State of the Game - v0.5.0 and 2023 (Patreon)

Happy New Year, all!

The public release of Carnal Voyages has been updated to v0.4.0, and v0.5.0 is now here for Patrons! To cover that before I get into 2023 talk, this release is a fairly straightforward one. My main focus has been on adding in the game's first Player/XO sex scene, and while this is not the game's first sex scene, it is the first one with a character as variable as the XO. This meant I had to spend a little extra time on shoring up the robustness of my scene text-parsing system, and in addition to the minor details, the scene has a few branches based on various options. If you want to cheat and see the differences like a dirty cheater, a cheat option has been added to allow you to change your relationship with your XO on the fly. While a system is planned for dynamic relationship changes over time, and the game is currently tracking data for that, the full implementation is still waiting for a future date.

Also, while I didn't have time for any new Harian storyline content, a large number of new duty assignments specific to their system have been added in instead. Each GPU system will also get their own set of unique assignment options in the future, however I am not currently planning to set any up for the Figura system. We also had our poll last month on potential cameo characters, to announce the winners: The Vessian Sorority came in first place, with the Schen Double D and the Roth Princess coming in at a close second. This won't affect the storyline in the near future, but you can expect to see some familiar faces sooner or later.

So with that out of the way, what's in the works for 2023? Well, I would like to be able to pull out a schedule calendar and list off an expected set of features, but unfortunately I don't actually have one of those at the moment. While my schedules for Carnal Coup were often optimistic, Carnal Coup content was a fair bit more formulaic in a way that made it easier to make at least a rough ordering of planned updates - scenes were limited in how they could branch, storylines all progressed in the same way mechanically, and the number of game mechanics was a fair bit smaller. I could say for a fact that every department would have X 'department' scenes, Y 'director' scenes, and so on. With my freeform approach to Carnal Voyages storylines however, I have no such firm structure planned.

What can I say, then? Well, storyline-wise, I will certainly be focusing much of this year on the Harians and Seeders. As I've mentioned before, I plan to get started on Seeder content this month, and it is my general plan to work on species in pairs. That does not mean I will completely wrap up the Harian/Seeder set before I start on the next one, but exactly how much I want to get done before moving on is still TBD - there may be a poll on this in the future. There is also likely to be a poll on which species to do next, so while I don't plan to spend the entire year on those two, which other ones I do will be up to you.

Feature-wise, what's in the works? Much of the game design is based around the idea of hopping from system to system, rather than sitting in one place and completely finishing a single storyline in one bite, which means a lot of planned second-wave features are currently locked behind getting the Seeders system up and running. For the next month or so then that will be my focus - setting up a Seeders system map, kicking off the storyline, implementing Seeder NPC generation, and so on. Once that's going though, I'll be able to start implementing the following features:

• The 'heat' system, in which you must move from system to system within a certain amount of time or face combat encounters or other penalties.
• Fully implement the game's resources and market system, including currencies, upgrades and XP. This includes:
• + Upgrading to new ship tiers - at a minimum I plan to have at least tier 2 introduced this year, with the system eventually expanding to somewhere around 4-6 tiers.
• + The promotion system, with the option of promoting officers once they've maxed out both sets of XP for their current level. This also means expanding the 'get to know your crewmembers' system so they can earn more of that sweet XP.
• + Buying upgrade items, like improvements for ground combat or options for romance scenes.

Additionally, I also plan to implement a system for shapeshifting Captains to choose their public appearance. It is assumed that Figura captains aren't walking around the streets of Victorious as Figura, but eventually you'll be able to get more specific than that. There will also the functionality for changing your relationship with your XO in a non-cheating fashion, as I mentioned earlier.

There's also a few 'third-wave' features that I do not currently plan to get to this year (although I could be wrong). This includes:

• Ship Policies (including new uniform options)
• Pregnancy System

And I believe that about caps off my forecasting for 2023. But of course I wouldn't want to forget to thank you all for supporting the project through 2022, especially everyone who stuck around through the long lead-up period to the Patreon's re-launch this fall. A lot of work's been done, and even more lies ahead, and I hope you're as excited to see how it all turns out as I am!

As a final reminder, Carnal Coup Overseer's Edition is still on sale for 40% off for a few more days at Steam and itch.io. For this month, I am currently aiming the mid-month update for the 13th, while this will probably be another no-art-pack-update month as I did not add any new items in December. So I'll check back in with you in a few more weeks, until then, enjoy the patch notes below, patron links will follow shortly, and hope you have a good 2023!

v0.5.0 Change Log

Game Functions:

• New Cheat Code Option: Edit XO Relationship Details.
• Scene variable parsing improved to handle more complex scene types.
• Duty Assignment generation modified: duty assignments will now generate 2 'Anywhere' duties and 3 system-specific duties when updated. In systems without specific duty assignments, only the 2 'Anywhere' duties will be generated.

Scene Content:

• XO Oral scene added to Captain's Office aboard the ship, with several branches. 'Solitaire' Office option removed.
• 23 Harman System duties added to duty assignment pool.

Art Content:

• None

Codex Entries:

• 'Defense Task Force' entry added to Setting.

Bug Fixes:

• None

Known Issues:

• None