Alpha 6.1 - Gitting It Together

Greeting everyone!

Do you guys like hearing about the behind the scenes stuff that I enjoy sharing? I realize the boring side of development is, well, boring, but personally I always enjoyed getting some insight into what's going on behind the curtain. Let me know in the comments, but for now I'm gonna stick to oversharing!

Recombobulating The Company

There's a couple large management initiatives going on in the back room of The Company. The first is the implementation of a proper project management suite and documentation, which I went over a couple weeks ago, and the other is a complete restructuring of the game's source code.

Put your pitchforks down.

This initiative actually got wrapped up a couple days ago while I was catching up on Russian Doll! It's also not something you guys will actually notice, which really calls into question my decision to announce it!

For anyone who has experience with Twine, you're familiar with how the engine handles projects. Yes, poorly! I've pulled all the content out of Twine and into a proper project directory which means I'll have access to git repos and version control, as well things like collaboration and (gods help me) possible mod support some day... Some day!

For me this means much better development control. For you, it should mean quicker bug fixes and better testing branches. All at the cost of a few hours of copying and pasting!

The Artwork - Again

I'm looking forward to showing off the new artwork for the game next week! To everyone!

Until then, I wanted to talk briefly about "how" the artwork is actually going to get implemented.

The original plan, and you can go way, way back to old art posts to see this in action, was to use the models like you would in a visual novels. You'd tell the game if you're using artwork or not, and if you were, an actual dialogue scene would be generated where the characters would be in the scene and looking at each other. It was super cool!

There are two big issues doing things this way, though. First, it's a lot of code that may or may not be used, and multiple checks to see whether or not a scene should actually be generated. It also meant slipping a function call into every dialogue exchange to call the scene. Moreover, it just... doesn't look good in a game with so much vertical scrolling. I'm not making a VN.

So, the new direction is twofold. First, a huge cleanup and streamlining of the existing image directory. One that makes sense and can be easily managed and replicated. Second, the artwork will be developed to match that directory 1:1. This means that once artwork goes live, it'll just be a straight swap with the existing media. It also means there will be a clear and easy way to support unofficial image packs, including the existing media style.

Of course, we're a ways off, but it's nice to know where things are going!

Alpha 6.1 Content

Now that my writer and I have finalized all our business arrangements and he's off to the races, I've been free to go back and actually, you know, write content!

In case you've forgotten, and honestly I couldn't blame you at this point, Alpha 6.1 will be focusing on Penny and expanding her existing content. This means new events and conversations, a new date event, new content with her and John, and what I actually want to talk about today, new serum paths.

So this is actually going to be pretty important. Penny will be a first round implementation of a new, better serum system, one that revolves around branching paths and exclusive routes.

Basically, the system still follows a linear serum path, but depending on how you use the serums, different options will lock or unlock, branching out into different, exclusive paths.

Link to better but massive image 

Each serum level will have you selecting a route, then committing to that route before moving on. Each route then branches off into two more routes, one being a continuation of the original route, the other being a variant. Then it happens again at the third serum tier. Essentially, a character can end up at the end of any one of eight serum routes.

Penny's routes are the first to be developed like this before the system gets expanded to other characters in upcoming updates. So, how about an example?

• When you first dose Penny with the MCS-1 serum, you'll choose to EITHER make her obedient to you alone OR make her start acting suggestively around the office. Both these dose events are currently in the game, but we're making them exclusive. Selecting either of these will modify her behavior slightly and add some flavor to scenes.
• When you give her a second dose of MCS-1, you'll have the choice to either reinforce your first command, or "reset" her and start down the other path. You wont be able to progress until you've committed to a single path via consecutive doses.
• If you had her act suggestively, that's going to change the way she speaks and acts, make getting into her apartment a lot easier, and unlock options in the future to take her even deeper down the rabbit hole.
• If you committed to her obedience route, however, you'll find that John can no longer exert any power over her, saving her from that fate if you're going down that route with John. Additionally, similar routes will unlock in the future, and certain points in the game will surely play out differently with Penny's unwavering devotion secured.
• Finally, you'll get a linear serum option to cap off that tier of serum before moving back into a split route again.

This should give you an idea of where we're going with this. You'll end up with a wider breadth of content, as well as more replayability moving forward. Also, yes, because I know someone's going to ask, this is how I'm going to handle a certain part of Ava's serum route in the future!

That's it for this week! Next week I'll be previewing the new artwork as well as getting back into regular pre-alpha releases.

As always, thank you all for your continued feedback and support!