Update - 13 June 2016

tl;dr - I've worked this week on designing images, implementing puzzles and getting started on the next sex scene - a threesome scene!

This week's image

One of the main things I did this week was try to address the deficit of Masami pictures in the game up to now, so this is one of the pics I designed for the Masami sex scene. The way I've set up the set for this scene is, I think, quite nice but it's also a high-challenge image render that I was pretty much incapable of doing right until quite recently. Depicting a wide, open valley is kind of hard and I've had to pull a number of tricks to make it work.

I won't fully explain this scenario, but I will say that it's not a threesome, this is Masami's solo scene. You're free to speculate on what's happening, of course. :)

More image work

As I noted above I did a fair bit of image design this week. If I'm honest it was because I was a little aimless about which project (within the game) to take on next and I figured this was a guaranteed way to be productive without any set-up time. Also, I do legitimately have to make some more images for the Masami sex scene before I am able to finalise that one, although with the work I've done recently I'm a lot closer.

I also did some other miscellaneous images - cards, stuff from the lake day, battle pics, re-renders of some earlier, poor quality pictures, etc.

Started on the next threesome scene

"Started" is maybe the wrong word, as I had already mostly written the scene, made some images and commissioned the voice acting, but I got started on actually implementing the next sex scene. That involves programming it, editing the voice acting and creating some more images.

I will probably have more to say about this next week - I'm hoping to make good progress on it soon. If I get that done quickly then I'll put out PAL alpha 0.10.0 after I do, since I've made enough general progress lately to justify another release if it comes with a sex scene.

Puzzles!

I added the last of the side-puzzles this week, which means all the side puzzles are now in the game. (Although they can't necessarily all be reached yet.) Obviously I can't really tell you what the side-puzzles are but I can say that in order to solve them you'll have a lot of poking around and exploring to do. I was concerned that the game would be a little light on the puzzles, but I think it will actually work out pretty well.

I've also been working on the Easter eggs and adding in a couple more places where you can get 'rebellion' points, which are sort of another kind of Easter egg, I suppose. I want there to be plenty of rebellion points available so that it's not too hard to gather enough of them. Easter eggs, on the other hand, are somewhat tricky because I like them to be a little clever, which means they take work. Also, in previous games in the series I had a lot of inventory items that could act as stimulus for Easter eggs - this time there aren't many inventory items so that's not as effective.

As I noted on twitter I have sometimes wondered whether it's actually worth putting in the side puzzles and Easter eggs, but then from time to time I get a specific bit of feedback calling out how much the player enjoyed a particular bit of hidden content. I suspect the fact that it is hidden plays a key part in that - if you have to work to find a little feature/joke/whatever then you'll appreciate it more, and while not everyone plays so thoroughly it's probably worthwhile to have the rewards there for the players who do want to invest extra effort.

I've got a question to finish this week's update, because I haven't been able to solve it myself: What should be the incentive to gather all of the cards and/or Easter eggs? Should something be cut off from access unless you collect them all? If so, what? If not, will the cards and Easter eggs feel like they're worth gathering?

Hopefully you guys can help me with that issue. :)