This file is not gibberish or encrypted, it's a base64 snapshot of the game state - the only option available to me for Harlowe. It is stored in the same way your browser stores memory. This is the first Harlowe game that lets you download saves in the first place, because I commissioned a coder to write a javascript addon to the engine, though it's far beyond my own abilities. Now I've also given this code to the dev of Transylvania, one of the only other big projects written in Harlowe rather than Sugarcube. Sugarcube games have the option of simpler save files. But Harlowe is more elegant, in my subjective opinion - less feature-packed but more friendly to non-coders like me.
There's a set of in-game cheat codes to increase money, stats, raise and lower masculinity etc.
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Thanks for your feedback and suggestions! Could you give an example of a specific animation that goes into the "horror" territory, I'll examine it and see what I can do in future.
The filter lets me:
1. Compress videos to fairly small size, since it effectively just reduces the number of colors on the screen, while retaining generally the motion. If I didn't compress them, the 1000s of media files in game would quickly inflate the game size closer to a 60GB steam game lol. 3GB is still a lot but considering there are currently about 5000 media files in my latest build, it is acceptable to me. However, earlier on in development my compression skills were not as good, and some of the videos come out too blurry. Passing them through an AI model typically sharpens the edges nicely, and that's what I've been doing for the latest scenes - though I still think there's room for improvement.
2. Even SubscribeStar doesn't officially allow real porn games. However when they saw that I used a filter they gave my game a pass, whereas Patreon had banned me for that reason. Somehow, other games are getting away with real porn use, but not sure for how long. I'm not assuming my SubscribeStar is going to last forever, but hoping that it is enough to pay off the web hosting fees I've already paid, and support it out into the future a bit so I can keep on developing.
Femininity does have an effect, though often it is hard to tell how it is affecting you in game. Earlier on in development I made most of the checks and stat calculations happen in the background, but I began to realize it is more fun to get obvious feedback for how it is affecting you. So you will start to see more of that.
Identity, yes, doesn't do anything yet. But it will be your health stat essentially - hitting 0 will be game over. Your character won't die or anything, they'll just lose their grasp on the person they are, although it will be a very fun demise usually.
The funny thing with cheats is actually cheat buttons are way more easy to implement, I implemented the cheat codes method out of pure nostalgia. I'll probably change it at some point and yeah, will add a cheat for auto winning / auto failing minigames. That would be good.
I may see about making the pink background changeable - although note that some things look perfect - for instance the video versions of the trading cards have a bit of background color in the corners, since you can't put real transparency in video. But I think overall people wouldn't mind these sorts of glitches if they really want to change the color.