Course of Temptation Dev Diary #100 (and focus poll)

Hello friends! I have returned from vacation and I'm back to work this week.

It's always been my habit to keep up with bug reports even when I'm taking time off, which I mostly did this time as well, but it lapsed for the last few days... and I was definitely reminded why I try not to let that happen! But I'm mostly caught up now, and our current version as of today is 0.7.3f, with a new round of bugfixes.

There are a few issues that require more complicated fixes or that I'm still trying to get to the bottom of:

• Clothing configurations being finicky: Why does putting a hood up require Exhibitionism 3 or whatever? Well, it doesn't, but it's looking at the exhibitionism required for the outfit as a whole rather than for that specific configuration. This is fixable, but a more complicated problem than it might seem, and I'll have to refactor some stuff to fix this issue. Which will happen sooner or later.

• Incorrect acts used during encounter: The system may identify that you did an act during an encounter that you actually didn't, or fail to detect an act you actually did, particularly when toys are involved. This isn't usually too important, but it does factor into the amateur porn career quite a bit, which makes it more of a priority. Again, I'll have to refactor some stuff to fix this, and I intend to work on it very soon — I just wanted to point out I'm aware of it since there isn't a fix in this latest update.

• Errors in wardrobe for some users: I've been trying to get to the bottom of this for a while, as it only seems to affect a few users, and I can't reproduce it even if I'm handed their save file and try to emulate the browser they're using. I've done a couple things in recent updates to try to suppress these errors so affected users can keep playing, but without being able to reproduce it myself, it's hard to tell how effective this is. If you're experiencing these errors, please let me know!

But now, onto the fun stuff. The December update is coming up, and, of course, updates every month thereafter! What should be in them? Well, first of all, the contributors have been at work, so there will be new outfits and things from Hee Ho. Noonycurt has been working on a cool petition system that allows the player to alter some rules around campus — making the locker rooms unisex, letting breast-havers be topless wherever non-breast-havers can be topless, and so on. This is all on track to be in for December.

But it has been a while since the last development focus poll for monthly updates. I'd like to try something different this time and see how it goes: tiered poll votes. That means one vote for the student tier, two votes for the TA tier, and three votes for the professor tier. Without getting into the weeds too much, I'll just say this will be very easy on one platform and very difficult on the other, so I'll have to see how much work it is in the end. But I'd like to try it at least this once. If you have any feedback about this idea, do let me know.

So, what would you like to see me focus on for monthly updates? This isn't just for December, but probably the next three or so monthly updates at least, depending on how much interest the top items represent. (Also note that time constraints are a factor: each item does not take equal amounts of work, so it may sometimes be that I tackle a lesser item that I can finish before a deadline rather than a more popular item that would take longer.) The results will create a general guideline for what I prioritize over the next couple updates.

• Extend the amateur porn side career: There is meant to be even more to this, particularly where it involves the Harasser character, so this would mostly involve some new storyline events and probably some new mechanics.

• Clickbait extension: New video types probably, but also deeper mechanics, like managing subscribers, platform trends, going viral, and that sort of thing.

• Vehicle extension: Adding vehicles beyond bicycles, like scooters and skateboards, and allowing them to be used in town. Also, adding cars. These would be luxury purchases for the PC, and some NPCs would have cars as well. And, of course, this necessarily implies backseat sex and so on.

• Video game extension: Because video games totally haven't gotten enough attention in this game! Adds consoles and specific video game titles (much like how books work). Would also add title trends and popularity to the video game streamer career. And then multiplayer as well, as a form of long-distance socializing.

• Art and photography: Create illustrations and photography to lend utility to the Artistic and Photography secondary skills. Target things and people, meaning NPCs can model for you, or maybe you'll model for them.

• Better time skips: Currently summer vacation just disappears into the void, but what if you could decide what you did during that time, whether that was studying to gain skills or working a summer job to gain money? Similarly, if there's a holiday week you're not interested in playing through, you could skip that as well and decide what your character focused on in that time.

• Library basement extension: Taking this storyline further, mostly in the form of opening up the place for casual use by the player, or by their dominant partner, depending. This would also involve extensions to bondage and sex furniture.

• Quick sex: Set your character's preferences for sex, run through an encounter in a couple clicks, and get a summary at the end. Or possibly just optionally reduce encounters down to the essential decisions, like picking a sex act or two, whether you use protection, and where to finish. For those who enjoy having lots of encounters but not necessarily actually clicking through them all.

• Better texting: A generalized menu for interacting through texts and more options for how to respond, a bit like how in-person dialogue works. I tried to tackle this before and mostly got sidetracked by the dialogue line picking system, which has been very useful but not entirely what I set out to do. Of course, this would also mean better sexting!

• Cosmetic surgery: Breast enlargement or reduction, penis enlargements, and similar things. Always intended, just not yet tackled.

• Changing orientation, gender, or pronouns: If you play a PC who really discovers something about themselves at college, let your gameplay reflect that. Changing these things would be a gradual process and would have to be handled carefully, in terms of both handling it sensitively and just codewise, but if this item is popular I'll get started.

• Wrestling: I've had ideas about having this sport at the college for a long time. This would add a new sport with its own mechanics, as well as its own little storyline. This is probably the biggest single chunk of work on this list, so even if it wins I probably won't be tackling it immediately this month, but it'd be a good candidate for the January update.

• Expand existing sports: Add new branches and alternative routes to the existing sports storylines and extend their mechanics.

• Extend tabletop adventuring: Expand on the Admirer storyline with more tabletop adventuring and just generally more events with them.

As always, these are all things I want to see in the game eventually regardless, but your choices will influence what gets prioritized first. You can select multiple items, but try to narrow it down to two or three favorites. Thank you!

Also as a reminder, 0.8 is still in the works. This update will add simulation of NPC relationships and events that play out over longer timeframes, which will also lead to progress on the year advancement and pregnancy roadmap items.

That's all for now. By next week I'll be fully back into the swing of things and I'll be back here with a progress report. Thanks for your input, and thank you as always for your generous support. It makes this project possible and it really does just mean a lot. Until next time!