Goddess Maker Q&A Volume 2 (September 11th to January 6th)

Introduction:

Like the Q&A prior to the release of A.1 and now that we’re near the end of the post-A.1 period, I’ve decided to write out a new Goddess Maker Q&A.

Like the first, this too takes inspiration from my many discussions throughout these months.

Goddess Maker (Post A.1) Questions & Answers

Q: The Cleaning Mechanic in A.1 is tedious, why did you design it like that?

A: For the A.1 build, it was paramount to demonstrate the Representative Flip Mechanic between the Player and Partner Characters and so a choice was made to nerf the cleaning effect and cleaning grace period, so that the transition can frequently occur due to it being a convenient way to scrutinize the current lab representative’s management of the facility affairs, and so that the other character can take over.

In the next build, this issue will be remedied with greater positive effect when cleaning, a higher grace period when not cleaning, visibility to how clean the lab is, and partner initiative and vocal reminder to clean.

While it is still less of a hassle, the connection of manufacturing steadily making the lab dirtier is still a mechanic to be mindful of with a possibility of it reaching an emergency threshold of inhability forcing a whole work day to be spent on deep cleaning the lab.

As for the development logic to why cleaning was added in, despite the whole frustration element of keeping track of it, it’s a matter of accurately describing the laboratory workplace experience and the apparent visibility of problems created by the neglect of focus of one’s environment in the early stages in the game, before these smaller issue automate and higher levels of problems take a more prevailing role in the their involvement.

Speaking on automation, the next builds will have efficiency upgrades to build like rovers and robots to automatically assist in the burden of cleaning, and better partner character AI to be aware of the ongoing situation and react in a more thoughtful manner.

Q: What’s your workflow for Goddess Maker? Does theorizing take a large chuck of time?

A: The vast majority of the development so far is just writing out the lengthy code that requires a lot of imagination to trend the new ground I’m cultivating, with details and mechanics that are a sorta faustian bargain of commitment.

But as I am anticipating that this will be a multi-year project, every day I make progress and I am relieved that I am using that time to build something that I find meaningful, rather than living a life of pursuing gratifications, with no clear legacy.

The published mechanic summaries are mostly a promotional device, as well as a developer’s documentary of my thought process, that are lifted and formalized from my notes.

The apparent care that I present to my project is definitely alternative approach to most projects, an expression from me to build something different, something new, and definitely something revolutionary.

Q: 'Tis is a highly ambitious game you’ve sought to build, my young visionary... For your sake, shouldn’t you cut back on the content expectation so not to overwork yourself?

A: The way I consider it, there really hasn’t been a “definitive” Ascension Game, so I feel that I should take great care towards molding it to its most ideal form.

That way, a template can exist that others can obtain wisdom from, especially in the case of crafting a derivative project.

Mines after all a fledgling fetish genre whose foundation is currently being seeded for future career prospects that very well lend me the resources to elevate the speed and quality toward my projects’ developments.

Q: So in layman terms, how is intelligence used in Goddess Maker when it’s an undefined attribute?

A: True intelligence is quite limited in the actual gameplay, with humans generally having less than three predefined toggles of intelligence on the spectrum.

When I was considering on how to include intelligence as an attribute, it dawned to me to use intelligence speed as it's a mode of circumstance that can actually be measured in its productivity, as opposed to plain intelligence which is culmination of all sorts of elements hard to place in a gameplay sense.

When brainstorming intelligence through its verbal cognitive aspect, I considered altering the execution of text, like a translation, to adapt to one’s vocal intelligence, however, I realized early that would be far too much work, so I settled on a compromise where the characters have their intelligence shown through their personalities as their standard, but placed special situations such as their natural character growth trend or exclusive events where I can emphasis the gain or decay of intelligence in a detached environment.

Another innovation I feel like I can take credit for is intertwining intelligence growth alongside height and soul growth, as opposed to keeping it self-contained to one attribute, encouraging the development of a bigger physical brain prior to the tolerance and control over of a higher degree of intelligence.

Q: Will there be a Demo Version of Goddess Maker?

A: Once I feel financially assured, I’ll make a demo.

Currently the long term plan is to finish the "Lab of God" game section of Goddess Maker before uploading it to Itch.io, as a standalone game / mega demo for the full Goddess Maker game in-development, which would be subsidized by the support I'm currently receiving now.

There is a case to be made that I could release smaller interactive demos called "Ascension Stories", that can be standalone experiences using the backend code from Goddess Maker, but packaged differently; though I'm not in a hurry to promote the game and diverge the attention of my project.

Q: What’s with Strength being an attribute of Male characters and Beauty being an attribute of Female characters? Shouldn’t both have both?

A: Technically Strength and Beauty occupy the same attribute category, however as Goddess Maker presents the male and female in their ideal forms, a distinction needed to made when the attribute is applied.

If the worldview is entertained that the male and female are two halves of single organism, following the logic of how sexual species came to be from asexual ancestors, then there is much more variance within a species, when one sex strives to be the best in one category, whilst the other sex focuses on the other.

Strength and Beauty follow two different sets of ideals, one that values power through the direct and the other power through the indirect. Therefore, the ideal is to separate the two, whilst being conjoined through connection of a sexual relationship.

But even though one sex is reserved the potential that other sex doesn’t have to succeed in that category, Female Strength and Male Beauty still have limited appearance within Goddess Maker, discouraged but manifested in appropriate ways like feats of size and soul.

Q: How does Goddess Maker end? Is the Player supposed to be avoiding bad endings like how other Visual Novels handle it?

A: In Goddess Maker proper, the only legitimate ends (Not Dev Build Placeholders) are those where a character achieves omnipotence / omnipresence. 

This is because Goddess Maker values everlasting world consequences over main character syndrome restarts.

Many of these aren’t related to the perspective of the character, but an ascension will occurs regardless like it’s fated to do so.

Consider the afterlife scenario of meeting god after one passes and being overwhelmed in the awe of an almighty presence. That’s the sort of ending one should expect in Goddess Maker, even if the leading sequence to the end result is anticlimactic.

Q: Given the Prevalence of Sex to bolster Goddess Maker's Optional Sexual Content, will Pregnancy and Lactation be part of it?

A: Traditional pregnancy no, unless in the handful of endings that focus on the romantic creation of a divine child.

Nevertheless it's talked about plenty as a topic of discussion throughout Goddess Maker as an idealistic dissection of the human woman and a reality of life.

And while pregnancy in the traditional sense will be deliberately restricted, there’s room for a more fantastical use of pregnancy akin to a queen ant metaphor of producing lessers like laborers.

I was skeptical on adding lactation, but I decided it would complement the nutrient growth content by adding a sexual equivalent to the blowjob.

Note this lactation is akin to a cow producing milk, and not the pregnancy variant.

Q:  In the Future, will there be an Infrastructure in place to Support the Cultivation of other Ascension Games?

A: Ideally, and the eventuality will be to have my own platform where to catalogue and preach my efforts from, as well as be a platform that others can participate as well, sorta like a forum, but one that’s organized to appeal to the creative sensibilities.

Like a website that combines forum discussions, upload-able art and literature galleries, and contribution programming sorta like GitHub.

I have some previous experience in building online infrastructure for collaboration, but I’m waiting a bit to see how the technology in the public sector improves, so I can use that new standard to build off of, as opposed to much of the outdated formats whose support base has aged and are stubborn to evolve.

Q: A.2 is taking a long time to come out, why the long wait? 

A: When I started, I ideally wanted to release builds on a monthly or so basis, then came the thought process that I shouldn’t distribute builds too often, as smaller updates are less significant to pay mind to, as opposed to larger updates that set out to accomplish a goal, but I feel like currently I should release a transitionary build soon to recertify public confidence that the project is actively being worked on.

A.2, as a development build that seeks out to move forward with the “Lab of God” as opposed to a general improvement to what’s currently there, was caught up in a lot of time spent on future proofing “Lab of God” as a whole, so that it can revolve around the Natural Growth mechanic where every in-game day plays a role.

That plus player-partner management, new research and development opportunities, NPCs, new purchasing systems, new lore, and other systems, all played a part in extending the length between builds.

And when the next build is released there will be plenty of unfortunate glaring placeholders, both of the art and literary context, that future builds will need to work on prior to moving even further.

A big hesitation on releasing the next build at this moment is that I want to get the immediate problems ironed out before I gather up feedback from the diversification of play testers.

It might not be the full A.2 that’ll be releasing soon, but it’s a bridge to my vision of what it will become.