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

[Deniz31]

- Has a "morning after" scene where hostel guests/staff are curious about her loud first date with her boss
- Has a "tradecraft" scene where she meets her handler in a cool location, and gets a piece of mission equipment
- Returns to the Hard Cock Cafe to carry out a mission tasking, while also carrying out her work as a topless barmaid
- Has a new sex scene

These were the scenes according to earlier post. I guess that "new sex scene" is the one that's being made this week. Hopefully the others stays and not put out due to the recent change of plans.

 

[Joe Steel]

- Has a "morning after" scene where hostel guests/staff are curious about her loud first date with her boss
- Has a "tradecraft" scene where she meets her handler in a cool location, and gets a piece of mission equipment
- Returns to the Hard Cock Cafe to carry out a mission tasking, while also carrying out her work as a topless barmaid
- Has a new sex scene

These were the scenes according to earlier post. I guess that "new sex scene" is the one that's being made this week. Hopefully the others stays and not put out due to the recent change of plans.

The new episode is what is being made this week. The idea that it's one scene was just made up by Arkady. Crush mentions "scenes" (plural) in the update posted up-thread. There is no recent change of plans that I am aware of. What they are working on this week is making the clothing needed and transferring the story into the game engine.

 

[TheDeviant]

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Hey guys! This week I transferred the storyboard into the game engine. Episode 1.15 is now written and (basically) working!

Don’t get it right, get it written
When writing this episode, instead of trying to get every scene exactly right, I sometimes used rough/placeholder text instead. (Example: in one scene I wrote “Add zingy banter” instead of actually figuring out the dialogue. This allowed me to keep working on the events in the scene, instead of stopping to think up some zingy banter.)
There are 46 such placeholders in the new episode: some are just single lines, some need a few paragraphs. I’m going to blast through these next, as fast as I can. Also, some team and community volunteers kindly gave feedback on the storyboards (thanks Behbeh, Koskesh, Falloutbabe, Thorson, Z794, Maid.Queen.Mariam, Amy and some anonymous heroes) which I want to incorporate.
There are also some art tasks outstanding. Hopefully I can get all this done next week (and start Early Access at the weekend). But I might need to run into the following week. I'll do my best.

Storyboards
Last week Anand and Kuroppey asked for more info on how the storyboarding process works. Basically we have a simple template set up in Google Slides, which looks like this:

This design helps curb my tendency to ramble and overwrite (because I run out of space if I type too much). Some text-based games hit you with long walls of words – I’ve always wanted Female Agent to be pithy, although I rarely write as lean as I wish.
Contributors can add comments directly onto the slides. Our illustrator lovely Victoria can see what clothes are required and what the context is – over time she pastes avatar images (and suggested facial expressions) into the scenes. Soon a typical storyboard slide looks more like this:

Note here an example of feedback that led to a direct improvement – in the original version of this scene, I was lazy and glossed over the scene where the heroine (who we call “Kate”) passes through Thai customs. Dissonant Soundtrack called me on this, so I added some dialogue where Kate explains her cover legend (also reïterating it to the player), and an optional “stripsearch” scene that can trigger if Kate is unlucky with her dice roll.

You can check out a past storyboard using the link below.
!!! WARNING !!! this is a Google Slides link, so your Google name might appear on someone else’s screen if you visit while logged into Google! Sign out of Google first for privacy!

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[rbx4]

"Don’t get it right, get it written
When writing this episode, instead of trying to get every scene exactly right, I sometimes used rough/placeholder text instead. (Example: in one scene I wrote “Add zingy banter” instead of actually figuring out the dialogue. This allowed me to keep working on the events in the scene, instead of stopping to think up some zingy banter.)"

If indeed things stagnate because of trying to write then doing storyboarding, then this is a very much needed approach that should be used more often. I like to write without diverting efforts to any other task, in the venue that works best for me and not necessarily in a layout itself. I don't believe that writing is served well by being part of a multitasking effort, and I could see how progress could be essentially impossible for anyone who tried to write while working on storyboards.

Or, if instead this is saying that completing a scene is chaining together a series of statements such as "they talk, they have foreplay, they have sex, they talk," then I could see why that would result in troubles in development as well. If one expects a plot framework to read sexily without complete dialogue, that's not likely to happen. I've seen many frustrated people who want a perfect complete product 5 seconds after they start anything, which obviously isn't going to happen in most instances. The frustration from this generally results in way more than 5 seconds of unhappy development time of course.

 

[Joe Steel]

The writing of a complete and (mostly) finalized script and then converting it to storyboards is how every movie and TV show works. That's not what Crush is actually doing, though. Hos "storyboards" are just alpha versions of the game slides. You can do that when still refining the writing, because part of the writing refinement process is getting the right amount of text on the slide.

 

[Crushstation]

The writing of a complete and (mostly) finalized script and then converting it to storyboards is how every movie and TV show works. That's not what Crush is actually doing, though. Hos "storyboards" are just alpha versions of the game slides. You can do that when still refining the writing, because part of the writing refinement process is getting the right amount of text on the slide.

This is a fucking astute observation

 

[okfairenough]

Love your writing Crushstation

 

[rbx4]

Refinement of writing is absolutely part of making finished Twine pages work. However, I wasn't talking about refinement. Refinement is when tweaks are made to make things fit, for instance, or fixing a typo, or making an on-the-fly decision to improve part of the writing. That's not the same as going from “Add zingy banter” to actually providing zingy banter where the placeholder is. That is more usefully called writing, instead of refinement.

Still, the subject that I had really wanted to talk about was regarding throughput and productivity. Given that I can write 15 good book chapters in 3 months (I have actually done this recently), I think that I can fruitfully speculate on what could affect writing productivity. Having pointed that out, I can suggest that looking at placeholder text instead of dialogue, and then being concerned with the sexiness of the scene, sounds like a potential cause of productivity issues. Best to consider what exists instead of worrying about what does not exist.

I find this to be a somewhat interesting topic here, since that is the main topic at hand lately regarding this game. It's still a secondary subject to me though, since I'm mainly here to learn about how to make a very effective Patreon page. I can say that the previous 2 Patreon posts before this one seemed noticeably less elaborate, with less communication of emotion. This one also sounds like what someone would post while focused on a stage of the work.

 

[Kevin Smarts]

I can tell that no one (including you) cares, since you took the time to respond, even after you pledged to not respond to me anymore. As I said, you can't resist being my chew toy. I'm sure that zingy banter, if it is worth writing, adds an important amount of flavor to the scene. Since this is an "example," it stands to reason that at least one more example exists of another type of placeholder that may be flavor of a different sort. If something seems to the author to lack some kind of flavor (including sexiness), then just maybe that is because placeholder text lends little flavor to it and reminds one of work that needs at least some polishing.

I think you are presenting your text poorly, the correct notation is [zingy banter] and in that form its good enough for release.

 

[Crushstation]

Love your writing Crushstation

Thanks so much <3 I hate my own writing, but I know I'm getting better at it.

 

[rbx4]

The writing of a complete and (mostly) finalized script and then converting it to storyboards is how every movie and TV show works. That's not what Crush is actually doing, though. Hos "storyboards" are just alpha versions of the game slides. You can do that when still refining the writing, because part of the writing refinement process is getting the right amount of text on the slide.

As stated previously, this wasn't what I was talking about, although it is a consistent trait of yours (watch out everyone, here's the "ad hom") that you habitually either choose an irrelevant tangent or focus on an unimportant distinction that will be the (off-)topic of the next 20 posts that you make. That is except for the 5% or so posts that someone makes with your account that are actually appropriate, on-topic, or tolerant of others, which are out-of-character in a shocking manner. I'm not sure who writes those 5% of decent posts for you.

I think you might have previously implied, in an alternate reality, that the entire writing of "War and Peace" counts as a refinement to you, which does not count among the 5% of posts that I just mentioned.

 

[Relssek]

Is it planned to reinstate the early-life segments in a future version?

 

[prodigy]

Is it planned to reinstate the early-life segments in a future version?

Coming in 2050.

 

[Joe Steel]

Is it planned to reinstate the early-life segments in a future version?

Long term, yes. I suspect that it will have maybe 1/10 the output variables as Crush realizes that the story just doesn't need the PC to have all of those statistics. In the meantime, telling the main story is what will keep the patrons happy.

 

[Relssek]

Long term, yes. I suspect that it will have maybe 1/10 the output variables as Crush realizes that the story just doesn't need the PC to have all of those statistics. In the meantime, telling the main story is what will keep the patrons happy.

Anything that actually adds content is good lol. I remember when I subscribed to the patreon for like a year and nothing substantial got added.

 

[Joe Steel]

The game really got bogged down in the "life story" phase as it got written, re-written, restarted, and rewritten. Going with the main Bangkok story was the right move, and progress has been decent since. When the life story part gets updated (many moons in the future) it can be updated knowing what its outputs need to be, rather than just guessing. That will all by itself make the life story more interesting, because players will be building the agent they want to play, knowing what that agent needs to be like in her earlier years to have the skills and proclivities the player wants to use/see in Bangkok.

 

[yaryaryar]

Hello, was there a new release? Prerelease for patrons?

 

[Joe Steel]

Hello, was there a new release? Prerelease for patrons?

Not yet. Maybe by the end of the month.

 

[Deepblume63]

All of the links to the newest version are broken, it says server problem when downloading the html file

 

[Joe Steel]

All of the links to the newest version are broken, it says server problem when downloading the html file

The gofile link works - just checked it.