Course of Temptation Dev Diary #39 (Patreon)

Hello friends! If you're participating in early access... first of all, thank you! I do feel bad when you run face-first into bugs I didn't catch, but also, your diligent reporting of them is a tremendous help and I really appreciate it!

And speaking of bugs, we're now up to 0.4.27e, which addresses all issues found as of last night, and includes a couple little things I didn't quite have time to finish on release day. For example, NPCs may now have a reaction and some attitude shifts if you don't heed their wishes at the end of an encounter. And also very important: your plushie collection will no longer take up an entire screenful of text.

I didn't anticipate that some of you would immediately set about trying to collect all 200+ possible plushies, but I really should have! Also, as of this latest update it's now exactly 400 possible plushies. Good hunting!

There are a couple more minor issues reported since the last build, so I'll plan on one more bugfix build accompanying the public release on Tuesday.

This past week has been about getting the May update ready and released into early access, and then handling the new bugs that inevitably appear in new code. There was one last user-contributed scene — a large branching event on the bus — that I implemented yesterday, and if any additional contributed scenes come in before the public release, I'll try to find time to work them in too.

I also started some playtesting of the 0.5 update, which is on track to come out this month. There is a lot of complicated relationship logic going on, and I want to test, fix, and polish as much as possible.

The major task left for 0.5 is to revise some character storylines: the Harasser, the Admirer, and the BFF. The BFF is mostly okay as is, but I do want to add a path to exploring your relationship with them that doesn't by necessity lead through the quad party storyline.

The Harasser and Admirer, however, I want to revise a bit more extensively, giving them some more personality of their own — hobbies, friends, and things to lend them some distinctiveness, plus some alterations to their storylines. I want to make it possible, also, to interact with them more regularly and more on your own terms, the way you can with the BFF.

It's a release week, so I don't have too much else to say about what I've been doing that isn't already covered extensively by the release notes. :) I'll be spending today outlining the storyline changes I want to make and starting on that, and over the weekend I'll continue playtesting of 0.5. Next week I'll be doing a bunch of writing to get those storyline changes done, and hopefully I can get through most or all of it in that time.

After those changes are done, I can start to have a good idea of when exactly early access for 0.5 will happen.

Longer term, I expect that once 0.5 is out, I'll spend the following month or so working on polishing, extensions, and smaller changes before I jump into another big roadmap update. I'll plan to continue focusing on relationships, adding in new relevant events as it becomes clear where the gaps are, new hangout types, and other mechanics conducive to interacting with NPCs.

I'm thinking of two major mechanical changes: First, giving NPCs more reliable schedules, and having them hang out in locations that better relate to their hobbies and inclinations. Then, among the information you can learn about an NPC will be their schedule, so you tend to know where to find them. Second, I'm giving serious thought to implementing a much-requested feature: the ability to pick out an NPC at your location and interact with them arbitrarily, leading to a dialog tree or event set specific to your relationship with them. Again, this is longer term stuff, so I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. But I think these things will follow naturally from the relationship framework that 0.5 establishes.

That's all I have to say for now! Next week will be a big writing week, and I'm hoping to report some good progress in the next dev diary. Friends, thanks as always for your support, it really does mean a lot! Have a good weekend and see you next week.