Dev Diary #96 (Patreon)

I swear by the gods that tomorrow I will start working on the images for this year's DDs.

Well, well, well... what do we have here? Finally a diary exclusively for you. Unfortunately, this diary is quite technical and I don't show interesting stuff... so if you want a summary: Lots of internal changes, lots of coding, lots of hard mode changes, girls don't get mad anymore, I'm balancing the easy mode too, did I say girls don't get mad anymore on hard?

In a more extended way... I've been working at full blast since I announced the v16 delay. Although I can finally be working more chill focusing on things that really need my attention... I want to keep meeting the deadlines. That's why this new version (v0.15.25) will be available next weekend.

The release cycle will remain the same because whether there is new content (end game) or not, I consider that cycles must be respected. The only difference will be that possibly the "EA 2 days" will not exist until v16. I'll explain it in more detail in another diary for everyone but in short... the latest EA is actually the public version but with early access. I'm working on the exclusive version right now, and with all the changes I'm making... it can be a hassle to switch between versions (public vs exclusive).

That said, let's get down to the important stuff: What will be in this version? Shrek: Good question.

For those of you who play on normal, you won't notice any changes as the endgame won't be revised and I won't be adding anything new yet. However, I will probably add a new rank quest in the next version to compensate for this version with no real content.

For those of you who play on hard... oh boi... I'm sorry if I'm disappointing anyone by what I'm about to say but as you can read in the summary, the girls aren't going to get mad anymore. The mood system is being reworked and the final version of this feature does not include the "angry system". Instead, the mood is going to be more "grindy" because getting a mood point is going to be more complicated (it used to be 25% base, but now it's 10%). 

Not only that, but increasing the % cap has also changed the way it works as the gifts that were used when a girl was angry, are now used to increase that chance.

All this change in the mood mechanics has required me to restructure how it worked until now so that's kept me busy for a couple of days. Oh yeah, I've also had to change how the engagement gifts work.

On the other side of the coin, I've been working on the easy mode and although I still have a few final decisions to make... I've fixed quite a few things that weren't fixed in v15. Luckily it's all visual and doesn't hinder gameplay. I'll give more details when I finish revising the rest of the stuff. Oh yeah, for the moment, exploration achievements are back in this mode but not fetish achievements. But as I say, no final decisions on all this yet which I hope to make later this week.

For the moment, I've gone through the whole intro and stopped revising (text and renders) as I had a lot of work to do before continuing. Hard mode is one of those things that you know you have to do but you never find a good time to do it (same with the easy), so this was the best time.

Anyway, the idea is that this version will be revised the main story until Mara moves (texts and renders) and the first 3 levels of the classic girls (Yuna, Anna, Mara).

As soon as I have that, it means I might have interesting things to show, so I'll try to make a diary for everyone in a couple of days, and before the beta, I'll make another one for you guys showing those interesting things in case there is something interesting to show (nsfw I mean).

It's not all revising and boring part, I'm also working on a gallery system. I don't think it's suitable for LA (nor for any of my projects as they will always be sandbox-style) but as it's been something that people have been asking for since the first versions... well, why not. Also, it was going to be exclusive to hard (any difficulty in the exclusive version) but I'm still considering what to do because if people are already crying about having to play on hard to see that much desired 0.5% extra of all the content in the game... I can't even imagine what kind of criticism I'd get if I lock it under hard mode. 

Honestly, all that sh*t tends to frustrate me but hey, that's the business. I could also remove the hard and save myself a lot of headaches but then, what kind of own style would my projects have? Not much, which I don't like, so...

Anyway, I apologize again that there is no new content in this version but it's really necessary to make these "short versions" that are only short in content because I work all month long anyway. Just as I apologize on the one hand, on the other, I thank you for your understanding.

Not everything is bad, those of you who know me already know that at the most unexpected moments, I come up with the craziest ideas (some good, some bad). Yesterday I came up with a really simple new feature that will help to make the gaming experience more enjoyable (especially on hard). I'll give you more details in the next version as I'm now against the clock so I have to postpone it as I need a few days of thinking, discarding ideas, rethinking... the usual when I come up with a new idea.

It was going to be a short and very technical diary and in the end, it has been longer than it should be... I'd better get going! See you soon!