Early access to the February update is here!
This was a "lots of little things" type update... which has ended up containing a medium-sized thing or two as well.
The major focuses have been:
- Uncharacteristic actions: Declining to take an action which matches your inclinations now comes with some drawbacks (for example, an exhibitionist character declining an opportunity to flash). This system can be adjusted or turned off in difficulty options.
- Encounter progression and preferences: NPCs now give some consideration to "going all the way" (depending on their inclinations) and it may require successive encounters to work up to this. This system can be turned off by unchecking Encounter Progression under content options. Also, NPCs now evaluate how much they liked an encounter and shift attitudes accordingly.
- Random dialogue framework: Created a universal system for grabbing semi-random and reactive lines of dialogue, currently used in encounters, phone conversations, and some random events. In some cases this is strictly a refactor and not very noticeable yet, but it has made it much easier to expand reactive dialogue in the future.
- Condoms and birth control: NPCs now have preferences regarding unprotected sex and will react accordingly. Grabbing some free condoms from the clinic is a good idea! This system can be disabled by setting Breeding content to Block under content options.
- River Rat career polish: Timing has been adjusted for the "wait till someone needs something" action and shifts should now flow better. New events have been added for the bartender job.
I will keep polishing this update on the way to public release in a week, probably focusing mainly on encounters and reactive dialogue.
As always, a huge thanks to the contributors who added to this update.
Please find your link to early access just below these release notes. And as always, thank you for your support!
Release notes
- Added Composure penalties for uncharacteristic actions — for example, if you’ve taken exhibitionist inclinations and you pass up a clear opportunity to be exhibitionist, then your Composure may suffer
- The strength of the Composure penalty for uncharacteristic actions can be adjusted under difficulty settings (including setting it all the way down to zero, which removes this mechanic)
- You can now pick preferred genders for The Admirer’s Admirer and The Porn Addict when generating a new world. While the algorithm will do its best to honor your preferences, results will depend on NPC availability
- By popular demand, you can now combine special world seeds by using them within a longer seed — for example, you can use “velvetroperizzler” to combine both of these seeds, or use them both while generating different NPCs with a seed like “velvetroperizzler2” — though wacky combinations may produce wacky results (with apologies to Falc)
- Added a brief message tutorializing the phone’s Reminder and Calendar apps upon making plans with somebody — this message may appear at a strange time in ongoing saves, but it’ll only appear once
- You can now view a list of unlockable inclinations in the game by navigating to your character’s inclinations and clicking the link at the bottom of the dialog box
- Chest binders are no longer sold at the athleticwear store nor considered comfortable when working out, like real life — instead, the new compression sports bra, a more specialized garment, fills this role
- You can now insult NPCs when talking to them in person, which tends to impact Friendship and Romance attitudes
- Reading in the library will now sometimes fire events similar to the studying ones
- You can now read your own books in the library as long as you have a bag capable of storing books, which you can check via the Inventory button on the sidebar
- Added some events to help you address some low needs in class
- You can now choose to randomize your best friend’s gender in the prologue, and this will also happen if you don’t pick a best friend name/gender in quickstart
- Added a Gregarious inclination that can be unlocked by socializing consistently for a week with at least Charisma 4
- Added a new unlock condition for the Loner inclination that involves avoiding socialization for a week
- Added unlocks for the Lucky and Unlucky inclinations, earned by passing several unlikely rolls or failing at several likely rolls, respectively
- Similarly, Iron Will and Easily Pressured inclinations are unlocked by passing/failing likely/unlikely Willpower skillchecks once you have a little Willpower skill
- Added a new framework for picking semi-random reactive lines of dialogue for NPCs to use in various contexts
- Added new lines of dialogue to encounters, allowing NPCs to comment on what’s happening
- Most of the existing encounter dialogue has been refactored to use the new dialogue framework
- NPCs can now react to the player character’s skillfulness during encounters
- Added a “Dirty Talk” action during encounters that allows the player character to comment on what’s happening. When available, the player may have the option to give their talk a dominant or submissive tone, raising the relevant skills when at low levels
- Added new events where NPCs can comment on the player character’s clothing, tattoos, or other various visible characteristics
- Narration of sex acts has some new variations based on things like shyness and skill level
- NPCs now have a tendency to want to progress from hand stuff to oral sex to “going all the way” over successive encounters (contributed by duretoeter)
- This new encounter progression is modified by an NPC’s inclinations as well as their attitude toward the PC and relationship with the PC, and it can also be toggled off entirely under content options
- The approximate odds an NPC will agree to a previously untried action in an encounter are now indicated via the color of the action button
- NPCs can now evaluate how much they liked an encounter, based mostly on their inclinations, and will give specific feedback
- The player can earn further attitude boosts by keeping the NPC’s preferences in mind during an encounter
- Encounter UI has been updated, sorting some of the buttons into related groups and hiding some groups behind expand buttons, with the overall goal of making the encounter UI less overwhelming
- Phone texting responses have been partially refactored to use the new dialogue framework
- A portion of Satisfaction will now decay immediately at the end of an encounter, eliminating the apparent contradiction of ending an encounter with a still-empty Release bar (because, previously, it wouldn’t refill until time advanced)
- QuickieBurger now opens at 6am. Enjoy breakfast earlier!
- As a first step towards implementing the pregnancy roadmap item, NPCs now consider the risk of unprotected sex and behave accordingly
- Condoms and other forms of birth control have been added. Start at the campus clinic!
- Setting the Breeding content option to Block will disable condoms and birth control methods, as well as NPC preferences regarding them
- Some bulletin board notices added to ensure the player knows where to find birth control options (contributed by Meat Glacier)
- The timing of River Rat shift actions has been adjusted and should feel more consistent
- When there’s time to spare, as a bartender you can now “work the bar,” chatting briefly with everyone for the opportunity to improve your tips across the board
- Added several new bartender events
- The opportunity to enter a new encounter after spending the night with someone after a date has been added back in
- You can now see where an NPC lives in their info card if you know them moderately well
- Petting animals now regains Composure
- Many fixes and tweaks
