Background work and background choices
Added 2024-10-21 09:56:23 +0000 UTCHi guys! ☕ 🦀 Short report this week, because we’re mostly working on behind-the-scenes stuff at the moment.
Our illustrator lovely Victoria is busy working on new art. In addition to all the avatar improvements, the new episode has a large number of wardrobe requirements.
For example: in the next episode, a few scenes are set in high school. This is where you set the heroine’s high school clique – alpha female, athlete, geek girl, or rock chick. (These will individualise the heroine’s backstory, unlock new dialogue options with NPCs later, and also now have a game mechanics effect, e.g. athletes get the Amazon perk, giving them +1 to all Physical and Firearms skill checks.) Of course, because the Lifepath now supports five different nationalities, we need five different school uniform looks, so lovely V had to draw five times the assets for this scene.
Meanwhile, I’ve been working mainly on scene edits, cutting bloat and adding in new flavour text variations and dialogue options. TLDR; we’re working hard on the next episode!
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There was some interesting talk on the Discord yesterday about different backstories people want for their heroine (referred to internally as “Kate”, for simplicity). Some players prefer a “good girl” backstory, some like Kate to have a more checkered past littered with hookups, drug use, etc. This is actually highly relevant to the writing right now (karan’s comment actually made me realise that a certain scene from the next episode needs another dialogue choice in order to fully support the “good girl” playstyle).
What’s your preferred backstory for Kate? Let me know here, in Discord or in DM if you’re shy 🥰 – it’ll help me make sure the game has the right options.
Okay, that's all for this report! I'm going to get back to work. 🦀 ❤️🔥
Comments
Rock chick, promiscuous, did drugs, tattoos and piercings. I did all but drugs and tattoos.
Jerilyn
2024-10-30 06:21:29 +0000 UTCIt was only partly implemented (no stats, you couldn't choose nationality, etc) – we're working on the full implementation now, and it involves adding in things that weren't in the early versions. There's no scam, I'm just trying to make the game I always wanted to play and it's really difficult and time consuming. I'm working on it every day.
Crushstation
2024-10-25 10:58:03 +0000 UTCMy preferred backstory for Kate is that she comes from a high class family, and she is very intelligent and did various sports at the high school and colligate level.
Joseph
2024-10-24 02:33:43 +0000 UTCSo we are paying for you to add options BACK IN the game. Thid alpha, geek, and athlete thing with the early backstory was an option years ago. At this point just be honest and afmit you are scamming us and will never finish this
Frigus Umbra
2024-10-23 18:44:25 +0000 UTCPersonally I like the idea of a professional spy who will do what she has to do to complete her mission, but before exfil she's going to make a clean sweep of most of the male characters. Knives in the dark, suppressed sniper rifles through penthouse windows, and maybe a drone strike or two if she can manage it. She's going home with a body count nearly high as her "body count."
emelsi
2024-10-21 19:08:43 +0000 UTCOh. My God. When this episode comes out I'm gonna play it so many times and I'll get so sick of it, to the point that it loops back around and I'm loving it again. You want to know what I prefer? I prefer having the option to choose something a little different every single playthrough and see what happens. I would like to have the life path more realistic though. Like, if Kate was born into a house of low means, unless she's unbelievably gifted she's not going to uni, let's face it. So her entry into espionage work might be that she enlists in the military and does intelligence work there before joining a government agency after being discharged. There are other things, but that's one I can think of right now
Beeri Shahar
2024-10-21 19:00:24 +0000 UTCI get why people think it makes sense for Kate to be a "good girl" for the story, but honestly, having her be a turbo-slut could make things just as interesting. Personally at the start I like to play Kate as the wrong kind of person to be an agent, which is a valid choice in the game. You can make her physically clumsy, disorganized, and unreliable, the kind of person that might make a secret agent incompetent enough to end up with a phone she herself hacked full of naked pictures of her. Used to do drugs and hooking up with everybody (at the end of the current version of the Lifepath she managed a "bodycount" of 65 people and is more than willing to reach the triple digits), she didn’t join the intelligence agency just cause of patriotism, she was chasing adventure and thrills! And she got the mission solely by virtue of being hot as hell and willing to strip in public, from there it could go in different directions. Maybe Kate thinks her past will make this mission a walk in the park—like, she’s been around, right? But she’s in for a rude awakening. What she did for fun, on her own terms, is nothing like using her body as part of the job, where she’s under pressure and constantly being manipulated. The reality hits harder than she thought. It’s not just awkward, it’s uncomfortable, sleazy, and way more degrading than she ever expected. All her experience doesn’t count for anything when she’s neck-deep in this kind of twisted situation. Alternatively, Kate’s experience could actually be a blessing at the start—she knows how to flirt, put out and play the game. But as she gets too comfortable, she starts acting less like an agent focused on the mission and more like a sorority girl just looking for a good time. Instead of staying sharp and strategic, she starts getting deeper into the role, using the excuse afforded to her to get back on drugs, embracing the bar-girl persona and losing sight of her actual objective much faster than a “good girl Kate” might. The longer she plays this part, the more she wonders if this is her true identity that she was just suppresing while working on the agency trying to be "serious and grown up". So yeah, roleplaying Kate as a slut can add a whole new layer to the story. It’s not just about her being uncomfortable or awkward—it’s about her struggling to keep her identity intact while floundering through a chaotic mission she could be barely equipped to handle. It can be a perfect recipe for a wild, unpredictable adventure.
Javier Ricaurte
2024-10-21 17:21:44 +0000 UTCA super conservative Kate would be interesting for the inner-conflict. but that should/would quiet over the course of so many compromises and transgressions. Though it would be interesting if she were a virgin until she met Connor at his flat. That said, good girl or just normal would support the premise of this story. A super slut would not. The most compelling part of the story is the escalating compromises. However, it should follow an arc where it gets easier to perform, but the necessity in any given situation is the conflict. She's willing to do what's needed to succeed in the mission, but then there is the resistance to her gradual corruption.
Patternless
2024-10-21 14:25:36 +0000 UTCMine would be the "closet slut". Basically the girl that lived a fairly "normal" life with few hookups, etc, but secretly fantasized about being dominated, and sleeping around. Corruption in the game then just gives her a societally acceptable reason to explore her hidden fetishes. If anyone asks, "I'm not a pervert! I'm doing this for my country!"
primavera
2024-10-21 14:16:54 +0000 UTCA very conservative household would fit some scenes in Bangkok where Kate refuses or tries to refuse sex or sexual encounters. On the other side I would like the option of a very or fairly sexually active past with many different partners (maybe even quite the party slut or something or even some awkward moment due to Kate having several relationships at the same time) so that spy Kate has less problems with her Job in Bangkok or, as another option, maybe even more because she hoped to have left that kind of behaviour in the past (thinking about the BJ Scene in the bar where she has a nervous breakdown afterwards while actually having done other stuff already to get and keep the job and after having already been greenlit for such behaviour to stay in place). Maybe something like a dialogue with a friend or later coworker about the former behaviour where the player gets to decide whether she still likes to sleep around or have such fun or if she left it behind or if she is indifferent to past her.
Iseniell
2024-10-21 12:42:06 +0000 UTCMaybe a "Morals?, you mean those things on walls?" Background if possible. haha.
Daniel
2024-10-21 11:52:24 +0000 UTCI like an innocent girl motivated and doing right.
Eric Geswender
2024-10-21 11:00:49 +0000 UTCMy Play style is not to the right good girl. Not to the left every slut option. I like somewhere in the middle. Some slut things I like so Kate would like. Some I would never do so she wouldn't. At least when I play through. The athlete version... was me but there's a difference between track star, softball player, soccer team, and cheer. Heck even between bases and fliers on the cheer team. ( i was a flier. ) point being, there is infinite backstory opportunity . Glad you're meshing the original work with the more recent stuff. But would like to see it done and published. Even if it's a backstory .... * stuff happens / under construction * what we expect with the Thai work. The stuff happens section can get filled in and shrank in gap but come on, let's go. Thanks.
Chloe
2024-10-21 10:40:31 +0000 UTCAn alpha woman makes sense. Mean Girls would be a model. Someone who would "suggest" her brother and his bestie to go door to door selling candy for a fundraiser she was supposed to do the selling. Or when she said, for instance, come into Her room to listen to "One is the Loneliest Number" by the Loving Spoonfuls which becomes the bestie's favorite song of all time. Of course, this is purely fictional - any ... is coincidental. Besides the brother died in his twenties so I will never know who the...
gg
2024-10-21 10:30:05 +0000 UTCMy favourite would be a "normal" Kate. So, someone who had a couple of boyfriends, perhaps experiemented a little with recreational drugs, generally a nice girl, but not a prude nor a slut. She is very career orientaded and goal driven.
Chico3812
2024-10-21 10:04:32 +0000 UTC
