Course of Temptation Dev Diary #122 (Patreon)

Hello friends! It's Friday, that magical time where the weekend looms and dev diaries frolic... okay, I'll level with you, I never have any idea what I'm going to put in this intro paragraph until I start typing it.

Anyway, this week I shifted focus to the May monthly update. As you may have noticed if you've been around for a little while, I have a habit of getting part of the update done by early access and then trying to develop it even more between early access and public release, whereas ideally, I'd have it all just about complete by the early access deadline. I can't promise I'll actually be breaking this habit anytime soon, but I am going to try to be better at it this month in particular.

Why this month, you ask? Because, if I can manage it, that'll give me four solid weeks in May to finish up the last critical tasks for 0.8, start playtesting and smoothing off the rough edges, and, if all goes well, get it into early access by the end of that month. I can't promise that'll definitely happen, since it could need more work than I anticipate or I could get hit by a meteorite or something, but it is my goal.

In any case, I'm committed to delivering something for you once a month, so, for now, that brings us to the next monthly update.

I've been putting a lot of work into the art skills for the past couple updates — I wanted them to be distinct from the writing skill, and further, I wanted them to be at least a little distinct from each other. I'm about ready to move on from art stuff for the time being, but I did want to first implement the equivalent of art commissions for photographers: doing client shoots for extra cash.

Once you're well-known, talented, or both, clients may seek you out for photo sessions in the same way that they seek artists for commissions as of the last update. They'll want different types of shoots — basic headshots all the way up to boudoir or even nude shoots.

The type of shoot will alter how nervous they are about it, but if you take the time to relax them or build trust, you can get a better shoot out of them. This is, of course, affected by their inclinations — exhibitionist NPCs are less nervous about nude shoots.

This new system kinda kills two birds with one stone, as my main goal with this month's update is to add more erotic events generally. I've got the basics of photo shoots done, and my plan now is to get some other things done and then come back around to flesh them out more. "Why don't we try some poses without the bra?" and such, if you're so inclined, and if you've built rapport, they may go along with that. Or even more.

As part of this, I also took some time to implement a new hidden attitude for trust. Like the hidden attitudes anger and suspicion, this mostly works in the background and only surfaces for certain things. Trust will tend to build naturally as you're kind to an NPC, have enjoyable hangouts or dates, and have positive encounters. And, of course, NPCs can lose trust too, though you generally have to be going out of your way to do this. Currently, positive trust doesn't do much in most interactions, but mistrust will absolutely affect how an NPC responds to you and how willing they are to go further in a relationship with you. Trust also plays a role in client photo sessions, as it forms the basis for how much rapport you start with in a session.

As for other events, I'll be looking to add them kind of all over the place. Whenever I see a suggestion I like or suddenly get an idea, I put it on my development shortlist, and over time, I've accumulated many ideas for events that I just haven't gotten around to yet. Well, this month, the time has come for some of them.

For example, we have this classic scenario:

So, that's what I'm up to! It's going to be a big few days for writing, and I'll get through as many of these events as I can. All together, these should provide some new content for a variety of playstyles. Is there anything you would particularly like some attention paid to? A location that could use an event set, or certain events added to an existing set? Let me know!

That's all for now! Thank you for reading, and as always, I'm very grateful for your support. Early access for the May update is due next Thursday, so there probably won't be a dev diary on Friday, since the changelog will pretty much say it all. But in any case, I hope you have a good weekend!