Deae Ex Machinis AS Project Plan (Patreon)

Introduction

I was surprised how many people voted in favor of a new project, as I honestly expected a lot more pushback given the trends with indie games that everyone has experienced. 

But since the results show a clear supermajority approval, I say the community has given their blessing and consent to start a new project.

I wish to reassure the minority that this change of direction involves a new project with a short development span, so once I achieve my goals with it, I will return to developing “Lab of God”.

And though I hate to admit it, I am sort of in a better mood given I have a new project to work on, as opposed to strictly continuing Goddess Maker. As I was probably subconsciously burned out after the nine months spent on A.3 and the less exciting A.3.1 to look forward to, so by taking this opportunity to start something fresh, my morale has improved.

So without further ado, the Ascension Fetish story I will be adapting into an interactive game is “Deae Ex Machinis” by Mr. Greyman.

Given Mr. Greyman’s “Renouncement of all copyright claims” list provided in the poll’s premise, there were really two stories on there that could have been adapted, the other being “Alien to Ambition”, so it was one or the other, and I decided on “Deae Ex Machinis” because it had a more positive message, a female protagonist, and Goddess Maker having much development overlap.

Maybe when I develop more penis growth content in Goddess Maker proper, I can adapt “Alien to Ambition” too, but that will be in the far future.

Anyways, I have written up a preliminary plan for this new project below to show my early thoughts of this project will manifest into.

PROJECT OUTLINE

Project Title: Project Deae Ex AS

Interactive Adaption of the Story “Deae Ex Machinis” by Mr. Greyman

https://www.deviantart.com/mrgreyman/art/Deae-Ex-Machinis-Alpha-271836351

https://www.deviantart.com/mrgreyman/art/Deae-Ex-Machinis-Omega-274947321

You shouldn’t feel spoiled reading the original work, as the end product of Project Deae Ex AS will vastly be a different experience as compared to the source, but still following close to elements introduced in the source material.

Also, given it’s an adaptation, there’ll be artistic liberties taken like omitting the references to real-life locations and events, including new characters, as well as changing up the pace and content, especially concerning the second half.

Central Characters

Like Goddess Maker, there are two central characters in Project Deae Ex AS: Heather and Adam.  Heather is the playable protagonist of the game’s first half, while Adam is the playable protagonist of the latter half.

Like the Player Character and Partner Character, both of these characters can be renamed.

And as for visual appearances whilst being the protagonist, the player will see their controlling character’s growth and won’t strictly appear hidden behind the POV.

Heather (Halcyona) ♀

-Phase Alpha Protagonist

-Brown Hair in Phase Alpha, and Blonde Hair in Phase Omega

-Brown Eyes -> Green Eyes

-Proactive Personality

Adam (Immanuel) ♂

-Phase Omega Protagonist

-White Hair

-Green Eyes

-Isolating/Reactive Personality

Note the last names in the parentheses, while present in the original work, will likely be deprecated in this project in favor of a single name basis for all characters.

Structure & Settings

The game is split into two gameplay phases “Alpha” and “Omega” with a time-skip in-between and an ending at the end like so:

Phase Alpha -> Timeskip -> Phase Omega -> Ending

In Phase Alpha, you play as Heather, who is gifted nanites to use to improve her body and mind by Adam, who also possesses them; however, lacks the Faustian will to ascend by the opportunity presented, a trait that Heather instead possesses, resulting in the gameplay action of actively seeking to improve her body.

The setting for Phase Alpha is a high school setting, which I’m looking forward to developing given Goddess Maker skips past that for a post-college workplace experience.

Then in Phase Omega, you play as the reluctant Adam who witnesses Heather’s actions in Phase Alpha and after the timeskip finally decides it’s time to react to her ascension through investigation of her deeds and preparing to confront her ideals.

With the setting for Phase Omega being the world that Heather created and resides as a goddess.

Given Heather takes over the world during the timeskip or at least becomes powerful enough to wield a large influence over the course of human history, the actions the player commits through Heather during Phase Alpha affect the reality in Phase Omega, reflecting the logical consequences and exaggerated conclusions of actions taken.

For example, if Heather’s world in Phase Omega is a dystopia because Heather made malevolent choices in Phase Alpha, Adam can reason that he is responsible for Heather’s ascension and must personally overthrow her, perhaps seeking to empower himself before confronting her so he stands a chance against the goddess.

Else, other conclusions can be made by Adam where by being seduced by Heather in Phase Alpha, opens the opportunity where Adam grows attached and feels responsible to become Heather’s romantic equal through his own ascension to godhood even if it compromises upon his morals.

Main Theme

As implied by the above example, the main theme of Project Deae Ex AS is Power and Responsibility, as Heather’s actions are guided by an expression of burden to craft the world in her own image through the opportunity her newfound power gives her, whilst Adam’s actions are guided by taking responsibility for the power itself.

It’s very much Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but the extraordinary factor being a literal power, as opposed to being able to break from one’s morals to become a Napoleon to make the world a better place, at the cost of being ruthless and inhumane.  

Ascension/Growth Method “Nutrient Collectathon”

In Project Deae Ex AS, the ascension method to transition a human towards godhood involves the focused use of nanites/microrobotics to constantly rebuild one’s body toward a higher ideal state.

Like a construction site, resources must be brought in from outside to fuel the production of a construction, as well as providing usable building material to realize upon a desired concept.

For humans, nutrients are those resources as both usable energy and a material, and through a higher control over one’s body through nanotechnology, more from outside can be attributed to improvement as opposed to waste, and the general efficiency of systems is increased.

If this all sounds familiar, the nutrient mechanic in “Lab of God” plays very similarly to this project’s ascension mechanic, as they are both inspired by Mr. Greyman’s “Deas Ex Machinis” story and thus assets developed to supplement the mechanic in “Lab of God” will be reused in Project Deae Ex AS. 

However, although similar, this isn’t a copy and paste of the same mechanic, but doing something different gameplay-wise and in a more restrictive and less abundant way, as contrary to “Lab of God”’s Nutrient Mechanic including the passage of time and factors, Project Deae Ex AS’s Nanite mechanic follows a collectathon model of the collection of a limited amount of items in a playground.

Something like Super Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie, the idea would be to gather up all the items to fill up a checklist, and having those items act as points to accumulate in order to increase the growth level.

With how those items are gathered, they are based on the player’s actions whether good or bad with my creativity transcending the experience to more than just a point and click fetch quest.

Like something simple as wanting to grab an apple from a tree, but it being too high up presents the player with a dilemma to solve with a moral choice, like humbling oneself to ask someone taller for help or being ruthless and cutting down the apple tree.

Now calling back to the mention of “Growth Levels”, unlike Goddess Maker, Growth in Project Deae Ex AS is on one axis, so height, beauty, intelligence, breasts, and strength are all tied up to the single level increment.

It’s not the “Build your Body” mechanic that one would want with an interactive nanite growth mechanic, but for the sake of the simplicity of the project’s lighter design scope, growth is in one positive direction.

An tentative example for Heather’s growth in Phase Alpha would be:

Note: If height growth is inconvenient to the other mechanics, I might just reserve it to trigger during the bad route like a sort of Pinocchio consequence, like the taller Heather is the more of a bad girl she has been in Phase Alpha, and the player can use that as a measurement to see what they are going into during Phase Omega. 

And if the above is implemented, the strength growth would likely be through the increase of the height attribute, especially since the Goddess Maker engine doesn’t have a strength variable for female characters.

Gameplay Loop

Like Goddess Maker, the goal of the gameplay loop in Project Deae Ex AS is its replayability since it’s a consequence simulator much like Undertale, and like games in the genre, the game remembers what you do and changes things up along the way, as well as features many endings to “reward” the choices made in Phase Alpha and Phase Omega.

And on the pacing to reach these different endings, it’s meant to be fast given Phase Alpha ends when Heather reaches Growth Level 10 and Phase Omega ends when Adam resolves/reconciles with the world Heather created through confrontation.

These straightforward objectives do not change, guaranteeing that Heather must ascend to a goddess and Adam must confront said goddess.

This concept is further emphasized by everything in Project Deae Ex AS being limited and fixed in place at the start of the game, as opposed to being randomized like Goddess Maker so identical playthroughs are possible.

But although feeling stagnant, the convenience of set-in-place obstacles makes it somewhat of a puzzle to get each ending for 100%, as even if Phase Omega is on a spectrum of benevolence and malevolence, the individual consequences can be built up in such a way that changes the ending.

If you have played the flash game “GROW”, the concept is similar to that, as the order of action within a linear sequence changes the end result.

These restrictions count to help the player feel like they earned something as opposed to hoarding it. 

Like if the game introduces a currency, it’s finite to match the total of purchasing everything, so the player needs to practice good spending habits to consider which item from the shop is more important to spend the amount accumulated on and/or they should be conservative.

I want the player to explore in this sort of playground-esque experience, before resorting to a spoiler-free walkthrough for the endings, so I will probably include the optional walkthrough in-game after the second or third playthrough.

As for what the player will be casually doing, the gameplay is very much choice-driven, whilst also taking inspiration from point-and-click adventure games from my youth.

The player is granted a lot of freedom in the actions they can do, whilst moving around the map, and bracing the consequences of their actions in a game that remembers what you do.

There’s no day progression like Goddess Maker, just a subtle implication of time passing, with each level up moving the ascension story forward, but the content available being as the player left it.

And although something I fear might add an unreasonable amount of time, I do plan to have interactive backgrounds comprised of many layers that change based on the player’s actions.

I had the idea for this style of game for a while, so I’m going in with a bit more of a thought, and I am confident that I can provide a fun, repetitive gameplay experience.

Content Rating

Given the project’s intended public release, this project will stray away from explicit sexual content like penises and the like since it’s meant as a full game promotion for Ascension Simulation and its premium Goddess Maker project, so expect something more like SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim where it’s safe enough to be platformed without the threat of a modern anti-sexual content persecution, but still offer the fetish content.

Also, though the original work didn’t feature giantesses and ended on an unprepared ending where the goddess that Heather became was aura farmed and not shown off in her full glory, this project has the opportunity to expand on it and include the desired giantess content.

Connections to Goddess Maker

Despite the reused assets and code, I still haven’t decided if Goddess Maker and Project Deae Ex AS occupy the same interconnected universe or not, as currently I’m treating them as separate, but it’s possible I might try to connect them like having Phase Alpha take place before “Lab of God” and have Phase Omega take place in the background of Month 7 or somewhere as appropriate. 

And if characters appear in both games due to the reusability principle, it’s an easy excuse to say that they’re in the same world and furthering the connections by sharing the same exposition explanation from A.3’s big lore dump.

Also given the shared assets, I am frankly also developing parts of A.3.1 through Project Deae Ex AS’s development like for some of the meals in Goddess Maker that are visually placeholders, that Project Deae Ex AS will develop them to fill up a checklist, likely the one to be used in the Phase Omega half given the stakes are higher and more ambitious nutrients are required for a higher ascension than Phase Alpha.

Update Schedule

On the subject of the release schedule for this new project, though I implied a single development stretch in my poll’s premise, I think it’s more reasonable to split up Phase Alpha and Phase Omega, since they’re inherently separate.

The development build release timeline will likely look like this:

- Development on Phase Alpha

- Release of Phase Alpha to Paid Members for Troubleshooting, Early Experience, Feedback, etc.

- Development on Phase Omega

- Release of Phase Omega to Paid Members for Troubleshooting, Early Experience, Feedback, etc.

- Public Release of Project Deae Ex AS

Note when I get to the public release of Project Deae Ex AS, the final title will unlikely be “Deae Ex Machinis” given most people don’t know what “Deae” means, so something like “Goddess of the Machines” or “Goddess EX” will be more appropriate with the subheading “Adaptation of the story “Deae Ex Machinis” by Mr. Greyman.”.

Now as this preliminary plan has been published, today I start the development of this project that should realistically span the next few months.

My next community update will be the character designs for Heather and Adam.