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

[ffive]

It's the

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. It's typically what you are doing when you are playing a game.

I know what a gameplay loop is. The point is twofold, one: this "game" is more of a visual novel which don't generally involve the gameplay loop (beyond "read stuff and click to advance, occasionally make a choice) and two, some gameplay loops are pure shite. Random encounters which serve no purpose other than to be able to say "i have a gameplay loop" are exactly such shite.

If you're wanking to the sex scenes, imagine playing the game but you are presented with different encounters and you can roleplay as your agent by choosing different actions.

There's no need to imagine it, there's quite a few games with this kind of approach, with "combat" being sex actions. The novelty of reading canned move description wears roughly five minutes in, and then you're left with pointless encounters repeating the same text snippets you've already seen dozens of times and your brain has learnt to just glaze over.

 

[Weisskralle]

I just learned that all of this took 6 years for a game that's apparently linear?.......I was under the impression that this was started recently. Tf was this guy doing all this time then?

Started from scratch again. Like he did basicly a reboot.

 

[LordofEntropy]

KL, not Dubai... unless that's been changed?

Oh yeah, I keep thinking Dubai from the previous versions. Forgot it's just KL to Bangkok now.

 

[rbx4]

I agree that I don't see the point of an actual gameplay loop in FA. It's not that it can't be done well. It's that the paying audience has a strong enough chance of disliking it that this chance should not be ignored. What is being sold right now is potential, and the paying audience seems to want to continue paying as long as that potential exists in exactly the same state that it is currently in. Some things go badly when potential is converted into actual results. I expect Crush to talk about gameplay loops, but I'm not so sure that it's a good idea for someone like him to implement one.

 

[boobthief]

I agree that I don't see the point of an actual gameplay loop in FA. It's not that it can't be done well. It's that the paying audience has a strong enough chance of disliking it that this chance should not be ignored. What is being sold right now is potential, and the paying audience seems to want to continue paying as long as that potential exists in exactly the same state that it is currently in. Some things go badly when potential is converted into actual results. I expect Crush to talk about gameplay loops, but I'm not so sure that it's a good idea for someone like him to implement one.

Feedback from the random bar encounters test was reported to be positive.

Personally, I don't see the point in gatekeeping. Relax, nobody is going to get imploded at the bottom of the ocean, it's just a game.

 

[boobthief]

I know what a gameplay loop is. The point is twofold, one: this "game" is more of a visual novel which don't generally involve the gameplay loop (beyond "read stuff and click to advance, occasionally make a choice) and two, some gameplay loops are pure shite. Random encounters which serve no purpose other than to be able to say "i have a gameplay loop" are exactly such shite.

Oh, cool, tautology: it's shite because it's shite.

There's no need to imagine it, there's quite a few games with this kind of approach, with "combat" being sex actions. The novelty of reading canned move description wears roughly five minutes in, and then you're left with pointless encounters repeating the same text snippets you've already seen dozens of times and your brain has learnt to just glaze over.

But if you tried to imagine it, this could cover a few bar shifts between advancing the narrative. A similar loop was already used in an earlier version (the first?) of the game in the club where there were random different encounters and it added immersion and replayability.

 

[rbx4]

Feedback from the random bar encounters test was reported to be positive.

Personally, I don't see the point in gatekeeping. Relax, nobody is going to get imploded at the bottom of the ocean, it's just a game.

Nah dude, you see gatekeeping coming out of the woodwork all the time. Don't start again or they'll accuse you of flirting. I should clarify that these attentions are unwelcome.

 

[ffive]

Oh, cool, tautology: it's shite because it's shite.

It's shite because it's:

Random encounters which serve no purpose other than to be able to say "i have a gameplay loop"

I didn't think that required elaboration, the reasons why that's bad should be obvious.

But if you tried to imagine it, this could cover a few bar shifts between advancing the narrative. A similar loop was already used in an earlier version (the first?) of the game in the club where there were random different encounters and it added immersion and replayability.

Like i said, i don't need to imagine something i have already played multiple times, both in the other games which use this approach and in the earlier version of this one that you mention. That earlier version had 2-3 such encounters total as a minor part of the storyline, and the relative novelty might've fooled you into thinking it's good, but believe me, that impression goes out of the window fast when the number of repetitions ramps up into dozens.

 

[rbx4]

Like i said, i don't need to imagine something i have already played multiple times, both in the other games which use this approach and in the earlier version of this one that you mention. That earlier version had 2-3 such encounters total as a minor part of the storyline, and the relative novelty might've fooled you into thinking it's good, but believe me, that impression goes out of the window fast when the number of repetitions ramps up into dozens.

We're at similar endpoints through different routes. To me, I'm happy with a well-done loop. I think this was something that Crush probably wanted to do back in 2017 too, but his customary slowness led people to conclude that his design plan and choice of variables were to blame. Turned out he is just slow no matter what.

Still, people are free to like what they want. I'd say that many current fans of the game have tastes similar to yours, going to visual novel instead of emergent gameplay.

 

[rbx4]

I should probably also outline how I see this. I think there are people who believe in "bumbler crush", who is perpetually an innocent novice at all this (even after 7 successful years in this field), who can't do things right, but who somehow succeeds. The charming bumbler is someone that certain people want to throw money at.

I believe in the "smart crush" instead, one who is learning, observing, and choosing correctly most of the time given the goal. I'm not telling Crush not to do anything, since I believe in "smart crush."

 

[Diconica]

Sure, I think that's a relevant comparison. I don't follow TiTS either, also not my cup of tea, but I'm vaguely familiar with it and CoC.

Fen's Patreon states they're earning £25650 pcm and Crush's Patreon states £5741 pcm.

Quite a difference, no? Possibly shows the value of community interaction and regular updates. Also Fen has a proven track record and super niche content so... if you like it you probably really like it and want to support i.e. pay for more.

They didn't start out making that kind of money. Both of them started making nothing. Trying to fit a niche vs general public is usually harder to get the same or greater growth than appealing to the mass. By not selecting a niche you literally have a greater number of potential clients. Basically you set it up and assign a tag then make use of the tag any time you want it to show the same thing.

Wow, I think that's really unfair! Twine / SugarCube doesn't do any of the avatar stuff, which I think is a huge part of the success of Female Agent. I think they're really pushing what the engine is capable of in terms of making an aesthetically pleasing game.

I also see a ton of polish and therefore effort on the UI. I think Female Agent is a good looking, slick game to play and I credit the developers for that.

You can open the game in twine. There is a potential for code reuse with twine and sugarcube. I'm not seeing it used to its full potential. You can see plenty of older material left in there also. Most the coding is basic formatting such as setting header size. But potentially doesn't even need to be done by himself it could be done from a drop down list.

What I can tell you is he could have created a single set of variables to store the avatar image list then used a layer system with html and css to display them. He could reuse that over and over again. There seems to be evidence he did something like that. But there also seems to be evidence that when he creates a store to buy something he is making each store individually rather than using a single code base and just changing the items available and prices.

99% of the pages could could use a template format. By that they use a similar layout you just need to add the minimal format such as identify headers and sections. In total about 20 or so different page formats could be used to cover every screen he has it would just require the content changes then.

Either way basically most the so called coding would be similar to using a text editor such as MS Word or another writing program that other office software.

As above, I don't follow TiTS, but I'm pretty sure they include a lot of writing contributions from their community. More power to them. Contributions are something I think Crush has been thinking about using. If that delivers more content, faster and Crush can make it work then it's win/win, imo.

Any community content would need to be reviewed proofed then add into section of the story it will fit. In the greater extent community content is more like someone giving you and idea with the general overlay of what the events will be. Some times it could even provide the actual entire story and dialog depending on the writers skills. However, you have to go through all those submissions or have a process to weed out bad ones vs good ones. That takes time. Even if you had something like a community vote that doesn't mean by any stretch you will get the best ones or even ones that are well written. Just look how many bad games on this site that are liked.

Disagree! I think the avatar has been a huge part of elevating Female Agent above regular Twine / HTML games. Many have tried something similar, ripping art from other games, but Female Agent is bespoke.

I think the latest iteration Queen Victoria avatar art is really fucking good, far surpassing anything I've seen for a kisekae-type game. The personalisation and

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are powerful motivators to play your agent. See the end of episode scene where $name will always remember you!

The avatar art and new depictions of bar staff in this episode looks very vector-based to me e.g. Illustrator. It's pretty complex (patterns) so you're probably not going to get a huge amount of benefit from using SVGs either in speeding up development when you can just batch export and plug it into their existing workflow. The avatar code is clunky but it works so nobody cares!

Not sure what you are disagreeing with.
I listed a number of facts.
The male images are all images taken from the web.
While the avatars for the women were made using SVG he converted them to png and he lost a lot of flexibility doing that. He does use some SVGs for achievements but the avatar images are all converted to png. I can't tell you why he chose to do that. It would have saved him work such as making different color eyebrows and hair. All he would need to do is change the value in the SVG it is just text. That said maybe there isn't a way to edit that in twine.

Money. But I believe they could make a lot more, TiTS money even, if they released content on a regular schedule. It's tempting to think that punishing them by removing subscriptions would make them change but if it didn't pay their rent I think it's more likely they would just stop the game and do something else. After all, I'd hazard a guess that the vast, vast majority on F95 are not subscribed to Female Agent anyway.

It's not really the quality of the code it's the amount of quality content per update that people care about. If the latest episode was released after one or two months supporters would be fine. If the latest episode had more content and sex scenes supporters would probably be happy. Taking longer and delivering less makes people unhappy-ish... but

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.

Edit: grammar

If you look you will notice his avatars reuse parts. They are composite images. So it doesn't take as much work as if you were going to create each individual image with brush methods.
I suspect he is using some software he found that does a lot of the work. There are ones out there that have skeletal animation systems and allow changing body part sizes and the clothing is automatically fit to the character because the vertexes are matched to it.

Myself I've done the work using Krita to generate a base model then hand edited the vertices. Even then it didn't take much time. I did that primarily to understand how the SVG worked at the base level because I am building my own library and editor for game development.
There are already editors out there though. If that is the case the amount of work put into it is far less than if he is using Krita and or some other software and editing it.

But take the bodies on the newer ones here are a few different postures. Ignore the arm placement that is separate parts. Torso upper and lower. The front and back image is literally the front flipped left to right. then the back shading added. The crotch area is also a separate section that is added in. Then you add the ass for the back and so on and tits on the front. There are several girls using the same one. There are several girls with the same facial jaw line some differ. SVGs you can easly change the color in make up shadows cheeks ... are all just layers added over it. eyes nose hair are again just another layered image.

The point being is it does take much work to create thousands or millions of different characters once you have some of these built up. If you have a bone and slider system built in you can make them even easier.

The point is people on here know the amount of work going into the game isn't that much. The art work is a days work maybe two if he is slow. The writing doesn't even make that. It took him 6 months to put that out.
That is why people are upset. That makes he did effectively 1 days work for every 60 he had.
Yep, I'd say they have every reason to think there should have been more.

 

[RandomLeviathan]

As a Patreon supporter years ago, all I can say at this point is that crush has perfected getting well paid for (very) little output. What drew me to support then, and probably others now as well, is the potential the game holds. A clean interface, neat art, plausible story, mature experience seems like a beginning of something greater. Unfortunately it's not (& never) meant to be.

 

[Diconica]

Feedback from the random bar encounters test was reported to be positive.

Personally, I don't see the point in gatekeeping. Relax, nobody is going to get imploded at the bottom of the ocean, it's just a game.

Game play loop:
Usually reference to the loop cycle where the game goes through the process of update and then render.
There is a hell of a lot that could have been gained by having a proper game loop in this game.
A lot larger reuse of code and being able to separate dialog and story from the code including HTML and such.
This would have amount to him creating about 20 different template pages and that include allowing for the dynamic avatar and changing backgrounds.

Instead what you have is setting up tags and other garbage to add to each page you create in this case something like 5700 page or so. All of which in some way he has to do some formatting to.
Currently, the game doesn't actually use a game loop as such. You go from one html page to another effectively. You have some basic formatting and variables you can keep along the way to track stuff.

 

[ffive]

We're at similar endpoints through different routes. To me, I'm happy with a well-done loop. I think this was something that Crush probably wanted to do back in 2017 too, but his customary slowness led people to conclude that his design plan and choice of variables were to blame. Turned out he is just slow no matter what.

I agree the random encounters thing was likely something the author originally had in mind, i'd guess as part of "Mass Effect-like" semi-sandbox gameplay he'd mention here and there. But it's the sort of thing that'd maybe fit with the rest of typical RPG treadmill, i.e. the skill increases, XP gains and all that superfluous padding stuff. Things that simply aren't there -- and now that the game has been effectively stripped down just to the (largely linear) narrative, i feel such components would only serve as annoyance for people who are interested in what they currently get, this narrative, as opposed to grinding through proverbial "kill 10 rats"* click fests between the story beats.

*) well, more like "suck 10 dicks" given the theme of the game, but still about the same thing, entertainment-wise.

 

[rbx4]

I agree the random encounters thing was likely something the author originally had in mind, i'd guess as part of "Mass Effect-like" semi-sandbox gameplay he'd mention here and there. But it's the sort of thing that'd maybe fit with the rest of typical RPG treadmill, i.e. the skill increases, XP gains and all that superfluous padding stuff. Things that simply aren't there -- and now that the game has been effectively stripped down just to the (largely linear) narrative, i feel such components would only serve as annoyance for people who are interested in what they currently get, this narrative, as opposed to grinding through proverbial "kill 10 rats"* click fests between the story beats.

*) well, more like "suck 10 dicks" given the theme of the game, but still about the same thing, entertainment-wise.

Yes I think the origin of this game was a combination of AMWF plus spy plus some idea that certain games (to go unnamed) that are only a text loop would be much better if they had a few graphics.

 

[Otomo]

for next updates, some ideas :
- a sex scene leaded by the new girl, Amanda : lesbian show, and after, some scession with clients. Spy will accept as senpai of Amanda.
- rewrite to make the story a little quicker.

 

[Lasdehnen]

Yes, unfortunately, this update of the game seemed to me short and not very successful. A very banal scene and a lot of internal doubts in the main character, which I don’t want to believe. In theatrical terms, she "plays a role for three salaries."

It's sad to see that Crush has already formed a template for every update.
1) domestic scene
2) evening at work and harassment of the client to the heroine
3) before going to bed, the main character dreams “what if this client is in my bed now”

But I came up with an ending for the game:
- The main character helps to arrest the Devilfish without leaving the bar
- she returns to London and before going to bed she dreams “what if I started working as a bargirl on the second floor…”

 

[XJ347]

If people didn't know 1.19 has some controversy. The main theme of this episode is about trauma from being groomed into a bargirl. This episode is REALLY good if you play a reluctant Kate, albeit short... If you don't play that way, then you will have problems with it. There is an event that a black widow type wouldn't struggle with as much as a reluctant Kate.

Funny enough, this is a pretty simple solution for this. Crush just has to make that scene dependent on if they are playing a reluctant Kate or not, and make it a choice to feel that way.

The other issue is that it's short. Knowing this site, people are going to dog pile and scream it's a scam. /Eyeroll Crush clearly has problems from over editing and it slows him down. He keeps trying to improve things and make them worse LOL. I think it's a valid complaint that he is so slow that it's not worth supporting his game, but then again most people don't on this site...

 

[fortuna95]

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Hi guys! Before the new episode released, I said I’d need feedback from the community. I certainly got it.
This episode received by far the most negative criticism of any episode of Female Agent. So that’s obviously an indicator that I made mistakes this time.

The criticisms were mainly (but not entirely) in two areas:

• It took too long to produce
• The characterisation of the heroine didn’t feel consistent with some of her earlier scenes

I want to avoid spoiling the episode for those who haven’t played it yet, so I’ll get into some detail after the general release on Sunday. But I’ve spent part of this week just listening to and absorbing the feedback (as well as doing prep work for the next episode).

This week: I’ll be focusing on some scene edits, based on player feedback, aimed at improving the characterisation issues.

I want to say thank you to all the people who provided feedback, here, on Discord and in DMs. I read it all and took it seriously, and I'm sorry to those of you who didn't feel this episode was a hit.

 

[Blob]

• It took too long to produce
• The characterisation of the heroine didn’t feel consistent with some of her earlier scenes

Agree with both of those points but imo taking a huge amount of time to create a small amount of content is the much bigger problem. Seems like redoing something AGAIN isn't going to help with that