Update 25

tl;dr - Combat system progress, love scenes implemented, and a very special "anatomy upgrade" for the maids.

Today's image:

This is a picture from Phinn that is probably going to be an extra image for the harem mode bonus gallery, because while there's nothing obviously ridiculous about it, it doesn't actually fit with any particular scene. It was designed to be a masturbation night service image, but she doesn't strip down during those scenes, so it doesn't match with the scene. Anyway, I still like it so it'll be in the game as a bonus.

Combat system:

I've made some great progress on the combat system this week - it's finally getting to a point where it's pretty playable. I hope you're looking forward to testing it for me! It's going to be a bit buggy (because it's complicated); I do try to catch bugs myself but some elude me. It's also going to need some balancing; I don't yet know quite how good certain abilities need to be, so they'll need some tweaking if they're overpowered or underpowered.

Mostly what the actual work this week has entailed has been implementing spells that the maids can cast. I haven't yet included the 'vulnerable points' you'll remember from the PAF combat system, but I will. If anything I feel the vulnerable points were the most truly unique and special part of the PAF combat system - they were designed to incorporate the traditional IF gameplay skills of examining things and trying out puzzle solutions into a combat system, and I think it was actually a very successful idea.

Additionally I'm planning to have many of the spells have a unique, hidden effect against specific monsters if you target the spell on a specific body part. Therefore if you've earned the right spell for the right monster then you'll be able to target that spell and try to find the special effect. Imagine you had a "rot" spell, and you were fighting a vampire (there is no rot spell, and no vampires in the game). If you cast "rot" on him you'd get the normal effect, but if you cast it on his teeth then he can't bite you any more without taking damage. Get the idea?

Monsters are also more unpredictable. They get tougher depending on what your skill is in the specific category (so if you go hunting in the caves for an eye skill point, the monster will be leveled based on your eye skill), but each monster is randomly selected from the available monster types, and they also each have a random special ability like "warded" (greater magic resistance) or "psychic" (drains mana points with each hit).

Love scenes:

The next alpha will also contain the full love scenes for all the characters except for Ai. That's not the actual sex scenes, just the relationship scenes that lead up to the sex scenes. Ai's aren't included because she's getting a unique flirting system that I haven't implemented yet. I don't know whether I will have done that by the time of the next alpha.

You'll hopefully notice in PAL what I've done with the love scenes is to make them trigger wherever the girl is present at a given time, so that you won't need to explore the mansion over and over just to find scenes, you'll just have to go wherever she is. If you're still in that habit from the previous games you can stop - it's now a waste of time.

Anatomy upgrade:

Okay, in past I admit I've mostly had to avoid vaginal close-ups because my character models haven't been very good for them. I have implemented an improvement that (while not perfect) means I can have some vaginal close ups and penetration scenes. In past I've left those pictures up to Phinn (so I was planning to include his in any event) but now I can make some of my own! They aren't perfect yet - I'll get better as I get more practiced with them - but I've already made a few acceptable pictures with this upgrade.

Oh, and I should note that this doesn't mean I'm going to be doing all penetration close ups from now on - they'll be a part of the images I include, but I happen to think that the sexiest images are often more about the positioning of bodies and the facial expressions, not just seeing a dick enter a pussy. My existing preferences for image composition will remain.

Any comments or questions about this week's update? Please leave them in the comments below. :)