Goddess EX: Protagonist “Heather” Overview (Patreon)

Featured Illustration depicts Heather's Growth across Goddess EX's Phase AlphaGoddess Maker A.3.1 Development Update

As development has matured from its early conception stages, there are some big updates to Project Deae Ex AS:

For one, Project Deae Ex AS will now be referred to going forward as Goddess EX, the chosen commercial name for this project.

The name “Goddess EX” was chosen for a combination of reasons, first being because it was short for “example” as this project is intended as an entry point for experiencing an Ascension Fetish game; second, it’s already a Latin-to-English adaptation of “Deae ex Machinis”, after dropping the “Machinis” part; third, it can be interpreted as “Goddess Ex-Girlfriend” which is technically accurate to the narrative even if it’s played superficially; and finally, the name just sounds cool.

Next concerns Goddess EX’s relationship with Goddess Maker and confirmation that Goddess EX is indeed being treated as a spin-off of Goddess Maker, with the Phase Alpha portion taking place prior to events of “Lab of God” and Phase Omega taking place towards the end of Month 7 of “Lab of God”, far away from the main events to allow for obscurity of the specific details to avoid their being a single canon route being referenced across games. 

Therefore there will be character and lore overlap. For example, the Professor in Goddess Maker’s Intelligence Competition Introduction Event and the Professor character featured in Goddess EX will be the same character lore-wise. And although not initially intended, the character’s brief backstory included in the one scene will now be interpreted to connect with Goddess EX’s events, given that it fits really well.

There will be other connections made between the games as well, whilst keeping a keen eye on bolstering the continuity and not running into contradictions.

Also, while Goddess EX is still intended for a self-packaged free release, its definitive and development access will be bundled with Goddess Maker, sorta like a “Goddess EXtra”.

This means that the first beta build of Goddess EX that focuses on Phase Alpha will be included in the Goddess Maker A.3.1 build alongside a new interactive calendar mechanic for deadline management, expansion to the observation mechanic, an expanded debug, and some new character art.

As for the development progress so far, some elements are moving quicker than others, as the gameplay for Phase Alpha is essentially complete because it was designed to be simple and straightforward to implement. 

The collect-a-thon gameplay in Phase Alpha is mapped out with 64 items over 8 locations to collect; however, only ten of those items can be collected per playthrough, with each item’s morality playing into the route divergence mechanic.

I would say that Phase Alpha of Goddess EX is one of those games where its gameplay is wider than its length, like a sandbox of sorts.

And while Phase Alpha is still a type of collection, I already abandoned doing the same gameplay for Phase Omega and instead having it be more linearly routed like walking up stairs only to fall back down to try again.

And in addition to the core gameplay, much writing has also been completed for Phase Alpha, mostly so I can personalize the characters into a form I can visualize in my head, and adapt them in a form that is evolved past the source material and would fit in my fictional imagination.

Overall, in my attempt to create a shorter game, the plan is more manageable to develop; although it is slightly more ambitious than I initially expected an interactive adaptation of an ascension fetish story would take.

Nevertheless, I am committed, and since it is technically now Goddess Maker A.3.1 I'm developing, my main work isn’t being foolishly abandoned for another attempted project.

Heather Character Overview

As the Partner Character “Allia” is the main goddess heroine of Goddess Maker, Heather fulfills the same role for Goddess EX.

Taking inspiration from Mr.GreyMan’s Deae ex Machinis source material and combining my own quirks into the mix, I’ve created quite the interesting character to star in an Ascension Simulation game.

For example, one of my favorite aspects in my take on the Heather character is having her customized Catholic faith be her core ethos. 

And while sidelined in the original work, this Heather is a more overt Catholic to the point where she carries her pocket Bible around to clear her self-doubt and provide her with religious guidance.

Unlike Susanna in Goddess Maker, who is treated as the silent Christian girl archetype, Heather is more motivated and openly evangelical with her beliefs where it becomes her personality quirk. 

She is willing to debate her beliefs and challenge narratives to the point where three of the other seven characters in Phase Alpha tie heavily to Heather’s religious quirks such as Heather’s Father which was retooled as a Catholic Priest, the Professor whose atheism is in conflict with Heather’s evangelism, and new character called Faith whose relationship with religion is inadvertently subverted by Heather’s antics. 

The driving force of Heather’s religiousness also plays a big role in her core ascension motivation as unlike the partner character, who seeks godhood out of a will to power self-determination.

Heather doesn’t seek to replace the god of her religion, instead being convinced she is acting on behalf of god’s plan for her and guided by the belief that she is chosen to receive to correct the wrongs of the world and thus is delivered the means to obtain a superior body to lord over the masses, something she interprets based on her worldview.

This motivation is also a big difference compared to Goddess Maker’s Partner Character, who has to frequently justify her ascension due to the liberal framework of her worldviews, while Heather already possesses the moral confidence and is technically the more mature character of the two, given she has less self-doubt.

Her passionate moral personality aside, Heather is very much designed to be the ever-sexy college girl, with extra care to make her highly seductive with much of her interactions emphasizing her growing breasts and emotional intelligence when paired with the updating reactions of the other characters.

As for Heather’s relation with the other main characters in Phase Alpha, they are:

Father - Representing the attribute “Height”, and is Heather’s moral authority.

Professor - Representing the attribute “Intelligence”, and is Heather’s academic authority.

Mensch - Representing the attribute “Strength”, and is Heather’s masculine authority.

Katty - Representing the attribute “Breasts”, and is Heather’s feminine authority.

Faith - Representing the attribute “Soul”, and is Heather’s spiritual peer.

Porcus - Representing the attribute “Pig”, and is Heather’s material peer.

Adam - Representing “Godhood”, and is Heather’s “Creator’s Remorse” and foil.

Heather’s Growth and Ascension

Heather’s sexy growth in Phase Alpha is titlating, while her revealed ascension to having become a “goddess” in Phase Omega is world-shaking.

With each growth level in Phase Alpha, Heather’s traits are increased, whether growing more intelligent, showcased through her extraordinary class performances, or watching her breasts get bigger, surpassing the other girls around her and developing a cult of popularity around her figure.

Given the tight progression and direct societal involvement, it is a lot more convenient to showcase the psychological effect of growth that takes place on the character experiencing it and being observed by others, to invoke differing responses such as lust, envy, and even fear.

Speaking of fear, given that the morality of choices matters in deciding what to consume in order to watch as Heather ascends to a more ideal form, Heather grows taller as she commits greedy actions like stealing from the store because she is poor instead of working for it, resulting in her growing taller and more forceful like an aspiring bully and causing those around her to panic as she rises closer to becoming a giantess.

For repeat playthroughs, there are four main routes in Goddess EX:

-The Good Route, otherwise the default progression of selecting positive choices in the growth pursuit. The ascension primarily focuses on intelligence, beauty, and breast growth.

-The Green Route, that signifies that the majority of Heather’s actions were greedy and indulgent. The ascension primarily focuses on height growth.

-The Golden Route, a secret route where the ascension primarily focuses on soul growth to acquire psychic powers.

-And the Black Route, where it’s an extra malicious variation of the Green Route where Heather goes past the point of no return of redeeming herself and is truly lost.

Note that the Golden Route and Black Route are intended to be played after the Good and Green Routes for the sake of the experience, so there will likely be a prevention mechanism in the final release.

And from these aforementioned routes, Heather is Ascended to One of Four Order-Corresponding Powerful Forms in Phase Omega*:

-A Prosperity President, where Heather becomes a benevolent dictator and the narrative fetishizes a utopian fetish.

-A Greedy Giantess, where Heather becomes an indulgent giant and the narrative fetishizes size difference.

-A Golden Goddess, where Heather becomes a powerful psychic entity and the narrative fetishizes a pseudo-godhood.

-Or a Black Borganess**, where Heather fuses herself to the planet to become an all-encompassing hive mind and the narrative fetishizes nightmare fuel scenarios.

*Sorted from the least imposing ascended entity to the greatest imposing one, with no true omnipotent ascension, as that is being reserved for Goddess Maker proper.

**Since there’s no good term to explain the phenomenon of becoming powerful through fusion with a planet and its hosted biology in order to become the landmass itself, I took the sci-fi term “Borganism” and “Goddess” to create the term “Borganess”, which feels about right.