As always, I appreciate that people worry I'll up and abandon this project. But, I have no such intentions.
I know I add a bunch of characters, but I honestly just see it as more toys to play with if I want to, and if I don't.. I won't! There's obviously the core cast of love interests, and I have plans for how they connect to each other, and the larger plot bubbling in the background.. But, sometimes a character is just there because I want to do a fun little scene. Blizzy and Cutiedoll are in that vein. I liked the idea of Guy being accosted by two idiots, and based on his mood, having it go in very different ways. Being able to respond kindly, curtly, or angrily -- or if you're already in a bad mood, getting no real choice in the matter.
I also believe that, if you're going to have a minor character in a porn game.. Make them a hot lady. Kara the hotel owner from the last chapter is an example of this. I could have Guy just pull up to the hotel, and then cut to him and Risa in the room. Hell, I could just cut from Guy deciding to take her to the hotel, to them being in the room. But, I wanted to do a little scene where for once, someone is completely unfamiliar with Guy's local fame, and therefore entirely unimpressed with him. And since I'm doing that, let's make her a hot lady (literally, ba-dum-tssh).
And if I decide I want to do a little self-contained chapter where a small business owner realizes a multi-millionaire was staying in her hotel, and approaches him for a grant to fix up her place.. Well, I've got this character ready for sexy fun-times.
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We're eventually going to get to a point where the love interests don't really need such complicated sex scenes. That drastically speeds things up on my end, and allows me to focus on more story stuff. Mason gets another BJ scene in the next update, and it's a pretty sparse 40ish renders. Compare that to his first one, which was 100+. Ashe's fucked-over-the-table scene? That's 28 renders for the longest variation, as opposed to 130+ for her long sex scene in the same update.
My intentions are that, as the game progresses and I don't
need to do such long sex scenes, I'll be able to focus on moving the story along at a faster clip. So, rather than things getting more complicated, they actually get a bit simpler. This is kind of modeled on the way sex scenes work in most erotic novels -- the first scene is always a big deal. After that, it's more like.. "And then they fucked!"
Once all the characters are at their, "And then they fucked!" stage (currently Nicki, Ashe, and Risa are there, and Mason will be after next update) I'll be able to focus more on interesting little events that depend on your relationship with a character. Threesomes, kink content, and of course the main narrative of sexual exploitation and Guy trying to outmaneuver an antagonist.
All that said -- this is still the first game I've done. I'll mess up here and there, and overextend myself. But, I think I'm already doing better than many novice devs.
So, one thing I learned over time is that I really need to be tagging like.. Every mildly consequential decision with a variable. For the Ashe roleplay scene, I kind of just intended for it to initially show her as someone who's extremely kinky/horny in a way that most of the other love interests aren't. Then eventually she'd meet Cassie and it'd be kind of funny/awkward/
something. But, I'll often be writing a scene and think, "Oh man, I could bring that back up right here, since all the pieces are assembled."
Writing a scene where Ashe is changing into her swimsuit, realizing Guy would have Cassie's suit in his room, and realizing that Ashe would connect the dots, made me want to revisit her little fetish. But, I didn't have a variable tagged from the earlier scene, to show Guy was into it. Which meant that I had to do a little improvisation, and have Ashe just bring it up in a way that could suggest she'd both already talked about it with Guy, and not. It'll be fixed once I clean up Chapter One, and fill out/polish up a bunch of stuff I've long meant to.
It's important to remember that the game is still technically in a Beta/early access stage. I'm constantly finding little things in the script where I think, "Shit, I wish I'd have labeled that.." But, the good news is that once it's
done, I'll be able to do a thorough review and make sure everything is just so.
I, too, liked that hotel lady and was wondering if there were any plans.
