Progress Report: Winding Wood Room Finished, Night Time Travel In Progress, New Quest + Quest Rework

 Hey everyone!

I apologize for the late progress  report again. Ugh! It's hard to keep track of days, these days! xD One  minute I'm working on the game and the next a whole week has passed!  Wow!! Seriously though, time flies. Luckily, I'm rolling around to my  last month of classes this semester and to be honest, it's brutal. I  have my Teaching Praxis Exam coming up on the 20th, I have a lesson to  teach at a high-school (my first one) so I've been getting ready for  that, I've been trying to keep up with all of my classes and their  demands, which are a million papers galore, I have to finish up my 20  page senior seminar project and verbally deliver it to a auditorium full  of staff and faculty at the beginning of next month, I have three final  projects to finish up this month----It's a complete mess. This is  definitely the toughest semester I've ever had. Luckily, it's basically  my last one. I have two summer classes but that will be easy compared to  this...and then next semester is my final semester with student  teaching! My son also recently celebrated his 2nd birthday on the 1st!  Hurrah! It went well enough but the little guy is sick again!

Anyway! Enough about me. I'm sure you guys are anxious to hear what's new! Well, I'm very excited to tell you!

Winding Wood Room Finished:
If  you couldn't guess from the subtitle, the Winding Wood room is  completed, although I haven't tested anything in it yet. I have to say  too, there is A LOT going on in it. I think the entire thing turned out  to be about 35-50k words. The zombies alone were about 20k. Let me show  you everything there is though! There are up to 11 zombies waiting for  you when you wake up. Each of them have a 50% chance to appear. But  don't despair! These zombies cannot attack you. Some of them are already  dead and are ready for looting and others are struggling on the brink  of death, upon which your character has the option of delivering the  coup de grâce. After which, you can loot them. I'll explain. These  living zombies will give you a choice about whether or not you want to  kill them or leave them alive to suffer until their inevitable death;  these are labeled No Mercy (leaving them alive) and Mercy Kill (putting  them out of their misery). If you decide on a Mercy Kill --- you get a  chance to loot the corpse and find any items that you would normally  find if you had actually killed and defeated the monster in combat. If  you decide on No Mercy you will have a 50% chance to gain +3 Corruption  and a 50% chance to gain +1 Resist. All of these interactions have  completely unique descriptions as well that will tell a story of what  happened to the zombie (there are even weather variables). 

When  you Pillage/Search the area, you have a 25% chance to anything from the  pool of existing items x2, another 25% chance to find anything from the  pool of existing items x2, a 25% chance to find 3 small sticks and 3  pieces of torn cloth” (to help stock up on supplies) and a chance to  find something from the pool of existing items, and then finally, you  have a 25% chance to find a beating stick weapon (which I added just in  case the player didn't have a weapon). I have also added a reminder to  the player about the new Rest Command and some of its basic functions.  The room has some ambient descriptions which will greatly depend on  weather and time of day too. There’s also another ambient effect that  activates 35% of the time, which is the Player accidentally scaring off  various animals upon waking. On top of all that you also have a 25%  chance to regain +15 health upon waking, a 25% chance to regain +10  health, a 25% chance to regain +5 health or a 25% chance to regain +3  health --- but rest assured you will always gain some kind of health  upon waking. 

A lot of stuff, huh!?

Night Time Travel In Progress:
Oh!  Oh! I'm very excited to share this one. Originally, I didn't plan on  allowing the player to travel at night---but after discussing it with a  few patrons on Skype about a sudden idea I had about it. They agreed  that what I wanted to do was awesome and would add depth to your  decisions in game. Here was my idea. I created a Night Travel Function,  which will activate if the player tries to leave their current room at  night. Essentially, it gives the player a choice to stay or go. Staying  will allow you to rest and recover health and sometimes even resist. If  the player decides to go a number of different things can happen. 1. 25%  chance that you can lose health, more health if it's raining and even  more health if it's storming; there are four possibilities of health  loss each has a 25% chance if this particular category procs. R = Rain, S  = Storm, N = Night. The number next to the letter is the health you  could potentially lose; R 4, S 6, N 2-R 5, S 7, N 3-R 6, S 8, N 4-R 7, S  9, N 5....(if you have a Defense of 5 or greater however, you will gain  back +1 health from all scenarios) 2. 25% chance you can get lost and  wind up at a random place on the current map (Whispering Thicket). 3.  25% chance you can get lost AND lose health with all the variables  mentioned above. 4. 25% chance that you travel in a big circle and wind  up at the place you began (possibly losing health along the way---same  variables as above). 25% chance to get damage to clothing/items. 6. 25%  chance to run into various traps or pitfalls, 7. 25% chance to run into  something useful, and finally you successfully travel to the next spot  without anything happening at all. On the other hand, if you have a  light switched on, like the Old Lantern or Aaleahya, for example, you  will reach your destination with no damage, even during the rain and  storms. Note: But it's important to know that you will ALWAYS lose some  small amount of health when traveling at night because your character is  foregoing sleep.

I think, and everyone on Skype  agreed, that all of this adds weight to your decisions to travel at  night or to rest instead, which can affect time sensitive quests and so  on. Hope you guys are excited for this!

Once I finish  more on the Night Travel it will be added to all current room exits for  everyone to enjoy! I doubt I will be able to completely finish it though  before the next update!  

New Quest + Quest v1.5 Rework:

So  as I mentioned, I was looking for a better way to present quests, but  quite frankly I couldn't come up with anything better than the current  system! How frustrating e____e BUT I did improve the current system a  little. All quests have been renamed and now a little blurb below each  one will tell you about them (at least until you complete or fail the  quest). I've also added a new category "Ongoing". Here are all the  current quests. 
Quest 1: Withered Residents.
Quest 2: Waterworks.
Quest 3: Silent Light.
Quest 4: Smoke Signals.

Quest  4: "Smoke Signals” has been added to the Winding Wood room as well. You  will automatically accept it, although you have no obligation to  complete it. The quest is about following the smoke in the far, far  distance.

The Quest Rewards have been modified to reflect  the new rewards that were changed a while back as well (like with  resist, for example). And as a reminder, you cannot Level Up Skills as a  Quest Reward unless a specific quest has tested that particular skill.

That's what I've been working on for the past few days or so.

COMING UP:
More Cow-Taur, More Night Travel, More Rest Command Work. 

I've  also decided that next update is going to be about progression, and  sex-related things; pregnancy, entice and new rooms since it's been  getting put off to the side for far too long now. 

Anonynn.