Hello everyone!
It's been a while since I've done a proper blog post since it felt like things were mostly on the rails and there wasn't too much to actually discuss. We're getting closer and closer to our 1.0 beta release at the end of the year, which I suppose is worthy of discussion all by itself. :D
Most of the work over the coming months is going to be on either the main story, or finishing and polishing things. (If you have suggestions on anything that doesn't feel "complete" or "finished", please let us know in our Discord server!) This month the big things are the main story, and adding to the 'pregnant life', along with smaller things like sex toys.
The pregnant life is something I think a lot of people will appreciate, because as of version 0.50, there have only been some minor events that occur such as food cravings or nausea. Otherwise, being pregnant hasn't been all that much different from normal play with the exception of some extra text available in sex scenes. The goal with this is to add more to the pregnancy experience, to differentiate being pregnant from normal play. A lot of different things will be going into this: additional or changed text in a lot of common activities, restrictions on activities you wouldn't do while gravid, being noticed by others at work and elsewhere, and a few new events relevant to location.
So the elephant in the room...
Does that mean 1.0 is it?
Nope. But it does mean that a lot of the game is going to be considered "done", though we'll continue to fix any bugs that are found, and fix oversights where something could be considered incomplete. In general, you'll be able to enjoy a lot of different lives taking different paths, complete the main story (or fail along the way), and reach an ending. Our focus has been more about the experience of exploring the world and trying out different paths, and when it comes to that there's always more that could be done.
I have been adamant from the beginning that I didn't want AW to be one of those games that are never finished. I wanted to reach a "complete" state, even if we run into the limits of what our small team can accomplish. That's what 1.0 is about. But I'm also aware that there's more we would like to add, and certainly plenty of things all of you would like to add to the AW experience, and that's the point of the expansion post 1.0 phase.
We'll be adding limited scope expansions of content and/or systems, with our supporters directing us to add specific things they want. This also retains the possibility for everyone to decide that "this is enough". When that happens, because we're focusing on limited scope additions, we'll be left with a working, finished game (instead of a mess that tends to happen when games are abandoned).
AW is a very broad game, being a life simulation, but different areas have different levels of depth, and some 'directions' were excluded completely. Expansions are basically adding depth or scope to the existing game that is AW.
And that brings us to...
The purpose of the poll
We want to get an early look at the expansion subjects you're most interested in. This is mostly for planning purposes, to help us give you better informed options that we're better prepared to accomplish. This is purely an interest poll, so the results of this won't set in stone what we're working on or the order we're doing it. (We're planning on having a new vote prior to the end of each expansion item, we won't be following any advance order anyway.)
Options:
- Futa Player Expansion: Add the ability for the player to become a futa after their transformation. This will mostly focus on adding a cock to a lot of existing content, along with enabling mechanics to get others pregnant. Another expansion after this one could focus on adding more unique futa content/events.
- Sex System Expansion: This one is pretty straight forward. Focus on writing more words/action variations for the sex system, improving the mechanics and AI, and adding support for threesomes/foursomes.
- Career Expansion: Jobs in AW are set up to transition to a second "phase" where the player takes on more responsibilities in a higher level position. The form this takes depends on the job, not all jobs are on a "management track", after all! This expansion would add in those choices, advancing job stories, and minigame mechanics. Example: fecundate workers may end up pulled into a division focused more on getting mass numbers of not-employees pregnant.
- Hucow Expansion: Becoming a contracted hucow at the Appletree Farm Coop. This would mean living at the hucow dorms, not having a normal job, mandated pregnancy courtesy of roaming bulls, and lots of milkings. It wouldn't be a totally new game, however. Lily will still want your help to repair the rejuvenator, a prospect likely to become increasingly difficult as your transformation progresses.
- School Expansion: The skill schools primarily serve the purpose of increasing the player character's skills, but there's a lot of opportunity for filling out the lesson content and adding in more of the teacher's stories.
- Child Expansion: Bring your kids home from the creche on the weekends for a little family time. Well, at least a few of them, if you have dozens... They're going to be babies, so you won't actually be doing a lot more than feeding and caring for them. This can add some long-term consequences to pregnancy.
- Transformative Expansion: Add in the support for a wider range of transformations in the player character and NPCs. This would be more like animal/monster girls in Japanese media than going in the furry direction (e.g. ears, tail, skin color, eyes, and limited other traits). New ways to get the transformations, along with mechanics to match the new archetypes.
- Content Expansion [type]: Generally just adding more content to any one of a number of game areas. Prostitution, dates, relationships, world events, jobs, a kink like exhibitionism, etc. If this expansion is picked, there will be a subsequent vote to pick expansion area/s.
- Combat Expansion: Adding in an optional game mode where the player can run into combat encounters with escaped institute experiments, organized crime, and the occasional unhinged rapist. This would include combat mechanics and basic weapons, with defeat scenes/consequences.
- Other: This isn't the entire list of what's possible. Suggest your own expansion and we can see what everyone thinks!
