St Paddy's day report
Added 2025-03-17 23:52:04 +0000 UTCHey guys!
I've been struggling a lot with the rewrites. In many ways I feel like I'm being pulled between the game I want to make and the game I think people want me to make.
Right now I'm trying to balance the amount of sex in the Lifepath (and also its length). There's kind of a pacing issue here, in that the heroine's background isn't supposed to be as sexy as it gets in Bangkok.
But it is supposed to be a sexy game – nobody is here just to read my Ian Fleming fanfic 😭 – so the Lifepath does have to be sexy. The feedback from the testers, that I'd sacrificed too much sexiness in order to achieve pace, and left it feeling empty and unengaging, was absolutely right and I'm really grateful to all of them.
I've been working through the draft Lifepath with a couple of things in mind when I try to sex up the scenes. Firstly, would I want to play this? I feel like I just have to trust that the things I find hot and interesting will also be hot and interesting to you.
As an example: the heroine can optionally do a corporate internship at a certain point in the Lifepath. In another game, I'd find it hot to optionally put the avatar in a short skirt and high heels for this gameplay section (especially if there were a story justification for doing so).
I feel like I just need to push those doubts and second guesses aside and just keep balancing it the way that feels right to me as the player. That doesn't mean not listening to other people's ideas or feedback – some of the best things in the game (so far, and still to come) came from other brains. But I feel like I can only do a good job of making the game I want to play.
The other thing that's really helped me this week has been Questing Beast's T.U.N.I.C. principle.
https://youtu.be/j-ywPjMEtq4?si=ZGPArrUW41MgdcKI
It stands for Time Until Next Impactful Choice and is basically a reminder not to let the story go on for too long without requiring a player decision. One of the things I hate the most about Female Agent is when it turns into a fucking slideshow. I've been thinking T.U.N.I.C. while I've been playing through, and adding in extra little branches and decision points.
I'm working really hard on making the game better than it ever was (I hope 😬). The work is feeling good right now, like it's finally coming together into something that I'm happy to release. I'm sorry it's taken so long, it's because I have Writer's Suck. 😭
I'm gonna get straight back on it first thing tomorrow. 🦀❤️🔥
Comments
It should be up to the player whether they want to sex it up or play a more pure character and the more chances to make those choices the more engaging it is to the player. You should always provide a sex it up option even if it is more sexual than the main story because it should be up to the player whether they want to head down that route or not. It also adds more replay value to the game which keeps players engaged.
3str4d4
2025-03-22 16:56:55 +0000 UTCwhere are the downloads ????
Vanya
2025-03-20 23:24:27 +0000 UTCThis got quite a bit longer than I thought it would, but the good news is that most of the essence is in the first couple of sentences of the part labeled 1, so no need to read my entire wall of text unless you want to :) Write the game you want to write, not the game you think us fans want you to write. I understand the urge to please the fans, and I know what it's like to not feel confident in your own style, or in your own talent or your own creative ability or whatever you want to call it, so I don't want to downplay any of that. What I have to say might also seem a little obvious, but my own experience has taught me that sometimes it helps when people say this to me out loud; so I hope this helps a little in that sense :) Obviously, I can only speak for myself, but I think most will agree with me, for two very simple reasons: 1: We found this game, played this game, and became fans, because of what you wrote. So most of us will probably like most of what you want to write. You can't please everyone, and trying is a fools errand and is just going to make things harder for you than they need to be! I think I speak for most fans when I say I don't want you stressed out over this and I want you to enjoy writing it, because else it's just not worth it. I'm going to use a bit of hyperbole to try and make a point; as sad as I would be if you chose to stop or take a long break for your own good; I'd still prefer that over this becoming too much of a burden on you or your mental health or anything like that. I doubt it needs to come that far, but I do want to reiterate: I assume you started writing this because you wanted to and because you had fun doing so and you were writing what you wanted to write (and I sincerely hope that's still the case, for your own sake, not for mine!); and again, that's what got you the player base that you now have, so that's the essence of it all in the end. 2: I get the urge to put out a quality game and I admire that and I think it's a good thing, but that ties in to much of the same: If you're not writing what you want to write, it's not going to be as good because you're not going to feel as involved and connected to what you're writing, and it's probably going to be harder, and take longer, and that's no good for nobody, most of all yourself. The game is not going to be sexy if what you're writing isn't getting you yourself going :) I've done some writing myself (not that you'll find any of it on-line) and in my experience, the moment I try to write stuff that isn't me to please others; my writing gets uninspired, slow, and just tough to do. It just doesn't work. Not for me, and I think not for you or anybody else either. I mean, sure, there's authors out there who've learned to write without passion or enthusiasm, just to make money or get attention or whatever, and that's not the stories that get us excited in any way.
Thomas Reijerse
2025-03-20 07:12:56 +0000 UTCIsn't the lifepath supposed to just be a character generator? For me it looks like you put to much efford to it and neglect the main game.
murmet
2025-03-18 23:15:49 +0000 UTCWill Wright said it best, DONT make a game you think other people want to play, make a game YOU want to play, and you will find alot of people will want to play that game too.
Pathfinder118
2025-03-18 22:06:06 +0000 UTCI think it'svery important you amke the game you like/want to play. If you focus on what you think other want you will end up pleasing nobody including yourself.
Chico3812
2025-03-18 17:54:34 +0000 UTCI think that this being an erotic game first and foremost some sexiness is expected, but how much sexiness a section needs depends on how long it is and how much choice the player has, if it’s just a quick thing then sure, we don’t need extra sex scenes, but if the goal in those is, for example, to find it hot that the character is in short skirt and heels and nothing more then the narrative itself should emphasize that, have Kate think about her clothes and comment that she is being looked at a lot and how sexy or vulnerable that makes her feel, instead of just having her do regular work on that and hoping the avatar would be enough. However if the section is relatively wordy and has plenty of choices then I would expect those choices to add at least a little sexiness instead of just being flavor, that doesn’t necessarily mean more sex scenes of Kate “getting gang-banged in the boardroom”, it could be smaller things, for example in that internship maybe she is working late and while making some copies she realizes she is alone at her floor and thinks about maybe making copies of her butt and/or tits, various small things like that can add up without slowing the pace. Also personally I already mentioned before that I like to role-play my Kate as a Turbo-Slut that was chosen for the mission BECAUSE she used to be a Turbo-Slut and whose arc in Bangkok might be played like the situation is at risk of making her regress into becoming a Turbo-Slut again, so while I understand that she shouldn’t be quite as experienced before the plot starts that doesn’t mean she can’t have fun beforehand.
Javier Ricaurte
2025-03-18 06:21:47 +0000 UTCHonestly man, I got interested in the game not so much because of the sex scenes (those are still great), but the story and the narrative of the mission. One of my favorite parts is the clinic raid.
Haji_Bob
2025-03-18 01:33:47 +0000 UTCWhere did you find a real Sage from Being a Dik?
Chairman
2025-03-18 01:20:36 +0000 UTCI hadn't thought about that, but it's true, the possible scenes can't be extremely sexy or too far away, because then the possible corruption in Bangkok doesn't make as much sense 😉.
PickerPatron
2025-03-18 01:08:22 +0000 UTCFeel free to put as much as you want of situations where Kate put lot of sexy outfits! The artist is amazing and i personally pay great attention to it. Last time i remember playing was for the short story special in the military (yeah it's been a while) and still remember that one civilian party outfit even today, outstanding art, design and taste honestly, love it. It's almost a shame to have "used it" on a side non canon story instead of the main game lol. Anyway not everything need to be a fuck fest and i hope you will manage to make the game more than that. Good luck i can't wait to play the next update !
Meabe
2025-03-18 00:09:14 +0000 UTCFor me personally, all the non-sex stuff ends up makes the sex stuff way hotter. Without it, I might as well just watch porn lol
SpeedyCat19
2025-03-17 23:55:25 +0000 UTC
