Okay so, as always, Patreon release was on time. I'm a little astounded I haven't made excuses and missed a release yet. That having been said, this one is gonna need a b update in a few days. The AI coding really hurt the quality and I don't feel good about it. Not that it matters for public release, but I like to own up to shit like this. So there's that.
And now, in the news, I'm changing my Patreon reward tiers next month. I'll throw all of it up on the 1st of the month, just so no one decides to start giving this month expecting the rewards and being disappointed, but under the new system, instead of $5 per month for early access it'll just be $1. When I started, I was thinking about how I use Patreon, which is to say, I give $5 to everyone I like. Being a self-centered narcissist, I completely neglected to think about how other people do things. Until I ended up only pledging $1 to someone, and realized I'm an idiot. So, $1 gets you content now, sorry to everyone who was giving $5 and then stopped, I feel like I cheated you a bit. Hit me up if you want a say in the new $5 tier, and I'll factor you in for a few months.
The new $5 tier is voting rights for the next update. I started that this month, which means in 0.688 you can expect to see more slave content because that's what the people asked for. The $10 tier will be just disappearing, and I'll tweak the $20 tier to be something much more rewarding. Finally, I'll add a $100 tier that absolutely no one will take (well, maybe someone will for like, a month) which is basically "Pay for a commission for the game. Basically whoever you ask for will get their art done." Otherwise, commissioning further art will start when I've started earning a bit more money off the game.
So yeah, that's the situation. Just thought you'd all like to know, in case you always considered giving but haven't because it was too much to get access. I'm making things cheaper and overall better value I hope.
Sunday 21 May 2017
Monday 15 May 2017
Regret of the moment
Right this moment I regret that magic isn't allowed, or that I've made no openings for myself to include a second sister so Jess can have an identical twin. For some reason selfcest suddenly became really appealing as I write these descriptions of actions you can take.
That is all.
That is all.
Saturday 13 May 2017
Earl's Musings: Text vs Graphics
I have a very inconsistent track record with sharing opinions on things. I alternate trying to be subtle and polite (Avoiding speaking about politics how I normally would, for instance) and outright stating something to be objectively the best or worst thing ever. Previously I've stated that I believe text-based games to be the best thing ever and that anything that relied on graphics to be terrible and bad. (That is an exaggeration of my position slightly) Now today I'm going to just go ahead and say I was completely fucking wrong.
That's not to say that text is bad. I maintain text is a wonderful thing and I'm sad that more things don't use good text in place of art, but I'm starting to re-think my stance on it's universal application. At this stage I'm starting to think that text excels at expressing a more emotive and personal form of sexuality. The key pull of text is in it's ability to describe how things feel, to emphasize the elements that you couldn't possibly express otherwise, like the sting of a spanking, how soft someone's skin is, or how impossible the bindings are to escape from.
Basically, text is good at immersion in a story about feelings, about being in someone's head. So what's it bad at? Well, the raw and visceral part of sex. The visual aspect of someone being naked, or the way a pair of tits bounce. Those sorts of things don't translate well into text. Not nearly as well as just a visual representation does. And on this front, I think I see the reasoning for graphics being good. To clarify what I mean here, I am specifically referring to proper animations, either 2D or 3D. So...Toffisama's stuff to Skyrim, all that falls within this to varying degrees.
I think the core of the problem is a lot of the visceral elements to sex revolve around objectification of someone. But in text, there's no clear object, and so there's this small disconnect between the medium and the sex on display. At least, that's my thought on the matter, I might be totally wrong. So let me know if I'm on completely the wrong track here, I like knowing if people think I'm on the right track in my understanding of porn games and how they work.
Pudding Earl
P.S. Still art in porn games in place of well written text is still utter trash. Minor animation doesn't fix it.
That's not to say that text is bad. I maintain text is a wonderful thing and I'm sad that more things don't use good text in place of art, but I'm starting to re-think my stance on it's universal application. At this stage I'm starting to think that text excels at expressing a more emotive and personal form of sexuality. The key pull of text is in it's ability to describe how things feel, to emphasize the elements that you couldn't possibly express otherwise, like the sting of a spanking, how soft someone's skin is, or how impossible the bindings are to escape from.
Basically, text is good at immersion in a story about feelings, about being in someone's head. So what's it bad at? Well, the raw and visceral part of sex. The visual aspect of someone being naked, or the way a pair of tits bounce. Those sorts of things don't translate well into text. Not nearly as well as just a visual representation does. And on this front, I think I see the reasoning for graphics being good. To clarify what I mean here, I am specifically referring to proper animations, either 2D or 3D. So...Toffisama's stuff to Skyrim, all that falls within this to varying degrees.
I think the core of the problem is a lot of the visceral elements to sex revolve around objectification of someone. But in text, there's no clear object, and so there's this small disconnect between the medium and the sex on display. At least, that's my thought on the matter, I might be totally wrong. So let me know if I'm on completely the wrong track here, I like knowing if people think I'm on the right track in my understanding of porn games and how they work.
Pudding Earl
P.S. Still art in porn games in place of well written text is still utter trash. Minor animation doesn't fix it.
Sunday 7 May 2017
Shield High 0.686 release!
Okay so, here it is! The new Shield High release! What's in it? I'm not 100% sure. What I remember for sure is that it has the two new story lines one for Stacy and one for Carmen. The polish on them is a bit...eh, in places. I was in a rush to get this one out. I'll try and polish them up for the next release, I promise. Or the one after, since that's meant to be spring cleaning.
Anyway, here's the download link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/w44p35jw28prika/Shield_High_JS_0.686.7z
So, to elaborate a bit more on what's changed, there's now a way to check your personal status within Shield High. It's like the three parts at the bottom of every NPC's relationships thing, but with one new stat. As well as power there's PERCEIVED POWER. Basically, power changes when something tangible happens. You obtain a new slave, you win a fight, that sort of thing. It shows how much stuff you can ACTUALLY do, how likely you are to win fights, and things like that. Your perceived power however is what everyone THINKS you can do. It fluctuates a lot more, climbing from resisting girls pressuring you to submit, or winning fights, or even just starting them, even with no follow through. Likewise it drops when you submit, or lose, or anything else like that.
This matters because the static story events, such as Stacy and Carmen will only trigger when your Perceived Power reaches a certain level. Currently that's 20 and 30 for Stacy and Carmen respectively, however it will be changed to 40 for Carmen when the game is a bit bigger. To make things easier on you until saving is properly fixed and overhauled and things, you can simply submit to Karen, which instead of dropping you by 2 points, ups you by 20, putting you in range to get one story, then the other quite quickly.
That's the main change. The majority of the work was combing every single event for changes in global opinion. There's also the new image added now, so you can see the new, nicer Jess looking at you in the map screen and the journal. It's just the one this month, but I intend to add the rest of the options, and a way to view yourself mid-combat, in the next update.
That's it for now.
Pudding Earl.
P.S. Sixth, and final book for the moment can be found here. It's an equally valid starting point in contrast to the first, if you've been considering getting the books but just haven't for whatever reason: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RWT1JF
Anyway, here's the download link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/w44p35jw28prika/Shield_High_JS_0.686.7z
So, to elaborate a bit more on what's changed, there's now a way to check your personal status within Shield High. It's like the three parts at the bottom of every NPC's relationships thing, but with one new stat. As well as power there's PERCEIVED POWER. Basically, power changes when something tangible happens. You obtain a new slave, you win a fight, that sort of thing. It shows how much stuff you can ACTUALLY do, how likely you are to win fights, and things like that. Your perceived power however is what everyone THINKS you can do. It fluctuates a lot more, climbing from resisting girls pressuring you to submit, or winning fights, or even just starting them, even with no follow through. Likewise it drops when you submit, or lose, or anything else like that.
This matters because the static story events, such as Stacy and Carmen will only trigger when your Perceived Power reaches a certain level. Currently that's 20 and 30 for Stacy and Carmen respectively, however it will be changed to 40 for Carmen when the game is a bit bigger. To make things easier on you until saving is properly fixed and overhauled and things, you can simply submit to Karen, which instead of dropping you by 2 points, ups you by 20, putting you in range to get one story, then the other quite quickly.
That's the main change. The majority of the work was combing every single event for changes in global opinion. There's also the new image added now, so you can see the new, nicer Jess looking at you in the map screen and the journal. It's just the one this month, but I intend to add the rest of the options, and a way to view yourself mid-combat, in the next update.
That's it for now.
Pudding Earl.
P.S. Sixth, and final book for the moment can be found here. It's an equally valid starting point in contrast to the first, if you've been considering getting the books but just haven't for whatever reason: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071RWT1JF
Monday 1 May 2017
Earl's Musing: I HAVE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE
Honestly this might not be a real musing, but I feel it as an opportunity to ramble a bunch, so I'm going to label it as one and see where this goes. So, a big problem I have in porn games is a sort of...inconsistency with other characters. Or an over-consistency. If a character is flexible, serving both a porn and non-porn role, often they tend to flip personalities on a dime. They're friendly and nice to you, until suddenly a switch flicks in their brain and they turn rapey. Then once they're satisfied, it's back to being friendly like nothing happened.
Alternately, they're just static, either always friendly, or always sexual and there's no in-between. The only case where this isn't true is the games that are linear. But obviously in these cases, there's nothing fancy going on, it's just a straight plot resolving(or one of multiple lines of plot resolving, whatever). The point I'm getting to is that for the most part, in open games, characters aren't active.
So naturally, in my usual trend of jumping ahead of my plan, I've decided to change that in Shield High. This has proven to be a terrible mistake. I'm not going back on it but jesus christ this is going to be a lot of work to get it working correctly. By the end, the goal is to make it so that every NPC has an ongoing ambition, and a number of short term agendas they're trying to see through. They'll walk around, socialize, pick fights, fuck girls, whatever it takes to see their agendas advanced. It's something I've wanted in the game for a long time. It's just...going to be painful to complete it.
You might be wondering why I'm doing this now. There's only like, 25 characters in the game, that's honestly not enough for the AI to work properly. And it won't, most characters in the next few updates will remain lifeless until I start to fill in the school, and it'll very slowly come to life after that. But, with adding blackmail, it's kind of integral to that, I feel. Being blackmailed for sex is all well and good, but being blackmailed for sex, and then for pursuing the goals of someone else is even better. Also, the AI here provides the possibility of the blackmail being followed through with, or it being traded around to others.
The other benefit of this happening now is that honestly, once this storyline is done, I'm kind of done with all the static stuff for a while. So having the AI working at the end of it means that I can start filling out more and more characters to come and provide filler plots for you, and generally flesh out the meat of the game without having to worry too much about programming them all on when to come and do the thing. Their AI will pick and choose when to do that for them. Assuming it all works out, of course. I may well have to cut corners and gimp the AI to make it all work for me. Who knows.
Point is, ambition ahoy, fuck you, everyone else who does porn games, I need to continue trying to prove myself to be better. I'm probably not. I'm probably just re-treading trodden ground that was proven to not work and will soon end up falling in line. Oh well, worth trying at least. If nothing else I'll be able to say for certain why it fails.
Pudding Earl.
P.S. Yes, update is on the 7th again, along with final book for the time being. That is all.
Alternately, they're just static, either always friendly, or always sexual and there's no in-between. The only case where this isn't true is the games that are linear. But obviously in these cases, there's nothing fancy going on, it's just a straight plot resolving(or one of multiple lines of plot resolving, whatever). The point I'm getting to is that for the most part, in open games, characters aren't active.
So naturally, in my usual trend of jumping ahead of my plan, I've decided to change that in Shield High. This has proven to be a terrible mistake. I'm not going back on it but jesus christ this is going to be a lot of work to get it working correctly. By the end, the goal is to make it so that every NPC has an ongoing ambition, and a number of short term agendas they're trying to see through. They'll walk around, socialize, pick fights, fuck girls, whatever it takes to see their agendas advanced. It's something I've wanted in the game for a long time. It's just...going to be painful to complete it.
You might be wondering why I'm doing this now. There's only like, 25 characters in the game, that's honestly not enough for the AI to work properly. And it won't, most characters in the next few updates will remain lifeless until I start to fill in the school, and it'll very slowly come to life after that. But, with adding blackmail, it's kind of integral to that, I feel. Being blackmailed for sex is all well and good, but being blackmailed for sex, and then for pursuing the goals of someone else is even better. Also, the AI here provides the possibility of the blackmail being followed through with, or it being traded around to others.
The other benefit of this happening now is that honestly, once this storyline is done, I'm kind of done with all the static stuff for a while. So having the AI working at the end of it means that I can start filling out more and more characters to come and provide filler plots for you, and generally flesh out the meat of the game without having to worry too much about programming them all on when to come and do the thing. Their AI will pick and choose when to do that for them. Assuming it all works out, of course. I may well have to cut corners and gimp the AI to make it all work for me. Who knows.
Point is, ambition ahoy, fuck you, everyone else who does porn games, I need to continue trying to prove myself to be better. I'm probably not. I'm probably just re-treading trodden ground that was proven to not work and will soon end up falling in line. Oh well, worth trying at least. If nothing else I'll be able to say for certain why it fails.
Pudding Earl.
P.S. Yes, update is on the 7th again, along with final book for the time being. That is all.
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