5.2 - Stats are Dead. Long Live Stats!

Development for 5.2 is well underway and my pre-alpha patrons already have a taste of things to come (spoiler: a shit ton of bugs and typos)! At this stage, I don't have a lot to share so this will be a pretty light post, but expect something a lot meatier next week!

Meaningful Grinding

There was a long comment on my game's threat over at TFGameSite where someone said they missed the old relationship point system from 5.0, with the reason being that it gave them a sense of progression when spending time with people. While I fully understand the placebo effect at work here, the fact that the mechanic itself wasn't doing anything past tickling that sweet spot in a player's brain ultimately led to me cutting it.

I get the satisfaction in seeing a number going up, but there needs to be a point in it. There needs to be actual progression, not just a sense of progression.

With that, I've decided to make the new mechanic of 5.2 the introduction of two new (but actually old) stats in the form of the tentatively named Lust and Stamina. 

Lust is, for all intents and purposes, the old Relationship stat. The difference is that it's built up via direct interaction rather than passive choices. Intricate choices like kissing your mom on the cheek after she's been dosed a couple times, or sliding your hand down to Dakota's ass in an otherwise innocent hug can increase a person's Lust value. Furthermore, Lust is used as a threshold that must be met before you'll be able to further dose someone. For example, once you've dosed your mom to be horny around you, you'll need to raise their Lust value to at least 10 via actions that will unlock before you can administer another dose.

Getting Hands-On

So about those actions. Stamina is a new resource in the game that's presented much like how time passage is. Whenever you're in a position where you can interact with someone, say, sitting in front of the TV with your mom, you'll be given a list of available interactions with associated Stamina costs. Each interaction will trigger a small progression event and return you to the scene with the chance to take another action. You can repeat until either you trigger a major event, or run out of Stamina. Of course, stamina will recharge over time, and recharge fully overnight.

The underlying goal with 5.2, aside from Ava's content, is to give players a sense of progression for repeating scenes, as well as some excitement in seeing how the scenes change based on previous choices. Additionally, the sense of actually being in control of what you're doing to other characters on an intimate level goes a long way in cranking up the, um, ero factor of the game.

As always, thank you all for your support, and look forward to more pre-alpha builds and more information on 5.2!