Beach Bums

Hello everyone!

It's been a busy few days out here on my tropical island of doom; we got some bad news about my wife's health, and there has been plenty of things happening now that I've returned to working shifts at my day job (instead of teleworking). For the rest of the AW team, things have been progressing pretty much as usual.

On Besty's end, we now have a slew of fancy marriage proposals from NPCs, and he's currently working on a pretty cool event/quest chain involving his in-game persona and a drug dealer. Anenn has just finished up the basic camgirl stuff, and we're deciding if he'll work on expanding that some more before release, or if he has time to get something a bit bigger done. We've also got some more scenes from our lovely erotica freelancer implemented :D

A bit off topic, we finally got around to adding banking, so you can open a savings account, get a credit card, and even take out a personal loan. This will make it a bit easier to get set up early in the game, at the cost of interest. And of course, it's always possible to overextend yourself financially, which probably won't go well...

For those of you who are curious, the bad news about my wife isn't anything life threatening, but she will need some specialist surgery only available on the U.S. mainland, which will necessitate some travel and probably cause some schedule complications in the late fall. For now, we're keeping up with her final course of chemo, which will be over soon. On the cancer front, things are looking very good, which is the most important thing.

I do have some personal good news, however! It seems that I have a really good shot of moving back to the U.S. mainland along with a promotion at my day job. Guam has a lot to love despite the disadvantages, but we're really ready to move on. We'll have to take advantage of the beaches while we still can!

Nothing is certain right now, so I don't want to spend time talking about hypothetical moving plans or how they could possibly affect development. Of course, I'll share with you guys once I learn anything concrete. :D At this point we're a team of three full time developers, so some interruptions to my schedule shouldn't have a major effect on our development. If I do move, however, it'll probably happen near the end of summer. 

That's all for now until the release in a little less than a week. Stay safe, and thanks so much for your support!

ThaumX

Megane

Hello everyone, it's update time again!

There's nothing here about glasses, the topic just sort of popped into my head because I had an eye exam and got a new pair yesterday. It's definitely an interesting experience when you're wearing a mask and the exam equipment keeps fogging up. It doesn't help that Guam is a balmy place at the best of times.

Work has been progressing as expected, and it's rather nice that nothing crazy seems to have happened so far this month. *knocks on wood manically* That being the case, I think it's a good time to talk about a decision we made regarding the NPC AI system. I've written a lot about the system, the plans, and how it works so I don't want to spend a lot of time rehashing that. You can find out more about it if you'd like in this blog, and there is also some information available in the game in the encyclopedia and AI training page.

The main issue is that while the system worked, and it was pretty cool to say we used learning software to have our NPCs make decisions... It hasn't turned out to be an optimal solution. One issue is the time it takes for the AI system to return a decision, which takes a couple seconds. It doesn't seem like much, but the pause is somewhat disruptive. The other issue is training. We've been using a simplistic neuron model and a fairly straight-forward set of training data, but we'd need to spend a lot more effort to get more training data and use a more complex model, to get a better set of answers.

So far, all we've managed is some vaguely useful output, and I suspect that it would take a lot of work before we could get the AI to the point where it is useable for more than a vague yes/no evaluation for date activities that frankly doesn't work very well. In the meantime, we've created more traditional AI setups for specific situations, because it has been easier to do that than get the learning software setup working well enough for it.

In any case, the decision was to stop using the AI system altogether and continue with more traditional methods. This means dating and hangouts that work more reliably and realistically in terms of how NPCs enjoy it. I had already made plans for this possibility, so it really doesn't require much effort to drop the old system. Learning software was a bit of an experiment, after all.

For now, we want to focus on making a game that works well. Having to write new traditional AI setups for NPCs in regard to relationships has highlighted the issues with dating that existed because of the poor learning AI. So we'll have a better dating experience with the upcoming release by replacing it.

That said, we aren't going to delete the work we've done on the learning software setup. We'll leave the learning-software-based AI in the game's source, and if we are able to spend time on it in the future to get it working at a reasonable level we'll be able to add it back in. I don't think that's very likely, to be honest, but I don't want to rule it out.

So, long-story-short, look forward to some better dating along with the new stuff in our next release :D

That's it for now, so until next time, thanks for your support!

ThaumX

Institute Security Corporation

So, we're overdue for the weekly dev blog update, but I'm still at a bit of a loss for what to actually write. Partly this is because we've just been plodding along working on the planned stuff for this month. Nothing terribly exciting has happened, there are no unexpected problems or unusual circumstances getting in the way.

I suppose I could mention that the NPC generator settings have gotten some attention. The menu now "remembers" your last settings rather than showing the default, so it'll be less confusing. You can also access the generator settings during a game now, so you can change the settings on the fly. This won't affect existing NPCs of course, but the new ones that are generated each night will use the updated settings.

We're still working on some fun relationship stuff, as well as some other content and neat stuff (more about that in the previous post). So that's all I've got for you for now. 

Thanks as always for your support!

o7

ThaumX

Heat. I'm On It.

I've been meaning to use a post image like this ever since I saw the South Dakota "Meth. We're On It." campaign. :D

I guess it's time to discuss what's coming up for the version 0.36 release, huh?

As usual, there's a lot of different things we'll be adding this month. The big thing will be wrapping up the relationship expansion. Living together, getting engaged, making promises, and setting a date for the ceremony. There will also be a few smaller things in the relationship category. The actual marriage and what comes after will be something we work on down the road, closer to the 1.0 release.

We also have new content in the works. Some of it is related to relationships, some will be more of the usual world content, and some will probably be cam girl related. If we're lucky, we may also get some fun content from our freelance erotica writer.

System-wise, we'll be working to improve the NPC generator settings menu, and attempting to add the NPC Templates & Editor into the game. The NPC Template system allows you to specify most of the variables of an NPC using a template. The template/s can then be used to generate NPCs that match that template almost exactly (basically with different names). You'll be able to control what percentage of new NPCs are generated using templates, and what percentage use the standard procedural generation (which can also be modified with the NPC generation settings).

While the NPC Template system is more of an advanced feature, so having some experience with the game is a good idea before using it. It also won't change the way that story NPCs are created, for obvious reasons. You will be able to export and load NPC templates, allowing you to share them with others and reuse the templates you've put effort into creating. I should also point out that as planned, the template system will only be available for the $5 and higher pledge tiers.

We've got a lot of work cut out for us this month, but once we get done with the relationship expansion we're going to be able to move back to working on the game's main story and content elements. From there, we'll be able to work on creating the actual endings to the game, so that you can finally finish a playthrough without dying. :D I'll talk more about that as we get to it. 

That's all for now, I'd better get back to work!

o7

ThaumX

The Yummy Release - v0.35 Change Log

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Yummy release!

We've got fun stuff for you in this release, along with some general quality improvements. It's been a strange month in terms of development because we sort-of interrupted ourselves with the development polls. That said, I think we've ended up with a really good release for you guys this month. Our expanded staff is really speeding things along, so we've got a lot of new content in addition to the other work we've done.

The new content is spread out pretty well, with some taking place in relationships, and others being general or event content found elsewhere. You can now attend a church sermon for a mental status boost, explore the adult district, try your hand at being a camgirl (incomplete), lock yourself in stocks, send your chastity key through the mail, visit the Muschi Valley Animal Shelter to play with some pups, get a massage at Fairy Tail, and more. Be sure to take a look at the list of changes below if you'd like to find it all.

Our quality improvements are pretty wide-ranging as well. We've made some significant improvements to the save setup to increase reliability. We improved the male NPC portraits so that they now match the female portraits. We added a lot of new clothing items that can be displayed on the paper doll, to better show a wider range of styles. We improved the way mental statuses work with bad ends and fixed the "Doom Clock" so that it is more functional and easier to save yourself from a bad end. We added in Female-Start character templates, and also created the female start prologue skip. We improved the AI for NPCs proposing to advance their relationship with the player. 

We also started using a new time tracking app this month called Clockify. We had been having issues with Toggl for some time and decided that it was a good time to switch now that we were adding a new developer.

Note that this is only part of the month, and does not include freelance writers because we pay by text character and not by working time.

We need to do a little work on improving our timekeeping habits, as we've gotten out of practice in the last few months. Some of the "coding" tasks really fall more in the "content creation" category as well. Improvement is a process, and we'll get better.

That's probably enough words from me... Let's get to the changes. 

We hope you have a lot of fun with this release!

Known Issues

We're allowing backward compatibility with saves from version 0.34, despite the improvements to the save system and changes to NPC portraits. If you have issues with your save from v34, they can carry forward to this version when you load the save. If you notice bugs or other weird behavior, please try starting a new game. Additionally, NPC portraits from NPCs generated in a v34 game will look pretty weird and/or messed up. This won't hurt anything, and new NPCs will slowly be generated with proper portraits as the game progresses.

The new camgirl side job content is still in progress, and there are likely to be some "rough edges" with it.

Spamming the creation of new NPCs by interacting with many temporary NPCs (which are turned into full NPCs when you talk to them) can cause mass NPC suicide as the game attempts to maintain NPCs at a limited quantity

Changes

Words: 2,352,922    Text Characters: 14,186,950

Lines of Code: 200,697

Body Portrait Combos: 64,880,640

• A womb-healing procedure is now available at the Gestique clinic.
• Improvements to the game save system to make saves more reliable.
• Forces SugarCube to marshal State data prior to saving.
• Now saves temporary variables and loads them to prevent saving from interrupting an event/process that uses them.
• Some improvements to save loading code, including better integration with SugarCube.
• Changes to SugarCube so that temporary State variables are no longer erased on passage navigation.
• Variables are now reset during the player's sleep.
• Increases game stability.
• Improvements to the Doom Clock system.
• Getting emergency treatment with Dr. Lecter will now properly remove any mental status doom clocks.
• Doom clocks are now easier to remove by improving the corresponding status, though this still takes some effort.
• A doom clock will now properly wait for the full period listed on the status icon hover text before starting the bad end.
• The handling of doom clocks has been unified, preventing duplication and ensuring more reliable behavior.
• Triggering a second doom clock (such as becoming over-stressed while already depressed) will now result in an immediate bad end.
• There is now a detailed encyclopedia entry on doom clocks and managing mental statuses (over 1,000 words).
• A reminder to check the encyclopedia is included in the doom clock icon hover text.
• Contains information on "over" status conditions and detail about how individual mental statuses work.
• Status mechanics improvement.
• Code for each status will now more reliably remove "over" conditions such as "over-stressed".
• Removing doom clocks and "over" conditions, and gaining "over" conditions, is now recorded in the mental status change records (accessible from the character status menu).
• You can now receive a bad end from being over-aroused while mind-broken.
• Mind break and the bad end both represent a level of brain damage, so can not be fixed simply by lowering arousal. You must visit Dr. Lector for healing.
• New arousal brain overload bad end.
• Dark, with a story detailing your--short--life after getting the bad end.
• Drinking alcohol while pregnant now harms fetuses.
• A faded icon now appears in the date interface when the NPC is not ready for your relationship to progress.
• It makes it clearer that proposing to make your relationship more serious probably won't be received well.
• New clothing images for the wardrobe paper doll.
• 25 new clothing images, primarily skirts, dresses, and legwear. 
• The starting sweats now appear on the paper doll
• Prologue-skip functionality has been added for the female start.
• You can now save and load female character templates. Woo!
• Expanded the game's churches.
• Attending a sermon will now take you to a scenario screen.
• There are now 2 sermons for each church (with room for more).
• Overnight environmental effects now report more sane numbers in the mental status records.
• Each category is now given a 0 to 10 score for how it contributes to the environmental effect. 10 is good, 0 is bad.
• The pharmacy shopping interface has been fixed so that adding an item to your cart will no longer cause the window to scroll to the top of the list.
• Added a favicon for the game browser tab... not sure why we hadn't done that already, to be honest.
• You can no longer be shamefast and be liberated, a slut, or an exhibitionist at the start of the game. (You can still gain these kinks in-game, however.)
• You can now explore the Adult District of Appletree.
• There are 8 different outcomes or things you can stumble upon, with odds varying by time of day.
• Cheat NPC Editor added to the game for [cheats] and [elite] builds.
• Found in the cheat menu, under the NPC tab.
• It allows you to change the NPC's body, kinks, mutations, fertility, and some other assorted variables.
• It works pretty well by itself, however, you should avoid using it in the middle of events or dates to prevent potential issues from occurring.
• The Muschi Valley Animal Shelter has been added to the Industrial District in Appletree.
• You can go there to meet and play with the animals.
• 4,000 words of content available here for Besty fans.
• A new Laptop home item has been added to allow working as a camgirl.
• Content for various requests and such are still being created, there are currently 6 special requests you can fulfill.
• Popularity will increase as you perform shows successfully, which can increase the amount you earn from fulfilling a special request.
• Popularity will decrease over time when you aren't doing shows.
• This isn't intended as a job replacement, but rather a way of earning extra money.
• Expect balance changes to happen in the future that affect the popularity and income amounts.
• New Vow system added to the game.
• The system is intended to allow the player and NPC to make promises to each other about their married life. 
• The system currently supports 22 vows.
• It is not yet possible to discuss or enact these vows with an NPC.
• Story threads expanded with 32 new NPC stories about the NPC's past.
• More than 5,200 new words in small map events, they are much more diverse now.
• Smol map events are little snippets of text found in map locations about something happening there.
• New option to become the Dom or Sub of an NPC you are in a relationship with.
• You can propose this in the serious talk option during a date.
• The NPC will write you with some tasks if you are committed into a BDSM relationship as the sub.
• The NPC can become your keyholder.
• Dates are affected by the dom\sub state of your relationship.
• A new "stocks" item is available from the Prude shop.
• They allow you to do a lot of fun things during the home date (> 1000 words).
• The stocks include consensual and non-consensual options that can heavily affect your relationship with NPC.
• You can send your chastity keys through the mail now.
• Better hope they get back in time...
• The game will now tell you why some options are disabled in the dialog menu while hovering over them.
• Unique NPC Institute Operative Robert Craig added.
• Tanning was added to the balcony.
• Changes to residential pool and tanning, better affect on stats and also some skill checks and rising now.
• Fairy tail massage parlor can be visited now to get a massage.
• Male NPC portraits were remade from scratch.
• No more blocky males, the new style is similar to female NPC portraits.
• If you load an old save portraits of NPC your character already met can act super weird, sorry for that!
• NPC proposal code was modified to better follow NPC preferences and personality traits
• Added telescope item to peek at... the stars and moon. (1000 words)
• The Appletree Industrial District now has a proper map and better passage description.
• The game tries to prevent accidental closing or using "go forward\back" browser buttons.

Colorful

We're hard at work getting ready for the version 0.35 release on Friday, so I'll keep this post super short and just focus on some previews. See you in a few days!

An example of a new church service (the shortest one) at the Church of Man.

In the cheats and elite version of the game, there will be a new NPC editor that allows you to change some of the variables for any NPC. Right now this is mostly related to their body, kinks, and mutations. This is the work of our new dev Anenn, so it's a work-in-progress ;)

There are 22 new clothes items I added to the paper doll over the weekend, focusing mostly on skirts, dresses, and legwear, but also a couple new tops. I might complete a few more before release, just so that the clothing is more representative.