Succubus Stories v0.8.0 Update Preview (Patreon)

It's version 0.8.0 already. 

That's seven updates, eight major releases. 

Not quite an anniversary, true, but we are getting somewhere, aren't we? 

I'll be honest, some days it seems like we haven't made it far; the numbers are never where I'd like them to be and there's not a lot of chatter or apparent excitement about the game out there. Though, I should say, we are trending, however slowly, in a good direction. Plenty good enough for me, at least. 

But sometimes it's good to sit back, look at what you're making, and let yourself feel good about it. Not every two-bit adult game with the two dreaded tags--text-based and 3DCG--makes it to a version number like 0.8. It's not a small feat. And it's thanks, of course, to you guys for your support.

As I've been scrambling around elbow-deep in the guts of the game's system trying to add support for futanari content and responsive crowds in public encounters, I couldn't help but reflect on when I first laid some of these lines of code down. I guess I realized it's been a long journey and I barely noticed that until now. Thank you all so much. I don't think I always know quite how to show it, and I really wish my patron tiers and rewards were nicer, but I do really appreciate it. I know it's a bit cheesy--I've seen creators, like YouTubers and streamers and even some other adult game devs, say how much the support means to them and always thought it was a bit much, but now I know the feelings are genuine. It's validation. It's camaraderie. It's true that it's certainly not friendship or a deep relationship of any kind, but it is hard to put into words the sense of appreciation you feel to total strangers, and the kinship you feel with them for validating your aspirations.

So thank you. Of course to my patrons, but even if you're not a patron, I appreciate you playing, at least. But seriously, fork over the cash this ain't a charity.

What was I doing? Oh yeah. Update preview.

The Update Preview Starts Here, Sorry

Version 0.8.0 does not have a title quite yet. I'm workshopping some ideas. I have a feeling this is gonna be a big release for us, so I want to get the title right! There aren't a awful lot of futanari games out there right now, so I think a lot of users will probably check it out just based on having that content in it, so I want to make a good first impression. I know I'm like the only adult game dev who titles all of their updates, but this sort of thing is really important to me.

The release date is settled, however. Version 0.8.0 will release on April 24th for patrons and it will come to the free edition on May 1st. If you've been keeping up with the development of this update you'll probably know that's a few days later than I originally wanted, but the technical aspects of this update were a bit complicated. Pure written content-wise I think it's a tiny bit shorter than the last one, but I'm hoping the new and interesting features and the overall quality of everything makes up for it. Like I alluded to in the long, rambling intro, I'm pretty proud of this update and the state of the game in general.

So let's talk about what's in it.

New Story!

Chapter 3 is a bit of a turning point in the game, and this update brings us to right about the mid-point of the story. Fittingly, this is where the shoe drops, and we start getting more answers than questions. While I think tight deadlines and a slightly more linear structure than I wanted do make it a bit less impactful than my grandiose outline had suggested, I am excited to finally hit a major turning point in the plot.

And the hooks for some more non-linear plotting do exist. After I finish the story, I intend to do a few passes on expanding it and making it wider and deeper. That's not to say I'm not confident in what's here or that it's defective. Instead, please be excited for what the future holds, even after the game is nominally "done."

New Requests and Activities

The big addition here is the futanari content. For right now, futa potions only work on the player character, not on NPC women. That will change in the future, though, I promise! To start using futa potions on yourself, and to find the recipe for making them, you will need to complete a relatively simple quest in the market. You can complete this quest very early and it's rather simple and straightforward. I didn't want it to be too much of a roadblock.

The futanari content is added mostly to existing activities. For example, when you go to masturbate or engage in certain sex scenes, if you have a futanari potion, you can use it to do a different version of that activity or event. Some futanari-only content and activities, probably related to perks, will be coming in future updates.

Futanari/male is not a thing right now and I do not plan to add it. Never say never, but I want to be straight with you. I'm not opposed to it, but I don't find it particularly sexy and I don't think I could do it justice. So at least for now, I have no plans for it.

New art has been added to compliment the futanari scenes, ten renders in all!

That's not all that's here though. Some other new content has also been added, including a brand new, pretty detailed activity involving bathing people in a certain manner, as well as some other stuff I'll leave for you to find.

In addition to the futa request I have one other one in the game right now, and I started a third. I'm not sure if I'll finish the last one. If I don't I may sneak it in for the free edition, as is my custom.

New Progression and Potions

Basic progression for futanari content has been added, though it doesn't do a whole lot right now. In addition, some new potions have been added. One particularly interesting new potion, not the futa potion, adds a lot of new options to a lot of scenes, though using it is...we'll say it's mean-spirited. It may take a bit to unlock it; try making some new potions to advance your alchemy level!

I also added a couple other new potions I've been meaning to add for a bit, though none are as big a deal as the ones specifically mentioned.

In accordance with the poll for $10 patrons from not too long ago, more substantial changes will be coming to alchemy in the future.

Crowds

As sort of the last hurrah that didn't quite make it into the last update because I ran out of time, I added the crowd actor to encounters that take place in public. I intended to add this for a while, but it takes an amount of work that I think would probably surprise you to add a whole new actor and scene container to the encounter system. Lots of nitty-gritty, hand editing of spaghetti code and careful changes to not break all the stuff.

This addition would have been a perfect fit for the theme of v0.7, it's honestly a real shame it didn't make it! But it's in now, and I think it actually adds quite a bit of dynamism to those encounters.

My quest with the exhibitionism content in Succubus Stories has always been to make the world reactive regarding your lewd antics, and I think this is one of the last major additions needed to make that a reality.

Portraits, Art, and Music

That's not all though. Portraits for a new important character have been added, as have new CGs. A few of them are even non-lewd because certain moments in the story actually got a CG or two! Wow!

I also did a bit of touching-up for previously added portraits. Also, some players may not be seeing portraits at all in v0.7, that will be fixed. Mea culpa on that.

I've also added some brand new music tracks to the game, as there were a few moods and tones I needed to cover going forward that the current songs couldn't quite hit, so you may notice some new tunes as you play.

Roland will be getting the next set of portraits. This will probably not happen in v0.9; I think it's more likely to happen in the following version.

Interface

Finally, a small change. Going forward, the game's dark mode will be the default theme. Players who already play the game should be unaffected, and anyone who wants to can still switch back to the light mode from the settings menu. The reason for this change are that many players complain about the game being too bright, and seemingly do not bother to check the game's settings before, apparently, quitting. While this is like, 100% a player issue--it's literally not my fault if you keep your screen brightness too high and don't check settings menus--I do think it's in the best interest of the game to maybe go with the dark mode as the default. Dark mode is just less controversial; people who prefer a light theme are not as likely to outright quit if the theme is dark, while people who prefer dark mode are not as accommodating, at least seemingly.

As you can imagine, I do stare at the game a lot, and I switch between the modes semi-frequently, and I actually like both themes, so changing to the dark theme isn't like a big deal to me, either, and maybe it is better-looking, I don't know, I'm not a good judge of that, I made them both and they're pretty similar.

The way I did this should hopefully only effect new players, not ongoing games. If you already have a save file and have played the game, I expect the mode to stay in whatever you left it on last, so this is more of a heads-up than anything.

To reflect this change, the game's Itch.io pages have been altered to match the dark mode. I will eventually replace the screenshots, too probably, since the UI has come a ways since those shots were taken, but that's low priority for now.

There Will Be No May Update

Reminder that I'm moving to a longer 6-8 week dev cycle starting with the next update! There won't be another update until sometime in June, so we're skipping all of May! If you feel that you don't want to pay for months where no releases come out, I understand your reasoning, but please know that I will be working on the game at about the same rate as before, so all I ask is that you consider that before making a decision.

Anyway, thanks for bearing with this very long update preview. I know it's a little all over the place, I would edit it down more if I had the time, but I've still got a lot of work to do on the update. I appreciate you sticking with it to the end!