You just had to go and remind Crush how re-integrating life path will give him an excuse to spend 2 more years of "development" by polishing the handful of existing scenes to "accurately reflect the diverse variety of personalities your agent can have heading into the Bangkok mission" or whatever marketing bullshit he'll need a week to come up with instead of actually doing the work.
HTML Female Agent [v1.20.1p] [Crushstation]
That was the 2nd version of Lifepath...
The original Lifepath, the one Crush abandoned following 1.6 update was actually complete (from birth through getting on plane for Bangkok) and that version actually had skill system that worked and choices you made earlier had effect later on. Not much of an effect but there was still an effect.
That said, how much are you willing to bet Crush will be now working on 3rd version of Lifepath, starting once again from begining...
And of course, once he develops that Lifepath, that will require him to pretty much rewrite EVERYTHING that happened in Bangkok so far.
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Are you actually fucking kidding me
Holy fucking shit
How hard can it possibly be to come up with story events about a hot girl working a fucking tittiebar/brothel
No one would've even given him shit if he had just implemented random encounters for the work week which you could play again and again if you so wanted to and then just add random encounters + story progression
But no he can't do that
Because at some point the girl that got raped by her future employer and had various sexual adventures afterwards started to feel weird about a blowjob
I can't
He took the game out of Bangkok
What the fuck
Is it really that hard to come up with groping and sexual proposition situations for him?
I mean really?
We aren't even in Bangkok anymore
The lifepath being shelved was supposed to make the story the centre of his attention
I hated that because I saw no reason to
All he had to do was connect the skills you earn in the lifepath to the story driven game.
Aka just use the same variables, all other twine games manage to do that
There shouldn't even be any distinction
The lifepath is the preparation for how the player wants to play
A slut, a naive girl, whatever the player wants
Oh god
He's going to come up with a new sex mechanic again isn't he?
Even though the first one was fucking fine
Wow
This is something
Holy fucking shit
How hard can it possibly be to come up with story events about a hot girl working a fucking tittiebar/brothel
No one would've even given him shit if he had just implemented random encounters for the work week which you could play again and again if you so wanted to and then just add random encounters + story progression
But no he can't do that
Because at some point the girl that got raped by her future employer and had various sexual adventures afterwards started to feel weird about a blowjob
I can't
He took the game out of Bangkok
What the fuck
Is it really that hard to come up with groping and sexual proposition situations for him?
I mean really?
We aren't even in Bangkok anymore
The lifepath being shelved was supposed to make the story the centre of his attention
I hated that because I saw no reason to
All he had to do was connect the skills you earn in the lifepath to the story driven game.
Aka just use the same variables, all other twine games manage to do that
There shouldn't even be any distinction
The lifepath is the preparation for how the player wants to play
A slut, a naive girl, whatever the player wants
Oh god
He's going to come up with a new sex mechanic again isn't he?
Even though the first one was fucking fine
Wow
This is something
Second version of Lifepath is still in the file, just not linked to anything so one would hope he can just pick it up. Of course this is Crush we're talking about, the Todd 'I Can't Tell If It's Incompetence or Malice' Howard of this space.
Yeah, when i said Kate enters university i meant there's a bit of early content in there and then it just died.
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- Female Agent is an enormous dynamic world
- You can walk all the way through Bangkok
- Go where you want, do what you want
- Female Agent will have 200 endings
- The game has over 200 encounters, all handcrafted
It just works
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SEE THAT ABANDONED APARTMENT BUILDING? YOU CAN CLIMB IT!
Now, in all fairness to Crush, he always said that he wanted to reintegrate the lifepath before starting the the Bangkok story proper. So you can't fault him for that. Then again, I am not sure he realizes that people expect faster results, considering that lots of the story and content already exists.
The question remains, how much of the previous content will be part of the "new" path and how on earth he is tying different choices and skills into the numerous mechanics that exist in the actual novel uh game. We all know the answer. It will take him like six months to realize that it doesn't work and he has to do it all over again.
At this point I really would not be shocked, if he was inspired by Cassies Blue Swallow and in two years FA starts with a prologue where we see flashbacks of Kates lose content and her being the mother of a newly created character, who will be the actual protagonist.
The question remains, how much of the previous content will be part of the "new" path and how on earth he is tying different choices and skills into the numerous mechanics that exist in the actual novel uh game. We all know the answer. It will take him like six months to realize that it doesn't work and he has to do it all over again.
At this point I really would not be shocked, if he was inspired by Cassies Blue Swallow and in two years FA starts with a prologue where we see flashbacks of Kates lose content and her being the mother of a newly created character, who will be the actual protagonist.
Honestly he should just make the lifepaths thing and then write little missions like he did for that Christmas bonus or whatever that was. It would keep it more fresh as a write and he could do different projects and not feel tied to Bangkok. He could *COUGH* just make the Bangkok mission sweet and short (LOLOLOL) and then have continuing spy adventures etc. in the framework he's created.
Yeah - now that he's established that stand-alone episodes are a thing - he could just write the parts he has ideas for as stand-alone features and sort out how they connect to each other later. He's been teasing a handful of named episodes since at least autumn 2022, so it seems like he has a pretty good idea what happens in them. Why can't he just write these named episodes as stand-alone ones?
Why does he feel the need to write about every single shift anyway?
Literary techniques for skipping over boring, repetitive parts do exist and he's displayed some familiarity with them by managing to write about Kate's time in college without describing in great detail every single lecture she attended.
I was getting used to my work as a topless waitress at the Hard Cock Café. Getting groped by countless men became my new normal and daily grind. Every night my skimpy g-string was soaking wet. Sometimes it ended up stuffed in my mouth by Conor, who would fuck me and give me money afterwards. Still, becoming a bargirl was a line I would not cross. That's where I would draw the line. No, not me. Never! There was no sign of Devilfish either.
Until, one night, three months later ...
Not great, but took me about 5-10 minutes to write.
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As long as money keeps coming in, Crush will not change anything and the lifepath "rework" will be another year (or two) of milking his patrons. The only way to spring him to action is hurting his pocket. But with his blind loyal fans, I don't see it happening.
Because the most basic premise of storytelling is "show, don't tell". So, the game shows what's supposed to be important part of the experience, the continuous escalation of the situation MC is in, instead of just summing it up with a snippet like the one you've produced and skipping to "and then three months later".
If you have parts which read as "repetitive and boring" then that's problem with writing of these scenes, because they aren't supposed to be boring. And if all you can think of is to just skip them, then that's basically admission of defeat, and a sign of potential issue with pacing of your story.
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Fair enough, I suppose, but since Crush says he's struggling with making barmaid shifts between more important story beats exciting ("I realised that I was repeating story beats we've already had"), why not just gloss over these barmaid shifts - and write the parts that do advance the heroine's corruption?
Crush (12 March 2024)
I’m working on it full time every day to get it ready for testing and release. The problem has been that what I’ve been producing has felt boring and I fucking hated it. (And myself ) I was really worried that I actually couldn’t pull off another barmaid shift and make it sexy, which is a problem because the story’s not ready for the heroine to make the jump to bargirl yet.
I realised that I was repeating story beats we’ve already had – the initial shock of the job itself (omg I’m topless! omg I’m on camera! etc). Unfortunately the solution to this wasn’t as simple as my original plan (“do it again, but this time in fuck-me boots”). Skinnying down the length was an important step, but it's not the whole solution.
Barmaid shifts becoming repetitive betrays a lack of imagination. You can have events and special days. If one day of the week is especially slow the girls go fully nude. Body paint jerseys if there is some big sportsball game. Add an interesting group of patrons to cause trouble, sailors on leave or something.
I mean yes, this is one way to deal with it. Another would be to introduce new elements to alleviate repetitiveness, like the poster above suggests. And finally, yet another way would be to recognize that "story is not ready for heroine to make jump to bargirl" is entirely arbitrary, and actually making this jump without necessarily dragging out the story with weeks and months of regular bar shifts first... may be for the best -- this is, ultimately, a spy story and these tend to be fast-paced.
Of course, that last approach requires some desire to actually finish the story, as opposed to perpetual development. /s
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It's also an excuse for Crush.
He'd just have to write let's say 10 small barmaid events that randomly get activated during the week.
Afterwards he can add more as the game progresses.
Obviously give the player options of what to do with them.
Drink with the annoying tourists, go back home with one of them....... whatever.
Just give the player something to do for in between versions.
And with every story release he could add a few small events that fire randomly that the player could have.
Other twine games have that, for some reason some people say this would be impossible in this one.
I mean what it should be between those story beats is the game. Make shifts into a repetitive sandbox event in which you interact with the location and its characters. Stuff like Young Maria or those types of games come to mind. I've spent hours in those types of games chasing nothing but a slightly different porn GIF and watching fake numbers increase so I can buy a new shirt or something.
For example after your first linear shift you enter a 'shift hub' where you have to earn x amount of money or y amount of a character's trust to get deeper into the bar's organization which, when those variables are met, will then trigger the next linear story beat. A corruption system could slowly unlock more depraved interactions MC is willing to take with Bar patrons to earn more tips or trust etc.
The fact that there is no economic pull or system in the game and little reason for one since MC is actively able to tap her agency for resources is problematic IMO. Give MC a fixed stipend from the agency and then add more need for money. There's a clothing system, let MC earn money at the bar and use it to buy new clothing. Give the clothing stats that make MC earn more tips. Make MC have to pay rent. Make the local cops or gangsters shake MC down for bribe money or favors outside of the Agency's knowledge.
For example after your first linear shift you enter a 'shift hub' where you have to earn x amount of money or y amount of a character's trust to get deeper into the bar's organization which, when those variables are met, will then trigger the next linear story beat. A corruption system could slowly unlock more depraved interactions MC is willing to take with Bar patrons to earn more tips or trust etc.
The fact that there is no economic pull or system in the game and little reason for one since MC is actively able to tap her agency for resources is problematic IMO. Give MC a fixed stipend from the agency and then add more need for money. There's a clothing system, let MC earn money at the bar and use it to buy new clothing. Give the clothing stats that make MC earn more tips. Make MC have to pay rent. Make the local cops or gangsters shake MC down for bribe money or favors outside of the Agency's knowledge.
Sounds somewhat like the training scenes from the lifepath. They weren't very good