The New Brothel #4 + Everything you need to know for the coming months (Pixiv Fanbox)

Hello everyone,

This post will serve two purposes. First of all, I'll show you the last element of the brothel I can show you (the recap screen) and maybe mention a few elements I've forgotten to talk about earlier. Then I'll talk about different things that are mainly gravitating around schedule, dates and The Hunter 2.

Let's start with the brothel!

Recap Screen

After you've validated each slot for the brothel and launched the night, the pixel animations will be playing while you'll see the money increase. After everything reached the end, you'll be brought to this screen.

Each part of the brothel will appear as a line that will detail its content. Right now, there are only two available rooms so you only have two lines. And yes, it means that once the brothel will be completely unlocked, you'll have more than 20 lines. But don't fret, you'll be able to press Escape to skip everything and directly click on "End the night" to move on.

Now if you're interested in the details, we implemented all the necessary information in there.

The first thing you'll be seeing is the experience earned. The little circle around the rank will fill based on the total XP needed to reach next rank and the XP earned during the night. If the XP earned is enough to progress, the rank will change and you'll see that with a little green arrow on the right of it.

When it happens, extra elements are shown. That's why they appear on Caitlyn's side and not the Zombie Dog's: that's because Caitlyn earned a rank.

Gaining a rank will change the following elements: A girl will see her Look/Professionalism/Charisma stats increase (values are different for all girls, and some girls can gain rank without earning values in one of those). Then you'll see how much she can earn per night (here, Caitlyn will earn +$10 every night.)

For most cases, the salary will also increase (Caitlyn's an exception due to her personality), and if the girl earns a new fetish or a new attribute, it will be also shown.

The last part is the right part where you have a half-detailed recap of how the total is calculated. And lastly, we put the final total of the line in big numbers for people wanting to focus on that mainly.

The very last line contains both the button to finish the night AND the definite earnings. As you can see, the global night income is higher than the total earned. That's because the creatures maintenance money needs to be substracted. And as the game will progress, Kaya will be confronted to things that she'll need to pay on a regular basis if she wants them done. The money used for those side elements will be deducted here.

Be careful though: if you spend a night WITHOUT opening the brothel, those amounts will still be removed. But as the game gets bigger it should be less and less of a problem, don't worry x)

That's all for the recap screen. Due to time constraint, we won't implement the reputation system for the brothel for the moment. We still have things to fix about what I've already shown you and we won't have the time to add this feature. Which leads me to the second part of the post about the future.

Estimation of the next update release

I won't beat around the bush. At the end of this week, I'll have to leave for a week (until Sunday February 5th) for family reasons. While I'll bring my work with me, I'd like to take that chance to disconnect a bit. Even when I take breaks or during my days off, I always boot up my PC, check mails, Discord etc... and even sometime work on stuff, so I never really disconnect. The last time I did was for the final release of the first The Hunter (which was in October 2019.) So this time, I'll work for the first few days but I'd like to keep a couple of days completely disconnected :x

Don't worry, it doesn't change anything: even if I wasn't leaving, the game wouldn't have been ready before January 31st. It would have been finished content-wise, but the testing session will be very heavy (and I have to do it in cooperation with Hime, so it's even longer.) So technically, unless something terrible happens, the next update will be released during the week between February 6th and 12th.

What's going on after?

We have a clear and precise goal with Hime for after this release. This holds in two key elements :

- Keep improving/polishing the brothel

- Never have to face the same kind of update than the current one

It's terrible because it won't show in the update but honestly, it took soooooooo long to reach this with the brothel. For the whole month of January Hime had to work EVERY day after her own work to help making the release faster (and even though we're still releasing it during February.) We've been at it since mid-October and it wasn't pleasant. I've already said it, I plaid guilty. I never imagined the brothel would take so long, so I added stuff to the schedule (namely the battle revamp and the pixel gallery.) I shouldn't have done that. At least, it's done, now.

Strong from that experience I've planned things properly for the future. To avoid this kind of problem, we'll be releasing smaller updates, each improving the brothel and polishing other elements. Basically, the main scenario will not progress during those updates. There will be side quests (one big enough to be considered a main scenario element) and new girls to hire, but the main scenario will be on stand by so we can release stuff regularly. The goal is to use those updates to reach a point where the brothel will be completely finished.

When I say "small updates" I mean roughly 1 month-long ones. Because it's another thing that is bothering me. Between SoV3 in 2020, SoS in 2021 and now TH2 in 2022 the end of years are ALWAYS stuck with content taking ages and not allowing me to make regular releases. So it's another reason I want to make smaller updates. So you can something to enjoy every month.

When and What?

In terms of planning, if the next update's released around mid-February like it's planned, then you can expect each update to follow the same pattern (mid-March, mid-April etc...). I'll take a day or two to update SoV2's bugs but that shouldn't ruin the schedule. Of course it's "roughly" a month. Depending on the update it might take an extra week. But not more.

As for the "what" I decided to give you the roadmap I gave myself so you can have a clear idea of where we're going and what you should wait after this update. Some update might seem small but that's usually because when I write "new H scenes", it can be 2 or 5 depending on what I want to do x)

March Update (0.26):

- New H scenes

- New girl to hire

- Rework/Polishing of the whole furniture part of the brothel (in terms of UI too to fit the new brothel UI)

- Integration of a real menu for the brothel

- Integration of the reputation system in the brothel

- New conversations with some NPCs

- Integration of the Commemoration plaque in Ambriosa for +$30 patrons

April Update (0.27):

- New H scenes

- New NPC to slutify

- Finishing the revamp/polishing of the battle UI

- Addition of creature boss to farm token

- Integration of the Leisure places in the brothel

- Integration of the Index in the brothel

- Integration of a new gameplay element that can lead to conversations (lore) or H scenes

May Update (0.28):

- New H scenes

- New NPC to slutify

- New girl to hire

- Revamp of the "Character" submenu

- New side quests in the Poor District

- Possibility to buy the second floor of the brothel and prepare each room outside of leisure places

June Update (0.29):

- New H scenes

- Integration of leisure places in the second floor of the brothel

- New NPC to slutify

- Integration of the quest to pay Zoey back

- Integration of a new gameplay element that can lead to H scenes

- New side quests

- Early scenario elements for the major update afterward

- New creature to hunt for the brothel

July Update (0.3):

- New H scenes

- Integration of one of the biggest side quest of the game (including new NPCs)

- Integration of the main scenario elements with a new area to unlock in Ambriosa and new NPCs to meet

- New girl to hire

- New side quests

This is the current roadmap. If we manage to reach July and do everything listed above, then it's a win. From this point onward Hime shouldn't have lots of things left to do in terms of "new" things to code and it should make her breathe. On my side, those months without having to create huge-ass maps everytime will also help being quicker for the rest ^^'

And I'm sure the majority of you are wondering...

Where the heck is Slice of School in that planning?

Well, if assets are ready somewhere during those months, I'll make a Slice of School update. Since I have no idea how long those will take to do, I prefer making a full TH2 schedule because I can see things more clearly. Of course many things can change through the course of those 6 months, but to be honest, now that I'm really focused on TH2 and I know exactly what I've done and I need to do, I'd like to avoid switching project and lose time re-learning everything. So there's a world where even if the assets are ready before July, I decide to keep on working on TH2 (more stuff will be drawn in that case and the next SoS update will be bigger, don't worry :p)

Okay, I think I've said everything I wanted to say. Considering I'll be leaving by the end of this week you'll understand this is my last post before the release of TH2's next update (unless something specific happens.) That's why I wanted to detail everything with you.

I'll see you next time for the next release! o/