0.46 Reflection and 0.47 Preview

Hi, perverts! It was nice getting this release out the door! I've discussed some of the things that delayed it elsewhere, and it's a bit of a relief moving on to other aspects of Ruin Me.

I've put out a new poll for Center of Attention patrons concerning the new transitions that show up in The Abstruse Synergy, along with an open thread for any questions or feedback folks may have! You're always welcome to comment here or get in touch with me regardless of your level of support.

I want to take a moment before the reflection to shout out folks who are advocating and fighting for reproductive freedom, queer safety, and racial justice around the world. We're in a rough time here in the US, and I know that other countries have different struggles. We're all in this together, and I hope that if you like my work you also want people to be able to live and fuck as they want and keep themselves safe and healthy and happy while doing so.

Reflecting on Sounds and Urges

In the update post above I said I'd reached 7000 words in the source file for The Abstruse Synergy. It ended up being 9700 words: a very healthy dose of gross chitinous creatures and unreliable narration.

This one was a little tricky to write. For both moral and platform-rules reasons, I wanted to be careful about the portrayal of the things in the expedition. When you fuck things that aren't human in Ruin Me, I want to be careful to be clear that they're "monsters", supernatural people with agency, not animals. 

With a story where the creatures are as inhuman as this (it's probably tied with The Mica Sign for weirdest partner), I tried to consistently give the clear implication of an intelligence behind things. Of course, depending on your interpretation of the events, that intelligence might just be your own.

I'm super happy to get sounding into the game! I've used urethral penetration imagery in a few places, most notably in the game's first nightmare, but I really wanted to give a realistic portrayal, too. I like the bits of sexual education I get to do as part of the game, and urethral sounding is an area where people are often more enthusiastic than educated. Don't put anything up a peehole unless it's sterile and designed for the purpose! Likewise, make sure anything that goes in a butt has a flared base.

Giving Meg a new play scene also gave a good opportunity for me to redraw her art. Doing so is such a relief! She's one of the first characters you see in the game and was previously (in my opinion) the one that left the worst impression. Her proportions were way off and I drew her previous version when I was much less technically skilled. I like her redraw: she's more visibly broad-shouldered, her not-really-a-sari makes more visual sense as a garment, and I got to draw the toys for her play scenes in a way that was pretty efficient.

I know my art skills are still growing, and it's still a bummer when I get negative feedback on them, but I feel like getting this redraw done will improve new players' impressions of the game a whole lot.

I'm sorry about all the hotfixing necessary for the new journal redesign. I thought it was pretty stable, but some combination of my tweaks and some Ren'Py issues that should be fixed in the next release meant that the initial versions of the game for this update were pretty buggy. I'm doing some refactoring in the code to try and make the game more robust in general and make issues like this less likely.

Next Release

I don't actually know what's next! A feature that's already done is a bit of casual conversation with Theresa in her chambers, letting you check in on how she's doing and feeling. I also want to revise earlier Theresa sex scenes where she used her standing pose to use some of her newer poses, like when she's on her back.

I've also been working on some longer features that may take a while to be complete. I don't want to hold up the next update until they're done, so you may not see them for a bit. Beware of spoilers if you're datamining or looking super close at art assets. :)

The one big feature that I want to mention is a second graduation option for Theresa! In contrast to the first one, a big group sex orgy, this one is a very intimate day together: mostly just you and Theresa, reminiscing and re-living the path that brought you here. 

I don't know if Theresa's graduation date will be in the next release; it should be smaller than the orgy, but I still don't want to hold up a release if there's enough other stuff in it. Either way, keep an eye out for it!

As always, please let me know if you have any issues, suggestions, or comments! You can reply here, DM me on Patreon, or email me at: phanes@phanes.me