Focus of the upcoming release (Patreon)

Apologies to everyone for another long wait between posts.
A full release of BETA 5 this year was fast becoming unlikely even before I had to spend a week in October recovering from a painful infection (I'm all good now).
I also still don't feel the ACT 1 intro has enough content yet to justify the egregiously long wait. In addition to everything else I've been working on, I'm pretty adamant it needs the first Viper-8 story scene to feel that there's actually something of significance to find in the new north town map. That's the final bit of content I'll be adding before release, but it will still take more time than I've got left in the year.

So, in the interest of getting a release out sooner, I've decided to separate the playable Ali prequel demo I've been working on (Terminal Desires: Recovery) from BETA 5 & ship it first as part of a BETA 4a build. To be clear, the intent is to release this build before the end of 2026, but I'm cautious to say for certain at this stage given my unreliable track record.

This part of BETA 5 makes the most sense to focus on, as aside from being self-contained, is the one part of the game that I anticipate will actually need some decent testing & feedback. Especially because it is not a separate game, but an add-on/extra mode for Terminal Desires, accessed at any point from the game's pause menu:

Ali has her own inventory, stats & kink tracking. The idea here is that any choices you make as Ali in TD: Recovery will eventually affect her current self in the main game, once she appears as a companion character to accompany Tiffany from the early stages of ACT1.

This demo will mostly be focused on one half of the gameplay loop: taking Ali on repeatable missions which have varied objectives, spawns, layouts & conditions.

At this stage, the 2nd part of the gameplay loop - managing her off duty time at the base(including any pregnancies) - won't be present. Nor will there be any story content present to begin with. But there will be a number of combat sex scenes with zombie opponents(which I have previously previewed), and one scene with a human who may appear as an escort target as one of the possible mission objectives:

The intention is to add additional skin tones & body types to these faceless NPCs in future builds so that these scenes can be reused in a wide variety of contexts, both here & in the main game.

I do want to stress, that this Ali demo will be a fairly limited experience to start with, as it's not been where the bulk of my energy has gone to, and I have a pretty busy November & December ahead of me already, but I believe it's the best choice, in the name of getting something new to play in your hands ASAP.

For those who have questions about how exactly TD: Recovery plays, my next post for all tiers will be a video showing the game in action & my progress so far, so you will have a clearer picture of what to expect. I had hoped to get that video out by now, but due to my illness I've still got a few too many things to implement & fix before it's working enough to demo in practice without interruption.

Finally, the new 2D Ali pinup art found at the top of the post was drawn by the fantastic popsiclebunny. The next Terminal Quickies comic pages shouldn't be too far away either - I will post those as I receive them.

Thank you again for your extreme patience & continued support.

I'm well aware there's still a lot of other things for me to catch up & communicate on & will endeavor to find time for that as well. While I will be focusing primarily on Ali until I've released this next build, there are also a number of things I've been working on for the game & haven't been able to show yet, so some upcoming Survivors/Special Forces previews may be from those instead.

I'll have a Special Forces Sneak Peek post out shortly(Provided the nearby storm doesn't interrupt me) introducing 2 new characters & their bios, alongside 2 more Ali preview pics.
~ Jim