Slaves expansions and revamps (Patreon)

Firstly, I'd like to briefly mention, that there's some work ongoing related to overall gui and playability (as you could see from new inventory) in which I basically try to make my old clunky scripts into more reasonable stuff. Not only that, but I do also make plans regarding art for most lacking parts of the game. Hopefully we will see lots of improvements in next month. 

Now onto my big concern and stuff I've had lots of considerations for quite some time. When I originally created slave stat system I had pretty bare-bone concept at that time: it should be fairly straightforward yet unique, so courage-confidence-wit-charm thing came to light, supported with skills from side. 

Then things changed: we gained combat and energy, so I also had to implement abilities and physical stats (str, agi etc). At that point skill system became somewhat redundant, as combat is basically strength and body control is an agility. However, after the introduction of new sex unlocks system, I feel like old skill system has completely outlived itself: there's no point in sexual proficiency if you can literally measure number of unlocked and practised actions. Final obvious issue, is how many jobs and tasks are actually reliant on the Service skill. 

So, to sum it up, I plan to lighten up whole skill system, remove combat and sex stuff and maybe expand Service skill slightly, depending on how it will look like. I might entirely scramble it into something different, but in any case I feel like this should be done, as we already have to many important stats (and probably more to come), and having lots of non-obvious choices is not very good design (like choosing between spending point on combat or on strength). Actually, skillpoint system requires some additional revisions as well, but I gonna leave it to next time. 

Now about the new complexities.

Gear and items

Technically, you could've guessed it from new inventory system, but I actually planned onto expanding this aspect next in collaboration with explorable world. Basically, I want to make inventory something more than thing you sometimes stumble upon when in need of a potion. With that, slaves will have gear slots. I don't think I'll go above 4-5 slots, but you can be sure they will be important.

Obviously, clothes will make into gear and will have to be acquired first, but give some reasonable benefits. Influence behavior, magic gear which would unlock new options or block displeasing actions. Speaking of those benefits, I also want to solve another long-lasting problem - an overly straightforward late game. 

Firstly, I will be redesigning job options. I want to make reputation more significant at that and also explore more interesting options. I will try to keep it relatively simple early on, so forage should still be your obvious early way to go and such, but I'll have to actually sit down and draft new plan on that. I imagine making new job system should be pretty simple and fun, so we can expect to see it by the end of a month. 

Lastly, the thing I have most doubts about: let's call it 'demand' system (for the lack of better word in my head). Basically, the idea is to make slaves of higher upbringing (trying also to renovate cast system here) will require better conditions to stay obedient and cooperate with you to their fullest. Things like personal room, better clothes and accessories, pocket cash or cosmetic procedures would be demanded by them, or they would suffer in obedience or stats drop. Maybe also limit lower class slaves in some way. I feel like system like that would make the most in gameplay sense: early game stays mostly the same, but for greater slaves you would have to bear some expenses. Obviously, there would also be some way to lower/raise slave's caste and expectations.

Lastly, I have a mild temptation to make more non-valuable items which would serve as selling loot and would be acquired from encounters to be sold to the vendors, with an additional job for slaves to sell them for you.

That's about it for this week, I'm sorry if next release will take some time, as I actually readjust some code sections for better performance and interactivity, there has been not too many additions yet. 

Final thing: next week I'll be doing Questions&Answers, so if you have something you want me to talk about in details, send your question here  anonymously or post in the comments below, I'll be answering those of high demand or more interesting. Thanks for your attention.