6.0 - Branching Paths

Greetings everyone!

Today's development post will be a rather short one, as I've taken a brief reprieve from writing content so that I could add in a couple features that have been long overdue.

Before that, though, it's probably about time I whip up our patented progress sheet!

The Company - 6.0 Progress - 27%

• Chapter 3 Story Content - 40%
• Chapter 3 Side Content - 10%
• New Features - 80%
• Code Cleanup Initiative - 5%
• Image Cleanup Initiative - 0%

I wasn't sure about adding a total completion percent, as that 27% is a little misleading. The Chapter 3 content makes up the vast majority of the new update, with everything else being minor endeavors to tie the whole thing off.

For now, let's talk about the couple of new features being added in the update!

Chapter Select Screen

Yep, I know. It's a feature that's been asked for since, well, forever, and it's something I've been pushing off for just as long, but when Alpha 6.0 drops players will finally be able to choose their starting chapter!

You'll be able to choose to start the game from Chapter 1, which is the same as skipping the intro currently, or Chapter 2 or 3. Starting from later chapters will allow you to choose how you've dosed Sophie thus far and give you an amount of money and serums based on the chapter you're starting from. All relationship and corruption values, as well as serums given to other characters, will be set in their initial values.

I realize there's a lot of frustration surrounding lost saves between versions, and while that's not a problem I can reasonably address my hope is that this will ease the pain significantly.

Relationship Breakpoints and Dating

This update is less a mechanical update and more a way to generate additional clarity and investment in your relationships with other characters.

Relationship (formerly Love) now scales up to 100, however, there will be a hard stop at 70. As your relationship reaches various 10-point breakpoints (0, 10, 20, 30, etc.) you'll be notified of your change in relationship with that character.

"You and Penny are now best friends"

"You and John now hate each other"

Once you reach and attempt to exceed a Relationship value of 70 with a character, you'll potentially have an opportunity move your relationship with that character into romantic territory. For Penny, Tasha, Chris, and Sophie this will be considered "Dating", for Diana, Dakota, Ava, and John/Chanel, this will be considered "Lovers".

This won't drastically change the way you play the game, though it will add a few more status effects for me to check when writing events and gating character progression. The mechanical implications will affect Ava and Dakota more than other characters, though you can expect a little bit of flavor added in various places from everyone.

Hard Choices

I've mentioned it before but I wanted to talk about it again. There's going to be a focus in Chapter 3 on having to make choices that you won't have the option to take back. These will include optional time-sensitive events, fixed choices made during day involving various characters, or even large events that can play out in multiple ways.

Of course, each of these event branches can play out differently depending on other choices you've made during the game, all in the hopes of incentivizing multiple, different playthroughs of the game. It's something I've definitely been slacking on a little bit, so my goal is to bring back a little player agency moving forward, and I'm hoping you'll all enjoy it as well!

That's it for today. I have some artwork previews IN MY PROVERBIAL HAND that I'll be posting later this week as well as next. These will be patron-only posts due to their saucy nature.

Thank you all for your continued feedback and support!