Happy Easter!

Hey guys, Happy Easter! Last week I started work on the next episode, White Russian.

The side quest itself is outlined, but around it we want a few more scenes in the club (so the main quest also advances). I planned out what all the scenes should be, and spent some time working out how to make them hot and interesting.

One scene in particular – which I think could have been quite ‘meh’ if we took the obvious path with it – has been made surprisingly hot with a little twist to the setup. 🥵

This week, I’m going to produce beat sheets for the scenes. I think these worked well in the last episode, and helped speed up delivery time overall. Even though it added an extra stage to the process, it ended up saving time in the editing phase.

Update on the Lifepath
Earlier versions of the game included a feature called the Lifepath, once memorably described as ‘the most absurdly detailed character creator ever’. The Lifepath let you play through your heroine’s youth, making key choices that would adjust her skills and experiences, and (once she was over 18) play through some of her defining sexual experiences.

It was lots of fun, but it was taking forever, so I took the decision to shelve it and focus on the main quest for a while. Recently there was a spirited Lifepath discussion on the game’s Discord, so I thought I should give you guys an update.

Required work
The Lifepath needs a few changes before we can link it up to the main quest:

1). The childhood section needs to be expanded so it works for all five nationalities (it currently only works for UK agents).

2). The university section needs to be concluded.

3). A career section, covering recruitment, training and agency career, need to be added.

Planned improvements
I think the early parts of the Lifepath (in version 1.11) work pretty well. It would be nice to add some more content, but it’s basically fine, and I think the only part that may need a substantial rewrite is the foreign adventure for Working Class heroines who aren’t British (working as a holiday rep in the Med is a very Brit-specific thing, we may need to write alternatives for North American/Australasian heroines).

I feel like the existing university section needs a rethink. What’s there is good, but it’s too linear. I think it’d benefit from a range of shorter, more varied encounters. For instance: 

• Instead of always having a one-night stand with Simon, there should be a variety of possible sexual encounters at this point (ranging from 'one night stand that leads to a relationship' to 'one night stand that is just her getting used and fucked' to 'heavy petting with a hot guy that she doesn't let go any further').
• Instead of the long affair with the professor that is entwined with the main narrative, this should be something that can happen but doesn’t need to be so detailed and long-winded. 
• Additionally, all the choices the heroine makes at university (e.g. joining the volleyball team, being an actress, getting a part-time job in an office) should have the chance of triggering short optional sexy encounters (like the volleyball team doing a nude calendar shoot, or the heroine being romantically pursued by a guy from her part-time job).
• And there should just be other events that can happen during a playthrough (like a Geek Girl heroine reconnecting with her childhood pals Tom, Mark and Josh for a cosplay convention, or a Rock Chick Kate partying hard with her university band).

So I feel like the uni section needs restructuring to add more width, variety and randomness.

Summary
The benefits of finishing and integrating the Lifepath are:

1). More differentiation of your heroine, which leads to
2). Opportunities to reflect that in the main quest.

The main criticism of the main quest is that it’s too linear. At some point in the future I want to go through it and add width, randomness and branching opportunities to the existing scenes; having a variety of character backstories to work with will really help with this. (As a simple example: knowing her past experience with drugs will make the main quest drug scenes easier to write and branch. Knowing if she’s the kind of girl who typically says yes or no to one night stands will make all the sex scenes easier to write and branch. etc)

So the official position is that I do plan to revisit, improve and integrate the Lifepath. However: doing that will, of course, mean we’ll have to work on that instead of the main quest. I think that, for now, it makes sense to push forward until at least the point in the main story where the heroine’s established as a bargirl before we jump back to the Lifepath and start adding width. 

TLDR
Lifepath yes, but not Soon™.