Shady Deals v0.9.0: Call Filters

Public release is scheduled for 15/07.

Patreon: Big Shot, Hustler (scheduled for 08/07).

v0.9 is all about NPCs and new interactions with them. There’s a short debrief and a few screenshots of this patch in the progress update post. (i love tautology)

Changelog

Phone - the main feature of this update.

• You’ll now see a new smartphone-shaped black screen on the right side of the "Home" passage. Every day, this weird rectangle will display different news.

• There’s a lot of “useless” news, plus 10 crypto-related updates - 2 for each coin, one negative and one positive. Crypto news will affect prices accordingly.

Starting from 17:00, you’ll begin receiving calls from your contacts.

• Anyone depraved enough might try to buy a bunch of drugs directly from you. In return, you’ll have the option to bullshit this narc into buying more than they wanted.

• Anyone poor enough might try to borrow some money from you, becoming a debtor. You can lend them either dirty or clean money. They’ll offer 25% more cash in return, but there’s also an option to pressure them and push that number higher. Additionally, if a potential debtor can be employed (like being a mechanic, chemist, etc.), you’ll have the option to offer them a job instead.

Both of these options scale with the player’s rep.

Besides that, NPCs can call you just to hang out.

• There are three possible hangout locations for male NPCs: bar, park, and nightclub.

• And two possible hangout locations for female NPCs: bar and nightclub.

• Of course, any "call event" can end up in your bedroom. It’s a slightly more natural way to initiate "default" sex scenes with NPCs.

• Beyond that, the park and nightclub each have special scenes. The nightclub event is triggered randomly: if you go there with a guy, he might run into his buddy; if you go with a girl, someone bold might try to pick up both of you.

• All these events involve Cunning and Charm skill checks. Lustful NPCs won’t have high requirements for these checks, naturally. But the main purpose of these checks is to make them, well... lustful, anyway.

• Only NPCs you haven't talked to yet that day can call.

And yes, there’s an option to set up an ignore list in the "Contacts" tab.

The second main feature is filtering for new potential contacts.

You can set up your filters on the "Stats" page. These include:

• Traits

• Jobs

• Relationship status (single or not)

• Wealth level

• All stats

• Rate

By setting these filters, you’ll enable highlighting for the chosen attributes. If an NPC meets your criteria, the attribute will be highlighted in green; otherwise, in red. You can reset the filters at any time to stop highlighting anything.

Other Changes:

• The gym upgrade now provides +10 daily health regen. It's also 20% cheaper.

• All possible NPC services are now available from debtors in return for lowering their debt. For example, a writer can write a story, a chemist can sell some chems, etc.

• The log now scrolls from top to bottom.

• The cooking UI has been slightly redone: buttons now display the currently held amounts of chems and "wares".

• Crypto has been slightly rebalanced (again): prices decrease more slowly after each transaction.

• The maximum number of debtors has been changed; now, each tier of reputation affects this number.

• Expanded the threesome scene in the suburbs, since i've added a new type of media for mfm threesomes in the nightclub “call event,” and it would’ve been a shame not to use it elsewhere.

• Some new media for outdoor activities and mfm, cuz, well, there’s more of that now.

Fixes:

• Fixed the ability to infinitely search for a new dealer in the dark alleys.

• Clamped all player depravity gains so it won’t reset.

• "Offended" NPCs will no longer gain any friendship points.

In the pipe

Whew. Well, there are still a few things missing, but i think most of the main gameloop features are done. There’s still a lot of polishing and expanding to do, though.

Anyway, i'm still sticking to the roadmap. I want to wrap up the stats fast and then do a few purely content updates, without introducing entirely new features.

Also, i haven't finished the "bad" interactions with NPCs yet. I’ll prolly roll those out in patches.