v0.4.4 Progress Report

Hey everyone, today I thought it would be a good time to give you an overview of what's coming to the game next month when v0.4.4 gets released. For the sake of my health, I'm taking steps for a more reasonable development cycle and am planning to release the update to Alpha around February 11th.  Anyways, let's take a look at the patch content.

1. The Milk Branch

The second Abigail branch sees the main character suddenly producing milk. In the poster art above, you can see some of the new accessories that will be featured in this new storyline. There are a ton of new graphics, that are already implemented. The rest of the development time until release will be used for writing the main story of this branch.

2. New Kitchen Graphics

A few days ago, I got the new Kitchen files, and I couldn't wait to implement them. There are a ton of details in all of those closets. They look great, and I hope you enjoy the new look as well. This also means that we'll now be able to redraw the characters in the Kitchen over the next months.

3. Nails

One thing that was still missing from the legacy version of the game are the different nail styles. This new system is a bit more sophisticated than the original one though. We have four different shapes that are available in two different lengths and an extreme length. These new transformations will be part of the regular TF rotation during contestant's attacks. You can change the color in your vanity. There's also a new arm position. I'll let you find that one out yourself.

4. Clothing Popularity

A new system for clothes has been implemented. The idea is to force the player to wear more different outfits over the course of the game. This only makes sense because we have so many new clothes graphics now. Basically, whenever you wear a certain piece of clothing during your day, it will loose popularity, similar to how durability works in MMORPGs. Also, when you go to sleep, all clothes that you are not wearing regain popularity. This obviously needs a lot of balancing, but we'll see how it works when v0.4.4 goes live.

5. Minigame Rework

We'll also try out a new reaction minigame this version. Instead of a random key, it'll give you a random order of arrows to press. Several values play a role here. For example, a new value to play around with is how many arrows you have to press to succeed. It's currently directly linked to IQ. We'll have to look at the balancing here as well of course.

6. New Low Mood Event

Some players on Discord have been talking about the clothing system being too unrestricted. The idea of course is that the low mood you get from wearing the wrong clothes derails gameplay. However, if you're not playing to win, then there's no derailing. So... in the next version there will be a clothing change when you have a low mood for too long. However, it also empties out your wardrobe completely, so I think this might push those players more into that role of choosing different outfits themselves. I really want the player to choose something they like themselves.

7. New TV Animations

After I removed the unlicensed animations from the living room TV a few versions back, we haven't had a replacement. Well.. I'm happy to anounce that Sapphirefoxx has given me permission to use some of their clips in exchange for a mention in the game credits. They look great, and I enjoy collaborating with other cool artists from the TG community. Visit their website: https://www.sapphirefoxx.com/
What this also means, is that I'll have to work on the credits for the next version. I'll let all $10 subscribers write down the name they want to be mentioned as soon. It'll be on the website where you get your game key.

8. Unlockables Descriptions

I think Unlockables are a great way for the players to see if they have seen all content in the game. So while I had decided to add Unlocks to all branches before the last version release already, I have now added descriptions to the Unlock boxes, that'll let you know what content you haven't seen yet. I'm not sure yet how vague those descriptions should be, but we can start testing this as it is now.

Alright... a lot of deep under the hood changes for this version. I hope you're looking forward to the release on Alpha and Beta next month. As always, thank you for your ongoing support. It means a lot to me to be able to do this job full-time. Please come hang out on the Discord server to always get the latest news.

Best,
Rel