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Alpha 6.1 - Immersion Through Assimilation
🕑 Added 2019-01-23 07:00:01 +0000 UTCGreetings Everyone!
So... Hm, where to start...
As you may recall from last week, Alpha 6.1 was meant to be a relatively simple update focused on expanding Penny's content. It was gonna be great! I was gonna release a pretty solid update in a reasonably timely matter, people would have been happy, I would have felt good about myself.
Then it happened.
There was an idea, a simple offhand suggestion made in the deepest, darkest corners of Discord. The idea itself was actually quite minor, but the train of thought it inspired turned into something... Different.
I'm beating around the bush, let's talk about centralized NPC commentary and reactions!
Better NPC's and Homogenization
So let's get this out of the way early. The change I'm about to talk about involves a MASSIVE update on the back-end in terms of how NPC's function. As a result, save files from 6.0.X will not be able to be loaded into 6.1. There's just no way. Now then...
One of my biggest issues with The Company, and I know I'm not alone here, is that everyone around the MC seems either oblivious or indifferent to the MC as a person. Content tends to scripted to the point where the player can really start to lose agency in their actions. You might wear feminine clothing as a male character to trigger a transformation, or because that's how you prefer to play your character, but other than the mechanical functionality there's no contextual change as a result of crossdressing. This is the same for all aspects of your character.
Or it was, anyway. The following changes are coming to 6.1, and are already functional in the current pre-alpha builds:
- NPC's all have associated breast, vagina, ass, and penis sizes
- NPC's now have "moods" that can change and affect the tone of their commentary
- NPC's will note the player's name, gender, breast size, makeup, and hair length, and clothing style (casual, formal, girly, slutty, etc.) upon meeting them
- NPC's will note the player's genitals and genital sizes upon seeing them
- NPC's will remember if the player was in chastity and, if they know who put them in chastity, will remember that as well
- NPC's will remember if they've seen the MC's penis, vagina, or naked body, and will remember if the MC has seen theirs.
- NPC's will remember what types of sexual acts they have engaged in with the MC
- NPC's can compare the MC's breasts, vagina, ass, and penis sizes with their own
- NPC's can tell when the MC's name, gender, hair length, breast size, ass size, vagina size, penis length, clothing style, or makeup application has changed since they last noted said attribute
- There is now a 5-day window after a player transformation where NPC's will comment on said transformation
- NPC's can now comment on various character attributes. They can note changes, compare attributes to themselves, and change the tone of their comments
- A total of 36 new tracking parameters have been added to all NPC's
- All tracking occurs on a per-NPC basis, so if one character knows something, it doesn't necessarily mean anyone else will
This might be a lot to unpack, so let's start with the basics. Specifically, how many months will this take to implement?
Well, the good news is that it should take too long, and the reason for that is both simple, and important: The commentary system is completely centralized and, in its current form, character-independent. What's happening is that a single repository of all potential character observations, comparisons, etc. is being created. At any point in the game where a character might comment on one of the MC's attributes, I simply call the function, the character who is commenting, and optionally what I want them to comment on.
For example...
While you're in the lab, Penny will make a general comment. She'll look first for a recent player transformation, before randomly selecting something to comment on. Maybe she's noting your outfit, maybe your chest got bigger, maybe you got a hair cut, or it grew longer. Or maybe she's just saying "Hey, how's it going?". If she does comment on your makeup, she'll notice whether or not you were wearing makup since she commented on it last time, or that you're wearing more or less, or that your a male MC and you're wearing makeup, and hey that's cool, you do you. Of course, if she's under John's control and her tone changes, she'll probably berate you for looking girly!
If you're playing a transsexual character and you find yourself engaging in some funtime with an NPC for the first time. They'll likely be surprised to see what you're packing under your skirt, they'll know if it got bigger or smaller next to you play together, and they'll react accordingly if it goes missing further down the line.
If Tasha's the one who "accidentally" locked you away in chastity, she'll remember that she's the one responsible next time she sees it on you.
This should give you an idea of what the system will look like in action and, again, it's already functional in the pre-alpha!
Setting Expectations
So now that you know what I'm working on, let's go over what you should expect from the system.
The most time consuming part of all of this is building the repository. I have to write all the possible interactions a character might have by commenting on a specific attribute, each with a minimum of three variations of that interaction, then rewrite the entire tree with different tones. A nice comment on your outfit, a mean comment on it, a horny comment, those same comments if they're from a family member, etc.
Once that's done, it's a matter of combing through the existing content and plugging in the function. This is tedious but not difficult, and is just a matter of figuring out where these comment calls would be appropriate.
At this point, we're technically finished. The biggest issue now is that, in spite of the randomness involved, you're going to start seeing repeated comments. Like, didn't Diana just repeat exactly what Penny said? That sort of thing. This will improve as more dialogue variants are added to the repository, and on top of that the system supports checking to see who the speaker is. Basically, if there's something that Diana might specifically say about something that other characters wouldn't, that can be checked for as well.
What About Penny?
Penny's content is still getting refined and expanded in 6.1, and already has been in pre-alpha. The problem is that there were several points already in Penny's new content where the above additions would be incredibly useful, so... This is happening!
I know this is something people have been asking for for the last year and a half, so I hope everyone's as excited to finally have it as I am! Patrons will get their hands on an in-development version of this system as Alpha 6.0.3 sometime next month, while everyone else will have to wait for the finished product in Alpha 6.1, along with Penny's expanded content.
That's it for this week, as always thank you all for your continued feedback and support. This update is gonna be an interesting one!
Comments
Paul
Dynamic always risks becoming generic without a stupid amount of work.
Tommi
I was seeing how far I could get with Ava with only the initial arousal serum, and I also gave her the exotic item that gives her an additional part. Later, I triggered an event where she was having fun privately but being loud, and the text references how she can't finish without the MC touching her, but I hadn't given her the serum yet. It's a tiny error, maybe in the event triggering, but thought I would point it out.
Radical686
Sounds cool
Westane
Absolutely, hit me up.
Westane
This request has been floating around since T-Rex roamed the earth, actually. It's not a lack of interest, not at all, but rather it wasn't until just very (very) recently that I found an efficient way to handle this sort of thing. It's been on my watch list since Day 1 :)
HaikenEdge
Sounds like a good change. Glad to have it.
Quiverclaw
This has been one of my few nitpicks about the game for awhile, to me, this is an exciting change. Thanks!
I'm extremely interested in how you're handling all of this. I've been working on the same general systems for my own game and keep bumping into spots where I could either see myself making an absurd amount of content around these systems, or poorly implementing them. Ive got moods in place including, Happy, Horny, Angry, Sad, and Scared. The moods also have two states, so Scared becomes Terrified at a certain point. These currently determine the expression the characters have and I intend to implement actions and reactions based on the npcs mood as well. On the note of commenting on body parts while my game, The Turning Project, won't feature transforming between genders, the player will be able to choose which character from a cast of characters they play as. So implementing a system where NPCs comment on body features and such would help the engagement and belief that what character you choose does impact the game. I need to check out The Company discord. I'd love to chat more about these systems if you're doen for that.
Troqu
If I'm being honest, this largely seems like a waste of time to me, but since it went really fast I'm not actually complaining. It was all effectively implemented in under a week and considering how long some things can take in development, I'd say it was time well spent if some people like it.
anon4324
Nice. I mentioned something similar a while back on the TFGS forums and it went largely unnoticed (<a href="https://tfgames.site/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9902&start=2020" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://tfgames.site/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9902&start=2020</a>#p519852) good to see it's being implemented and then some. Mainly I just had gripes about NPCs being surprised when the player would go from male to female and back to male and being dumbfounded that he ever had a dick in the first place.
