8/22 Status Update

This week I've been working on Naked Ambition. I think we're past the point where I can just pat myself on the back and say "look, I'm working on it!" and expect applause. Now's the time to actually get results. So far, things have been going pretty well. Despite being a game with like 12 routes in it and webs of various characters and events, it's pretty easy to work on. So good job, 2019 Apollo Seven, the structure and code mostly make sense. That's always a huge risk of going back to projects; sometimes what made sense in the moment is incomprehensible once it's out of your head and you have to go back to it.

So what exactly have I been doing? Well, it's not pushing the timeline forward. You're going to have to wait a bit for the endgame crisis events and the vote and all that. I've been using my powers of hindsight to rework some core systems into something more satisfying. The biggest one is the corruption system, that's gone. As a solution to a specific problem, it did make sense. But it was too big, it interacted with too many things. It was used for the Player-Princess love route, used to progress tutors, and used for random sex events. Thematically, it was a mess. Why does the Princess getting into a cute romance with her childhood friend make her a total slut? Where was the option for basic monogamy?

For the Princess and the player, the solution is pretty easy. There's already a relationship stat called love, just have the progression be based on that. The dominant/submissive variants of it can be handled as they already were with the reliance and confidence stat. The vanilla one is just now based on having those mostly level instead of having the love stat higher than them.

For the tutors, part of the reason for the corruption mechanic was to make those routes more deterministic. This one is easy too. The stat check idea was good, and we already have stats. There's no need for it to all be based on "corruption". I was already adding two new stats, dominance and submission. So instead of corruption and red card checks, Evette will do dominance stat checks and the progression of her relationship will be based on getting love points with her, like all the other relationships. There's no real reason to keep the love point system segregated from the tutors.

And for random events, I decided to focus on what those represent and what drives the Princess towards them. Who are the characters driving the Princess to have sex with random people? Ulric and the Vizier mostly. So I just need a mechanic that focuses primarily on those characters. And I already have it, pink cards. The card deck represents the Princess's thoughts, and pink cards represent sexual ones. And to deal with the lack of agency in sexual situations, which was part of the point of corruption, for the sexy random events I'm not doing a regular check, but one that exists and is rarely used. A total cards of a color check. So if the Princess has X pink cards at all, she'll do the event. Instead of it being based on her whims and mood at the time, it's her total sexual desire, which is what corruption was anyway. This system means that the Princess will only be a total slut on the routes where people are driving her to be one, not if she's in a romantic relationship at all.

I've removed the storyline of the player and the Vizier kind of teaming up to corrupt the Princess. Pink card dialog options are gone entirely unless you have a specific heirloom. So there are now five colors you can choose, and five categories of stats with three stats each.

I also got rid of resting and the studying erotica options. You'll notice that those new stats I talked about, dominance and submission, are here. While red and white cards did a good job of approximating those traits, I decided to treat them as something you train rather than moods. Being good at dominating people or submitting to them is kind of a skill, not a personality. You can't just want to boss people about and show up and do it; it takes practice to get people to actually listen to you. Same thing with being submissive, there's an art to doing it in a way that gets positive responses from people. At least this is my justification for having them be stats and therefore be more deterministic in how they activate. And with the new stats come new lessons and new chibis!

Aw, look at her little maid dress! This is for the submission lesson where she'll clean and do chores for the player. there will be council members who care about the new stats, like Ulric with submission. Now to progress on Ulric's route the Princess has to be very submissive. Thematically it makes a lot more sense then her agreeing to be degraded by him because she like sex a lot.

That's all for this week. As always, thank you for your continued support.