May update + Screenshots (Patreon)

Hi all! I hope that wherever you are the weather's as good as it is here. Let's get into this month's checkin.

Ella takes the winMay is here and last month's poll is done. To my surprise, Ella Purnell took the win but Margaret was just five votes behind and Eiza again just five behind that. The results were so close that I'll be considering adding all three but for now Ella has priority.

Development on the fast track againSo, where are we at with development? Things are looking good. My home situation is good again and I'm back on my medicated coding grind. I've been perfecting the business side mostly, creating systems to manage employees as well as fixing bugs in the whole income side of things. It's all working and I don't want to pat myself on the back but I will because all of it looks pretty good.

I know it's an insanely long wait but I'll say it again: this is the first proper build of the game as it was intended. This is when things will start being truly fun. There's so many new features and the game world truly feels dynamic and alive now as I always intended it to be. I hate that I've made you all wait this long but it was necessary to break things to build them back up. But it'll be worth it.

Itch io -> downloadI am running into a small problem. The game might be becoming too big for itch.io with this update. I've added hundreds of image files alone, as well as video, music, sound effects and so much more. The game is bloating and it might have to become a downloadable stand-alone thing. I'll look into making a mobile version because I know people like to play on the go as well.

This is sad because I like the availability of it being web-based but I can't let that hold the game back. I'll start considering self-hosting as well.

Screenshots

The new gig system will help you earn some cash and tokens by helping celebrities out. This replaces the dull doordash and food delivery. It's simplistic for now offering only pickup gigs but will be expanded on later.

The major businesses all have an LA X app page to track your stats and see what's going on. Also, each business has a unique name now that you're free to change when you own them.

The barbershop is just one of the businesses that has had a major overhaul. It'll be an experience you'll want to go back to instead of just a dull click.

Here you see the employee management system I coded this week. For each business you can manage each employee seperately. You can raise their pay, give them a bonus, talk to them or train their skills to match your business' needs. Employee skill and happiness influences the income of your businesses.

The ETAThe ETA on the game hasn't changed much. I still aim to release in the summer. Some things might not be perfect but that's what y'all are for! Playtesting!

The biggest issue I'm still struggling with are the date + conversation + relationship mechanics which are all intertwined and just so incredibly complicated. There's so much to keep track of and it all has to work together. I'm getting there though. Girlfriends are sort of working (marriage probably won't be done for this update), the lunch date is doing okay 90% of the time and once that's done it's a semi-simple "copy-paste-change some stuff" job from there on.

New sex mechanics are also really complicated. If necessary I'll ship with the old ones or a mix of both and just work from there.

Final words on moneyI hate asking but please keep on supporting me! Taxes just came and it was brutal plus my car just broke down so it's been kinda rough. Patreon income has been down which is 100% my fault for taking ages and dropping the paywall on the game. I hope to regain a lot of confidence and income when this update drops but every dollar helps until then :) Thanks for your continued support and I'll update as soon as I have something to share.