0.9.0 Behind the Scenes and 0.10.0 Preview

Hello, perverts! If you find the next version number in the title odd, or generally wonder why I'm using two decimal points, check out the SemVer specs. This release was a busy one, with more new people finding the game than ever before! 

The upcoming release is planned to have play scenes chosen by the Center of Attention patrons: one that's a naked walk and one that has you manually stimulating Theresa while she's bound. There's a poll going on right now to pick the first set of visual customizations for Theresa; currently, accessories and pubic hair grooming are in the lead! If you want input, consider upgrading to the $5 tier!

Here are some thoughts on update 9 and a preview of what'll be in update 10!

Choices, Branching, and Tracking

Update 9 had a change in it that I'd been putting off: you now have to finish each "tier" of training before you can move on to the next one (i.e. you can't start training Depravity 3 until you've gotten all three stats to 2). This change makes it much simpler to write training scenes, as I can (for example) include manual sex in any tier-3 training and not have it be weird that Theresa hasn't learned that yet. However, it does kinda expose the fact that you're pretty much just choosing the order of how you teach Theresa, and little else about her progress.

There are a lot of "choices" in Ruin Me and very few of them actually change anything or even get tracked. Generally, if you make a choice in any sequence, it's only going to change the path you take through that sequence, and the game won't "remember" what you did. In a few cases, it sets a default value for a customization, like when you suggest a safe word in the BDSM training.

The ways you make your game different from other folks' is about how you're choosing to roleplay your Professor, as well as the nomenclature, behavior, and other customizations you request of Theresa. There'll be some bigger choices in the final parts of the game, but you shouldn't expect them to be on the order of multiple endings.

I could totally have made the game more life-simulationy, and tracked characters' fondness for you, or remembered more granular details of Theresa's experience, but that would have meant spending resources and focus on that stuff at the possible cost of making the prose more simplistic or of cutting people off from some stuff based on their choices. That's not really the vision I have of this game.

What do y'all think of that? Are more lasting choices important to you?  Would they be worth getting less detailed (or just slower-to-be-released) prose?

Next Release

Currently, I'm planning to release both patron-chosen play scenes in the upcoming release, plus a new horror expedition! The Flying Head will be a somewhat odd one. You'll get to find out more about Pappy Southoath's involvement with the Witnesses of the Stone, and maybe do some weird stuff with a particularly interesting entity from Iroquois mythology.

Writing is going a bit slowly, so I don't anticipate getting any extra stuff done this release, but you might get a surprise.

I'd love to hear what you think of the game's progress! If you have any feedback, questions, or requests, you can comment here, PM me on Patreon, or write: phanes@phanes.me

I hope plenty of you get off to my work this week! Stay safe.