Making rules sexy again

I just joined, so this might be out of date, but I wanted to give some feedback on this. I really like the idea of the sexualization score, but I feel strongly that changes in it should always be driven by player choice, rather than judgements of your behavior. While you make good arguments for why certain actions may change the score, but that’s always going to be subjective and I could argue just as strongly for the opposite effect. It also risks a situation where a player who doesn’t want a high sexualization character will have to avoid certain sexual scenarios (which isn’t necessarily what you want in a sexy game) and generally creates a more judgy, sex-negative attitude (which isn’t fun in a sexy game). I’d make changes to this score primarily based on asking the player what their character thinks. So, for example, during the Wet T-Shirt contest, at one point, the PROCEED option will give the player a choice of thinking that this is: “hot” (+ sexualization), “fun”, “embarrassing”, or “degrading” (- sexualization). This way, the control is in the player’s hands. If you want to track behavior and choices to change the score, you can still give the player the option to accept or reject that change in sexualization score by contextualizing it in different ways. For example, if Kate’s actions would lead to an increased sexualization score, the player would be presented with a scene where she thinks back on what happened and has the choice of thinking something like “That wasn’t just hot, it was empowering – sex is power and by using it, I can be in control here” (accept + sexualization), or “Right now, my job is to be sexy and maintain my cover – and I’m damn good at it” (reject + sexualization). This way, the player always has control over who their Kate is, and you don’t have to make firm (and subjective) judgements about what is and is not sexualizing.

Looks great, I can't wait

Thanks enrico! I know you've been waiting a *long* time for this. – Low self esteem would probably work well as a Quirk (a new system I added today). – We can tweak the distributions if they don't work well in play. I do think that locations might feel a bit artificial if the NPCs are too "designed", though. – NPC Kinks: absolutely, these are crucial. Many Kinks will be complementary (e.g. Sadist NPC and Likes Rough Sex Kate). – Your point about the dirty talk idea is good, I need to rethink that. Tying it more to Kinks is a good idea – YES great point, Sexual Courage should be modified by stats like Extraversion & Neuroticism – Glad you liked the pacing thing, that took a lot of banging my head on the desk to figure out. :-D BJ pacing is another great idea.

Crushstation

Great feedback, elephant, thanks! – Yeah, having the player make meaningful choices during sex scenes is my aim. I want the sex scenes to feel like mini-quests, if that makes sense? – Regarding Kate's preferences, one of the reasons I needed to establish them is so that the game knows when she's with a partner she *doesn't* find attractive. Part of her work in the brothel is indeed going to involve working with all kinds of clients. – The plan is for each location to generate different types of NPCs. So not every location will use a bell curve – I'm still working on rules for niche kinks like watersports etc. More to follow soon. – Yeah, Sexualisation points can be gained and lost in Bangkok. So if Kate does edifying things like making a friend, or visiting a temple, or learning Muay Thai, or successfully completing a spy mission, that reduces both Stress and Sexualisation.

Crushstation

Hey Crush, belive it or not I read it all :). Now I hope you'll read my feedback below and hopefully find it useful. I'll add more later, especially on minor topics. - Looks Threshold (and similar aspects that weight attraction, from attractivness to chemistry, etc..): as you and others suggested, you should add a modifiers linked to her personality (i.e. she has low standards or low self esteem so the value is lower) - Busty women more approachable: wrong :), the outfit bit on the other hand is very important - NPCs: badly balanced imo: 2/100 for the extremes are far too little. - NPCs kinks: it's listed after, I know, but this is a key feature imo. I don't understand how you'll be able to make NPCs or scenes feel less artificial without them. Especially the basic kinks, which should be similar to how they work on Kate but more on a male perspective (i.e. likes to be rough, etc..) - Sexualisation: there is only one thing I really don't like here. You have to consider a Kate that has high sexualisation but doesn't do dirty talking. Having high sexualisation and being forced to see Kate react with trashy talk during sex is something I really don't want to see in the game. I don't want to give you a solution here, but maybe the dirty talk should only be linked to her traits or kinks, and be dynamic so appear or not in the sex encounters? - Sexual courage: I think this should be far more affected by personality traits, especially for the sex kinks checks. I like how you partially fixed it with the beliefs - I like how you categorized the sex acts (i.e. makeout, bj), I'll delve deeper into them later but the key here will be have enough content to have them feel as much unique as possible - The fact that the position determines who sets the pace is simply fantastic, a clever solution to a difficult problem - BJs: I'd like you to add mechanics to cover the different ways a BJ can be. Who is controlling (and why), how rough, positions, etc..

Enrico

It's very important to add meaning and variety to the sex scenes, so it's great that you've done this work. Sorry for posting a wall of questions here instead of the doc, I'm bad at computers. I like the idea that player choices are needed to make a sex scene successful or not. Kate needs to maintain her cover, so she needs to perform well at her job, so she needs to satisfy her clients. If she's being passive, and her client is also passive, he won't be satisfied. Likewise if they are both trying to take the lead. This has great potential! The rules seem to put emphasis on Kate's own preferences. But I doubt the new girl in a brothel will get to be picky. Is this simply to vary the text of sex scenes, or will it impact the game? I'm surprised to see a bell curve distribution of nice and nasty clients. I would expect the encounters in Bangkok to be with men who can't get by on looks and charm alone, so the distribution should be more towards the gruesome end. Sorry, Kate, but this game is about opening your legs for the greater good, right? Did that last guy even speak English? I'm puzzled that there's no mention of Kate's attitude to specific sex acts. I'm sure some clients will be all kinds of freaky, and most Kates won't be happy about their requests. How will the sex engine handle these situations, and what choices will the player have? It looks like there's a sliding scale between low sexualisation (miserable Kate) and high sexualisation (happy Kate). I'd like to know if the player can influence this attribute past character creation. Or will miserable Kate just have to spend lots of time managing her soaring stress levels?

ultimate_elephant

Totally agree with how Crush read it, it's more realistic and you'd have to compromise anyway.

Enrico

In contrast, a girl from an elite background could have such unassailable self-esteem that it doesn't actually matter what she does! She doesn't care about being a sex object, she knows it doesn't change who she is.

ultimate_elephant

Consider Kate specifically. A girl from a typically low-education background must have performed far beyond anyone's expectations to get through school and university and land this prestigious job. I think she'd have higher self-worth than a middle-class girl whose friends went into law and accounting and earn twice her salary.

ultimate_elephant

Thanks Redric! :-)

Crushstation

Thanks Lu-Tze! I'm going to do my best to work in a more organised way, and make better use of the team and the community, in order to speed up implementation and delivery.

Crushstation

But I thought the whole turn on about hypno is manipulating the subject's sexual preferences...

Crushstation

Sorry to hear that, @RoflCopter4. :-( If there's anything specific you can message me here, or on Discord, or talk in the document; I published it before implementation for a reason

Crushstation

There's been loads of feedback, so I want to properly assess that before we rush into implementation, but *soon*.

Crushstation

Thanks Anand! Sexualisation isn't really supposed to be the same as sexiness or sexual liberation. It's more about the agent's internal attitude to situations that are demeaning or sexually objectifying (like being reassigned from the counterproliferation desk at MI6 to go undercover as a stripper and prostitute). My feeling is that girls from poor backgrounds are more likely to be exploited and less likely to be encouraged to stand up for themselves. Note that if she has a loving mum and dad, they cancel out the Sexualisation increase. :-)

Crushstation

Since agent's sexual adventures in Bangkok seem to be the intended "main game", I highly appreciate your attempt for detail and quality so that it doesn't get boring. Wishing you the best and I like what I see so far.

Redric

Continuation: I also worry a bit about you becoming too distracted by all the possibilities and thus not being able to progress the actual game. I liked the focus on Hypno content and the agent doing stuff that is outside her comfort zone. With all those new rules I wonder if we will ever get to play the actual Bangkok gameplay. Nevertheless, I appreciate the effort you guys are putting in.

Lu-Tze

I like the idea of making the sex scenes more meaningful and less boring. Fleshing out the NPCs more also seems like the right thing to do.

Lu-Tze

Sorry but it looks like I'll be bowing out. I started supporting you because I liked the secret agent plotline and the hypno content, and was interested to see how it would continue. I didn't sign up for a woman's sexual preferences simulator... this ain't for me.

Arco Deman

If this is implemented as described you can count on losing my support permanently.

So when can we expect these changes to be implemented?

I disagree with being poor leading to higher sexualization. Poor people are more likely to be conservative and religious. Wealthy people are more likely to have liberalized social attitudes. Actually a lot of the sexualization modifiers don't make sense to me. I don't see why girls who go to an elite university would be less sexualized. Again, I'd think it would be the opposite. My 2 cents.

Anand