Weekly Writing Update - 2/24/20 (Patreon)

We're on track for the first two days of the next release (.037) coming out at the end of the week on the 28th, with the third part of the release (.043) coming out next week. The good news is that, with the extra time, I've been able to expand some parts a little more than I originally planned. With that in mind, I thought I'd talk a little bit about Mrs. Maywood's dream sequence in this update, which has now become multiple sequences. 

Like with Jake and Sofia in the past, you'll be able to choose from a handful of dreams in this update and they will essentially lay out the 'paths' for Mrs. Maywood. Just as with the others, you won't have to commit to any one path until the end, but you'll be able to accrue points towards a path by repeatedly choosing that option, which will then color her personality over time. 

The paths for Mrs. Maywood will be as follows: 

1) Reliving College Days - You'll get points towards this one by also using the brown light to party with her when she's younger. It will also have options for sharing/exhibitionism if that's your thing. 

2) Head Mistress - Certain purple light choices will push her towards this as well and it'll essentially be the lane for her to act like your head mistress, training your other subjects to please you in every way possible. The dream in this update will also give a glimpse of a potential future, where she helps you train a character that otherwise wouldn't be available for many years from now.

3) Household Manager - The pink light will mainly help this one. If you're concerned with working your way to the top of her household's hierarchy, then this is the path for you. It'll focus on establishing yourself as the alpha male and there will be options for embarrassing the other members of the Maywood family. I see the difference between this and the Head Mistress mainly being in how much of a role the other Maywoods play in the fantasy. If you just want to take Mrs. Maywood for yourself and don't really care about anything else, then the Head Mistress path would be more interesting. If you specifically want to mess with Mr. Maywood and Brittany, or treat Mrs. Maywood as more of a partner, then this is the path for you. I think it'll be clearer once you've seen the dream for this sequence. 

It should also be noted that all of the other lights can potentially play into these as well, and I intend to start giving 'credit' for certain interactions with Jake, Sofia, and Brittany as well. I'm also going to edit their phone entries so in the 'Current Task' area you'll be able to see exactly how many points you have in each lane right now. 

Aside from expanding Mrs. Maywood's scene in this update, I've also taken care of a bunch of bugs and spelling errors (thanks to an exhaustive list from VikingCrawler). I've also added a couple of big quality of life improvements that I think are going to make everyone VERY happy. 

1) You can now see spell experience in the same way that you can see stat experience, so you'll have a better idea of how close you are to leveling up a given domain. All of the lights and stuff will also be available now from day one if you cheated, you don't have to wait until day two anymore. Note: You still have to wait until day four to actually access major light scenes though.  

2) You can now see the actual value that's affecting character opinions. So before it might have said  'Love (+1): blah blah blah', but now it'll say 'Love Level 1 (30): Blah blah blah'. That'll give you a little more info regarding opinions, though I'd caution you not to spend so much time checking it, otherwise you might go crazy lol. I'll just mention right now that the first day in particular I was giving points out like they were candy, so you'll notice stranger jumps up and down than in other days. Also, there's a point where no matter how high you get Mrs. Maywood's stuff, I clamped it back down to a reasonable level as soon as you met with the succubus on the first day. It's not a bug, it's just me trying to overcompensate for my terrible game design lol. 

3) This is the big one, something I've been trying to figure out how to do since I first started working on this game back in November: CUSTOM SAVE TITLES. In this update, you'll now have a prompt to put whatever you want in for the save title. If you like just having the passage description instead, you can just click cancel on the prompt and it'll save like the old way. But, if you're trying to keep track of six different routes, I think this will be a very useful tool. 

That's pretty much everything I have for right now. I'm looking forward to getting the update in your hands, especially with all of the quality of life improvements.