Y'know, I now understand why some devs have such huge gaps between updates. In terms of news I mean. It's so easy to just...not think about it. I should probably stop doing that. Anyway, an update on progress.
I spent a solid 2 weeks not sure how to tackle the problem. Then I went to Japan for 10 days. It was really fun. But now that I'm back, I'm back to work, picking apart the problem. After I spent a couple days relaxing and finding inspiration and stuff. So, tonight I finished the first draft of the code, and now I have to write a couple of events. I'm hoping to update next week with a VERY basic system, and then the week after with a bunch more events (I'm anticipating 5 on the first update, 10 on the second for a total of 15). This should make being enslaved interesting enough to have a little content, without bogging me down with so much writing I can't do combat. From there it'll be back to combat and adding in stat screens/character customizing etc.
Really sorry about the massive delay, I will try to be more talkative in the future.
Pudding Earl
No need to apologize, it is us who should be thanking you for your continued work. Game seems to be little buggy atm but I still enjoyed it. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteY'know, don't take this little rant the wrong way, cause I really do appreciate all the good will everyone's giving me, but I'm kinda tired of this "We should be thankful for whatever you give us" attitude that crops up around games like this. I mean, fuck, I used to do updates every week just about, that was a time to be thanking me for my work. But now I can go over a month without saying anything and people are still grateful and like, it's nice to be forgiven and shit, but it feels like there's no pressure to actually work and there should be. Yes, programming new stuff takes longer than what I did before so weekly releases aren't possible, but there's still a sort of social contract going on here that I should be releasing stuff, or at least telling people what's going on, and I'm not even remotely holding up my end of that.
DeleteI mean, I'm glad you guys are forgiving me and shit, but please, be a little harder on me. I don't want to get complacent because of some sort of fan worship thing cropping up around me. So like...yeah. Rant over I suppose.
Well I'm a fairly new visitor here so I had no idea you were barraged by fan mails in the comments, although it doesn't surprise me considering how niche this game is and how easily these kind of games can die from creators losing interest. From my perspective, since you are putting quite a bit of work into this for presumably not that much monetary return, least I can do to encourage you is tell you that I appreciate your work. (which I really do) That said, if more pressure is what you need, why are you reading this? Get to work! :)
DeleteThe crazy thing about enslaved/captured content in games, is like I think I've mentioned before, it's almost completely ignored, or is a brief scripted sequence, even in kink-themed games. It's as if people assume players will immediately get bored if they get taken captive and the 'mission' fails because they screwed up somehow, and won't want to play as a captive or submissive. I mean there can't be that few of us out here who are into the idea of meaningful gameplay where if you screw up, you just get derailed and don't get to know what would've happened if you'd won (at least until the next playthrough), and then have to be a sub from then on out, which in itself is very enjoyable.
DeleteThis is one of those games I think that needs to be played with one save spot, which is only used with glitches and game overs, and saved over during any continued path, whether you wanted that path or not, to add gravity to choices and skill. I came into this game a fan of the Rogue style games, where you dungeon crawl with one life, and if you die that's it. Really makes you play intensively and gives you a great sense of satisfaction when you do well.
Now to finally get to my point, I tend to think of this type of game like a kink version of rogue-likes where instead of perma-death you get enslaved and have to play that out. I can revel in the sub content so much more in a game like this when it's there because I, as a player screwed up. Makes it much more immersive and fun.
Anyway, some more thoughts. Hope they help Pudding Earl. I haven't played the latest release of this I don't believe. I'll have to give it a whirl.
There's a damn good reason you don't see much of it. I'm running a bunch of skyrim mods that make you get enslaved instead of killed when you lose a fight. The problem is if I'm looking to just play the game, it basically holds the game hostage for an hour or two in response to a fuck up in a game that wasn't designed with these hold ups in mind. Designing a game around the hold ups is hard because you need to make sure combat is difficult, but not overly so, that it falls more to player judgement and skill than it does to chance, without making the game a "solved puzzle" so to speak, where once you learn the way to do things you'll never lose. I run mods to the same effect in Oblivion in which the solved puzzle problem is real. I'm never enslaved because I play a mage focused on control, so I've got the tools to stop enslavement, while playing a melee fighter got me instantly enslaved all the time.
DeleteAnd then there's a second problem of making the content engaging, which is something I myself am still struggling with. Enslavement should limit your options, but in that regard it poses the question what do you as a player do? In both the games I listed losing is a matter of be raped, be chained up, have to try and escape and you get raped a bunch more times. The problem is that playing a sub there isn't playing, it's just waiting while things happen to you. It's the opposite of a game really.
The problem of making engaging gameplay even after losing is a really bloody difficult one, and I don't blame most games for shying away from it. I'm pretty sure my method is far from ideal, but the game is going that way and it's not like actual gameplay is the focus so I'm not too fussed.
Anyway, that's a small rant as to why the problem is a problem.
Maybe a new way to look at enslavement is the char is forced to do something embarrassing and thus wants to avoid being enslaved. For example what if the school had events with said embarrassing or what not situations in it and if you were a slave you had to participate or if you owned a slave you could get some benefit out of it.
DeleteAs for the difficulty let people have a chance to grind up strength like a rpg and that will help diffuse some of the difficulty and or also have story situations where getting information (Library for example) or favors make the fight easier.
Last but not least is you might consider putting in a economy (Not necessarily money but something like that) for story and fight situations to show score and have something that can be traded for favors or goods etc.
@PuddingEarl Everything you say here makes sense, and if I were a developer I imagine I'd get it even more. I suppose it's just a personal preference type of thing.
DeleteNice to know that it`s going forward. As for the delay sure things like that can happen,
ReplyDeletebut as you said yourself being kinda mute about it for that long is a bit...
I won`t detour on a little rant here because you are allready aware of it.^^
Really looking forward those next updates, it has been quita a while after all. XP