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Hey everyone, Rem here! Ahead of v5's release, I thought to do something special for our $10+ supporters. So here's some developer insight about the receptionist side job!
As mentioned before and since the start, the main core of Karryn's Prison is that everything is interlinked together by having EVERYTHING be done through the battle screen. The Edicts Karryn has chosen, the way Karryn's stats has grown, and most importantly for the sex related stuff, the Passives that Karryn has obtained.
The receptionist side job like the waitress side job is something that is completely optional to game progression. Whereas being a waitress offers a supplemental income in return for being yet another vector of gaining Passives, being a receptionist offers supplemental Order to the prison. You're not going to be able to keep the prison under control just by being a receptionist every day, but it's an optional way of getting more Order especially in moments when Karryn's enemies are too powerful to fight too many of in a single day.
But, I'm not here to talk today about the design goals of having a receptionist side job because it would too spoiler-ish imo. No, ahead of the v5 alpha release, I'm going to share some developer insight about the challenges of designing the receptionist side job and other side jobs, as well as why I make the choices I made in designing it. Consider this as just a window into my thinking.
So side jobs are a really different beast. I've talked about it before in regards to waitress side job about how I made it a different play experience from the other battles in the game, but also kept it interlinked with everything else in the game in terms of having Edicts, Passives, etc matter. When I say side jobs are a really different beast, I'm not just talking about the gameplay systems involved. I'm talking about the design challenges.
Let's take a look at the systems surrounding the waitress side job. Of the existing systems that interlink with the waitress side job, you got the obvious stats, Passives, Edicts, Titles and such. To offer an extreme example, a Karryn with nearly no slut levels and a focus on defensive stats is going to have a very different experience and path of success while being a waitress compared to a Karryn with a ton of Passives and low defensive stats.
And then there's the exclusive system for the waitress side job called Bar Reputation. Bar Reputation has two main effects:
1. It increases Bar Income, which helps you throughout your attempt to restore order to Fort Ganon.
2. It affects the waitress side job.
I would rather, if possible, that there be as few exclusive systems as possible because I want every action in every battle to affect every other battle. But the decision to make 'the bar grow' based off of a new exclusive system called Bar Reputation, instead of let's say, just adding bar related Passives into the game that has the same effect, is mainly because it wouldn't make for a good gameplay balance. Specifically, when the game board is reset after a new game plus.
And by the way, there are three main systems that influences "Player Progression."
On new game plus, one system will ALWAYS be reset. That is the Edicts system. So the bar will return to being broken, and it must be repaired again until it can be used again.
On new game plus, one system will NEVER be reset. That is the Titles system. This is permanent, long term player progression with small optional bonuses to those who keep running the game over and over again to explore and experiment.
And then on new game plus, the last system is up to the player if they want to reset it or not, and that is Karryn's stats and Passives.
Bar Reputation falls in line with Edicts in that it'll always gets reset. The difference is that Bar Reputation can only rise and fall from actions within the waitress side job, and its rise and fall has minimal effect on the rest of the game.
Let's visualize it differently. Let's say Karryn's Prison and all of its gameplay system as a whole is a single giant nation on the continent. The waitress side job would then be a neighboring small nation-state that shares a land border and highway with Karryn's Prison. There's going to systems traveling in between the giant Karryn's Prison nation and this independent nation-state. The Titles, Passives, etc you've earned in Karryn's Prison makes a difference inside the waitress nation-state, and you can earn more Titles and Passives from the waitress side job that you can bring back home to the giant nation. But, when the giant Karryn's Prison nation prosper or falls, it doesn't have much of an effect on the waitress nation-state. Similarly, whether the waitress nation-state prospers or falls into neglect doesn't really matter to the giant nation. You're not going to get a Game Over if Bar Reputation stays at zero for the rest of the game, and having high or low Order doesn't affect the waitress side job (and it's not going to).
So this is what I mean by having an exclusive system and its effect on the game. It's an unavoidable decision... because I purposely want to make the waitress side job feel like 'an independent nation-state' compared to the main game. I want to spice the game up with activities that not only play a bit differently from the rest of the game, but also has its own self-progression. Of course, even if it's an independent nation-state, maintaining that highway on the land border is super important.
So now finally, this brings me to the topic of the receptionist side job. If we visual the waitress side job as a land bordering nation......
Then the receptionist side job is a nearby independent island nation and travel between the giant Karryn's Prison nation and this island nation is done through the sea with ferries. Whereas the waitress side job has one exclusive system in the form of Bar Reputation, the receptionist side job has THREE exclusive systems that affects the prosperity of this island nation.
Of course, Karryn's stats, Passives, Titles, Edicts, etc etc will make a difference in the receptionist side job. Likewise, Karryn has opportunities to gain Passives and Titles from the receptionist side job to use in the rest of the game.
But receptionist side job is very unique in that unlike everything else in the game, Karryn is not dealing with inmates but with outside visitors, and they are here for visitations, not to make Karryn submit to their phallic objects. It's a window to normality away from the chaotic and perverted environment that is the rest of Fort Ganon that Karryn is part of.
So I thought, how and how and how can I make this very unique, but still part of the overall experience. And the current execution in v5 is my answer.
Because there are three exclusive systems at play here, progression within the receptionist side job is very slow. It's meant after all, to be something you may choose to continually interact with over the course of a real, full playthrough that involves days and weeks of subjugating all five Levels of the prison.
Still, hopefully most of you will find something interesting or enjoyable with the receptionist side job! Some of you might not, and that's fine too. It's different, and a bit purposely 'monotonous' in execution. Maybe a majority of you won't like it after trying it a few times. I would be sad, but at the same time, the receptionist side job is meant to be optional, and the hidden secrets within it from the three exclusive systems is meant to naturally and organically reveal themselves over the course of a full long playthrough instead of something you try to dig out by doing it twenty times in a row nonstop.
But to those who may end up enjoying it, I hope the weeks of design, implementation and execution was worth it, and thank you all very much for continually supporting us so that we can actually take those weeks to create it!!