Newlife 0.6.5 (Patreon)

Hi all, here's version 0.6.5 of Newlife. For this release I've been working on consequences for poor performance at work, including the possibility of sacking or demotion.

I've also added an "office politics" game mechanic that lets you gain points towards promotion without improving your underlying skills: choose the office-politics activity for your work timeslot to access this, although it isn't available for relaxed characters. This lets you gain promotions faster, but relying on your connections isn't always safe and if your underlying performance isn't good then you could end up in hot water at work.

Have fun and let me know if you find any bugs!

Full changelog:

Major changes & additions:

Added a new scene where the PC may face consequences for bad work performance. As part of this, I've improved careers to support sacking and demotions. You can re-apply if you get fired, but only after a month and with a penalty at interview.

You can now play office politics as your work activity when employed. This will improve your office-politics level which counts towards promotions and performance. You don't get skill increases from work when you do this, but office-politics increases faster than skills so it's a faster way to get promotions. However, events could temporarily disable the effect of office politics, and if your performance depends on it then you might find yourself in trouble at work. Getting demoted will drop your politics-points down to -5, so... try not to let that happen.

Minor changes:

Updated the scene where your partner talks about your pregnancy to better handle cohabiting. Thanks to Saint Destiny for highlighting that this wasn't written well for that situation.

Baby-crazy characters can no longer ask their partner to use protection when they aren't already pregnant.

You can no longer exploit your friendship or relationship with the boss in consecutive scenes. So, if you do this to win a promotion then you can't the next time a promotion or trouble-at-work scene pops up. The aim of this change is to allow befriending/dating the boss to give some benefits at work without it being an overwhelming advantage that trivialises poor job performance.

Added a potential new interview question if you're re-applying for a job you were fired from. 

Slacking off at work is now more effective at reducing stress, but no longer gives skill increases. It now gives a single “office politics point”, to reflect the time you spend getting to know your colleagues.

Increased work performance penalties from many events, making it more likely that the PC will get in trouble the following week. 

Re-joining the company after leaving can now start you at higher than the entry-level job, though not necessarily as good a job as you held before. This won't happen if you were sacked or if you insulted the boss when quitting though.

Added a small new random event that disables office-politics.

The scene where you convince your boss to give you a promotion can now fire earlier (i.e. with a bigger difference between current and expected performance), especially for ambitious characters.

Added a new action to the boss-persuasion scene where you exploit your connections at the office. This is available if you've been playing office-politics and should make it easier to get promotions earlier.

It's now a bit easier in general to persuade your boss to give you a promotion. But beware, getting promoted into a position you're not ready for could land you in hot water at work!

Changes for user-submitted content:

Added the addTempTrait(string,int) method to the player-character, allowing custom scene writers to apply temporary traits. See the context object reference documentation for details.

Bugfixes:

Fixes to text issues. Thanks to Saint Destiny and NoName for reporting some of these.

Fixed some omissions to the custom NPC documentation reported by Rigel.

Fixed an amusing bug with the minidate setup reported by JulianR.Amazing and Revan54 that could lead to the same character appearing in the exlover minidate as both the PC's current partner and her ex.

Fixed some places reported by NoName where lactation content was using outdated conditions and ignoring traits.

The endgame scenes will no longer assume it's been more than one week since you started. Thanks to OrangeJuice for reporting this. 

Fixed an issue where the PC's partner had an incorrect reaction to a cuckoo baby. Thanks to Saint Destiny for flagging this up.

Fixed a bug reported by Brobort where the PC wasn't being paid for street-prostitution.

Fixed a bug reported by Secondarian where ending a marriage (presumably via the divorce custom scene or similar as this is not possible in 'vanilla' newlife) would force the PC to remain a housewife. Ending a relationship will now automatically switch housewives to the unemployed career.