Update 18 (Patreon)

tl;dr Progress on PAL, and talking about how the goals achieved so far are helping game development.

Today's picture:

I can't show too much!

    Seriously, though, I did actually think about showing off a character for a future project that is still kind of in the early brainstorming stage of development. I don't know yet whether it'll work out, so I don't want to show off things that might never materialise. Also, when I do show the characters off for that idea I want to have all my ducks in a row.

    As for this picture, I mostly put it up for thematic relevance, but I will probably make this a collectible card.

Progress on PAL:

This week I've made good progress on the development of PAL, finishing up the implementation of the night service system and the wake-up system, although night service doesn't have much of the text included yet. The wake-ups are missing a few lines of voice acting, but are otherwise done, which means that now in the game every morning you are woken up by one of the maids (they cycle) and the nature of the wake-up depends on your relationship with them.

    I've also put in a bunch of audio files, and created and added some new illustrations where I thought they were needed. I've run through the game a bunch of times in the last week as I've been implementing stuff, and I think day 1 at least is starting to look pretty great, even if it's not actually finished. I'd like at least two pictures for the "reading of the legacy" scene, for example, and Masami's voice acting isn't included because it isn't ready yet. Day 2 onwards is still pretty sketchy, I'm afraid, although it's almost to a point where you can advance through the days and kind of train the maids in their stats as well as night service.

    Lastly, I made a little animation and scraped together some spare voice work in order to expand on something that I hadn't previously put in the script - can't go into details for fear of spoilers, but it's a bit of optional side sex content.

    With all the programming and presentation progress I hope to have a new alpha version out soon. Today and tomorrow I'm a bit busy, but I'll get back to work on it after that and I may have something out soon after.

Phinn is back in action:

You may recall that Phinn ran into some trouble making graphics when his computer died, and he lost some important data as well as the laptop itself. Well, the good news is he's been able to commandeer another machine and has recovered what he could, and he's been getting back to work. He provided me with a batch of pictures from one of the threesome sex scenes, which is very exciting!

Anyway, on to the requested run-through of the fundraising goals so far achieved...

New 3D assets:

I've spoken about this one before in previous updates. While I'm not transitioning over to Aiko 6 as quickly as I thought I would be, I have been improving the images with new 3D assets that allow me to keep upping the quality of the artwork. I hope you can see the progress, even though I can't show you everything just yet. There's some nice looking new stuff in the game file now, so when I release the next version you can see those. :)

Threesome scenes:

Probably there's not a whole lot more to say about these - thanks to your support there are now three threesome sex scenes in the game, that you can unlock by courting the correct pairs of girls. These scenes are not quite as long as a full one-on-one sex scene, but they aren't far behind. Two of them have a structure where you make a series of choices about what sex acts you want to see happen, allowing branches (and you can 'undo' and see both options each time, of course), while the third is a more traditional AIF interactive sex scene with a little bit of streamlining to prevent the number of potential options from going way overboard.

Expanded harem ending:

The main harem ending is now interactive. It's not a full interactive

sex scene like the one on one scenes (that would be insane!) but you do

have some interactivity and can type some commands, which means it's not just a big text block like the harem endings in the previous games. Your range of commands is limited, but I think it will feel more enjoyable than a non-interactive scene.

    Additionally the harem victory suite at the end contains some extra sexual scenarios with the characters that just wouldn't fit into the main game. While a couple of scenes are just things that don't fit into the plot anywhere, mostly they're scenes that involve kinks that would break with the characters or with the story. The 'true to life' characters (if you know what I mean) would not do certain things; you'll see what I mean when you play it. The scenarios might make fun fantasies, but would spoil the emotional arch of the story if they were 'canon'.

    Specifically what this is planned to include at the moment:

- An interactive double-penetration sex scene with one of the girls - yes, another interactive sex scene! This was made at the request of an investor patron.

- An optional extra epilogue scene written by EFon to follow up from the conclusion of the harem ending.

- Several voyeur/netorare or otherwise kinky non-interactive scenes.

New computer:

I'm now saving up for a new PC! Actually, I'm delaying this a little so I have enough to get a good one, and I've been finding my current computer more long lasting than I expected. Transitioning to a new machine is not something to be done lightly because I've found it can disrupt my library of 3D assets, thus making it hard to continue making images of the same character models. It might be a good idea for me to finish making the graphics for PAL before I switch to something new, but it's now a viable possibility!

More work hours:

Okay, so the dirty little secret about this goal is that I've been gradually ramping up my work load as the money has increased, rather than doing it in one big change as soon as I hit $750. It's not a lie, though, I am working longer and harder on the game now that I can justify it as a part-time job. As I write this I really should be getting back to working on my day job, but I'll be getting back to PAL as soon as I can.

Next week:

Have any comments or questions? Any requests for next week? Let me know in the comments below. :)