Update - Iku ending re-render

tl;dr - I've been programming PAT and trying to make it more interactive and non-linear in interesting ways.

This week's image

Here's a re-render with new textures and lighting of one of my personal favourite Iku pictures. She's certainly enjoying herself - I think this is her second favourite sexual position. Her top favourite is her on her knees, with her mouth full, giving the finest service she can. ;)

While I find it slightly embarrassing to show poor earlier rendering work, I think it's probably interesting for you guys to see the comparison, so here's the older version of the pic:

You'll see the new one has nice, shiny-sweaty skin textures, as well as more realistic, warm, indoor-style lighting. I think you can make out the details more clearly, too.

These re-renders are, as I've mentioned before, part of the final push toward the PAL 2.0 release.

Timelapse programming

This week my real progress has been on programming PAT, (it's been satisfying to finally be in a good flow for making  so I thought I'd talk a little bit about how I'm making the game interesting to play.

I've played through what I've been programming, of course, and in that process I've found the early bits do play pretty much as a linear VN for the moment. I assume anyone reading this has played the early stages of PAL, so you know that I do make the games more interactive after the earlier, more story-heavy parts, so hopefully you'll be aware that's what I'm going for here, too.

Nonetheless, whenever I'm making anything - whether it be for PAT, PAL, or anything else I've worked on - I really get unsatisfied with the game if it's too linear and non-interactive. Therefore I've been trying to layer in little elements of interactivity and exploration that make it all a bit more interesting and will hopefully engage you more as a player than a game that's purely just a linear story being pushed on you. Game design is one of the most important elements to me - I consider it an essential part of game writing. So, anyway, what have I added?

Collector card, statistics and hidden surprises

The first release of PAT won't be super long and the interactive moments will still be limited, no matter what I do, but I've tried to put in some things for the observant player. For a start, there are some moments when you can click on things that don't seem to be quite what you're supposed to be focusing on, calling for somewhat more observant behaviour than just clicking through everything. Second, the choices you make (yes, there are a couple of small choices to think about) can have an effect on the stats you're going for.

Third, including hidden features and surprises in my games for dedicated players is, as you probably well know, a favourite stylistic approach of mine and one of the most obvious ways I do this is to have bonus challenges that unlock collector cards. To that end PAT now has its first collector card! I won't tell you how it's unlocked but it's not actually a hard one to find - I made it reasonably easy to show new players that if you explore you'll be able to find interesting bonuses.

Do you like the change to the Iku/Kenji pic? What do you think about these PAT game design features? And who do you think will be the star of the first PAT collector card? Let me know in the comments!