September State of the Games (Patreon)

September State of the Games

Why hello there, Patrons!  Thanks to your support, this patreon has crossed its first goal!  I'm going to start making a monthly post like this where I outline the current status of my games and opening up a forum for you all to tell me what's working, what's not, and what you'd like to see.

Since this is the first one of these, let's start with the games that are DONE.  Boobjitsu Matriarch is complete and finished, and under the hood is such a godawful mess of Twine code that I shudder to even think about opening it up again.  But it plays just fine, which is the important thing.  Throne of the Size Queen is likewise complete, which was easy cause it's so simple.  When Morfology updates again, I'll probably do a compliance check to keep it working, but I do not foresee any significant changes.

The Pixiespawn Festival occupies a strange halfway place.  The game is complete: you can play it start to finish just fine (and it's my favorite to play, myself).  I do have some scattered notes for things that can still be added, but I'm honestly not sure it's worth the effort.  This may wait for inspiration for expansions that just have to be in there.  If anybody has thoughts or really wants to see more Pixiespawn, I'd love to hear from you.

The Cloister of Abundant Communion is nowhere near finished, but is another Twine game that's already unwieldy to edit and test.  The only path forward that I see for the Cloister starts with a port into Contrail.  I have nebulous ideas on what else might be found in the Cloister, and some even vaguer plans for the plot.  But this one never seemed to catch people's interest, so the Cloister might just slip into that most shameful of categories, the Abandoned and Unfinished Game.  Have any of you been silently waiting for an expansion there?

I'm honestly kind of stuck on Marooned of Teayeph VI, and while I know this game has at least one diehard fan (who has made their own mods and things for it; I was hella impressed), I'm not sure if anybody else is clamoring for more.  It's kind of an odd duck in terms of presentation, with all your crewmates radioing in their strange encounters and transformations.  I have old notes for further expansion, including some actual plot sort of things (drones in the wilderness, shadowy figures called the Master and the Hive Queen).  Barring some unexpected enthusiasm or a stroke of inspiration, though, this game will probably stay on the backburner.

Which brings us to the Contrail games, which are both in active development.

Escape from the Citizen Factory feels like it's so close to complete—it's only got a handful of rooms left—but when I open it up I realize that the last leg requires a whole bunch of inter-team communication and interaction, including a lot of sex scenes with variable bodies (which is, you know, my thing).  Basically you need to uncover who the traitor is to escape, and to do that you've got to win the trust (or inspire the outspoken disdain) of your crew.  And because it's one of my games, you do that by fucking them, or having them fuck each other.  And that's a lot of code.  I've also got the traitor set up as different each game to enhance replayability, and that makes the code even more complicated—and increasingly feels like a mismatch for the game's puzzles, which won't change in a New Game.

One way forward is to remove the traitor element of the game entirely, which would vastly simplify the last few rooms, and let me shelve this game in the Complete category with one last expansion.  Has anybody really been looking forward to unmasking the traitor?

By contrast, Ensign XenoFucker is all open horizons.  The next planned expansion introduces the Fabricator, which will allow you to fabricate clothes and sex toys.  There'll probably be a little mini quest where you're tasked with designing the uniform for Morale Officers.  Sex toys will allow you to train most sex skills (with the rest trainable in the Gymnasium), and should be usable in sex scenes as well.  There's one more expansion after that and then all the core code and gameplay will be in place, which means I start in on shore leave, away missions, more espionage, and developing the story.

XenoFucker is definitely getting more love, and soon.  The only question is one of priorities: should I first put some work in on the Factory or another game, or go full steam ahead on the new hotness?

It feels good—and slightly overwhelming—to list all this out.  And it looks like Patreon has some polling functionality, so I've set one up below.  If I've got this right, you can vote for more than one option, too.  I'd really like to hear back from you on what you'd like to see, whether that's voting in the poll or spouting off in the comments.

Stay horny, pervs!

—DS