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

[Crushstation]

So will my skeleton...

I honestly wouldn't even start waiting until I've seen some Bangkok content, because I still have the suspicion that the development of this game is intentionally slow and gets sidetracked very often, but of course, if the patrons are happy with it then who am I to criticize it.

The development is slow but that's far from intentional. My biggest worry about the project is that people will just lose patience in the slow progress and abandon their support. I'm receptive to any ideas about how to speed it up.

I've never felt that slowing down development would create more income. I feel like faster development would help attract and retain more patrons, because they'd be getting more for their money?

Maybe some people think that in my mind the story is over once we get to Bangkok, and so I'm putting that off because it would end the project? But to my mind, the story truly begins once she's undercover. I'd absolutely love to spend my days creating and commissioning new story scenes and side quests, so that every time you log into Female Agent there's something new to discover. The Patreon model means that I could support the game with new content for as long as people are interested in it (like a pen & paper GM creating new adventures for as long as the players are interested in the campaign and their characters).

So in a way it is true to say that I'd like to prolong the game's development – but my vision for achieving this is adding new content, not coding slowly.

 

[TX3]

Just came across this line: "His accent is Scandinavian, or possibly Dutch." I picked Dutch as a second language in the game and despite the huge percentage of non-native English speakers there, the accent is one of the most recognisable and fairly egregious. Right under French if you ask me (am Dutch). Either way, my character definitely would not have mistaken it for Scandinavian, also considering the fact that a UK background exposes you to quite a few dialects.

On the other hand, why did I even bother to point this out as it adds very little? I guess I felt the need as you seem to like describing details.

PS. Since this is my first post here, really like the premise and enjoyed the inclusion of the Mozambique drill along with other details. Tom Clancy would be embarrassed but secretly proud.

 

[Crushstation]

Thanks TX3! I edited the line to just "His accent is Scandinavian."

Clancy was my favourite author when I was a teenager, so your compliment pleased me more than you might imagine.

One of the things I really want to do is take a few days to just edit and rewrite some of the text – it feels clunky and "first draft-y" to me in most scenes. But I can't make the time right now.

 

[Tanzie]

The development is slow but that's far from intentional. My biggest worry about the project is that people will just lose patience in the slow progress and abandon their support. I'm receptive to any ideas about how to speed it up.

What you currently have is not even a game yet, it's a "preview" of a game and you've spent the last three months literally "polishing" the preview.

I've already told you that cosmetic changes like ass, boob sizes, hair colors etc. can be added later, once the actual game is completed, but you ignored that, which naturally made me think that you're doing it on purpose, because it's a quite common thing with Patreon projects. It doesn't matter how many skin or hair colors or hip sizes you offer in a preview of a game if there's no gameplay in it, because it's like presenting the character creation screen of an RPG, as a complete game.

I'm sure most people don't even look at the simple paperdoll on the left while reading the text, even if they do, it's so small, it's hard to see anything significant on it, it can only give us an idea about the occasion. If a simple paperdoll like that helps people imagine a sexy agent in their minds, they surely have the power to imagine her as someone with larger hips or boobs.

What you need is the actual game play mechanic, where the character's skills and stats come into play. I'm personally going to stay skeptical until you offer something we can actually "play", and by the looks of things it's not going to happen unless you begin the actual game in Bangkok.

 

[torkenstiem]

I don't really have anything critical to say, other than don't try to do so much per update, or maybe just split up the work load for each update. I like the writing style AND the "paper doll" does help, since my imagination ain't as good as it use to be. Long as you keep communicating to your supporters, I don't see a problem. Heck, some devs disappear and are never heard from again, but still get support.

 

[Crushstation]

Thanks torkenstiem! Breaking up the workload into smaller releases is definitely a good idea and is something I'll try to do in future. (With that advice, you've kind of zeroed in on one reason this update has taken so long: the redrawing of the avatar meant that we had to redraw and reüpload every single art asset in the game. There was no way to just redraw some of them, because the old art assets didn't fit on the new avatars.)

 

[Mimx]

I understand and recognize the issues with art vs no art, but inevitably, the second you do include art, you will always alienate a group of people who viewed any given character in a specific way. But then why include art in any text game? Mood? Losing 'busy work'? Yes.

Every time you see your naked agent on the side, that's minus six extra lines of dialogue that would have been in the script. And it lets you set your own ideas for how and why and the movement about it. That cum mark isn't always just 'aesthetics, look sex hurhur', it's also 'can she hide that, don't forget its there'- so you don't go repeating it every other paragraph. It streamlines, it neatens, it modernizes, and sets it aside from pen and paper GM mode, because in those games, you can go do things that would be crazy and not logical in a given situation. But this isn't a tabletop game, this is a computer game.

My main complaint is the focus on caucasian characters, especially the player character. I'm especially confused, given we have Afrikaans as a second language- being a main language in South Africa(and to a lesser extent, Namibia), a very much mixed country- thereby presumptively best 'logically' given to a New Zealand or Australian agent (being that most South Africans immigrate there, if at all), yet options are all very white.

I understand there are to be new cultural backgrounds to be implemented, but culture and color/race are two different things. I'm also disappointed in the lack of Asiatic second languages. I hope this will all be taken note of and focused on at some point.

 

[Crushstation]

Hey Tanzie, thanks for the frank and thought-provoking feedback, as usual. It's crucial that my ideas get challenged, because some of my ideas are great and some are awful, but I can't tell which are which.

I've already told you that cosmetic changes like ass, boob sizes, hair colors etc. can be added later, once the actual game is completed...

The trouble with this approach is that the longer we delayed the avatar upgrade, the longer it would take (because more art assets would need to be redrawn). My concern was that if we didn't do it as task 1.5 or 1.6, we'd never do it.

When I'm playing through my dev version, I feel like the upgrade is worth it, but then I really like the paperdoll. For players who DGAF about the paperdoll, this upgrade will probably be underwhelming. (The good news for those players is that the upgraded avatar should serve the game for the rest of its lifespan, so avatar improvements should be incremental from here.)

I'm sure most people don't even look at the simple paperdoll on the left while reading the text, even if they do, it's so small, it's hard to see anything significant on it, it can only give us an idea about the occasion.

One thing we've done that might improve this is doubling the image resolution to achieve crispness on HD displays. That makes it easier to see small details. PilotLara is experimenting with an increase to the avatar's physical size, too, but that won't make 1.5 for tech reasons.

 

[Crushstation]

Every time you see your naked agent on the side, that's minus six extra lines of dialogue that would have been in the script...

Yeah, this! I feel like using the avatar is an elegant way to tell or reinforce parts of the story.

My main complaint is the focus on caucasian characters, especially the player character. I'm especially confused, given we have Afrikaans as a second language- being a main language in South Africa(and to a lesser extent, Namibia), a very much mixed country- thereby presumptively best 'logically' given to a New Zealand or Australian agent (being that most South Africans immigrate there, if at all), yet options are all very white.

More races are definitely planned. (I've wanted to run with Freema Agyerman as my canon agent ever since I heard her in Six Degrees of Assassination.)



I take your point about colour and culture/race being different things. However, implementing each new skin colour is something of a pain in the ass (since I need to recolour all the eyes, lips, noses etc), so when I hit this I want to do it properly. My plan is to break the existing "Race" field into "Citizenship" and "Ethnicity", so we can create Welsh and Afro-Carribbean MI6 agents, Latina and Native American CIA agents, Maori NZSIS agents, etc. That means coding in name lists, some Lifepath variations, and ethnic facial features as well as skin tones, but it's definitely an area I want to tackle.

Ironically, I feel like agents of Asian ethnicities will be the hardest to write for, since the premise of the game is putting a Western girl undercover in an Asian brothel. Ideas welcome.

 

[SuperMaxo]

Ironically, I feel like agents of Asian ethnicities will be the hardest to write for, since the premise of the game is putting a Western girl undercover in an Asian brothel. Ideas welcome.

Well, before having an agent born and living in an Asian country, you might want to start with a second-generation immigrant, someone who would be very keen to experience first-hand the country that all her ancestors called home. She would of course know more about the culture than your standard American/Australian/Canadian agent (but wouldn't necessarily be fluent in the language), but because of this perceived cultural advantage might also underestimate the perils she might face.

 

[numanumani]

I think the Lifepath gives us an opportunity to let the player set the agent's preferred form of birth control and attitude to condoms (somewhere around the time we set her bikini line style and tattoo choices, maybe).

We could then reference her decision in the briefing and in the sex scenes. I think archer3334 is right, unprotected sex with random NPCs should be a bigger deal to an agent who's previously always protected herself with condoms.

Also,

You must be registered to see the links

.

Add in extra risky or even malicious behaviour into the mix (because of story reasons?) and those rates can drop; Maybe someone swapped her pills, condom broke or wasn't used as agreed and so on.

 

[Mimx]

Well, before having an agent born and living in an Asian country, you might want to start with a second-generation immigrant, someone who would be very keen to experience first-hand the country that all her ancestors called home. She would of course know more about the culture than your standard American/Australian/Canadian agent (but wouldn't necessarily be fluent in the language), but because of this perceived cultural advantage might also underestimate the perils she might face.

Really agree here. I'm surprised it wasn't in American backgrounds already- America has so many different peoples and cultures, it's the worlds melting pot to a large extent. While being mixed race could be implemented later, how about simply having a Spanish or Mexican parent? Or parents being Chinese immigrants?

I would also love the option to have more than just one extra language at home, though that might end up being a bit much. But I must say, as a mixed race South African woman with a Mauritian immigrant father, and an Austrian immigrant grandfather, I grew up speaking English, Afrikaans, French (and Creole), and some German. And many people in my country speak five languages fluently by university age. Lots of countries do this, beyond the usual US/UK views.

 

[SuperMaxo]

Really agree here. I'm surprised it wasn't in American backgrounds already- America has so many different peoples and cultures, it's the worlds melting pot to a large extent. While being mixed race could be implemented later, how about simply having a Spanish or Mexican parent? Or parents being Chinese immigrants?

I would also love the option to have more than just one extra language at home, though that might end up being a bit much. But I must say, as a mixed race South African woman with a Mauritian immigrant father, and an Austrian immigrant grandfather, I grew up speaking English, Afrikaans, French (and Creole), and some German. And many people in my country speak five languages fluently by university age. Lots of countries do this, beyond the usual US/UK views.

When I was studying in Russia (exchange program), I met quite a few Finnish students, who explained to me that, with their country being so small and their language being spoken nowhere else, when they grow up, watching TV like anywhere else, they get acquainted with all sorts of languages at a very young age, since no foreign movie or TV program is ever dubbed or subtitled. Those students that I met (admittedly, all of them being gifted for languages, as they were studying Russian language in Russia) all fluently spoke Finnish, Swedish, English and Russian, and quite a few also could get by in either German and/or French. So, yeah, we definitely could have multilingual agents. Not sure how that would help or hinder them in their mission, though.

 

[Mimx]

When I was studying in Russia (exchange program), I met quite a few Finnish students, who explained to me that, with their country being so small and their language being spoken nowhere else, when they grow up, watching TV like anywhere else, they get acquainted with all sorts of languages at a very young age, since no foreign movie or TV program is ever dubbed or subtitled. Those students that I met (admittedly, all of them being gifted for languages, as they were studying Russian language in Russia) all fluently spoke Finnish, Swedish, English and Russian, and quite a few also could get by in either German and/or French. So, yeah, we definitely could have multilingual agents. Not sure how that would help or hinder them in their mission, though.

My father works internationally, he can speak eight languages fluently, and picks up new languages easily. Lots of languages are quite similar- Dutch/German/Afrikaans vs Spanish/French/Portuguese/Italian, and when you've learned enough of how to pick languages up, you end up learning new languages far more easily. This could potentially help the agent and be to her detriment- she'll end up hearing a lot more, and picking up Thai far more quickly- potentially knowing it already- but this could also lead to her presuming and knowing things that may not be in character, and making her far more suspicious, considering a random backpacker shouldn't be so very capable.

 

[Back]

And here I am barely able to speak any language let alone English...

 

[Jaster42]

And here I am barely able to speak any language let alone English...

I know right, I had to resist the urge to be like, 'I think American characters should be -1 starting language if my experience is true, given the common American is lucky to even have a passable 2nd language.' Not that I can throw stones, as I can barely grasp the two secondary languages I'm interested in, much less actually form a sentence in either (though at least my english is fine, speech impediment aside).

 

[ToG]

I know right, I had to resist the urge to be like, 'I think American characters should be -1 starting language if my experience is true, given the common American is lucky to even have a passable 2nd language.' Not that I can throw stones, as I can barely grasp the two secondary languages I'm interested in, much less actually form a sentence in either (though at least my english is fine, speech impediment aside).

See, and I'm taking it as part of what makes the female agent "noteworthy." The fact that (if American) she can speak more than one language fluently would help bring her to the attention of the agency.

 

[Jaster42]

See, and I'm taking it as part of what makes the female agent "noteworthy." The fact that (if American) she can speak more than one language fluently would help bring her to the attention of the agency.

Aye, just making light of the poor language skills of the American norm (myself included).

 

[brownrice]

This is one of the best of these types of games. Don't have to click a lot and just follow a linear story with choices. The writing is good without having too much text. Love choosing the character's past relationships and experiences.

 

[Mercedes]

I myself come from Germany. Long time ago, I still had Russian in school. So I never came to study English and today (also for convenience) use an online translator.
That is, to be able to speak only one language is not only a local problem but also a generation problem.

I am now following FA for almost 18 months, mainly via Discord.
This at least helps me to be able to rhyme with myself some sentences without having to try the Translator again.