Progress update

Good morning guys!  ☕🦀  We’re making steady progress on the next episode.

Since last week's report, 48 new hairstyles and 5 skin tones have been added to the character creator and are now working in the game.  This will enable you to produce much more customisable and unique heroines, and I’m really looking forward to seeing some screenshots of your ‘Kates’!

Clicking the [Random Agent] button in the character creator now really feels like it’s producing a different doll each time, not just subtle variations of the same one.  It’s all part of our aim to improve the game by giving you more control, choices and personalisation options and making it feel less on rails than before.

Character stats and skills

The next episode is also bringing back character stats and skills, which you can keep track of on the character sheet.  This will let you further individualise your heroine, and lets us weave them into scenes to make them feel less scripted and compulsory.

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Example: Allure skill
An example of this in action is the new Allure skill.  (The heroine uses Allure to look good for the camera, and also attract male attention.  It can be buffed with clothing, makeup and dialogue/decision choices.)

Let’s take a look at how introducing this simple mechanic can affect one of the early scenes in the mission, the poolside encounter with Max in Malaysia.

Existing scene (with no stats): the heroine (internally called “Kate”, for ease) goes to the swimming pool.  She can make a few decisions (e.g. keep her bikini intact, or take off her top in front of Max and the other guests; later she can smile back at Max or just ignore him), but the scene always plays out in the same way: Max hits on her, and the player decides whether to take it further or not.

Changes by adding stats: Instead of the scene just playing out like a script, Kate makes an Allure check to attract Max; this check is modified by her stats and skills (in this case Beauty + Allure) and her decisions in the scene (e.g. if Kate takes off her top she gets +1; if she smiles at Max she gets +1; if she’s strikingly busty she gets +1*; etc).  If Kate passes the check, Max approaches her (unlocking the optional dinner date side quest); otherwise the flirting stays non-verbal and the two go their separate ways.

This is a small change but a big improvement.  Instead of following a script, the game world is dynamically responding to your individual Kate, weighting the chance of her being hit on based both on decisions you made in the scene, and decisions going right back to the start of the game.

It also mechanically captures a kind of male/female energy that’s present in the real world but currently missing from Female Agent: Kate makes the Allure check whether she wants to or not; she can’t exactly control when guys hit on her or who (but she can influence it).  Making more use of Allure checks in seduction and story scenes will make Kate more a force of temptation in the story (and male NPCs acting on that is inherently interesting and hot).
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I’m really excited about updating the scenes like this – it’ll finally make Female Agent less like a story you click through, and more like a game you play.  There are more complex uses for Allure (and other skills) planned for later in the game (e.g. Allure checks livening up the episode Girls’ Night Out; Kate making an Allure check while she’s trying to slip out of the hostel wearing the stripper dress leading to an extra dialogue scene with Noodle and his friend; potentially subverting the male/female approach/temptation dynamic in scenes where Kate fails her Allure check and finds herself having to make the first move/throw herself at a target NPC; etc).

Next tasks

But to make this possible, we need to make sure the avatar and the code base are set up to support it.  The main focus right now is still on tech tasks, like making sure all agents get issued eyebrows before starting the mission.

My current task is fixing some glitches caused by incorrect layering of hair and skin tone SVG layers on the youth versions of the avatar.  Once that’s done, there’s some tech work on the character sheet I need to look at (specifically how the game tracks and displays XP progress in each skill).  I’m just basically trucking through the unglamorous but necessary tasks that need to be tackled before the release, and it’s more complicated than usual because of the changes to the avatar and the game logic.

I can’t give an ETA on when it’ll be released yet – making the game is hard and we’re a tiny team – but I’m putting in long hours every day and it’s a labour of love.  Thank you to all supporters for making it possible.  🦀❤️‍🔥

*- Busty Kate getting a +1 to Allure in this situation is the game trying to simulate how busty women are often seen as promiscuous and sexually available (and therefore more approachable and DTF), just because of their body type.  Only you the audience can interpret whether I’m making a critique of sexualisation and the male gaze 🤓, or if I just think objectifying intelligent women with big tits is hot 🥵