[Broken] Our Apartment v4.1: Big'ol Post, Intro from Act 0-Act 3 added for preview

It's been a long time since the last build release, and this one is still very limited. Reason being is this release is SOLELY focused on getting feedback on the story and dialogue. So, for all reading this, I don't recommend increasing your sub for this build unless the story is what you cared about the most. And even then, there's no cinematics for that story.

That means the presentation is severely inhibited, and also potentially it's enjoyment. To me that brings concern that people might feel the intro is long solely because of the lack of presentation. You don't get to see Naomi or other characters during these scenes yet and that's crucial for connection.

I hope people who do play keep this in mind with their feedback.

There's also an issue of the game lacking side events in Act 3 which makes the relationship progression from there feel very quick. This will be remedied in the future when progression elements are added.

The story

I won't be explaining any particular details of the story so if you're worried about spoilers don't worry. I just want to cover some general things.

The build released includes Act 0 - 4, here's a bare minimum break down of what these acts contain.

• Act 0 - Meeting Naomi and how she comes to live with you
• Act 1 - Dealing with her living with you
• Act 2 - Warming up to each other
• Act 3 - Formalizing
• Act 4 - Full on relationship (State of the game people have been playing so far)

From there things will escalate further, how? You'll have to wait and see! :D

One thing I haven't really shown is characters. There are a few key characters that appear repeatedly.

• Danni - A cute waiter at a Cafe the player started regularly visiting some time ago. A dependable and hard-working girl with an accent.
• Jackson - The players peer at work, a nosey show-off who goes out to bars a lot to pick up women and maintains an unusual persona while doing so. Well-meaning in general though.
• Martin - The players boss, an older man who is dedicated to his company but seems to have obligations at home.

The designs for these characters have been a work in progress. One I haven't worked enough on due to all the development needs, but I'll focus more on it after the progression elements are implemented.

There are other characters too, but most are one off, and there will be more in the future.

Progression

So next update will add progression elements and lock story progress behind them. Again, these will likely be without cinematics initially. I achieved my goal of getting the core functions in place this month which is shown in the GIF above. 

To explain it when the player or Naomi gains/loses EXP you'll get a visual representation of it through this effect. The effect even works from target areas on a character too!

The next big hurdle is doing some basic level balancing on these values for a functional game. But as options for exp gain/loss expand rebalancing will need to occur. 

Currently no side events exist in the game (Plenty are made tho), but more will be added both in real and place holder capacity next. This is my main goal for this month is having this progression setup from Act 0 to Act 3.

Cinematics

Lack of cinematics is the sole reason why this release is limited. Once progression is in place regardless of balance this will be the focus from then on. I have a lot of animations/poses to make and implement. And some of these animations may cause dialogue changes depending on what I'm willing to make a pose or animation for.

But there's also some functional changes that need to come as well, Last year I improved scene activation a ton, but I didn't setup solutions for "storing" characters when they aren't needed. You know that thing where you see a character stored under the map until they're needed? Stuff like that. Plus some functions related to holding objects, scenery changes, etc.

I don't expect these to be too complex most of that month should be animation, and if I'm efficient the work should only take a month.

Character Designs & Models

The current plan is all major characters will be 3D. Once the cinematics are in place as much as reasonable, I'll be shifting full time to asset creation. Characters, Outfits, Sex Sim, likely hiring people around the same time, probably people through my publisher...

Cause at this point we're mostly on a bee line to the big release. Some of these assets tie into story stuff (Outfits, side character expressions, etc.) but mostly we're just trying to hit the full content offering intended.

And we'll have a good enough idea of how people like the story where we'll be less concerned about future dialogue so that will be less ambiguous.

From there Act 5 will being a bevy of new functions and locations, but it should take less time than literally anything else.

Thanks for your patience!

I know some of you are still waiting, but this marks a return to builds. Part of the reason this is coming out at all is cause I felt like I've been on borrowed time for a while and maybe I was about to hit a limit.

There's so much I've had to hold back on for so long, I'm both very excited and anxious. Many things and plans I don't talk about cause talking about it brings satisfaction.

Anyway, there should be a build next month with progression elements in place. It may be a broader release, at least on supporter sites.

Thanks for your support

~Sacb0y