Progress Update 7 (Patreon)

Oh fuck it's the end of November. I was supposed to make regular progress updates >.<' 

No release yet, so I'll talk a bit about what got done this month.

A major time sink in the last few weeks has been unifying the way all the statistics in the game are tracked and processed. It's a bit technical, but basically, all the many numbers/meters tracked in the game (orgasm progress, breathing intensity, fear, blush levels, focus, etc) were kind of haphazardly scattered around. Since many of these stats need to react to each other in various ways, it was pretty messy. Gathering them all into a single place, in a single format, has been way more time-intensive than I was hoping. But it's a necessary step to making complex reactions happen with gagging, inflation additions, and passing out due to suffocation. It's also necessary for the features in the update after this one, so I decided it was better to just do it properly the first time around.

The attention/preferences system had to be overhauled to be more modular, so it could work with the above changes. It's also necessary because the current 4 preference traits (arousal, disgust, like, fear) aren't quite enough to describe how a character reacts to something. Things like shame/embarrassment, for example, are pretty important for lewd stuff. I don't know if the shame changes will end up in this update or the next- depends on how many errors there are to work through. But that's been another time sink.

The stimulation inputs system is now completely overhauled, allowing for more sophisticated reactions to different stimulation types. Certain things, like electricity, or more gentle touches, are better accounted for. I probably mentioned this before, but it's evolved since then. The main reason this is needed is that the old system of "being touched by X toy = 3% pleasure per second" just doesn't make sense when working with oral. It's more nuanced than that, and needs to be able to cause all sorts of sensations at once.

An unintended side effect of these additions is that I can easily track incoming sensations and do strange manipulations with them. I'm messing with a couple of experimental features like sense sharing between characters, and storing up incoming sensations over time to release them all at once. These aren't official features yet, but there'll be some WIP versions of them with this update.

How the game handles breathing and heart rate has changed. I think I'll save the details for the actual release since it might change more, but the main thing I wanted to do was decouple the two stats, to allow for decent-feeling breathplay.

I've mentioned the inflation changes in previous posts. There's been more work done, but I don't remember what's new since I talked about it before. Mostly the changes are focused around allowing for more controlled holding and releasing of fluids.

There's a related stat, "composure", which is part of all the changes. Basically, it tracks control over bodily functions. It'll be what handles how well a character can hold fluids inside while inflated. 

Gags and mouth apparel are quite a bit more sophisticated, code-wise. Allowing fucking through ring-type gags has been challenging. I wanted to account for the update after this one (portals), too. Portals + oral + ring gags will be a fun combo. I'll try to make sure this update includes a fuckable gag. Gags can also interface with breathplay.

As soon as I'm done writing this, I'm going back to unifying the stat tracking and all the cascading effects that has on the code. There's a lot of errors caused by refactoring something that fundamental.

You might notice that part of the reason this update is still taking forever is because I have a habit of saying "oh, adding this one thing would improve the update? Let me build a WHOLE SYSTEM to add that." In the long run, I'm pretty confident that this will be time well spent, but since Patreon has a monthly rewards system, it ends up being pretty frustrating for players and for me when there isn't something to post every month. I'm not gonna make a prediction on when it'll be done since I'm always wrong, but we are past most of the major challenges now, for what that's worth >.<

If you'd like to see current progress, or ask me questions directly, then the best time for that is during a weekly dev stream. picarto.tv/DaiLevy on Thursdays at 12pm to 4pm PDT. 

On a side note- I've had some really good discussions in these streams about the roleplay/fetish fantasy aspects of SHF3. Once this update is finished, I think I'll make a post on that to get everyone's input, since I think this is a major area for potential improvement in this game.

okay back to my hidey hole. stay safe out there <3