Dev Log — January 2024

Hi everyone!

I've been busy stumping out fires and catching up on all the work that piled up during the holidays, but I finally found the time to write the first dev log of the year!

Maids & Butlers

For this month's NPCs we have maids on butlers, which you will be able to encounter in the future! The duo encounter is designed to support any combination of maid/maid, butler/butler, maid/butler, and butler/maid, and there are plans for a third encounter where players have a run-in with the master/lady of the house for a risky and thrilling conclusion to the chain of encounters, where the player must resist their attempts to add the player to their ranks.

Phantasms

I also had an idea for a new status effect I call Phantasms (plural because it is a compound effect similar to Thoughts, and Diseases). Phantasms are ghosts of your own imagination; a fear so real that it takes on a life of its own, and once you attract a phantasm, it will slowly creep in on you, but unlike other status effects and triggered conditions in the game and planned, when a phantasm finally strikes, it usually results in an immediate (temporary) bad ending.

I find the idea of entering a haunted house and not knowing exactly when something supernatural might strike alluring and phantasms are designed to play into such fantasies with looming threats. The slow wind-up time for the attack also allows players ample opportunity to opt-out if they aren't into this fantasy or a particular phantasm's content.

Similar to how the Hucow effect is a themed disease, all phantasms will have unique themes and names that forecast their nature and give players some idea of what they might be in for and what might cause the phantasm to strike.

Some rare phantasms can cause quite harsh transformations that cannot be found elsewhere, while others might play into the haunted house theme by trapping students in paintings. But probably the most unique feature of this status effect is that the phantasm can defeat the player's character and allow the player to continue playing as the phantasm, which will take over their items and stats but with a new name and likely a new appearance. The player, while in control of the phantasm, can decide to restore their character like they usually would, which sort of makes sense because the phantasm is part of them on a subconscious level, or leave their character to their whatever fate. 

I have this idea for a phantasm that possesses the character's body and expels the character's consciousness as an onahole, which the player can then decide to use, discard, and/or restore, depending on what they find a suitable fate for their previous character. It also works well for absorption-themed content, such as a phantasm turning the player into a pair of breasts, giving the player control of the phantasm and allowing their previous character to stick around for the ride. It also works well with the reversal syndrome fantasy, and for those who are not familiar with it, it involves a person's genitalia becoming sentient and turning into a person, and the former person becoming the new person's genitalia in the process.

Steam Release Plans

The start of a new year seems like the perfect time to share my plans for the year ahead, and in particular, the game's Steam release, for which I have a few deadlines I need to make. 

• The game's Steam page will be released sometime in February.
• This is so the game can be part of the Steam Next Fext in June, for which the game will need to have a demo running inside Steam.
• The game is planned to go live on Steam sometime in autumn.

New Website & Game Identity

A new website using the new name and domain, and a new interface that has a more unique identity (instead of resembling PS5) are among the things I have been working on in anticipation of the game's Steam page.

Demo

There are also a bunch of things I would like to have in the game before a demo is made public this summer:

• Being able to play without registering, so players can create their character and finish the tutorial before they have to pick a username and password for their account.
• Action bars.
• Improved onboarding and making it easier for players to understand what options they have when they first enter the game.
• Solo mode, so players can become familiar with the game before they are confronted by other players, or for the shy players who simply want to enjoy a single-player experience.
• The game will also need some audio and music for the demo, as audio and music are expected of a stand-alone game.

Meanwhile, we will continue to work on the dynamic avatars, and we're also working on a new dorm room that will be customizable! However, neither is required for the Steam page or demo, which is a relief, because I don't want to rush these new fundamental customization features!

Twitch Streams

While designing the new website for the game I also put some time into upgrading my streaming setup with the help of a friend. This also brought along the creation of a new Twitter specifically for the game while my old Twitter account will be for my live streams.

Speech-to-speech

I've always wanted to do more streams, but my ability to create engaging content has been severely hampered by having to write everything in chat because I'm not comfortable using my own voice. So, the most prominent change to the setup is that I now have a speech-to-speech setup, not unlike Zentreya, but probably quite different as well. I've tested it for a bit and it seems robust, but I'm still both terrified and excited to try it out live!

----

That's it for this month's dev log! I will try to stream for the first time using my new setup soon, maybe later today/-night!

Thank you so much for all the support and I hope everyone is enjoying the latest update! ❤️

I still have a few more errors to fix, in particular the chat issue for inanimate players, and now that my schedule is starting to clear up a bit, I can finally get my head deep into the clockwork of what's causing it!

Cheers,

Tinon