Shady Deals v0.10: Live Metrics

Public release is scheduled for 29/07.

Patreon: Big Shot, Hustler (scheduled for 22/07).

Changelog:

• Added proper statistics to the Stats menu:
  - Criminal activity
  - Potential prison sentence
  - Sex stats
  - Finances
  - Heat level

• New location - Streaming Hub. Located in the Harbor. Unlocks after meeting with the Distributor.

• Ability to work as a camwhore in the Streaming Hub - available almost from the very beginning. This job scales well into the later stages of the game: the more overall energy (not stamina) a performer has at the start of a stream, the more actions they can perform.
  With successful streams, the performer's popularity will rise, attracting more and more viewers.
  However, popularity may drop if no streams are held for 5 days.

• Camwhoring minigame. The performer's energy is converted into stream stamina. There are six actions that require stamina, plus an active chat. The chat will occasionally make requests - it's up to the performer whether to fulfill them or wait for more viewers to join the stream. More viewers means more random donations and more requests. By fulfilling requests, the performer can attract even more people and earn additional tips. However, there's a chance that some viewers will leave if the performer keeps ignoring the chat.
  Overall, it's a pretty basic loop, and the performer will still end up with some profit either way.

• New trait: Camwhore. Increases energy and charm.

• The Streaming Hub will be inherited by the player if the Cartel gives up their position at the Harbor.

Streaming hub management is quite simple too:

• You can set up to 10 performers who will host daily streams.

• Performers keep their own donations - the whole business runs on sponsorships that you may choose.

• Sponsors provide the owner with rewards for every 10 sponsored streams.

There are 4 types of sponsors:

• One that provides a random shipment and a small amount of cash

• One that gives a moderate cash payout, the "stable" one

• One that’s totally random - might give a lot or nothing, in clean or dirty cash

• One that pays in random cryptocurrencies

Other changes:

• Expanded the bar call event with male NPCs - there's now an option to head to the nearby restroom together.

• Added the ability to set loaders to craft shipments until a certain amount of resources is left.

• Added the ability to set mechanics to dismantle cars until a certain number of cars remains.

• You can now hide the Phone. Also, it should scale much better on smaller screens.

• Removed links that allowed players to access contact pages outside of the main Contacts passage (e.g. links to girls in the brothel or 404 bleach).

• Reduced the possible cash reward from winning races - the payout was too high and scaled too aggressively.

In the pipe

Okay, this time i can't just write "sticking to the roadmap" - it's time to actually update it. I'll do that in a few days.

There’s still some unfinished stuff left on my list, so for now I’m going to focus on patches for v0.10 and try to squeeze in everything that got left behind. Only after that will I move on to v0.11. So yeah, the next release probably won’t land exactly two weeks from now.

Also, regarding the unfinished stuff - if you’ve read my progress report, you might be wondering about debtors working as camwhores and the debtor balance system. Well, once I started working on it, i realized it felt a bit too unintuitive. Like - why can debtors work here but not in other areas? So for now, i’ve decided to leave things as they are. Instead, i’ll just add more ways to acquire debtors.

There’s also still some room for improvement in the camwhoring business. I’d like to add a few perks for high popularity - and maybe more actions that will be unlocked by high pop, we’ll see.

Another thing I want to address asap is optimization. I can feel the browser struggling when loading the EndDay passage lmao. I’ll work on that during the patch phase. I think I may have added a bit too much twine spaghetti in this update, with all the loaders, mechanics, camwhores, and stats changes.