Oh boy! It's time for another public release! By my schedule this one should've been spring cleaning but I have long since given up on that format. Instead it's a lot of new features being coded in, some new content, and some bug fixing to give access to old content. The big feature being the new AI feature for NPCs. It's incomplete, but functional, allowing NPCs to walk around and attempt to fill out their goals for the day. Slave owners can't change just yet, but I may well end up adding that in this month's code.
Anyway, download is here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/797yufiqd818v80/Shield_High_JS_0.688.7z
Otherwise, the Stacy > Carmen > Elizabeth order should be functional now. I do believe I updated the experience drops to now give experience for all characters now, but each month of work tends to blend together for me. I'm like, 90% sure this version has that. Otherwise, there's now slave content for all possible mistresses except Elizabeth. I skipped Elizabeth because she's the end of content when you win too, so it's the easiest solution.
I do believe that's everything. If I remember something, I'll add it on later. I hope you all enjoy this version!
Pudding Earl
Friday, 7 July 2017
Sunday, 2 July 2017
Earl's Musings: World Building
Originally, I was gonna write about glue here. Glue, in this case, referring to all that boring filler stuff that sits in between the porn and game mechanics that has to get done but isn't what you think about when you start. This is because glue is what I'm working on now. But instead, as I thought about literally any other project to take my mind off how monotonous the work awaiting me is, I wondered idly how important world building actually is for porn. (At the time of writing this I haven't yet done the days work, but I'm about to. It's just re-arranging the 150 new actors into rooms that match up with descriptions of rooms given, and maybe assigning slaves.)
I really like world building. I have spent the past two days plotting out the economy from farmers up in one of the nations of my D&D world to make sure the next game makes sense. That's how much I like it. As such I'm inclined towards adding world building to things that don't seem to need it, and hoping it adds value as it usually does. Porn, obviously, does not seem to need world building. In fact, for the most part, it has none. There's two people, there's just enough story to tell you why they're fucking, and then they fuck. That's it.
Obviously, porn games and stories have a bit more world building than that. The level of world building is pretty variable, from say...some of Toffi's earlier stuff, where the world building seemed pretty sparse, to the really intricate. I *think* TiTS has a lot of it, but since most of it's in the codex I've never bothered to learn any of it. I'm a hypocrite like that, I love a good wiki, but I'll be fucked if I'm gonna read it when I have the game open. To point to an example of world building I actually have bothered to learn about, I'm going to point to I Roved Out (in search of truth and loved). I Roved Out, for those not familiar, is a fantasy comic with a lot of porn in it. It goes a little overboard sometimes I think, since everything else is actually pretty good, and it weaves in the world building at just the right pace that though I'm not super familiar with the world, I'd probably read more about it given the chance.
But this all brings us around to one very central question. Does any of it matter? Does the world building improve my enjoyment of the porn? Sadly, no, it doesn't. But I don't think that's the fault of world building itself. World building is great, it makes everything better. But, if it doesn't impact the core of the experience, it's just filler. To use my own work as an example, if I just worked out how much money a farmer made (It's 2 gold, 25 silver and 95 copper a year) and left it at that, no one would care. If I used that number to influence how much an adventurers first sword costs, that's when people start to appreciate it.
And so the conclusion I'm coming to is that I think that world building does improve porn, so long as the information is relevant to the porn itself. If it establishes power dynamics between people based on external worldy factors, it makes the power dynamic of the porn potentially more engaging. When someone's dominant in sex, and it translates to total life dominance, the ability to ruin the submissive's life, it can make the scene more engaging, and thus, hopefully, hotter. Likewise knowing the reverse is true, that the dominant usually has no power, that the humiliation of submission is all the stronger for that detail can have the same impact.
How much work do you need to do to get that across? I'm not sure. But I think it's worth looking at doing. And while you're doing it, share some more of your world too. So long as it's done right, even if it doesn't relate to the porn, it can improve the overall enjoyment of the thing in question.
I think that's all my thoughts on the matter. Your thoughts are always appreciated however. Release soon, with some new slave content and basic AI.
Pudding Earl
I really like world building. I have spent the past two days plotting out the economy from farmers up in one of the nations of my D&D world to make sure the next game makes sense. That's how much I like it. As such I'm inclined towards adding world building to things that don't seem to need it, and hoping it adds value as it usually does. Porn, obviously, does not seem to need world building. In fact, for the most part, it has none. There's two people, there's just enough story to tell you why they're fucking, and then they fuck. That's it.
Obviously, porn games and stories have a bit more world building than that. The level of world building is pretty variable, from say...some of Toffi's earlier stuff, where the world building seemed pretty sparse, to the really intricate. I *think* TiTS has a lot of it, but since most of it's in the codex I've never bothered to learn any of it. I'm a hypocrite like that, I love a good wiki, but I'll be fucked if I'm gonna read it when I have the game open. To point to an example of world building I actually have bothered to learn about, I'm going to point to I Roved Out (in search of truth and loved). I Roved Out, for those not familiar, is a fantasy comic with a lot of porn in it. It goes a little overboard sometimes I think, since everything else is actually pretty good, and it weaves in the world building at just the right pace that though I'm not super familiar with the world, I'd probably read more about it given the chance.
But this all brings us around to one very central question. Does any of it matter? Does the world building improve my enjoyment of the porn? Sadly, no, it doesn't. But I don't think that's the fault of world building itself. World building is great, it makes everything better. But, if it doesn't impact the core of the experience, it's just filler. To use my own work as an example, if I just worked out how much money a farmer made (It's 2 gold, 25 silver and 95 copper a year) and left it at that, no one would care. If I used that number to influence how much an adventurers first sword costs, that's when people start to appreciate it.
And so the conclusion I'm coming to is that I think that world building does improve porn, so long as the information is relevant to the porn itself. If it establishes power dynamics between people based on external worldy factors, it makes the power dynamic of the porn potentially more engaging. When someone's dominant in sex, and it translates to total life dominance, the ability to ruin the submissive's life, it can make the scene more engaging, and thus, hopefully, hotter. Likewise knowing the reverse is true, that the dominant usually has no power, that the humiliation of submission is all the stronger for that detail can have the same impact.
How much work do you need to do to get that across? I'm not sure. But I think it's worth looking at doing. And while you're doing it, share some more of your world too. So long as it's done right, even if it doesn't relate to the porn, it can improve the overall enjoyment of the thing in question.
I think that's all my thoughts on the matter. Your thoughts are always appreciated however. Release soon, with some new slave content and basic AI.
Pudding Earl
Wednesday, 28 June 2017
IMBALANCE AHOY!
So I'm adding in the advanced start. This a lesser version of it for the moment, until the game gets far enough along to support the dream for it. However right now you can tweak an option (with more to come) and adjust the difficulty by virtue of adjusting Jessica's power. I've given you a *lot* of lee-way here though. So in testing, I decided to put all my bonus points into Strength. The end result was a 42 Strength score. It was...ridiculous and OP as shit. I don't care, if you wanna do that you can, it's a cheat-y way to find the winning content. You can also have flat 8s in everything now. That'll be...probably impossible. Again, I don't care, it's your own choice, play things how you like, I say.
Thursday, 22 June 2017
Shield High 0.688 Patreon Release
This is just another update to let everyone know I am still working to schedule. The release actually came out like, 17 hours ago, I just forgot to post about it because of needing to do some bug fixes. There's still some fixes to be done, but it should be a really simple fix, I have a theory on what the problem is. Anyway, that's all I've got for you for today, just letting you all know that it's out. Release will be on the 7th, as always.
Pudding Earl
Pudding Earl
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Earl's Musings: The future of porn
Okay so, this post is going to be a bit different from my usual musings. In a normal musing, I talk about something I've observed, something I'm pretty confident in, and then I suggest some speculative stuff about how this observation should pan out. But today? Today we're going full on speculation. So, here's my crazy thought. Porn games are either the future, or a major component of the future of porn as a whole.
So let's start with the non-speculative stuff. There's a LOT of porn out there. And a lot of it is available for free. As a result, the attention span of people who watch porn is shrinking, and people don't really want to sit down and watch a single video all the way through. That's a thing I heard from someone who studies porn addiction, so I imagine it's valid for some people at least, if not everyone. I speculate this is largely because with so much porn out there, it implies there is the perfect porn film out there for your exact desire. Usually however, there isn't. Because a lot of porn, not all, but a lot, is very samey, and follows the same core formula. That's probably a big reason for dropping attention spans, you watch ten videos, you can guess how the next hundred will end.
I don't think I need to sing the praises of porn games that much, but I will for a moment. Porn games, assuming they're well made, don't suffer from this problem nearly as much. The main reason for that is they have something other than the sex to keep you invested, you get stuck in the gameplay loops, and the porn that comes at the end is just a nice bonus. A sufficiently well-designed game can even make sure to deliver a satisfying end to a play session, though that's treading into the speculation again.
So, with all this in mind, I'm starting to feel like video porn is going to fade in relevance, while porn games grow. It's not going away, obviously, there's too much already made, but I would not be at all surprised if we start to see porn games picking up in broader popularity in the coming years, and potentially becoming as viable as any other porn medium for more significant investment. Assuming we don't poison the well before we get there, which I also think is a possibility, and probably something I'll talk about next week.
Anyway, those are just some thoughts I've been having that I wanted to vent. Let me know if I'm completely retarded, or maybe on to something. It's probably the former.
Pudding Earl
So let's start with the non-speculative stuff. There's a LOT of porn out there. And a lot of it is available for free. As a result, the attention span of people who watch porn is shrinking, and people don't really want to sit down and watch a single video all the way through. That's a thing I heard from someone who studies porn addiction, so I imagine it's valid for some people at least, if not everyone. I speculate this is largely because with so much porn out there, it implies there is the perfect porn film out there for your exact desire. Usually however, there isn't. Because a lot of porn, not all, but a lot, is very samey, and follows the same core formula. That's probably a big reason for dropping attention spans, you watch ten videos, you can guess how the next hundred will end.
I don't think I need to sing the praises of porn games that much, but I will for a moment. Porn games, assuming they're well made, don't suffer from this problem nearly as much. The main reason for that is they have something other than the sex to keep you invested, you get stuck in the gameplay loops, and the porn that comes at the end is just a nice bonus. A sufficiently well-designed game can even make sure to deliver a satisfying end to a play session, though that's treading into the speculation again.
So, with all this in mind, I'm starting to feel like video porn is going to fade in relevance, while porn games grow. It's not going away, obviously, there's too much already made, but I would not be at all surprised if we start to see porn games picking up in broader popularity in the coming years, and potentially becoming as viable as any other porn medium for more significant investment. Assuming we don't poison the well before we get there, which I also think is a possibility, and probably something I'll talk about next week.
Anyway, those are just some thoughts I've been having that I wanted to vent. Let me know if I'm completely retarded, or maybe on to something. It's probably the former.
Pudding Earl
Monday, 12 June 2017
A personal milestone!
In the process of working out the AI for the next update, I do believe I've hit a personal milestone as a coder. For the first time ever I managed to get something I was making to freeze for a portion of time as it processed things, before crashing due to not having enough memory. It spent around 5 minutes trying to process the AI at the beginning of the day, where it managed to get up to 2GB of used memory, and then crashed.
Clearly, this AI needs some work on efficiency here. I'll uh...have to get on that now.
Clearly, this AI needs some work on efficiency here. I'll uh...have to get on that now.
Wednesday, 7 June 2017
Public Release for 0.687!
Okay so, first things first I owe everyone an apology for not posting things. I just...didn't really have any musing-tier thoughts until a few days ago and I hate making posts that get bumped off by news. Though I was partly just being slack, and for that I do apologize. On the plus side, I do have a release for you, I think it's a pretty good one thanks to my new mortal enemy bug tester.
So, you can find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/c2pir14mrf32jxn/Shield_High_JS_0.687c.7z
You can thank the bug tester for it being a C release. I imagine it'd have gone to a D or E if I didn't declare no more bug fixing would be done. So hopefully it's a bit more stable than usual.
So on to the important stuff, what's new? WELL, for one thing Stacy isn't bugged so you can now access all her content. The same method of submitting to Karen to access the new content from last time still exists and will continue to exist for the next few months, until I've built enough content to get you through the main plot. Otherwise, there's now the Elizabeth plot. This one was a fan favorite for the option to claim both Alison and Lucy back in the day. I haven't changed how that content goes down so, y'know, if you liked it before, you're probably very glad to see it back. I won't spoil it for anyone who has no idea what I'm on about though.
I should note, the end of the Elizabeth plot is a bit...unfinished. This is largely down to the writing constraint of preparing all the content for it. I'm going to work it out much later on, as it doesn't really need to function until I'm ready to add the final plot line into the game. Yes, there will only be 5 essential plots in the game, with everything else being entirely down to your own decisions. Mostly. The rest will be dependent on the AI I've been building for the game. It currently half-exists in a rudimentary state, which is how it'll remain by the time it gets released. I plan to refine it and add more and more sophistication as time goes on and I flesh out the core systems of NPCs interacting with each other.
AND FINALLY! Some news regarding Patreon. I realized I'm an idiot, and have been overcharging for what I'm offering. Whenever I become a Patron, I always give $5 a month, so I just...kind of assumed everyone else was like that? Which was really dumb on my part, and neglected the reason I give $5 (it's smug superiority over the plebs who gives $1). So, I've mixed it up, and you now get the game for $1 per month. For those who give $5 you get the voting rights that were reserved for the $10 tier. The $20 tier still exists as it was, while there's a new $100 tier which is basically just you telling me what art to get done with the money you're sending me. So, y'know, if you've been wanting to give but found $5 too much, you can now get the early access. Probably.
That's it for now. There's gonna be a few updates to the blog over the next few days, a rough spoiler-free content guide, and an explanation of how combat works. I'll give a quick summary and both the raw math for those who want it. If people *really* want, I'll even include an explanation of how the AI works so you can abuse the shit out of it.
But until then, enjoy the new update!
Pudding Earl
So, you can find it here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/c2pir14mrf32jxn/Shield_High_JS_0.687c.7z
You can thank the bug tester for it being a C release. I imagine it'd have gone to a D or E if I didn't declare no more bug fixing would be done. So hopefully it's a bit more stable than usual.
So on to the important stuff, what's new? WELL, for one thing Stacy isn't bugged so you can now access all her content. The same method of submitting to Karen to access the new content from last time still exists and will continue to exist for the next few months, until I've built enough content to get you through the main plot. Otherwise, there's now the Elizabeth plot. This one was a fan favorite for the option to claim both Alison and Lucy back in the day. I haven't changed how that content goes down so, y'know, if you liked it before, you're probably very glad to see it back. I won't spoil it for anyone who has no idea what I'm on about though.
I should note, the end of the Elizabeth plot is a bit...unfinished. This is largely down to the writing constraint of preparing all the content for it. I'm going to work it out much later on, as it doesn't really need to function until I'm ready to add the final plot line into the game. Yes, there will only be 5 essential plots in the game, with everything else being entirely down to your own decisions. Mostly. The rest will be dependent on the AI I've been building for the game. It currently half-exists in a rudimentary state, which is how it'll remain by the time it gets released. I plan to refine it and add more and more sophistication as time goes on and I flesh out the core systems of NPCs interacting with each other.
AND FINALLY! Some news regarding Patreon. I realized I'm an idiot, and have been overcharging for what I'm offering. Whenever I become a Patron, I always give $5 a month, so I just...kind of assumed everyone else was like that? Which was really dumb on my part, and neglected the reason I give $5 (it's smug superiority over the plebs who gives $1). So, I've mixed it up, and you now get the game for $1 per month. For those who give $5 you get the voting rights that were reserved for the $10 tier. The $20 tier still exists as it was, while there's a new $100 tier which is basically just you telling me what art to get done with the money you're sending me. So, y'know, if you've been wanting to give but found $5 too much, you can now get the early access. Probably.
That's it for now. There's gonna be a few updates to the blog over the next few days, a rough spoiler-free content guide, and an explanation of how combat works. I'll give a quick summary and both the raw math for those who want it. If people *really* want, I'll even include an explanation of how the AI works so you can abuse the shit out of it.
But until then, enjoy the new update!
Pudding Earl
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