1.13 Dev report

Hey guys! Thank you so much for the kind condolences, here and in DMs. I needed a break over the weekend, but was back to work on Monday morning.

Progress report
I was aiming to complete the 1.13 storyboard this week. I wasn’t able to do this, but I did add a major amount of work: now weighing in at 262 slides, it’s more than twice the size of the biggest storyboard so far...and there's still more to come.  1.13 is shaping up to be the biggest release yet!

That’s because I’m planning to do a lot in 1.13. We’re moving the action to a new setting (Bangkok), setting up some important new locations and introducing several key NPCs.

Challenges
Sometimes I feel like there’s so much pressure to get a release out fast, that I can’t afford to spend much time in the planning and design stages – less thinking, moar writing, you dumb crab!

That said, to me, writing is basically a problem solving activity. You have things you want to achieve (in Female Agent, that’s normally get the heroine into a sex scene), and you arrange the characters and events until that happens in a way that feels real.

As you’re doing that you create and fix problems….and this is basically what makes writing time consuming.

This week I struggled with a few main problems:

• Pacing. The scenes and locations weren’t flowing naturally.
• Vagueness. One key location (in fact, the key location, the Hard Cock Cafe) felt vaguely described.
• Sexiness. Too much espionage, not enough sexpionage.

Once I’d worked this out (helped by storyboard feedback from Dissonant Soundtrack, Dracis3D, The Lost Engineer and Queen Victoria), I forced myself to seriously think through these problems (instead of just trying to fix them with narrative and dialogue tweaks). I was able to figure out some cool, structural solutions:

• Pacing. I tightened up the timescale so 1.13 happens over two nights, not five, which makes everything feel punchier and more dynamic (and let me trim a few flabby, “settling in” type scenes). I tweaked a narrative element to make this feel natural and not artificially rushed.
• Vagueness. I have reams of notes on my vision of the Hard Cock Cafe, but I took the time to actually work out exactly how the core business operates: how many customers are needed per shift to be profitable, how many staff members are needed to service that demand, etc. I ended up with a mini business plan for a whorehouse! 😀 This might sound unnecessary, but the benefit of this is that we now know exactly how many NPCs are likely to be in a scene, how hard the girls have to work, when and how the shifts will be structured, and more – making all scenes in that location much easier to write. (I also drew up detailed floorplans of the place, for the first time nailing down exactly where all the rooms are. Doing this was great because the place now has some real geography to it for the heroine to interact with and discover.)
• Sexiness. I added some optional teasing and flirting into a scene that was lacking any sexiness. I also redesigned how the big sex scene in 1.13’s finale is set up, making it hotter and flow more naturally out of the setting and the situation.

Next steps
Now these changes are figured out, I need to keep going with the storyboard. I’ll report back next week with progress – and hopefully that it’s finished! 🤞🏻

What’s happening with the Lifepath?
Based on feedback from 1.12, I’m convinced more than ever that the Lifepath needs to return in some form – without it, we’re just not as connected to our heroines (and we lose some cool, sexy backstory scenes).

I’ve got some interesting preliminary ideas on how to do this – based on ideas and feedback after 1.12 – and will publish them Soon™. But it’s not the priority right now: I’m currently fully focused on 1.13.

Like I said in the Discord this week: over this whole experience, I’ve had to accept there’s a difference between what I can imagine and what I can actually implement. Sadly, there’s a big gulf between the two…the reality is that this is a little indie project being built by a few individuals, not something made by an actual game studio with dozens of employees.  But I’m very excited about what we’re putting together for 1.13 anyway. The heroine’s finally getting to Bangkok! I hope you’re going to love it!