The Bulge-2-Bulge Release v1.12

 

Hello everyone, it's Release Day once again!

We've got a lot of good stuff for you this time. New content, of course, but also a lot of fixes, adjustments, and improvements. It's a really solid release with plenty of fun stuff to enjoy. Our goal is still to keep working on making AW a better game in addition to adding expansion goals.

Speaking of which, the expansion poll.

It was an extremely close poll this time despite having a really high participation. So close I have a hard time declaring one a "real" winner. I think all the options would be good for the game, and are generally exciting in their own way. We got a lot of feedback in discord too, which we really appreciate. Of course, we were planning a secondary vote to narrow down what you wanted specifically in the chosen category, but it seems like it was a hard choice.

A couple points.

• The sex system expansion in particular had a lot of feedback that mostly boiled down to: we want the sex system to work better and be better, we don't care so much about adding new features.
• Several said they want to play as a hucow and transform into one, but don't need all the extra stuff for living in dorms. Basically, many suggested they just wanted to be a hucow as a job, with more hucow-related content... rather than the full scope of the expansion listed with living on the farm.

I am thinking that rather than jumping directly into an expansion after we finish with futa, it might be good to take a couple months to focus on some high impact items, or perhaps create a list of smaller-scope expansions. I'm still putting a lot of thought into it, so please do come share your thoughts with us. 

I'm going to do a longer post by next weekend, probably with two additional polls to narrow things down. Just for the record, the hucow expansion is the winner, with transformatives a close runner up, followed almost immediately by the sex system. 

Thanks everyone for your support and feedback, we really appreciate it!

ThaumX

Change Log

Word Count: 3,057,229 (20,895,583)

Code: 154,861 lines of TypeScript

• Fixed a bug that caused huge travel times when moving between the home and apartment common area.
• Updated the watch a cockmongering match with a variety of team names, and fixed a bug in the text output.
• Made adjustments to the NPC suicide system.
• System will no longer kill off NPCs that you have a relationship stronger than acquaintance with.
• Fixed a bug that affected weighting causing NPCs to appear to be much more "ignored" by the player, which caused NPCs to be killed too quickly in favor of new potentially more interesting NPCs.
• This was particularly true when under a lot of pressure to kill NPCs because the player interacts with many "fake" NPCs forcing them to be generated and exceeding the NPC count limit.
• Increased the safe pregnancy bonus for working at Progenerate by 50%
• Now a 150 fundal height and 12 baby buffer before bad end.
• Added a new feature to the Tummy Hugger that tells the player how many fetuses they can carry safely in a single womb.
• This feature includes the bonus for pregnancy experience, and shows the specific limit for each womb if the player has two.
• New function supporting this can be used to output data elsewhere as well.
• Made a major change to the way Saradberol (zygote splitter) works to create identical twins.
• Saradberol now has a 75% chance to cause a zygote to split instead of 33%
• If the current number of implanted zygotes is within 6 of the max number of fetuses, it will drop this percentage to 25%
• The goal is to make saradberol a little safer to use while ultimately allowing for even larger pregnancies.
• Made some adjustment to lactation training, allowing higher training values to be reached with lower power pumps and hand milking.
• Hand milking adjustments
• The quick action button for hand milking when out of the house now works properly.
• The icon has been changed from the "pump" icon to a new "hand" icon to indicate the difference.
• Hand pumping now has 5 different images for variety instead of the same image every time.
• Note: A lot more milking variety with pumps is something planned for Hucow Expansion.
• Some fixes to the appearance of the "Read Something" menu for wasting time on your phone.
• Adjustment to the cyclical progression of Fecundate Division Events.
• The player's first seradberol event will instead result in a boosted dose of OvuMax, which is safer in case the player doesn't get the full spread of elasticizing treatments in time. Plus OvuMax fits right in with Fecundate.
• New OvuMax suppository event at the fecundate division. 
• The nurse discusses training with large pregnancies to increase the amount of babies you can have safely.
• Nurse discusses OvuMax, side effects, how it works, etc.
• Seradberol injection event now has a new text for injections after the first where the nurse suggests using OvuMax on your own.
• You will now get a happiness boost for getting most fertility treatments at the Gestique clinic.
• Fixed some various text overrun and format issues at Gestique
• The character's menstrual cycle will now start one day later than before. This essentially pushes back the day the player could get pregnant by 1 (ovulation day still has random variability based on several factors)
• Fixed a bug that caused the cumvial use hovertext to be invisible. The options should make a lot more sense now!
• Fixed the brain damage percentage display in the character details menu so that it displays properly.
• There is a new Female Supremacist lecture you can attend at FutaFest.
• It's fairly short, but has some NTR "not cheating" gifs as part of the lecture.
• The selection of events at FutaFest had the formatting enabled. 
• A last-minute bug for the prior release had us disable it... it's enabled now.
• There is a new event at the Bureaucratic Corps where you find a sex toy remote.
• Play with a new B-Corps employee!
• The number of testicles you have now affects the size of your semen reserve. 
• Having only one testicle reduces reserve size by 25%
  
• Having three increases it by 25%
  
• Having no testicles reduces it by 50%
• Semen reserve has a minimum size, this change will not reduce it below that.
• There is now a BDSM event at FutaFest.
• You must be a futa to participate, however, because Besty is mean.
• The Tingler App had a lot of fixing done.
• The background color for NPC characters will now change depending on whether or not they have a cock. 
• There is also a gender icon now, so no more guessing "female or futa?"
• The CoerceMe app has been created in a similar style to the Tingler App, of course still focused on con-non-con and harder sexual activities.
• The "browse the booths" activity at the FutaFest has been created with several interesting things going on.
• Walk around the con and look at various display booths.
• You will experience three special booths in a random order.
• Wheel of Cock - Win a chance to suck a magnificent cock.
• You won't be able to resist if you are a slut, have a cum addiction, or too low willpower.
• Drinking the semen has an interesting effect.
• If you are a cum slut and addicted to cum, you will gain the "cumpire" mutation, locking your cum addiction to 100. (Remember, cum addiction is super easy to manage--beneficial, honestly--if you use cumplete nutrition as your food choice.)
• Otherwise, it will give you the cumslut kink and make you addicted to semen.
• Futa Juice - Check out a new beverage company startup and taste their product.
• Futa Grow - A doctor doing a little community service. You're given the option to take an experimental drug.
• As a futa, it will grow your cock up to 2 inches in length, add some girth, and increase testicle size by up to 12cc (avg 10).
• If you are not a futa, it will itch and burn and eventually result in you growing a small cock and tiny balls in a small scene with a cute little girl cock.
• Returning to the booth after being dosed will result in two different scenes depending on whether you were a futa or not when you took the drug. non-futa players can get a bonus dose to give them some growth as with normal futas.
• You leave your time browsing the booths with a couple keepsakes.
• A new keychain for your Missibitchi Lingual keys
• Some face painting
• A ton of new job events have been added by Anenn. Just a ton of stuff.
• Two to three new events for every job.
• Events are "normal" but also allow for futa players.
• Fixed the issue where when leaving a school class, the class would still show up in your schedule for a week.
• Made the NPC job "Public Toilet Scrubber" far less common.
• Not choosing a home in the female prologue, or any of the prologue skip options, will result in new behavior.
• You will now be sent to live at "Cumslut Row" instead of a random or missing home.
• Cumslut row apartments cost only 469 per month in rent, cheaper than any other option. "4 69, cum to Cumslut Row!"
  
• Cumslut row has the lowest possible score in all home categories.
• Restrictions on using the prologue skipper have (finally) been enabled.
• You must complete a prologue before you are able to skip it.
• Redid the job milking code!
• When working at their job, the player will milk themselves during work hours using office "employee pumps". (A mandatory appliance for all Appletree employers)
• Output in the end-of-day daily performance screen will tell you about any milk pumped and any new milk canisters filled.
• You will no longer have to worry about being overly full of milk at the end of the work day.
• Fixed a bug where FutaFest time progressed too quickly at the end of the day.
• Fixed 391 separate instances where Anenn had used a macro incorrectly causing a bug.
• Arousal will now be gained/lost appropriately.
• No errors from these anymore.
• He is a capybara, it should probably be expected XD
• Fixed a bug with the heat consumables that could cause excessive arousal gain, and wouldn't cause proper adjustments to fertility cycle to move the player to a "dangerous" part of their cycle.
• In other news, a use for heat is to help get yourself pregnant without waiting for your next cycle to come around.
• This was always intended, but didn't work and was only recently reported in the verbose console output.
• Players with two wombs should be careful to avoid giant pregnancies directly on top of each other.
• Job content counts have been updated with the latest amount of content for 1.12
• Lots of other bugs were fixed. 
• Why doesn't anyone want to document bug resolution?
• Probably because it's boring, or we do it in the middle of working on something else. 

We hope you enjoy this release!

AW Expansion Poll

 

As we close in on the last few months of the futa expansion, it's time we start looking at what expansion we'll work on next. That's where you come in! 

The options haven't changed since last time, but here's the details so you don't have to go looking for them:

The Options: 

Transformatives Expansion

This expansion covers four main groupings of new content related to the theme of transformatives. First, the creation of more story content related to experimentation and access to experimental drugs. Second, the addition of support for more robust "animal girl" transformations beyond simply adding ears and tails. Third, adding new mutations and status effects from these transformatives along with the code to support it. Most inspired by animal girl traits, but some more general in nature. Fourth, the creation of a variety of actual drugs/transformatives and other processes to unlock transformations.

Timeline: 6-9 months (partly based on how much we add)

Scope:

• New story content related to gaining access to new transformations.
• Some content will be as an experimental subject at the employee enrichment center.
• Some will involve a research center selling experimental substances as a "beta". These would likely be the safest and most basic items.
• Some will be specific events and opportunities spread out around the world, typically these would be the more rare/complex transformatives. Additional hucow transformatives, for example, would probably remain with the Farm Coop.
• New events for those who are sufficiently transformed. If you're walking around as an animal girl, most people won't care, but some people may ask you about it, or some weirdos may follow you...
• New mutations and status effects coded into the game system to support a wider range of transformative effects.
• The mutations won't be available at character creation.
• These may modify existing mechanics, or cause new effects.
• An example of a new status effect is being in heat or having an estrus. These status effects would appear like other status effects and have corresponding effects.
• An example of a new mutation would be one that causes you to go into heat at a time timed with your monthly cycle.
• An example of a new mechanic is being "unable to resist" which may come into play when in heat.
• Support for new status effects, such as going into estrus and being "unable to resist"
• Expansion of the data structure in player and NPC objects to allow storing a wider range of characteristics and transformation status. This includes having a wider range of possible values, as well as additional values.
• New descriptions/parser output to support totally new variables (such as vulva puffiness or color), and a wider range of variables.

The initial transformatives expansion could be followed up by a second expansion at a later date that adds more animal girl types, more world reactions, and more drugs/combinations without requiring as much coding.

Useful Information:

• We don't have all the details planned out for the specific transformations/mutations/etc. We would depend on your feedback for the kinds of things that we add.
• Animal transformations are going to be limited to the more standard anime animal girl (beast folk) type transformations. Ears, tail, skin color, & hair color, and perhaps some genital/breast changes/effects/coloration. We're not going to go full-furry or even things like centaurs where the primary body shape changes, because of the amount of work involved.
• We will probably add the ability for NPCs to have the transformations at a low rate (controllable in settings) but will not have any effects for them beyond appearance and existing controls. (existing controls example: raising fertility, size, and ejaculation amount for hucow bulls)
• While we can easily add a number of different animal variants, the amount of special effects/mechanics/mutations will be limited due to time. 
• Animal-type transformations like special ears will be mostly vanity items beyond the extra effects. We won't be adding special sex actions where the NPC rubs your ears, and you shouldn't count on new scenes involving them unless we get writing submissions (for example a lover brushing your tail).
• Portrait images are unlikely to change in a significant way.

Sex System Expansion

This expansion will focus on improving the sex system, which a major code revision, new actions with corresponding descriptions, better support for additional activities like sex toys, overhauled AI, improved scene ending setup, and support for things like threesomes and foursomes. For the most part, this is a very mechanical expansion and will involve more coding than adding new content. The system itself is inherently limited by the design decision to allow mods to ingest new actions and text, which forces certain design decisions and makes more realistic behavior difficult. We would remove mod support as part of the code revision, allowing us to make those improvements. Since nobody has ever even expressed interest in creating a sex mod to add more actions/positions/etc, this probably won't be a noticeable loss.

Timeline: 6 months. (+?)

Scope:

• Code revision to improve how the sex scenes work and make them more predictable/reliable in terms of behavior.
• Add a limited set of new actions, mostly related to additional NPCs in the scene.
• Add situations to the game where you can start a sex scene with more than one NPC.
• Add support for additional NPCs in a scene to do things, such as using one of your available orifices.
• Overhaul the way the AI works so that it has more dominant behavior, and add support to allow better transitions between actions/activities, rather than limiting NPCs to a narrow range of possible actions.
• Change the way that sex scenes end so that it's not based on the NPC reaching orgasm.
• It will likely include a fatigue component with starting potential based existing energy system.
• Will allow NPCs that are capable of sex multiple times in a row to do so.
• Add support for consequences of too many orgasms, as well as better support for going unfulfilled.

Useful Information:

• This is the most technically complex expansion on the list. It's been literally years since I wrote most of the code in the system, so there will be a bit of a re-learning curve in our work.
• We won't be able to make regular releases while working on this, because the system simply won't work for most of the time we are working on it. We would just be doing bug-fixing releases during most of the expansion period.
• This won't involve much in the way of new content for the game. For the most part, it's just going to make the sex system (which is somewhat deficient) work better. The sex system isn't a huge part of the game though.

Hucow Expansion

This is a tricky but fun expansion that has the goal of allowing you to live as a full-time hucow. It's also a bit different from the other options because rather than expanding the main game or making it better, it will focus on adding a sort of "side path" or a different way of playing that doesn't have much effect on the main game. That said, being a hucow is a pretty sexy experience, and we have some ideas of how to blend the hucow life with the larger AW experience. Despite the tranquil and hedonistic lifestyle of the typical hucow, you'll still have to meet certain story objectives while satisfying your massively increased libido and beating the clock when it comes to regular milkings. While it's not difficult at all in terms of code, it will be quite difficult to do in terms of game design.

Timeline: 9+ months

Scope:

• Expansion of the Farm Coop area, particularly the hucow dorms, barn, and dairy.
• New initial game content.
• Hucow route is unlocked, and then becomes something you choose when starting a new game.
• New prologue story changes where you end up accidentally becoming a full-time contracted hucow against your will.
• Alternate main story content where you're primarily looking to escape your situation before you lose yourself.
• New/altered prologue
• New game ending
• New story objectives.
• New setup for meeting story objectives similar to how Lily's lab functions.
• New mechanics for milkings and life as a hucow.
• Blocking off several options in the rest of the game because you're a contracted hucow.
• No getting body modifications to shrink those udders!
• No moving to a different home or changing "jobs"
• etc.
• Implementing new "personality" stat (name tbd) that you lose from failing to meet expectations at the dairy, getting pregnant, and other things. 
• Losing all of this stat results in an ending where you live happily as a hucow and never escape, a not-so-bad bad end.
• Adding new methods of tracking arousal and sexual need that line up with your new modified hucow status.
• Penalties for not taking care of them, such as temporarily losing control of yourself and doing things that harm your personality score.
• Lots of new scenes required
• Getting fucked by bulls (unintentionally and intentionally)
• Getting milked.
• Interactions with fellow hucows and hecows
• forced hucow treatments to turn you into a hucow
• Punishment treatments to make you more docile/into a better hucow.
• Hucow activities, particularly in the dorms and the barn.
• Player character reactions.
• etc.
• Creating a new system of hucow transformations and growth that match with being a hucow (both in the game lore, and thematically matching the main story elements of resistance).
• Other things that will likely be necessary but that we're currently unsure of.

This is definitely the expansion that I'm least sure of, mostly because it's such a departure from the main game. It's also difficult to build an experience around a setting that is typically very repetitive (and thus has a high potential to be boring). Adding in the "trying to resist" theme, and the mechanic of needing to satisfy your needs, maintain your sanity/personality, and meet story objectives to get help escaping is meant to help accomplish that... but it's uncertain how well it will work, and we'll likely need to add in ways to speed up time so the game moves faster.

Useful Information:

• This expansion has the highest potential for the scope to balloon, and for the timeline to expand.
• This might be a story that ends up being a lot of fun to "lose".
• This expansion will provide a scenario that is dramatically different from the standard AW experience, so it won't just be "AW, but you're a hucow".
• I most likely wouldn't have added this as an expansion option at all if it hadn't been so commonly requested during AW's development.
• Because it could probably be better as its own game, just borrowing some of AW's simulation source but changing the main game loop.

Career Expansion

This expansion focuses on adding the mid to late game story and more promotion levels to the game's jobs, as well as the already-designed additional job minigame mechanics for the three Institute jobs and Progenerate Technologies job. The main objective here is the expansion of content, but the addition of mechanics to have subordinates and make difficult/morally complex decisions is also something I've wanted. The original plan was for your actions in the later stages of each job to have more to do with the world and the story's outcome. 

Timeline: 6 months.

Scope:

• Additional job event content for each job in the game.
• Including one-off events and event chains.
• Additional promotion levels added to jobs.
• The "Unskilled" jobs like stripper, masseuse, and cashier won't be getting much in the way of new promotion levels.
• Main jobs will transfer to their next phase, with several more promotion levels.
• Other jobs like dairy farmhand and maid will receive more promotion levels but no new job phase.
• New minor mechanics for each of the main jobs in their second phase.
• New story content where you transition to the next phase of your job.
• New bad ends for jobs if you make the wrong choices. 
• New minor events that happen in the world that are related to your job, and the decisions you made (for 2nd phase only).
• New end-of-game content where you learn more about how your job effect's your life afterward (ranging from "no impact" to "changes the whole course of your life")
• Probably more job simulator references and crazy Institute stuff.

 Useful Information:

• This is one of those things that I think will make the game more enjoyable. Currently, you can get through most job content in only a few months of in-game time, depending on the job. While a big part of a job's purpose is to accelerate game time, it also serves as an interesting story opportunity in its own right, and really adds to the quirkiness of the setting.
• Sticking to 6 months will really limit the amount of new content we can add.
• The majority of new content will be directed towards full-time jobs, while the part-time jobs won't get as much.