Course of Temptation Dev Diary #103 (Patreon)

Hello friends, and happy Friday to all. It is time... for another dev diary.

We are on version 0.7.4e, with a bugfix update freshly out just now. Unless some particularly annoying new bug shows its face, there's a decent chance this will be the last update until early access to the January update at the end of the month.

Those of you who were getting the wardrobe errors... I believe I may have successfully suppressed those, however, being unable to reproduce the error despite my best efforts, I still haven't quite gotten to the root cause. But we're closer! I think the problem is now presenting as duplicate clothes sneaking into your wardrobe (it's getting an error trying to search a clothing group, which gets caught and just returns false early, hence it always thinks there's no duplicate present). If this is happening to you, there may be extra info in your browser's console that will help me track down what's behind this issue. If you encounter this, if you can open up your console (F12 on most browsers) and see if there any errors or warnings toward the end, then send those to me either here or on Discord... it would be much appreciated!

Now onto actual development stuff.

This week I'm back to work on what will be the next roadmap update, version 0.8, which will add NPC simulation, background events, some year advancement stuff, and some pregnancy stuff. There was a vacation in there, so it's been an unusually long time since I touched this update, so I had to refamiliarize myself a bit with what I was doing. It's lucky that I write down what I've been doing every week.

I've been deep into pure code, so I don't have screenshots as such. But I can tell you about some new inclinations I added while easing myself back into this update:

Shy: Until now, a "shy" NPC has been considered to be one with either the Loner or Insecure inclinations. This has been "close enough" but doesn't really quite work — after all, somebody can be completely confident but a loner by choice. This will add a bit more nuance to introverted NPCs.

Soft Dom: Existing doms like to spank you and call you degrading names and other things that are all in good consensual fun, but that doesn't really model the full extent of dom-ness. Soft doms prefer a more nurturing form of control that so far hasn't been well-modeled. It'll take some effort to adapt existing content to have this distinction, but the goal is to add more variety to this type of relationship.

Brat: The flip side of the above. Existing subs simply do their best to do as you say (for example, if they're not adhering to your dress code, it's just a bug at this point — they're trying!) but certainly not all subs are like that. Some should defy you deliberately because they like the discipline that ensues, or just enjoy exasperating you.

For a long time, I've intended to add more nuance into D/s relationships, and the NPC sim update seems like a good time for it. I also want to bring the set of rules you can set for submissive NPCs fully in line with the set of rules dominant NPCs can set for you, and adding this nuance suggests both a broader variety of rules and discipline, and the possibility that certain types of subs will knowingly defy you. It all depends on the type of relationship you want to have, and the goal is variety and a better simulation.

Where I actually left off last time, however, was in designing a system to allow the player to influence how NPCs change over time: which relationships they pursue, which inclinations they adopt, or even how fast they progress sexually with their partner. Naturally, not all NPCs want your advice in all things, and the extent of your influence depends on what type of relationship they have with you, the type of change they're considering, and their own inclinations.

One of your best friends may want your advice on whether to date somebody — not that they'll necessarily listen — but will be less concerned about your opinion on whether they take a sexual inclination. Your romantic partner will likely want your opinion on a range of things, but depending on their inclinations, won't necessarily let you actually control their life. Your submissive, on the other hand, will be generally malleable in many things.

I've been accomplishing this by iterating on the systems I've already created for this update — NPCs already decide to pursue a relationship based on how things have progressed with another NPC, or decide to add an inclination based on how their skills have changed. This influence system will add an extra step where the change may be pending awaiting a decision by the player. This will also require writing events that let the player steer an NPC in a particular direction, and events that represent that final nudge, especially for inclinations.

So, this stuff will be my focus for the next little while, though I may also dip into relationship changes some more (cheating still needs to be fully modeled), and maybe getting the broad strokes of some year advancement stuff done. I'll keep going with 0.8 stuff for another week, and then it'll be time to shift focus to the January update! So it goes.

That's all for now! I'll be back next week with another progress report. As always, thank you so much for your support, I couldn't do it without you. Have a good weekend!