HTML Female Agent [v1.20.1p] [Crushstation]

[TheDeviant]

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Spoilers for 1.15 in this report.
The main reason was a rewrite in week 7. I was struggling and struggling to make the first version of this episode work, but as I reported in that week:

I played through it again today and frankly it's just not that sexy. ☹ I'm not happy with it, especially as a follow up to the previous episode. Frankly...it's kind of boring.

From week 8, the main plot developments stayed, but I totally changed the execution. That improved the episode a lot, but it took more time.

Why did it need a rewrite?
I’ve reflected on this, and I think the main problem was that I didn’t have a clear enough picture in advance of what would make the episode sexy. I think I expected the hotness just to spring up organically when she went back to the club, but that didn’t happen.
In the end I was satisfied with the hotness of 1.15 (especially when compared with the first, unreleased version). I would have liked more time to spice it up, but it had taken too long already.

Ch-ch-changes
To prevent this happening again (), I tried something different this week.
I had a rough framework for the structure of episode 1.16 written out. Normally I just jump straight into writing, because I’m eager to make progress. But this week I forced myself not to.
Instead, I spent a lot longer than I normally do on scene planning. I tried to think through the player experience of each scene, and what would make the scenes hot and novel and interesting.
The details won't come out until the writing, so at this stage it's hard to be sure how helpful this was. But I feel like I have a much clearer idea of how to make the scenes work, so hopefully it won't need any major rewrites this time.

Next steps
The next objective is to create a rough storyboard for the episode. I'll report back on progress next week.
Okay, that's all for this report. Have a lovely weekend, guys, and I'll see y'all on Discord or here next week.

 

[goldenface]

I wish they'd kept the backstory feature

 

[vicaddict]

I wish they'd kept the backstory feature

Well he wanted to bring it back, although I can't see how on earth it would connect with what we have right now. That is one, if not the biggest problem of the game. You get traits and mechanics and never use them. All you ever do is roll the dice and apart from the fact that you can simply savescum until you succeed, the outcome doesn't even change anything.

I mean, at least we are getting content every couple of months, but it doesn't change the fact that he has no idea what the big picture is supposed to be like. At this point it is as linear as it gets. I have to admit that I don't even read some of the texts, because there is a lot of it and some of it doesn't even mean anything. Why would I want do chose between breakfast items? Why do I have to chose outfits for different scenes when it doesn't even play into the scene?

I am not accusing him of scamming people, but after all these years he still doesn't know where he wants to take the game or how to focus his time. I am not a writer and I believe that it is hard to force yourself to write something, but it's not like he is writing a book every three months. It's like a few pages at most. Why can't you do that within a week?

It really is frustrating, because the game really had potential. He wants to create a storyboard now. Okay. Does a storyboard exist for like the entire game? One would suspect that you have some sort of an outline of what plots, chapters or events you want to include and how one plays into another?

 

[asdfasdf12341234ACSACA]

I am not accusing him of scamming people, but after all these years he still doesn't know where he wants to take the game or how to focus his time. I am not a writer and I believe that it is hard to force yourself to write something, but it's not like he is writing a book every three months. It's like a few pages at most. Why can't you do that within a week?

I think it's best to understand that this is essentially a hobby. People have different degrees of commitment to their hobby, but many people drag on the same project for weeks, they simply don't have a deadline set so they just enjoy the process more than anything else.

I haven't see anything to suggest this project is treated as a *job* not a hobby

 

[vicaddict]

I think it's best to understand that this is essentially a hobby. People have different degrees of commitment to their hobby, but many people drag on the same project for weeks, they simply don't have a deadline set so they just enjoy the process more than anything else.

I haven't see anything to suggest this project is treated as a *job* not a hobby

Okay, be that as it may. I don't expect him to update the game every other week. However, he has been writing for years at this point. Plenty of time to figure out what works for you and what doesn't. You have to have an idea where you want the story to end up or how to actually get the writing done in a timely fashion. To me it sounds like he is still grasping for a method on how to organize or how to lay out scenes beforehand. He has great ideas for different parts of the game, but nothing goes together, so we have these disconnects.

For about a year now every update seems to evolve more around clothing items than actual content. The artist who does it is good. I don't want to discredit her in any way, but do people care about this level of detail? Especially when the clothing has no impact on the scenes. This isn't the Sims and it isn't Girl Life or Life Choices. For those games it works great, because they have an idea what they want the clothing to do. In FA it is just there. Like all the other mechanics are just there, but don't do anything.

I really don't understand where the focus lies and what the big picture is. It took years to get to Bangkok and now that were are finally there, the story gets more and more linear and all is forgotten. No more skills, traits, kinks or backstory. At some point there was talk about other people contributing text and story archs. How did that turn out? I believe this was one of the reasons they changed to another code at some point.

Somebody already suggested scrapping the agent part of the game and maybe that isn't such a bad idea. The college stuff was nice, the kinks and everything did play into different scenes and even a trip to Dubai or Bangkok would be feasable. To me it seems that there is a giant disconnect between the content that is there or used to be there and what the game wants to be. I mean, the agent stuff has been dialed back and you wouldn't even know that you're an agent, had you not played the game from a few years back. At this point you are a western girl in Thailand fucking around with gangsters. No more, no less. Now that you have even installed cameras there isn't even a need for you to be there any more.

 

[applesnacks1111]

Somebody already suggested scrapping the agent part of the game and maybe that isn't such a bad idea. The college stuff was nice, the kinks and everything did play into different scenes and even a trip to Dubai or Bangkok would be feasable. To me it seems that there is a giant disconnect between the content that is there or used to be there and what the game wants to be. I mean, the agent stuff has been dialed back and you wouldn't even know that you're an agent, had you not played the game from a few years back. At this point you are a western girl in Thailand fucking around with gangsters. No more, no less. Now that you have even installed cameras there isn't even a need for you to be there any more.

How hard would it be for someone to take the art assets and the avatar system, and just make a 'female college experience game' where you go through class, there's some ongoing plot about a corrupt administrator in the university, you have friendships and relationships, and lots of choice / different kinky paths (become a stripper, suck off a professor to get ahead, etc.)? Seems like the groundwork is already there - we just need someone who can learn the code and write a fun story with it (with more frequent updates). If you cut out most of the skills, the dice rolling, the 'fat' of Female Agent, maybe it could be done?

 

[rbx4]

I suggest that no idea to change the game will, all by itself, make development faster. I believe that the one most important element slowing down development is some quality of Crush himself. Unless Crush changes whatever it is, he won't be writing linear stories fast no matter how simple their details, won't be writing complex stories fast, won't be writing any game fast. I believe that he has the skill to write more efficiently, since it takes skill to write his weekly posts.

 

[Dracis3D]

he story gets more and more linear and all is forgotten. No more skills, traits, kinks or backstory. At some point there was talk about other people contributing text and story archs. How did that turn out

For what it is worth I support the linear approach, not because I want a linear game but linked to your point around clothes. I've found Crush can get very focussed on the small details, to the point he added more skills and traits that he could cope with. I'd rather he write a linear story and then create new branches based on certain traits/skills/kinks.

On the writing contribution side Crush has struggled setting expectations and absorbing content into the game. A coule of life path vignettes were provided by guest writers in 1.6.3. The re-make guest writer work ended in failure when Crush paused the new Lifepath work.

 

[rbx4]

For what it is worth I support the linear approach, not because I want a linear game but linked to your point around clothes. I've found Crush can get very focussed on the small details, to the point he added more skills and traits that he could cope with. I'd rather he write a linear story and then create new branches based on certain traits/skills/kinks.

Here I want to address something that may or may not have been communicated previously. I think that variables (skills, trait stats, etc.) all by themselves do not cause delays or a lack of focus. Crush can get delayed for his own reasons, but variables really only exist as a means for creators to implement game design ideas. The main contribution of variables to this is just the perception of possibilities. As many games have shown us for decades, variables can exist but their possibilities and usage can be merrily ignored by a creator who has a focused development plan. Cases in point for this have existed since almost the beginning of rpgs, but it's easy to point out how Charisma existed but was ignored or used inconsistently in early rpgs. The games were finished regardless, and most had fans even if Charisma was more or less illusory. Likewise, Crush can add a stat for the Tetum language, but it need not be used immediately and need not matter. Its existence alone does not cause delays--any delays are because of his own tendencies.

 

[SuperMaxo]

... a stat for the Tetum language, but ...

Is that related to Klingon?

 

[Dracis3D]

I think that variables (skills, trait stats, etc.) all by themselves do not cause delays or a lack of focus. Crush can get delayed for his own reasons

You are correct, but just search for SURPS in this thread and see what you find. 'SURPS' was the origional RPG mechanic of this game and had its own design document (table top RPG style).

I think it comes down to individual thought process, some find will find it easy to write a scene and consider XYZ skills/variables for scene applicability, others will just want to write a scene and revisit later.

 

[Chickbitter]

Hi !

I try to follow the progress of the game, I like it. I have a question that has probably been asked but I have not seen. the scene in the oceana which is filmed after the competition is gone?

sorry if the question is stupid

 

[SuperMaxo]

Scene in the ocean? I'm thinking Avatar, part 2, but not Female Agent...

 

[Chickbitter]

Scene in the ocean? I'm thinking Avatar, part 2, but not Female Agent...

Oceana** sorry i just correct it

 

[BleepRose]

Hi !

I try to follow the progress of the game, I like it. I have a question that has probably been asked but I have not seen. the scene in the oceana which is filmed after the competition is gone?

sorry if the question is stupid

That's from the old version which is still available. None of those old scenes are in the current version.

 

[TheDeviant]

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Hey guys! I had a good, solid week building up the storyboard for episode 1.16, “Girls Night Out”.
I already have an outline of the “beats” I want this episode to contain. As explained in a previous report, storyboarding is where the outline gets converted to an actual structure.
I added 94 slides to the 1.16 storyboard this week, including two new mini-scenes that weren’t in the outline but I’m excited about.
(For comparison, the storyboard I created for 1.15 was 178 slides long. Interested parties can check out that storyboard here:
For privacy sign out of Google before clicking this link, otherwise people may see your Google username if they browse it at the same time.

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)

Linearity
I had an interesting talk this week with Breadloaf about the game. One of the problems we discussed is how linear the experience is so far.
To an extent, this part of the story was always going to be linear. The heroine must infiltrate the club and she must work undercover, meet certain NPCs, etc. (I always compare this part of the story to the first part of Mass Effect, before Shepard becomes a SPECTRE agent and takes command of the Normandy.)
At a certain point in the story, my vision is that the game world will open up more to our heroine. She’ll have a range of quests to choose from, and she’ll have more control over how they play out.
However: I do want to go back over this section and add in some different choices, side quests and skill checks (so replays aren’t so predictable).
I have ideas for what I want to do – but you guys are playing it, and I’d love to have your input on this. What are some things you’d like to change or add to the storyline so far? Message me on Patreon or on Discord with your thots.

Okay…that’s all for this week’s report. I’m aiming to finish the storyboard next week: I’ll report back here with my progress.
Have a great weekend, everybody! I am going to take the weekend off to recharge my poor ancient brain. But I’ll be floating around on Discord if anybody wants to talk to me! Female Agent is my favourite subject, so if you have ideas, questions or suggestions, don’t hesitate to slide in my DMs.

 

[ayayaomegaclap]

Weird. Was supporting this a while ago when it was looking fun and promising. Tried out the new one with Bangkok, but it kinda just... sucks? I'm not liking it at all, it's just a linear path with you getting screwed by every guy you meet and bartending is paragraph upon paragraph of dry sexual harassment. Most paths lead to the same route, except with a few lines of texts being different.
Whatever happened to all the fun stuff you went through, like that wet t-shirt contest, hooking up with a random guy from the bar etc?

 

[Arkady]

Whatever happened to all the fun stuff you went through, like that wet t-shirt contest, hooking up with a random guy from the bar etc?

That got temporarily (?) removed so Crush could finally get on with the game in Bangkok. Except he doesn't, he gets on with the prologue, Bangkok edition. I would suspect that's because 4+ years in, Crush still only has a vision for a sandboxy game, instead of finally having worked out an actual plan (like how to actually introduce NPCs from the lifepath/prologue).

Of course, even if he actually had a plan, it would be doomed to fail, given his obvious inability/unwillingness to deliver a bit of quantity content to a deadline. Can't make a sandbox actually feel like a sandbox without that.

 

[asdfasdf12341234ACSACA]

That got temporarily (?) removed so Crush could finally get on with the game in Bangkok.

I still can't believe he managed to convince people with that. There is nothing preventing him (back when the available version had the prologue) to simply do a "Timeskip: you're now in Bangkok" as a link, both at the beginning of the game and at the very end of the content

"But...skills and background won't be taken into account if he did that!" Yeah well, they're not taken into account now and the narrative is equally disjointed so what's the difference? Oh right, it just gives him an excuse to waste time into "reintegrating the lifepath"

 

[babado]

Holy shit its been like over a year since the last time I checked this game out and it's still shallower than its ever been. All the great content with actual choices is still fully cut out, no teen years, no college, no finishing school, no post grad work, no agent training nothing. no rocker girl no athlete nothing. it's baffling that people still pay these people. i'm livid that i used to pay these people. the new content is so shallow compared to the original content. its like they are punishing their fans that spent years wanting to go to the cafe by cutting out all other content and replacing it with this insanely shallow straight-line story with no narrative paths or alternate choices.