Check-in about 0.4 date + screenshots (Patreon)

Hi! It's september so time for another checkin and what should be the last one before the 0.4 release. I am slightly behind schedule but that's okay because I have solutions to get it here in september still.

Where are we at

I now have a functional coffee date. It includes the remnants of the old conversation mechanics where the girl talks to you as well as the new ones where you pick a subject. It's not as filled in as I wanted it to be but that'll come.

The game now tracks daily stats for each girl. This means that if you turn her on on a date, you got a bigger chance of getting a bootycall later or that if you had a good conversation in the morning she's more likely to accept an evening date. These "reset" at night but they áre based on the consistent relationship scores so you'll start with a higer score based on how good your relationship is. It sounds complicated but it's actually kinda simple for me because I don't have to track each interaction seperately and can just reference a simple score.

For personalities I decided to switch it up ágain from the archetype idea into a yes/no thing. This means a girl can either be selfish or empathetic, mean or kind, introverted or extraverted, funny or serious. This gives me an easy way to decide her reactions in each situation and pick one of two options. Now I just have to update 200+ characters to this new system. Yay!

It's all still rough but it works and I think it's a great framework to improve upon. This coffee date will be the base for all dates to come. I decided on a sort of "menu" style over a story style where you get to pick what you do after each conversation is done. This allows for me to use the same setup for each date but update the options easily, making it dynamic and reusable for many date locations to come.

Travel mechanics are fully working now. I got the new cars perfected. Gas use and mechanical breakdowns are working as intended and the garage system is working again tracking which cars are at which house. To finish this all off I overhauled the car dealership and changed the performance shop into a workshop for repairs ánd upgrades. I also added a new towing business that will be available to buy eventually.

Screenshots are censored for nudity and to keep the identity of business owners a surprise :)

I've also been perfecting the extras system and it is working as intended. You can form a basic relationship with a lot of girls that work at the various stores and such. Don't expect too much right now but this is the framework for a lot of fun stuff. I use almost exclusively (amateur) prnstars so that I have access to many fun scenes and events with all of these girls to write later on.

I also finished the story that connects the new business mechanics to the main streaming business 90%. I will be trying to finish it up this weekend. I will not be showing anything yet because I want it to be a surprise just like the rest of the story overhaul :)

So when is it dropping?

I will drop it in september. That's all I can say really. I hope it'll be next week but it might not be because new things keep popping up.

I do have a plan to change the way the game updates, hopefully no longer requiring new savegames for each update. I plan to add a way to "upgrade" your save file after an update so that the game sets up the new variables and objects only without resetting the old ones. This will make hotfixing and frequent updating a lot easier. This will be from 0.4 onwards. You will 100% have to start a new save for 0.4, absolutely no way around that.

Be aware that 0.4 will be functional but still very much a beta. I do think there's a lot of fun to be had and I'm very excited to start getting feedback again and work on creating the game together again from that point on with frequent upates, more polls and community involvement. This was definitely a much needed framework overhaul but now that everything is almost in place the groundwork is laid to start adding content and mechanics on top of it, together.

August vote?

I'm sorry for missing the poll last month. I have very little inspiration and a pretty big backlog of girls to add so it hasn't been on my mind a lot. I'll probably do another freestyle this month and just add the top 2 to my list.