Course of Temptation Dev Diary #20 (Patreon)

Hello friends! Dang, here we are at twenty dev diaries. And almost exactly five months since the first public release!

Anyway, we're in the home stretch of 0.4 so let's talk about that. I've got the general set of professor interactions coded and written, barring exactly one event (or maybe two events) left to write before I move on to the related mini-storylines.

Professors 101

So, first of all, not every professor is going to react to you the same. I wanted to have a set of professor personalities or archetypes, so that they would need to be approached in different ways and wouldn't be equally eager to initiate or react to sexual stuff.

Some would be shy while others would be more boisterous, and some would be dominant while others would be more easily flustered... and as I considered this, I realized I was basically thinking of their personalities along two axes.

Which inevitably leads to...

Which is of course very silly but... also actually a pretty good baseline. "Easily flustered" ended up being more like "new to the job" which can be used for different sorts of student-professor dynamics.

I'm just building a framework here, but as the game expands, I can tailor more events around these personality/backstory types and add more of them as well.

Earning favor

The basic unit of exchange in professor interactions is favor. If you want a grade improved, you spend favor. To earn favor, you can simply be a good student (it's easier to get a poor grade reconsidered if you've been a great student otherwise), you can help them out between classes or in their office, or you can do special tasks.

The other aspect of this is lust. Professors will generally attempt to be professional and not fraternize with their students, but through some new events, you can catch their attention in class or stop and flirt after class and build up their lust. Depending on how you dress and present yourself, lust may well increase even if you aren't trying! And as lust builds up, the temptation becomes greater, and sex begins to enter the picture as a way to build favor.

Special tasks

Even if you have the favor, asking the professor to bump that botched exam up a letter grade doesn't always just happen (although sometimes it does). Sometimes, particularly if you're just not really a great student, you'll have to prove your dedication.

This is where you'll be asked to help the faculty out around campus, which will lead you into the three mini-storylines I mentioned last week. These start out relatively straightforward but, as you revisit each faculty member, the asks become greater and will inevitably begin to affect your reputation around campus.

I have these fully outlined now, I just have to actually write them, which will be my task for next week!

When is the update?

That's definitely a question I'm hearing more and more! We're more than a month since the last update now, which is definitely more than I would like.

If all goes well next week and I get these last event sets written, in next Friday's progress report I should be able to talk about when exactly you can expect the update. Mid-December is still looking pretty good, though don't take that as a firm guarantee. But like I said, we're in the home stretch! These three event sets are the last big chunk of my big plan for 0.4.

I've also been working on improving my project management practices. In the future, I'll set things up so that working on a major update won't impede the release of other small updates or bugfix patches when they're warranted. That way this runup to a major release won't need to be quite so quiet.

Next week

More event writing! With the general professor interactions laid out, the special tasks are the last remaining piece, and my goal is to knock those out over the next week.

And of course another progress report next Friday! With any luck, by then I'll be about ready to polish, playtest, and knock out the final bits of this update. The end is in sight for 0.4! Thanks for sticking with me and supporting this project!