January State of the Games

Happy New Year, everybody!  Let's not hope that this year is better than the last, let's make this year better than the last.  And to that end, let's talk about smut!

The latest expansion of Leaderboard got some big attention, and I'm not going to ignore that kind of feedback.  This game looks like a prime candidate for a "big game" that I can expand and elaborate for a good chunk of time.  This month I'll probably do an expansion adding new socialization options—Bubbles pickup (both picking up and getting picked up), one or two night clubs, maybe some park encounters–to balance out the rather heavy commerce and consumerism of the last expansion.

My other prime priority is Marooned on Teayeph VI, which has been a favorite for a long time.  The thing that this game most needs is some graphical upgrades so different buildings have different looks.  That's not gameplay, though, and I worry sometimes that if there's no new gameplay, there's little interest in an expansion.  The big gameplay expansions on the horizon are introducing the Master and the Broodmother and their factions of NPCs.  That's a big chunk of code, and I don't think that both the graphics upgrade and the NPCs code would make a reasonable amount of new content for a single expansion.  What say you, my generous patrons?  Is there a sliver of gameplay you'd like to see added along with new building looks?  Or would you rather see the factions without the new graphics?  I'm on the fence, here.

I have come to the conclusion that I need to shelve, or at least backburner, Ensign Xenofucker.  I absolutely love this premise and the setting that I've only started to explore, but the minigame of exploring alien bodies just isn't working, isn't fun, and isn't enough to keep the game fresh.  The way my brain works, there's like 50/50 odds that, out of literally nowhere, a different minigame format will force itself into my brain and I'll feverishly implement it in a week of coding, just to see if I can make it work.  So Xenofucker may rise again.  I certainly hope so.

Definitely on the backburner is Corruption Conquest, the deck building corrupt-the-world-with-sexy-times card game.  The missing ingredient is feedback from the people you're TFing, and I'm still working out how best to implement that in a way that's (a) sexy fun and (b) not distracting from actually playing cards.  When I crack that nut, expect to see an expansion!

The only other game that might see some expansion in the near future is the Pixiespawn Festival, which has some loyal fans and has never really felt fleshed out and finished.  A big chunk of that is probably a niggling thing, but the avatars don't update for lycanthropy, which has always been something of a letdown.  But that's also a huge timesink for a comparatively small feature. There are a few odds and ends that could get tossed into gameplay such as summoning spirits and minor gods, but I don't yet have a strong feel on how any of that would work.  If inspiration strikes, though, there may be more festival sometime in the future.

A recent comment on tfgames.site ribbed me recently for not finishing a lot of my games.  Now, that's certainly true!  I start a lot of projects that I don't bring to full and complete flower.  But part of all of this is seeing what ideas work and which ideas don't.  And unfortunately, at least for my brain, a big part of that is actually building the rough shapes of things and seeing how they fare.  The old throw-spaghetti-and-see-what-sticks method.

Sometimes the ideas work together and you get a game worth completing.  Sometimes you discover that that idea doesn't really work at all.  Sometimes you develop a chunk of game, see that it doesn't work on its own, and fold it into a new project.  I'm sure some of you have noted that Daisy Charolais in Leaderboard is the CEO of Daisycream Cosmetics and Dairy.  The ideas always circulate, even if they don't get their own titles.

All of which is to say, thanks for supporting me working through all these ideas and mechanics and settings, some of which eventually get put together into games.  I'm super lucky to get to do this, and I hope you all get some enjoyment from what often feels like a very frivolous endeavor.

Have a very pervy new year, everybody!

-- Dex