T51bwinterized

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We put an obscene amount of work into differentiating playthroughs. Often times huge segments of text will vary.
 

kaorok

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May 31, 2017
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I know there was a preggo girl in one of the routes, was there anything you can do with her? And can any of the girls (or even the boys???) get knocked up? Asking for a friend.

(Also where my bisexual crowd at? Cause I think this is one of the few games I find where the male protagonist can be an equal opportunity ho for the D and the V at the same time, and it's not just futa stuff).
 
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Back

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Aug 3, 2017
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We put an obscene amount of work into differentiating playthroughs. Often times huge segments of text will vary.
Thanks, bro. We appreciate all y'all's efforts in bringing quality to the game and keeping that bar up high.
 

T51bwinterized

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Game Developer
Oct 17, 2017
1,455
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I know there was a preggo girl in one of the routes, was there anything you can do with her? And can any of the girls (or even the boys???) get knocked up? Asking for a friend.

(Also where my bisexual crowd at? Cause I think this is one of the few games I find where the male protagonist can be an equal opportunity ho for the D and the V at the same time, and it's not just futa stuff).
Bisexual men make up about 15% to 20% of our audience based on the most recent polling data, actually.

And yes, you can fuck a pregnant woman in the Orciad quest. None of the cast members can currently get knocked up. Not for a lack of interest in pregnancy and impregnation. A lot of games kind of just have impreg as a box you click. It doesn't meaningfully alter your relationship to her, to other people, or the game world.

This is not that kind of game.

More impregnation content is planned. Not soon, so don't wait on the edge of your seat. But it's coming.
 

aesir150

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Jul 5, 2017
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Have you considered that maybe, juuuuuuuuuust maybe, Alexia might not be quite happy about the whole Helayna thing?

Because the game does track Rowan/Alexia relationship score, and the funny thing is your wife did not consent to an Open Relationship.
Yes I did consider that, but it doesn't change the fact I on purposely held off on capturing the Raeve Keep for like 15 weeks till week 24 just to see if anything would happen between Rowan and Alexia and nothing happened. At least nothing happened in my normal played through. When I saved scummed 2-3 times to do an experiment to see where I just pressed the "Skip Week" button a bunch of times to see what events I would get through RNG, some Rowan x Alexia events fired. But when I went back to my save to actually play on, nothing ever happened.

Guess the RNG gods just weren't in favor of them boning in the real timeline of my play through. Cause what is the chance of a sex event for them firing off? I pressed skip about 5-8 times each time I ran the experiment and only in one of the 2-3 trial runs did I get the sex events... so it just seems to be the events have a very low chance of firing. In my normal play through at week 24 I had only slept with Jezara at the initial swear loyalty to the Twins event. Possibly Sheena, I think the Cla-Min events, and Clinoha events. None of these events ever indicated that Alexia was aware of any infidelity. And oddly enough during week 36 even after Heylana showed up the picnic sex scene fired. Just to clarify I used my week 24 save as the starting point of when I started to do the skip week experiments.

Which is why I asked early whether choosing to share the room with Alexia increase the chance of them having sex before Heylana shows up? Does sexing the other staff (Skodred, Clinoha, Cla-Min) in the castle without Alexia's knowledge reduce the chance of the Rowan x Alexia events from firing? Cause I can obviously tell that shes upset by Heylana when she shows up but what about before? And if she is upset about it then why did she decide to sex Rowan in week 36 during a picnic event. I am just trying to figure out how the RNG works and which scenes are pre-scripted to fire at certain intervals or triggers.
 
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Have you considered that maybe, juuuuuuuuuust maybe, Alexia might not be quite happy about the whole Helayna thing?

Because the game does track Rowan/Alexia relationship score, and the funny thing is your wife did not consent to an Open Relationship.
I've mentioned this in the past and I'll say it again here, this is one thing in a circumstance where Alexia hasn't fucked anyone else, but it gets quite dumb in those cases where she has fucked one to multiple other people already. I mean, I am well aware that work is still being done here, but this is one of those things that should be worked on a bit.
 

aesir150

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I just realize in a previous post I typoed and typed;

For a game like this I have problem giving them a large one time donation of $20-60 once the game is finished considering how much time I already sunk into it for the past few days and how good quality the writing is. Not really a fan of the subscription based donation websites since there is no guaranteed that game will ever get finished... and depending on the website most of the money you donate doesn't even go to the content creator. Since most of it is eaten up by processing fees.
What I meant to type was;

For a game like this I don't a have problem giving them a large one time donation of $20-60 once the game is finished considering how much time I already sunk into it for the past few days and how good quality the writing is. Not really a fan of the subscription based donation websites since there is no guaranteed that game will ever get finished... and depending on the website most of the money you donate doesn't even go to the content creator. Since most of it is eaten up by processing fees.

I must of accidentally started typing into a tab that loaded an auto save that didn't have the most recent thing I typed after I clicked on a notification and opened up a different thread.
 
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iainmore

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Jun 12, 2017
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"Redoing large stretches of art when we can't even afford to add CGs for every CG in the game yet is not a feasible usage of resources."

It isn't a wise choice of time available either winterized as there are only 24 hours in the day and we all have to sleep some time as well dude. The one thing that annoys patrons more than anything is also a failure to finish a game for whatever reason.
 
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diebesgrab

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Feb 25, 2019
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I've mentioned this in the past and I'll say it again here, this is one thing in a circumstance where Alexia hasn't fucked anyone else, but it gets quite dumb in those cases where she has fucked one to multiple other people already. I mean, I am well aware that work is still being done here, but this is one of those things that should be worked on a bit.
It’s worth pointing out that most of Alexia’s “trysts” have fairly dubious consent from her; she’s almost always either trying to protect Rowan or is under some sort of mind-altering influence. This changes a bit as she progresses down certain paths or becomes more corrupt, but for the most part, she’s not engaging in extramarital affairs for the giggles.

Granted, Rowan isn’t necessarily either with Helayna and a few other partners, but I’m just trying to say that the situation is pretty emotionally messy for both of them.
 

A360

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Jun 29, 2018
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It’s worth pointing out that most of Alexia’s “trysts” have fairly dubious consent from her; she’s almost always either trying to protect Rowan or is under some sort of mind-altering influence. This changes a bit as she progresses down certain paths or becomes more corrupt, but for the most part, she’s not engaging in extramarital affairs for the giggles.

Granted, Rowan isn’t necessarily either with Helayna and a few other partners, but I’m just trying to say that the situation is pretty emotionally messy for both of them.
That's a good point actually. Outside of Liurial, Greyhide and I think Jezera (with Jezera and Greyhide been a little questionable) there isn't many scenes where she fucks someone other than Rowan just because she's horny.


I think it's easy to forget that part as players because the devs always give us a way out. From an in universe perspective saying no isn't that easy especially when drugs, threats or magic are involved. We the players can so no to Andras easily because we know there is no comeback, to us it's a scene skip. If the big red fucker was in front of m........ well yep I'm sucking a dick that day because I like living and having my heart behind my sternum. It does make sense why she'd do the things she does it's rarely as simple as her just been unfaithful....Rowan on the other hand :), he can literally enter a contest to breed an Orc with zero thought of Alexia. Definitely emotionally messy. Be interesting to see what happens if you keep one faithful and the other fucks everything in sight further down the road :).
 

kaorok

Member
May 31, 2017
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Bisexual men make up about 15% to 20% of our audience based on the most recent polling data, actually.
Yeah, I think this is because the games is a rarity in the erotic game market - one where a male protagonist can fuck both hot women and hot masculine men without getting sissified or transformed into a girl first. Thank you for this!

And yes, you can fuck a pregnant woman in the Orciad quest. None of the cast members can currently get knocked up. Not for a lack of interest in pregnancy and impregnation. A lot of games kind of just have impreg as a box you click. It doesn't meaningfully alter your relationship to her, to other people, or the game world.

This is not that kind of game.

More impregnation content is planned. Not soon, so don't wait on the edge of your seat. But it's coming.
OKAY NOW YOU HAVE ME EXCITED AND AROUSED.
 
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UncleVT

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Jul 2, 2017
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This week, on the SoC writing team.
Sup, Rein here, with a Paradox style Dev Diary. I’ve decided to take a moment and shed some light on what I’ve been working on in my spare time and recently have focused on entirely – the SoC skill rework.
As it stands now, Rowan has 5 attributes, 19 different skills, on-level feats and 10 equipment slots. As you probably realize, most of that is not used all that often. To a degree, that’s because the design work on how it all should work was never finalized. But this also because the game evolved since its initial conception, from a free roam RPG to a Visual Novel with greater structure. More emphasis was put on character development and plot progression, and less on character and castle management. So the game moved forward, while the skill system lagged behind, growing increasingly disjointed from everything else.
Well, not for much longer.
Over the last 13 months, since April 2018, I’ve been working on overhauling the entirety of it. I went through 8 different skill system drafts, testing and theorycrafting various solutions, and ping-ponging ideas with the rest of the team. I’ve been trying to come up with a system that would build up from what we already have, adequately accommodate for our existing and future needs, and won’t be weighted down by mechanics that are difficult to implement and don’t really add much to the gameplay.
For the most part, the internal discussion often ended up with someone asking: “Do we REALLY need this?”
Do we REALLY need different armor types?
Do we REALLY need different weapon types?
Do we REALLY need attributes? Perks? Nineteen different skills?
And the answer was usually a meek “Not really?”
Of course, one can make a VN without bothering with skills at all, but that was out of question. For all the frustration the system was bringing us, we wanted it to exist in some capacity. We wanted Rowan to evolve through the course of the game, grow stronger from both doing the twins bidding and fighting his secret war against them. We wanted to have the Nemesis system, and that was impossible without a working skill system.
So in the end, I embarked on a quest: Trim all the fat from the skill system - leave only the essentials, and use 100% of them. Have less of everything, but make everything we have MATTER.
The first thing that went out of the window was swappable equipment, for two reasons: It added a layer of micromanagement that really didn't add much to the game itself, and because no matter what items Rowan would use, his sprite would always show him wearing the same clothes and using the same sword anyway. So what few items will remain in the game, will behave as static bonuses that apply automatically. Cliohna got you a cool ring from completing her side quest? Boom, you now always wear it. Simple, and effective.
The second thing that went out of the window were level up perks, which, for the time being, simply doubled as +skills/attributes. In the future, when we flesh out some of the game’s other mechanics, level up perks might be reintroduced into the game. For the time being, there’s simply no need for them.
The third thing that went out of the window was the majority of the skills/attributes, and the distinction between the two. There simply was not enough gameplay in the game to justify having that many of them, separated into two groups to boot.
And so, once that was decided, utilizing trial and error, intuition and some really wonky math, I’ve started cutting and merging skills and attributes, until I’ve narrowed the system down to 8 universal skills:

  • Combat Prowess – Handles all the combat checks.
  • Brawn – Handles most physical checks, and physical intimidation.
  • Agility – Handles dexterity checks, reflexes, might also handle speed checks.
  • Stealth – moving silently and hiding.
  • Perception – Listening and spotting. Might find occasional use in conversations.
  • Deception – Both verbal bluffs and combat feints, sometimes sleight of hand.
  • Diplomacy – Persuasion, composure, and verbal coercion.
  • Wilderness Survival – First aid, archery, everything concerning outdoors survival.
(You might notice the lack of more traditional rogue skills, like Open Locks and Disarm Device. For these, we went through Rowan’s backstory again, and decided it doesn’t really make much sense for him to have them in the first place, as he’s not a rogue by trade. So we simply cut them. But I digress - back to the topic at hand.)
So, now that we had, more or less, a good idea of what skills we wanted in the game, the next step was bending all of the past events to fit the current philosophy.
And so, for the last 2 months, I have been going through. Every. Single. Bloody. Event in the game, changing skills checks and adjusting descriptions. I have thus far checked 48 Rosaria Exploration events, 54Rosaria Resource events, and 80 Castle Ruler events. By my estimates, I’m 60% done with the rework, with only Orciad and Helayna Escape Investigation remaining as the two big blocks that need to be dissected.
Of course, not every event required changing. But I have also used the rework to expand on some of the less developed events that I felt did not give the player the freedom of choice I expect from SoC. Many events now sport additional responses and dialogue options, depending on skills levels, past Rosaria actions and whether or not Rowan has access to spies. Usually it’s just a paragraph or two, but some events, like the forest “Necromancer Lair”, have doubled in size.


The other big chain that had a lot of work done on it was the Helayna’s escape arc, which has been cleaned up and expanded. The whole chain now checks every skill possible, though depending on your choices, you will only see some of them.

The investigation arc will likely receive similar treatment, so all branches hold up to a similar standard. But that’s next week, along with Orciad.
So the big question is: once I am done with checking and adjusting everything, what remains to be done, and when the rework will go live?
Well, there is still some design work to be done, in particular on:
- Wounds, and how to prevent the death spiral that comes with them.
- Level ups, and making sure they’re sparse, but meaningful.
- Guilt impact on skills, and how to prevent putting the player in unwinnable states.
In general, I have ideas on all of these (I’ll discuss them at length in further Dev Diaries later on), so it shouldn’t take that long. But of course, the primary issue is - I am a writer, not a programmer. I will try to have everything on my part wrapped up by the end of the next month, but once that is finished, it will take some time to code all of this into the game in one, big update. So I can’t give you a precise ETA on the rework, but I can say real progress is being made, as seen above.
That’s all from me for now. As always, thank you for your continued support. We will continue to work hard to make SoC rise to your expectations.
 
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