Recode Status Update (Patreon)

A few people requested an update on how the recode is coming, and I think it's a very good idea to keep you guys in the loop instead of just waiting until the demo is ready! It's a good time for it too, because I just crossed the first big hurdle!

As of yesterday, I completed "Phase 1" of the recode, which was to 'master' SugarCube, the new story format. Now, I wouldn't actually consider myself a master, but what I mean by that is that I have a strong enough grip on it to not need to keep consulting the documentation for low level stuff, and more importantly I know how to do everything I was doing before in the new format. Because while SugarCube is more powerful and has a lot more options, it comes with the drawback of some basic functions being trickier to implement right.

At the moment, all of the Sam detour(other than the vore scenes) and the normal route up through the first part of the tour is playable and fully functional in the new format, and a majority of the miscellaneous behind the scenes stuff like stat and relationship tracking is also working properly. That may seem like a small amount of the story, but it's a big step. Now that I have a solid grasp of how to properly set everything up, as stated above, the rest should go much faster. I'd estimate it'll take, at most, 2 weeks of work to convert the rest of the non-vore passages, likely less.

"Phase 2" that I'm moving into now, is the overhaul of the vore system, which I'd like to share some details on!

The new system is still being designed and not all the details are hammered down, but I have a good idea of how it's going to work. In fact, here's a behind the scenes look at the guidelines I laid out in my design document:

Ideally, the system should:

-Give the player some agency

-Not detract too much from the story format

-Have some level of strategy(smart players can do better rather than it purely being a numbers game)

-Reward players for partial/minor successes(ie. Escaping a predator’s attempt to swallow you should give a very small amount of experience, swallowing prey should give some experience even if they break out)

-Not have instant losses of any kind

The biggest change will be the introduction of a stamina system to get away from the current "click the button and hope for the best" setup a bit. Basically, you'll have a certain amount of stamina for the day, then during vore scenes you'll have a few options of how hard you want to struggle that cost different amounts of stamina based on how strong/effective they are. There will be weak, normal, and strong options that work like you'd expect, then also an "all out" struggle that guarantees success against any predator that doesn't completely outclass you, but at the cost of a huge amount of stamina. This is referring to prey scenes of course, but pred scenes will have a similar layout of options. Another big change is that in all scenes, it's no longer a simple case of pass/fail where the prey either escapes/moves on to the next 'stage' or takes damage on every struggle attempt, but more details on that at a later date.

The goal in this is to make things more dynamic. As part of that, stamina isn't just involved in vore scenes- what you do during the day can effect it as well. For example, in the current game when you come across Erika on Monday you have the option to walk or run past her, with run allowing you to always avoid Morgan's vore scene with no drawbacks. Once the new system is in place, choosing to run will deplete some of your stamina. And if you hang out with Leah late into the night when you need to be up early in the morning, you'll start the next day with less stamina than normal. Things like that will start to have an actual impact on the game. With the new system, I anticipate that it'll be much easier to survive one encounter with a predator in a day, but tougher to escape multiple in a single day. 

There's a bit more to it, and as I said the design isn't set in stone yet, but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it! Expect another progress update by the end of next week, possibly with a demo of the new prey scene system but no guarantees.

~OO

Recode Progress:

Phase 1: Master - Complete

Phase 2: Vore Overhaul - In progress

Phase 3: Implement and Convert

Phase 4: Format/Layout Overhaul ~~ Expect dev builds to resume somewhere around here

Phase 5: New Scenes (If they weren't written in between other phases)