Reflections on 1.11 & 1.12 (Patreon)
Content
Two weeks ago we released version 1.11, the university year 1 update. Like I said in last week's report, I’m not crazy with the way it turned out.
I really like the avatar art in 1.11; I think Victoria did a great job with all the wardrobe changes. Hyneman, Lara and Mihail also did really good work on implementing the new character sheet, and Hyne also significantly improved the dice UI.
In terms of the story, I liked how it set up some cool new side quests:
An optional university “fuck buddy” kind of relationship (Simon)
An optional university affair relationship (Hot Prof)
NPC friends, a part-time job, and a major hobby
All these threads have tons of potential – I’ve got dozens of scene ideas that I had to cut. However, we didn’t have enough time to develop any of them properly. The result is that – to me, anyway – they all feel kind of perfunctory to play through, lacking in branches and decision points.
I also think the sex scenes themselves were a bit underwhelming. I experimented with a new mechanic (where each partner rolls their Sexpert skill to make the other orgasm), which led to sex scenes which feel very mechanical and more focused on orgasms than sex.
Now we’re tracking the RPG mechanics on the character sheet, I feel like they’re falling flat: the wide selection of character attributes and skills is capable of modelling almost anything...but hardly any of them are actually being used.
TLDR: I'm not happy with 1.11.
Version 1.12 will be a narrative experimentI wasn’t crazy about 1.11...but there wasn’t any kind of fan backlash. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just carry on in the same vein for 1.12 (early release target: Apr 30), and release the next chunk of university content.
But instead, I want to try a narrative experiment.
So, instead of continuing the university experience, we’re going to skip ahead to some spy stuff in the new engine, and see what you guys think.
How will it work?
When you start 1.12, you won’t play through the heroine’s childhood again. Instead, after character creation, you’ll jump straight to a scene where she’s working as an intelligence officer.
You’ll be able to play through the story setup, a nude scene and a sex scene.
OutcomeAfter you’ve played 1.12, we’ll gather fan feedback here and on Discord. If you guys want us to finish the Lifepath, we’ll go back to uni in 1.13. If you want us to continue from 1.12, we’ll do that instead.
Does this mean the Lifepath is being cut?No, I have loads of scenes I want to write for it myself, and literally dozens of community-contributed scenes. The plan is to temporarily bypass it in 1.12 as an experiment, then get fan feedback on the experiment.
Okay – that's the plan for 1.12! If you have any questions ask them here or on Discord, and of course I'll keep you guys posted on progress over the next few weeks.