September in Review (Patreon)

Happy October, all! Before I get into things, yes, the latest free release is now up on the blog! This month we'll be closing in on finishing off the mid-game development phase, with the last major feature of Office Upgrades. This is something that's had a placeholder implemented for quite some time - you get to a certain progress point, Hellfire has a nice scene with you, suggests a way to upgrade your office to improve your effectiveness, and then you 'do the upgrade'. So, what's missing here?

First off, each upgrade tier will have two options. Each option will require recruit 'assets' to acquire materials for you, and which Department you go with will determine the theme of your upgrade. There's a hint of this already in the game - the upgrade to turn your closet into a private Director Romancing Chamber will have the option of going for Vessian comfort, or Celopi bondage, and the artwork for Director scenes is already divided along these lines. The work here goes beyond simply offering the options however, as I will also need to go back to all of the old Director scenes and set them up to reflect the choices you make. I plan to at least have this much finished this month.

This also brings us to the part where you have to assign recruits to do the upgrade. Recruit assignments have been a non-functional part of some department scenes for a while now, and was also added to recruit operations in the last update. This was never activated because I personally don't enjoy it when in-development games make you grind resources to see what limited content may currently be available, but we're now getting to the point where it's time for that to be turned on. Once the assignment screen is fully implemented and turned on, the intended progression path will become a solid part of the game rather than just an option:

• Recruit citizens into agents to expand your access and resources
• Use these resources to strengthen your influence over the Directors
• Use the Directors and agents to convert entire Departments

We'll have to see just how far we get this month. I also have a few midgame cleanup items on my list, including some issues with Specialist loyalty missions, but I'll probably know better after the first update of the month if I'll get to that in October. We will also be starting work on the final batch of mission background artwork this month, though that may not be in until next month's updates. And, of course, CG artwork is ongoing! The next release is currently aimed for about two weeks from now, and the next HD art pack update should be this weekend.

In summary:

September Accomplishments:

• Lots of code work relating to the progression system and recruit operations
• One new set of mission backgrounds from artist Vin4ART!
• Several new portraits and portrait updates from artist TDK!
• One new CG from artist Suki!

October Forecast:

• Code work and scene rewrites for Office Upgrades
• CGs potentially including Switch and Hummer
• Potentially Science Lab mission backgrounds and other cleanup work, if time allows

Thanks for your support!