Inner circle post for 0.3.22 (Patreon)

Hi there,

There's a few different options for the next release, and I'm not sure which I'll go with.

However, one that's definitely near the top is the "hang out with your friends" activity. This is one of two big friend-related activities that still need to be done, along with the house-party one.

Unlike the house-party which will be a single huge and probably very complicated scene, hanging out will be implemented as a bunch of small ones. Here's how it'll work:

- The player can choose to spend time with her friends as an activity, probably on the weekend slot.

- This will passively increase releationship with all your friends. There'll also be a stress benefit that'll be based on your number of friends and how close you are.

- There won't be a guaranteed scene and sometimes the activity will pass without one. This means that it was just a normal time with your friends where nothing special happened.

- However, there'll be a bunch of special events that'll show off specific aspects of the player's relationship with her friends. These will only be enabled when the activity is chosen.

The special events will include ones with quite specific requirements and they'll tend to be quite short. Their purpose is to add flavour to your relationships, flesh out friends in a quick but interesting way, and enable specific or unusual erotic or titillating situations.

The reason I've decided to do it like this is because there needs to be a way to get close to your friends without it all being about sex & dating, but it would be quite boring to have a repetitive "you drink with your friends and chat but nothing unusual happens" scene. Instead, only when something fun happens will a scene appear.

The big question though, is what sort of scenes should be added? I can imagine building up a sizeable repertoire over time, but of course the initial version will have a more modest selection. Here's a few ideas I've had, but I'd be interested to hear what you have to suggest as well.

- The pc (with refined trait?) goes to an art gallery with an innocent female friend. On seeing a piece of nude or erotic art, the friend has questions about sex which the pc can answer - perhaps encouraging the friend towards certain activities.

- At a cafe with a jerk male friend, you run into an ex of his. Perhaps this could show up for impregnators where he ran off leaving her with child, or maybe just for jerks. She loses her temper at him and the pc can choose to protect him and help him escape her wrath, stand by and watch her humiliate him, or join in and make him rue his jerkishness.

- You're having coffee with a hungover non-virgin party-girl friend when a man comes up to you. Apparently they slept together after a night out a few weeks back, but she doesn't remember a thing. The player can encourage the friend to react in a few ways (pretend she remembers, ditch the guy, admit she forgot) and if the pc meets the chosen male npc's tastes then he might decide to ask her out instead of her friend.

Well, those are some examples. As you can see, I'm thinking of things that are a few to maybe a half-dozen steps long. Let me know of any suggestions, and they might well find their way into the game.