Dev log #2 December 2023

Dev log #2 December 2023

It’s been a few days since I released version 0.06 and it’s patch 0.061 now so let’s talk about what I’m working on for the next update in January and a little bit about the problems with 0.061.

The following is fairly technical and many of you may not care about it so you can jump down to the next section, but for those who have worked with Renpy before you may find it interesting to read:

So since the patch release I have spent most of my time working on the bug that soft locks the game when using the ai menu. This is a bug being caused by a system I attempted to implement that would dynamically check relationship flags (and other stats that are displayed on the ai menu) and update them whenever the ai was opened. The way it worked in v0.06 was that if you accepted a relationship (let’s say with Lilly) the flag for that relationship would change to true and that would affect dialogue and choices further down the line. However, I also would need to remember to update the variable that displays your relationship in the ai menu but since it is possible further down the line to be dating more than one person, simply having if Lilly dating = True then player relationship = Lilly doesn’t work. SO I have to manually change the displayed text each time you enter into a new relationship. (This happened between 0.05 and 0.06 where I set the Lilly dating variable to true but forgot to change the relationship variables text so it would read that the player was still dating no one even though they interacted with the following scenes as if they were dating Lilly.) This kind of bug cannot be fixed with a patch without the player having to start a whole new game, which is currently not a big deal but as the game gets longer it would become more and more frustrating, and I am not perfect so I’m sure that a mistake like this will eventually slip through again. To get around this, and streamline my work, I was trying to make a system that would run through a long series of checks when opening the ai menu based on variable flags which I’m much less likely to forget to update with choices because the following dialogue options would then appear incorrect when testing so it’s harder to miss. The checks would look something like the attached image only much longer as more characters are added to the game.

This would not only amount to less work for me but would ensure game save compatibility between versions. Apparently, running this kind of check from opening a screen is something that isn’t exactly native to Renpy and will likely involve some more in-depth use of Python, so it is currently on hold. Fortunately, the game can function perfectly fine without this check system, it would just be nice to have implemented early on so I can update it over time instead of having to make it all at once when there are a lot more characters. Hopefully I can get some help with it and have it back in the game for the January update. But if not, the relationship system in the ai menu will be fully fixed and functional from a player standpoint, just a little less dynamic.

Now, onto the NEW content that is being worked on for the January update. We will finally be getting Olivers nude sprite, and with it his secret stats menu! Hooray! We’ve also got 4 brand new characters and their sprites. You can find the teaser details for them in the previous devlog:

Anai: (Just realized was not listed in the last devlog.) A younger male avian (early 20’s) socially awkward and scrawny.

Kara, Vordruth, and Sade.

With just these new sprites the actual story progression will be very short from a writing standpoint as they’ll basically just each get introduced, but you don’t have a ton to actually DO with them yet. We’re just setting up for the open world and introducing the cast.

By popular vote the new CG with this update will be with Lilly! Without too many spoilers I can tell you that this scene takes place at a new bar and should be fun for pretty much everyone! I know we have a lot of fans of NTR/Cuckolding/Sharing playing the game and those routes/content will be coming once the open world hits and updates have more than one scene in them. The scenes coming with the introduction updates will all be scenes that everyone can enjoy regardless of specific kinks.

I said earlier that story progression will be very short with the limited number of sprites and interactions coming in, but that doesn’t mean the update itself will be a small one! In addition to the new content for the game, the gallery/scene replay system is coming in the January update as well! Or at least it should be, barring any coding difficulties. I have already started work on it and it seems to be progressing smoothly so I think having it ready for this update shouldn’t be an issue. I will be putting out a second dev log later this month for an update on it.

I am also already working on getting assets for a complete GUI overhaul to get us away from stock Renpy! I’ve been in contact with some UI artists and am getting the ball rolling on that. I do not know when the UI overhaul will be ready as I must wait for the art itself to be finished and then actually code it into the game. It could be this update but likely will not be until the next. Further progress reports on that in the next dev log!

That’s it for this one! Thanks again for subscribing, and I’ll see in about two weeks for the next dev log!

Your horny dev,

Wistala~