. It also wouldn't take too much time, because the 'meat' of the posts is already written. Let me know what you guys think about this idea!

Fourth and finally, I wanted to update you on the schedule very briefly. I did lose some time last month courtesy of illness and changing medications, so I've updated the schedule on the webpage for the next few releases. For a bit there we were "ahead" of schedule on the revised timeline, but this delay has gotten rid of that lead. Overall I'm still happy with where things are, and we'll keep working on adding content for you all to enjoy. 

Thank you so much for your support and understanding when we hit these speedbumps along the way!

MILFs

MILF is an acronym meaning Mom (or Mother) I'd Like to Fuck. It became such a commonly-used term that now milf is a word in the dictionary, and you no longer need to capitalize all the letters. This is probably in part because of the use of the term in the American Pie movies.

Despite the popularity of the term these days, there is still a decent amount of confusion surrounding it, and it is commonly misused. In porn, it's often treated as something of a blanket tag, sometimes used interchangeably with words like "cougar", even though they are totally different things.

Milf doesn't mean "mature/middle-aged woman", and it doesn't mean "cougar", though you can have mature milfs who also happen to be cougars. So what is a milf? they're simply women who have given birth, and who are generally considered attractive. Basically, they've maintained their attractiveness after having children. The opposite is the stereotype of the woman who puts on lots of weight and generally stops worrying about their appearance. 

Because the emphasis is really on still being attractive despite having children, the term mainly refers to women in the age range where they would have recently given birth and still have small kids. Basically, the late 20s and early 30s. The early 20s can be referred to with the term "young milfs", while the late 30s are "still a milf" or "late milf". Finally, there is the "mature milf", which is in the 40s age range (and possibly the early 50s, but that is encroaching on 'GILF' territory). 

Note that talk about ages isn't a value judgment on my part, it's just a matter of personal preference as to what you prefer.

One important distinction to make is that being a milf isn't a statement about sexuality or libido. After all, most milf's are married (and probably tired from lack of sleep if the kid/s are young enough). Cougars are mature/middle-aged women who want a sexual relationship with younger men and being a cougar often a statement about sexual appetite. Thus, a mature milf could be a cougar, but this isn't necessarily the case.

That's enough blabbering on about milfs, I think!

Have a great day!

ThaumX

The Dose Release - Version 0.22.0 Changelog

Heat Bunny is based on an awesome character by Fizintine

Welcome to the Dose Release!

Because such a small percentage of players read the changelog, we're going to start splitting it up to make it more accessible and less intimidating. The less immediate items on the log will be in a follow-on blog post released in the next couple days.

This release has new content focused on the prologues and the new addiction system. There are drugs to try, which are beneficial but carry the risk of addiction with overuse. The male prologue is nearly complete, while the female prologue has gotten another couple thousand words of content. You may encounter some drug dealers as well.

Changes:

Words:     1,801,281          Characters:     10,647,432
Code:     175,298 lines       Unique Drugs:  4

• Male prologue expanded with new content, including the 'getting a job' scene and the 'tour of Appletree'.
• Female prologue expanded with content upon waking up after your accident.
• Female Quick-Start option implemented.
• New background music added to the game, with new sound menu and saveable settings.
• Numerous fixes and minor improvements throughout.
• New short-and-simple writing guide for modders and content creators!
• New Wish option at the downtown 'town square' water fountain.
• Drug System Implemented!
• Addiction system, including non-linear addiction progression
• Withdrawal effects, including unique effects for each addiction
• Drug cravings when you're craving a fix
• Drug items for the four AW drugs, complete with effects and all sorts of fun.
• Drug dealers added to the game.
• Hanna at the club district downtown has her own story and is datable.
• Pedro in the residential area, your #1 choice for buying drugs!
• People selling shit at the club (Shake & Pop) 
• Clothes now properly get dirty.
• Clothes can be stained.
• Laundry system for manually washing clothes if you need to.
• New splatter function and any liquids on the character can now flow lower down your body thanks to gravity.
• Asuka's event has a new custom artwork
• Some Icons in the game were improved to be more clear.
• Makeup, clothes, and hairstyles are now applied properly in the morning when waking up.
• You can now learn new makeup styles at salons around town.
• Some new achievements :D
• Clothing is now limited to owning only a single copy of any one item for mechanical reasons.

This release didn't have as much written content from ThaumX as planned, due mostly to a triad of tomfuckery in the form of catching the flu, stopping a stimulant medication, and quitting nicotine. There's still a good amount of new writing, just nowhere near what I had hoped. I believe thing will improve as I adjust to the new writing focus and my new medication setup, but I'm sorry for not meeting my goals for 0.22.0 nonetheless.

Enjoy the Release!
Report Bugs!
Have Fun!