Shady Deals v0.12 Progress Report

Heyya!

So, v0.12 will be an update with various expansions and upgrades to features that are already in the game. The biggest "upgrade" is a new yacht feature: the ability to set up a party.

A yacht party is an event that may require some preparation… or not, depending on circumstances. Starting a party triggers a one-week "prep" timer, and once it ends you'll be able to launch the party itself. During this time, you’ll learn which of the potential "trade" partners are going to visit your yacht. The closer it gets to party day, the more guests are revealed. There will always be three guests out of the five possible ones, and all of them (except one) will have different requests.

Also, while setting up the party, you can choose its type: either a regular "default" party or an orgy. In a regular party it's the cunning skill that gets checked during bargaining, while in an orgy it's charm. I’m still not sure this separation is needed, but I feel like having a choice makes things a bit more... personal, idk.

So yeah, during the party itself the main goal for the boss is to sell the prepped wares to the guests for a better price. There'll be a simple bargaining mechanic that just checks the skills. Cunning checks at a regular party are a bit easier, though all skill checks will still be fairly difficult.

The party will also be a unique spot to meet new NPCs with special jobs - top-tier rich folks and the like. The same job pool will later be reused in the "elite club" that's mentioned in the roadmap. Not sure if i'll add special interactions with all of them in v0.12, maybe just a few.

What else?

Well, since i’m planning to add a casino heist in the next update, i decided to slightly upgrade the casino itself first.

Honestly, it was a challenge to make a slot machine that's actually usable and doesn't just straight-up drain your wallet. Dunno if it was worth the time, but it’s a neat thing to have anyway.

There's now also some new stuff if the boss allows gang members to be lewd around her:

(This time i actually tested how well the extra UI scales and adapts on the screen from the start! No same mistake twice, yay...)

Basically, having the lewd check active will push more special yapping into the gang members’ monologues, including things like random ass slaps.

Also, i'm still working on optimization. Yeah, I can imagine it sounds bad that i'm spending so much time fixing stuff i caused myself, but it is what it is. Sorry that i'm using so much time on things that aren’t really considered game content (optimization, saves). Normally, optimization should be left for a beta stage, but i literally trigger myself every time i save the game. I’ve checked the code of a few other pretty big Twine/SugarCube games to see what i'm doing wrong, and honestly... i did almost everything wrong, lmao.

I need to rewrite a LOT more than just the things i changed in v0.11.1, and, well, i'll try to fix as much as i can. Well, okay, maybe not everything, but most of it. I'll tackle this in small chunks, keeping optimization as a low priority for each update - only when there's enough time for it, since i imagine it’s not something most players care about in new updates.

I’m also considering fully rewriting the old-save compatibility system. Right now it causes a lot of lag because it checks saves at runtime cuz i'm very """unique person""", not just on load. This might break all old saves... or maybe not, I’ll try to test it.

Things left to do:

• Finish the "party" passages themselves - there are two versions of each, and while the mechanics are done, the descriptions aren’t.

• Add a few special interactions with new NPC jobs.

• Media search'n'edit.

• Do something about old-save compatibility.

• Move all clothing data to JS, since there’s a lot of it and it should be easy... right?

• Add more reactions depending on clothing tags.

• Add special interactions with accomplices that were recruited "with benefits".

I’m aiming to finish this update by the weekend.