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

[TheDeviant]

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“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
–Jack Kerouac

Hey guys! I'm sorry to report that writing was challenging this week.
Some weeks it's easy and I make fast progress; this wasn't one of those weeks. I had what I thought were good ideas about the scene I'm working on, but the titillating/emotional beats just weren't landing the way I thought they would.
I've experienced this a few times on this project now. It's not exactly writer's block (because I can still write), it's more like a lack of confidence that the words on the screen are the right ones.
I've noticed that these problems tend to creep in when I'm trying to force NPCs to do what I want them to, rather than what they actually would do. Recent examples:

• In 1.12 (Malaysia), I was struggling with initiating the Max sex scene in a way that felt organic and real. The solution was to let Max be Max; once I actually got inside his head, I was able to add in a few emotional beats (like feeling attraction, and the first kiss in the restaurant) that made the scene work.
• In 1.13 (Welcome to Bangkok), the original plan was for Connor to interview the heroine in the management office right away. It felt very, very forced and unrealistic: like Connor was just standing in the bar, eager for sex but waiting for the quest to start. Shifting the interview to a different time and location fixed it.

I was struggling with something similar this week: the scene just didn't feel right, and I think it's because I was trying to control the NPCs too much. So on Thursday I backed off from the scene I was trying to write, and really put some thought and energy into the NPC characterisation instead.
I feel like I'm on the right track now. But basically I spent a week figuring out how not to write this scene.
I'm sorry I couldn't report better progress, but I always want to be open with everybody about the process. It doesn't always go in a straight line. I took the weekend completely off to refresh my creativity: hopefully next week I'll have a better report.

Coming soon: NPC art!
Speaking of NPCs, I teased something cool on Discord this week! We've started experimenting with

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to quickly create visual references for characters, e.g.:

Our lovely illustrator Victoria is experimenting with recreating them in the game's art style. Here's a sneak peek (WIP):

One of the aims of the game is to have a large pool of NPCs available. (This is so we can explore a wide variety of sexy scenarios.) So I'm excited about these mini avatars, which I think will help make the NPCs feel more different and memorable than just being words on a screen. Let us know what you think, here or on Discord!

 

[DarthSion98]

Writing was Challenging this week.

Isn't it always . . .

 

[Marlin Brandy]

Spoiler

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grrrreat, one more avenue of excuses for slow progress. why not have npcs be simple text descriptions/names and let the player fill in the blanks?

 

[luccia87]

The truth is that I harbored hopes in the course of development... naive me! A little disappointed and I was considering supporting... well, let's hope the result is worth it.

 

[PostDrip]

So how far along in the story is it? The last time I played was just at the character creator or something.

 

[fortuna95]

So how far along in the story is it? The last time I played was just at the character creator or something.

Readed the changelog?

 

[TheUnforeseenMessenger]

Readed the changelog?

Readed? What is 'readed'?

 

[lordrango]

Readed? What is 'readed'?

Well, I would guess it is a misspelling of the word "read". It could be:

1) not a native speaker
2) a typo

... and, bit less likely...

3) a joke

 

[lordrango]

So how far along in the story is it? The last time I played was just at the character creator or something.

Character creation is mostly out, you reach Bangkok and try to get a job in the club.

Writing is very high quality, but the amount of new content is minimal for the amount of time it took.

You basically have two sex scenes. If the progress continues at this rate, by 2027 the author will have removed the first scene, rewrote the second scene and added a new one.

 

[DarthSion98]

Character creation is mostly out, you reach Bangkok and try to get a job in the club.

Writing is very high quality, but the amount of new content is minimal for the amount of time it took.

You basically have two sex scenes. If the progress continues at this rate, by 2027 the author will have removed the first scene, rewrote the second scene and added a new one.

Which is why I predict that the game will be finished in 2077.

If we survive till 2077, that is.

 

[Trash Master Thoth]

If we survive till 2077, that is.

Morgan Freeman/Narrator: "They did not".

 

[Nope]

Considering his track record for the past few years and the 2600 patreons who believe in his vision and execution of the game, no dice mate

The year is 2032. Crush has just announced he needs to remake the intro for the 10th time. His mass of patrons shun the few asking him to at least lube up as they bend over once again.

 

[TheDeviant]

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Hey guys! Sorry for the late report, some unplanned chaos came up yesterday. But I had a much better week of writing last week, and I’m back in it today. Here's a quick update.
Part of the solution involved zooming out and thinking about how episode 1.15 fits into the overall story structure, and I thought it might be interesting to share some of my thinking on that. For me, the most exciting part of the story is actually its next phase, when the heroine is fully undercover in the bargirl role.
I know that some people in the community are worried that we won’t be able to keep it interesting once that threshold is crossed. But I’ve got loads of scenes and scenarios that I’m excited about creating in the game engine.
The problem is that the story isn’t ready for that leap yet – our heroine needs to take a few more steps before she can believably walk (or get pushed) through that door. The next few episodes are about walking her up to the "road of trials".

That's the phase where the heroine is trying to balance being a highly trained intelligence officer with being a working prostitute without losing her mind or blowing her cover, and to me it's the most interesting part of the whole story.
It's also the part where we can loosen the reins on the player. Right now everything feels linear because we're trying to manoeuvre all the pieces into alignment to make the next bit work: once we get there, we can release lots of shorter, self-contained scenarios that you can pick and choose between.
But we're not there yet, and we have to work through a couple of events to get us there. I'm gonna eat lunch then get back to working on it! I hope you guys have a greta week and I'll report back on progress this weekend.

 

[Domitori]

greta week

Greta week indeed

 

[lordrango]

So many red flags in that report. So many weasel words...

Zooming out, Thinking about, I thought, I have loads of ideas, I am excited to create, the next few episodes...

Producing a report like this, full on with graphical aides and making it look like you're saying something without actually saying anything takes a bit of work. There's no need for it. All you really need to do is show progress in an easy to understand metric.

I'd suggest word count.

But, don't mind me. I think I'm starting to enjoy the story around making of the game more than the actual game at this point. Sort of reminds of Star Citizen in that regard.

 

[D4n0w4r]

Feels like every project here ends up like Star Citizen eventually.

 

[GodlessXVIII]

Feels like every project here ends up like Star Citizen eventually.

That's the business model for sure. Open-ended projects keeping the monthly subscriptions going for as loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong as humanly possible.

Only solution to this would be for patreon to charge subscribers per deliverables, not every months.

 

[lordrango]

That's the business model for sure. Open-ended projects keeping the monthly subscriptions going for as loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong as humanly possible.

Only solution to this would be for patreon to charge subscribers per deliverables, not every months.

That's not bulletproof either.

Instead of dishonest people withholding content for nebulous reasons like they do now, they'd just start making bunch of tiny updates that don't really add anything new.

 

[rbx4]

Or people could only subscribe if they are happy with the monthly output of a content creator. This is what I do--I have a grand total of 3 subscriptions on Patreon right now, and that can go down to 1 or 0 whenever I want.

 

[Joe Steel]

Or people could only subscribe if they are happy with the monthly output of a content creator. This is what I do--I have a grand total of 3 subscriptions on Patreon right now, and that can go down to 1 or 0 whenever I want.

And people could realize that people who remain subscribed to a game are happy enough with the progress and don't need to be saved by white knights. That is what I do. I judge games by what they contain, not what they do not. How often a dev updates is between the dev and his patrons.