Course of Temptation Dev Diary #5

Hello friends!

I'm calling the end of the job poll, and it's time to talk about the job that'll be added in the next major update. But first...

One month down

I released Course of Temptation to the world about exactly one month ago. This project was my baby for about nine months (funny how that worked) and tossing it out into the world one afternoon is definitely near the top of the list of most nerve-wracking things I've ever done.

I think the rough edges are mostly smoothed out now. Most bug reports lately are about edge cases or involve less-played types of characters, and while those are obviously nonetheless important things to fix promptly, it tells me that the experience for most players is probably fairly smooth at this point.

So I'd like to talk about a few things I've learned in doing this! If you don't want to hear about game dev process type stuff, you can skip to the next section, where I'll talk about the new job.

• Playtest early and often. You should play the game yourself, of course, but also give it to friends to try. Not when it's nearly done, but as early as you can. You better believe they'll find every damn thing wrong with it, and you need them to, because you won't on your own. You don't even know what your blind spots are, I guarantee it!
• Have a build checklist. Depending on your engine and unique nature of your game, there will be areas where problems in a build tend to show up first. Identify those and create a checklist that every build has to pass before release. For me it's 1) render all new passages in as many variations as is practical 2) click through the prologue and see if any problems show up with a new character 3) load it in Firefox, which is stricter on javascript syntax than my working browser 4) do a browser refresh during an encounter to make sure SugarCube is rebuilding the complex Person and Encounter objects successfully.
• Keep the project agile, especially following a major release or update. If you're changing or adding a major system, do it in such a way that the game will still be playable if you need to pause partway through and put out a new build with an important bugfix. And if it's just after a big update, then spend a few days focusing on just doing a bunch of small stuff, things that take an afternoon at most to implement and test. If you learn about a nasty bug in your latest build, you don't want to have to wait three weeks to finish something huge before you can put out a build that contains the fix.

And much more, but I'll keep this short(ish). Suffice to say that following a major update with Polish Week, where I deliberately spend a few days just doing small things so I can put out new builds quickly if needed, seems like a very good idea and is something I'll keep doing.

The new job

When I first put out the poll, streaming took an early huge lead! And then bartending started to catch up... but, ultimately, streaming stayed just a little bit ahead, so it'll be the job I add next.

My basic idea for streaming is to add a little bit of a business sim minigame within the game. Stream quality will be important, and your equipment and skills will both be a factor. This'll determine how many viewers and followers and donations you get, and ultimately how much money you make.

You'll start out with PG streams, playing games on them, or just chatting, or hopefully some things involving other skills as well if I can come up with good ideas for them. CoT being what it is, naturally a lewd edge to this will quickly become apparent, with the player discovering that sex is a very good way to get attention.

You can stay on the PG site, pushing the boundaries of its ToS for a little risk vs. reward. But eventually you may want to pursue an opportunity to switch over to an X-rated site, where you can freely do basically whatever you want. This will involve other sets of skills, with no pretense about why people are watching you. This can be good money, but like the game in general, your character will have their own sense of shame to contend with and overcome. Also, if people on campus find out, that's definitely going to affect your reputation.

It's also always been my plan to include campus social media along with the streamer job. I'm not 100% certain that'll make it into the final plan as I outline this job more thoroughly, but I'd like it to, because I think it'll be a good introduction to streaming conceptually.

This'll be a big update. I'd like to keep to a schedule of putting out one major new content update a month and I'll do the best I can with that. I'll keep you updated on that as things proceed, of course.

I'm also very aware that this gives even more content to the video gaming secondary skill, which is already the skill with far and away the most content attached to it. You people who dream of being dancers, gardeners, and so on — I hear you, I see you, and I'll try to start adding in some pieces of content for you.

Next week's timeline

Polish Week is not quite over, and I want to spend the weekend adding some more small things I have planned — like buying stuff for your dorm (which I need to implement anyway to let you buy a streaming setup) and hopefully some more scenes for plotlines/characters that aren't attached to a planned major update, like the Classroom Harasser and Admirer.

However much of my list I get through, I plan on putting out a build Sunday or Monday that contains everything I got done. And then starting on Monday I'll get going on the streamer career.

And then, of course, next Friday you'll hear how that's going. Until then!