Earl's Musings: Choices and Customisation

So, recently I played the Scandalous Scarlet Moon. It's a pretty good game, and the author is kind enough to shout me out on his page, so I'll include a link back to him at the end of this for those of you who want to check it out. On top of being a good game, it's also an amazingly customizable game, letting you pick the genders of most characters you encounter through the game. You can choose at the beginning to have the game automatically set the gender of character's based on their role, if they're the spanker or spankee, or as I do it, you can simply make up your mind on the fly, with the game warning you which each character is going to be as they appear. It's a clever feature that works really well given the spanking-focus of the game.

The game also seems to go out of it's way to provide the player with choices about scenes you'll encounter, with an emphasis on letting you avoid what you don't like. This isn't something new to this game, I've played a few where the sex is almost entirely within the players control. And this is something I'm not a fan of. I'm a big fan of avoidable sex scenes. I'm not a fan of easily avoidable sex scenes, which is, in my opinion at least, a common problem with games where sex is avoidable. Whenever you're presented with a series of choices, one of which dodges the sex, and one of which provides you with "unwilling" sex, they're usually very clearly labelled. "Perform wise decision" is the first option. "Act like an idiot" is the second. I get why you might think this is a good idea, but to my mind it feels like a wasted opportunity. To me at least a porn game needs some degree of difficulty so you can actually fuck it up. Getting "punished" when I couldn't really not choose to fail isn't the same.

And this is where an interesting thought arises. If you're including any customization, why not weave that into these sorts of scenes. Why not make the decisions you're faced with when it comes to how to avoid sex actively difficult to make, or include options that, while obviously leading to sex, feel like the safe way to avoid other problems. And then, in the options at the beginning of the game, provide a way for your players to turn on content tips. So each choice is labelled as leading to sex or not. Or turn on advanced options, which tells you the kind of sex you'll be experiencing if you go down either route. Or you could just do what I do and do nothing to indicate what will lead to sex and what won't half the time.

As a quick aside, I should note that obvious player choice for consensual scenes makes perfect sense. If you're getting a choice if you fuck a character, you the player should be the one making that choice. It's when the consequences of your actions might lead you to unwilling sex that there should be a bit more ambiguity, to allow you to actually fuck up. Also of note, for those wondering, yes, I do intend to include customization for Shield High, largely in the form of difficulty and early game stats in the future, though customization for other parts of the game is something I'm considering too.

Anyway, that's it for today. Sorry I've been absent on the work front for a little bit, I've been re-adjusting to life back home after my schedule had been severely fucked by everything. I'm still sleeping at some weird times to try and get work done for Shield High.

Pudding Earl

P.S. Forgot to actually link to Scandalous Scarlet Moon. You can find it, and the guys other stuff here: http://www.spankingrpgs.com/

Update on time.

Yup, 0.685 just went live on Patreon, despite all that travel and jetlag. As promised, there's basically no new content, just some back-end changes, some balance tweaks to combat and general bug fixing. Most things people have complained about have been patched to one degree or another. Sadly the interact button refuses to behave.

Later this week there'll be an 0.685b release, as there's a few bugs I just didn't have time to look at, but which are vitally important to fixing before I go public. When I do go public all the romance options should be working, and the few display bugs will be "fixed". Then it's on to 0.686, which will be a huge leap forward for the main plot, as I begin my strides towards 0.7, and getting the game back in line with it's former self in terms of content.

That's all for today.

Pudding Earl

Home soon. Update largely on time.

So, I'm currently sitting in San Fran airport, with a little over an hour until boarding time. I figured now would be a good time to update everyone on THE PLAN regarding this month's release. Schedule is same as always, Patreon on the 21st, public on the 7th. Work-wise I'm largely done, I've just got to test all the storylines and make sure the new system of running events runs smoothly. I anticipate approximately three hiccups per story, but once it's done it's done and this will make managing multiple storylines easier. With a little tweaking in the future, you should be able to be mid-drama with one girl, when you start shit with another, and they should resolve okay. Will they acknowledge each other? Absolutely not(yet), but they'll both actually resolve, which should be good. So far I've had to be veeeery careful not to allow plots to overwrite each other, which is why a lot of the limitations you might not have noticed existing exist.

I feel as if there was something else coming this update. I added slave stuff for Samantha cause it needed to happen, but that's about all I can think of. Oh, I added event and class guidance, which also laid the groundwork for future pathing for characters. All in all it's been a productive update of 90% back end stuff with some front end stuff there to make it noticeable. So a boring update for you, but one that will shape the game a lot going forward.

That's it for today, next post will be Patreon release.

Pudding Earl

Musings were a lie

I promised musings when I landed but being with girlfriend has left my porn game thoughts in a drought. Thankfully I anticipated this and have been bug fixing while here to avoid needing to do anything hard. Also changing combat balance. It's hard now. Possibly too hard. I'm gonna make another little tweak to make rest actually viable, and then it's down to fixing all the errors people have been reporting regarding fighting forever.

Musings will resume after next update. Apologies for that.

Pudding Earl

Musings to come soon!

I'm currently sitting in an airport, waiting the 8 hours or so until my next flight to see my girlfriend. For obvious reasons, this will significantly slow down my ability to produce Shield High stuff. But I have some plans to do some work in these 8 hours, mostly involving doing programming stuff and never writing anything until I arrive at girlfriend's house. Unless it's my book. I'll write some of that while I'm here. Anyway, once I've rested at girlfriend's house, I shall post a musing when I can. That is all.

Shield High 0.684 Release and also some other things.

Yes, that's right, it's the 7th, and that means it's time for the new version of Shield High. This one added romance options and slavery content. Only one of which has been truly tested. The other one didn't receive any comments saying it DIDN'T work when I put it on Patreon however, so I can only assume everything is sunshine and rainbows on that front. So, to give you a proper list of what's new, here is the patch notes as given on Patreon.
BUG FIXES:
I fixed the following bugs (off the top of my head)
-Passing the weekend on Saturday no longer allows Jessica to travel back in time.
-Weekends in general seem to work better
-That annoying little flash in combat got too much for me. It's now gone.
-Advanced Start no longer crashes the game. Instead it does nothing. This is an improvement largely because people who do not know it is not a feature yet will stop telling me it crashes the game.
LOVE:
The following characters have super cute first dates:
-Angel
-Melanie
-Iris
-Josie
-Jillian
Jillian's date is currently inaccessible owing to changes to how the plot...functions. I'm going to add progressively more ways to start relationships with characters in future updates. Next week will include flirting, to let you get a date with Jillian.
Other dates might be broken. I'm only confident in Angel's.
SLAVES:
You now can be Karen's slave, with actual content. There's 6 random events that are chosen from each day. Five are simple, visit Karen, recieve sexy dialogue sort of events. One is visit Karen and get ordered to be a whore. In that case you have to walk around and let girls who are interested grab and fuck you. The current ones wil be phased out of fucking you as more girls get added and I can more accurately reflect the politics of the school.
There's currently only one way out, which is asking for Angel's help. You need to go and get all her friendship points up. Well, you need 40, you can get 43 right now. Then you just ask her for help with your Mistress and it behaves like getting her help with Andriana.

So there's that. Game can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/d0v9k4yp7zxnd8v

And now on to some other news. The fifth book in my on-going series came out today, and this one is a bit more relevant to everyone's interests as it contains lesbians. Technically all of them have contained lesbians, but only the second one really talked about it before. This book however actually has some proper beginnings of lesbian romance. Also the giant mech fights, as always. In case anyone has been kind of interested in what I've been up to and just holding out, you can find the new book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XFY3FY5 

There's also now a facebook page for said book which, if you don't mind it being in your feed, you could follow, even if you don't actually ever read the books, it's a good way to hear things that I'm up to that I don't post here. You can find that here:https://www.facebook.com/MechanicalInstinctBook/ 

And as a final point on that, if you're interested in the books but hate ebooks, I'm planning on putting out the first 6 in a compilation for paperback on Amazon, when the 6th book comes out in May. So that's a thing, in case it matters to you.

Anyway, thank you all for your support on Shield High even if you don't care for my books, it's a strange feeling realizing this is my sixth month being back at work, and seeing how far my Patreon has grown in this short time, and how many people are back and commenting regularly, it really means a lot to me. So I hope you all enjoy the newest version.

 Pudding Earl

EDIT: Copying from Patreon fucked many things. Have fixed them now.

I need some opinions from you guys.

So! As most people know, I'm also writing a series of books. The fifth one comes out in a few days. Today I got the cover art for the 5th book from my artist, who has decided to offer me a single free piece of art as a thanks for commissioning so much stuff from him. Unfortunately, I have no real ideas what to get. Or rather, I have too many ideas and I need to narrow them down. So, I'll quickly present my options, and then get to the point.

Options:
1. Get the next book cover. It's boring, but functional.

2. Get a big ol' poster-like image for the book series to go on my new facebook page I'm making for it. Something that can show off all the characters and possibly be used in promotional material or something.

3. Get a nice picture of Jessica (hopefully layered) to use as my core image on the character screen and when you're walking around. If possible, get one that can lose clothes as she does.

4. Get something purely for myself because fuck foresight.

So, here's the question really. Do you think a single image for Shield High could improve it that much? Would an image to demonstrate the art I'd get for it if the Patreon got there improve your enjoyment? Would it make you consider donating money if you're not already?

That's all I'm wondering for the moment. Feedback obviously appreciated.

Pudding Earl

EDIT: With some new limits I've been given on the art, I'm crossing off options 1 and 2. The character art for Jessica would be limited to a single image, either naked or clothed. I'm not sure if it's worth getting now, it might be better to simply wait for a bit more money and get a proper image done up.

Keeping this up regardless for feedback on the idea of an unchanging new picture of Jessica. That having been said, I'll likely go for a picture for myself, and spend some Patreon money on a proper Jessica commission later. Y'know, while it's not enough to actually pay for anything important. Like bills, or food.