Dom, Sub, and Loyalty

We wanted to take a moment to hint a little about the next update but also talk about our process.

One of the biggest challenges of creating a game with varying choices is to manage the variables that record the player's decisions. When a variable like Dom or Sub is checked, we need to choose the requirement carefully. Too low, and the check doesn't mean much or the scene doesn't fit the player's past choices. Too high, and many players will be locked out of the scene. Balancing this is an ongoing task.

Making each path mostly linear is one way to deal with this. It does lead to consistent progressions, but it also simplifies the game significantly. At worst, it can render the variables mere cosmetic changes and leave no choices at all - which is not what we're going for with KoD.

Though we think the current requirements are in a decent place based on all the feedback we've received, that doesn't mean that there's no room for improvement. Version 0.6.0 of KoD will include some new quests and scenes that will provide more stat points of multiple kinds. So a save that might not have been able to obtain a scene last version might be able to with the new content that will be added this version.

Version 0.6.0 will also be checking other variables a little more. The past few updates have focused on dom/sub and on the Captains - next update will include benefits related to group loyalty values. In the content we've completed, no scenes are locked behind these variables, but they will give you benefits that might help you unlock other scenes. We hope this will increase the flexibility of the game without rendering the checks meaningless.

The next update will move the plot forward, but it will also include some content to flesh out the current phase of KoD. Hopefully that will be a fun update for everyone, but improve the experience of the final game even more!

The above teaser image is from one of the upcoming CG's in 0.6.0.