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6.0 - Let's Talk About Serums
🕑 Added 2018-11-14 07:00:59 +0000 UTC Greetings everyone!I'd hoped to be able to get more writing done than I had, but I'd forgotten how much Life November likes to throw at you. The good news is that my familial responsibilities appear to be behind me for now and I can get back to focusing on what really matters during the holidays... Smut!
On to the status report!
The Company - 6.0 Progress - 38%
- Chapter 3 Story Content - 55%
- Chapter 3 Side Content - 30%
- New Features - 100%
- Code Cleanup Initiative - 5%
- Image Cleanup Initiative - 0%
Progress Notes
Nothing really new to report here. I'm still writing a long line of on-rails content that will take players on their first trip to Company HQ. Along the way, you'll potentially get to see some of your relationship investments start to pay off, at least if those investments were made in either Sophie or Tasha! I'm hoping to have this arc finished by the end of next week. From there, I'll start on the game's big Halloween event which will mark the climax (but not conclusion) of Chapter 3!
Looking Forward - Serums
We've come a long way from back when serums were simply bought. The crafting system introduced a lot of fun, new opportunities while also making the act of obtaining MCS serums a lot of sensible. That said, it's far from perfect, and definitely not where I ultimately want it to be.
My favorite games tend to have both a mostly linear story that you follow from start to finish, with some variance along the way based on choices you've made, as well as a mechanical gameplay loop that runs in parallel to this story. The Persona series is probably the best example here, giving both a linear story mixed with personal events, as well as the whole Persona system that functions in parallel. I try to emulate this in The Company, with the main story and relationships acting as the main content component, and the serum and lab development acting as the primary gameplay loop.
To that end, in terms of that latter, I feel I've not yet succeeded. Looking ahead, there's three key issues relating to the serum system that I'm going to be focusing on:
- It's unclear what serum level is needed to trigger dose events with each character
- Serums can be crafted too frequently and easily, leading to lack of any meaningful choice
- There's no real use for money, devaluing investing much into lab upgrades
My desire is to result both of the first points at the same time, as my current working solution is to increase the number of serums required to dose someone with every dosage. Rather than require ever increasing quantities, however, I would more likely roll multiple serums into varying serum sizes. Let's look at it like this: All numbers tentative and arbitrary!
Dose 1 - MCS-1 (Small)
Dose 2 - MCS-1 (Med) - 5x mats of MCS-1 (Small)
Dose 3 - MCS-1 (Large) - 10x mats of MCS-1 (Small)
Dose 4 - MCS-2 (Small) - 10x mats of current MCS-2
etc.
This way, every character effectively follows the same dose path (MCS-1 small, med, large, MCS-2 small, med, large, etc.) and you'll always know exactly what you're working towards. Additionally, this also both increases the need to spend more time crafting, as well as focusing your attention on what it is you want to craft. Were I to implement this system, I'd make a few mechanical adjustments as well:
- Greater serums will work in place of lesser serums
- You'll be able to see under character notes and when trying to dose someone what serum is needed for the event to trigger
- Material costs and lab upgrade bonuses would be adjusted to accommodate new crafting requirements
That covers the first two point, and while it may not be the final form of the system it's at least a start. As for the third though, when it comes to actually giving the player something to do with that money?
On one hand, it makes the lab upgrades more appealing, as the easier the serums are to produce the faster you'll be able to unlock content with your favorite characters. That in itself may be enough incentive, but it doesn't feel particularly "fun". Clothing and day trips cost money, but only enough to be meaningful for the first couple of weeks. Recreational activities such as strip clubs and brothels, are certainly worth exploring, but I really don't have a good solution just yet. As always, feedback is appreciated here!
I'll be taking a much harder look at the crafting system, money, and other aspects of the game for update 6.1, which will act as a mechanical update. For now, I just wanted to get the dialogue open and let everyone know what's being looked at right now.
That's it for this week. Another artwork update is right around the corner so look forward to that! Until then, thank you all for your continued feedback and support!
Comments
Westane
It's on the Long List
JLuna
What about more clothing options?
Funkie - Adult Games Dev.
Looks cool!
I have wanted to dose all of the shop owners since the first time I saw them.
Dartanyn
Adding optional gifts to npc outings could be a good use of money. ie: Take sister out for the day (weekend event). At the movie do you buy her popcorn and soda? if so +x point(s) to relationship. or Add a gifts store to buy items you could gift to co-workers during lunch visits or random event triggers, etc. Depending on the item and how well it matches the person's taste you would either get relationship or lust/corruption points. Totally wrong item, minus points.
like that idea!
Paul
I'd almost prefer if there wasn't any money and the entire economy was serum based. Need some sex toys? Dose the clerk. Need better lab equipment, dose the supplier. In general, more opportunities for impactful dose events will probably be more fun than simple inflation. I do like Terra's suggestion about turning serum creation into an equipment/operation and time based process that you can use use penny on.
Juicedmark
One suggestion I had that money could be used for is have a way to purchase serum crafting equipment you can use at home and on weekends. Since it could increase serum production a fair bit, you could have a chance of accidental self-dosing if you stock your home lab with low quality equipment, that decreases based on the more money you put into it. Make it a bit of a high-risk high-reward deal, and it'd be an opening for self-dosing random events, and family accidentally dosing you and putting thoughts in your head that vary based on how dosed they themselves are and what items from the mall they've been given. Not sure if this idea has any merit based on where you want the game to go, but I hope it helps.
VitAnyaNaked
Compare this game and LR2 is very strange))
Terra Blade
Might be a way to make the serum process more engaging, would also make money more valuable, and it makes Penny more integral all in one swoop. Just a thought.
Terra Blade
I just randomly had this thought this morning, but what if making serums was following a recipie and that equipment allows you to shorten said recipie? Such as normally you would need to cook one chemical, centrifuge another, and then spend time distilling them to make a serum as an offhand example. This would also make Penny more of an "assistant" where instead of just producing more chamicals she could help by doing a certain task for said serums.
Hot Bunny (Adult games 18+)
The economy in the game is the most important thing. A lot of games in which they can not build a normal economic system in the game. I think that you will succeed.
King Horsey
My biggest fear for this game is it might become the same grindy messes that LabRats 2 and Superpowered are but my fear my be unneeded but it is still there.
Goctionni
I may not be the right person to weigh in here on the subject of serum prices, since I tend to cheat and give myself near inifinite money. [edit: Crap, I didn't mean to submit, just wanted a new paragraph, anyway...] I did want to comment on something somewhat story-related however. That is, it seems to me that it doesn't make a ton of sense for the player to become Sophie's submissive by dosing her and giving her commands. The sissie-path somewhat makes sense, but to me it seems much more sensible if in the submissive path, the player allowed Sophie to dose the player instead. Given that Sophie needs the player, she would keep the commands such that they would not interfere with his work.
Westane
One thing to keep in mind, and I really should have emphasized this in my post, is that when I'm talking about the rate of dosing and serum production, I'm talking about it on the scale of the completed game. That is, over the course of all 5 chapters rather than the 2.5 you've seen so far. Obviously, increasing the requirements would make the game "as it is" borderline unplayable on Normal difficulty or without cheats, and any changes made would be scaled to the current state of the game. As far as this post goes, I'm thinking long term.
Westane
Requiring one serum to make another is something I've considered, but would require some moderate code rewrites to make it work so I've been avoiding going that route. Specialized paths are something I wanted to do from the get-go, but the amount of work required to keep everything moving proved unmanageable, so we ended up with a more linear system. It's something that could be rolled into the MCS-X options, though.
I really, really, DON'T like the idea of increasing the dosage amounts. Not with the game in its current state. I'll explain a few reason why. My last playthrough I tried to focus on building a relationship with the sister character and not use any serums at all. In the end I was disappointed to find without the use of serums there is very little you can achieve even at max corruption and love. If you're going to increase how much serum you need and make it less likely you can use a serum on someone, please make something possible without the use of serums. Secondly, I think you could make selling serums more of an interest rather than increasing the dosage needed on people by making money have more value. That way you don't necessarily need to make 10 serums to use on someone, but while making them you have to decide what's more important, saving them up to sell because you need to buy "x" or use it on people for scenes. I think it would be way more interesting if relationships with certain characters unlocked more things to buy to benefit the company. Something like upgrades to the sales team if you work with Tasha or expansions to the company if you work with Diana. Perhaps you can roll this out through the chapters where a $50 date means something in Chapter 1, a $5,000 upgrade means something in chapter 2, and a $50,000 expansion to the company means something in chapter 3. Those are my two cents, I have put many hours into the Company and I'd really rather not have it become a grind for scenes I've already earned in previous playthroughs, instead provide me with new goals and make it where I'm having to make decisions on what to pursue rather than a big grind for the same old thing.
Twisted Kidney
Strip clubs and stuff are going to add characters and adding characters is going to lead to "when can we dose X". It's better to keep the scope about where it is or you end up with a game that's growing in the middle and getting no further along. Keep the character list where it needs to be for the main plot and stay focused until the plot work is concluded. After you have a full story you can turn The Company into a sandbox. I thought the serums where in a pretty good place as it stands, but I can certainly see how you'd like the core mechanics of the game to be more nuanced. There, that's about $25 worth of my two cents.
Gifted-Monster
I also think that, if you do end up going the sissy path, there should be more opportunities to be dosed by outside agents, whether John, Diana, Sophie, etc.
Brian C
How about a Penny path expansion.... She doesn't live alone, or has some kind of frequent content with family that cannot be let in on the secrets of the Company, so a supply of low dose MCS is needed to discourage outside notice.
Brian C
I know the game is a long way from finished, so please forgive me for throwing in my to cents, but perhaps by expanding on life events you can ad value to serums and money. For example, corrupting Ava path, once she has reached a point of being constantly distracted by unsatisfied sexual urges she gets involved in a traffic accident. Need money for car repair/replacement. May need to dose a person or two, to gloss things over. Another way to prevent grinding, and add a little replay interest to the game would be path choices. We see this with the MCX and Dakota, but how about a dominance path lock down. Once Dakota gets used to being dominant, she decides she likes it, so the MC can only interact with her in a submissive role, or vise-versa.
Also, I think WT has a really great mix of attempting to manage, optimize, and explore the possibilities of different clients, that I think could be a boon for The Company. I want to state that I've had an excellent time with The Company, and I definitely don't want it to simply become WT, I just think it's a great guide for that too. Side note, I personally think that extra nightclub or brothel content would fit well into the late evening slot- giving us another option between "stay really late at work" and "go home to primarily see Ava, with a minimal amount of other options for content". The game has been excellent so far Westane, and I really appreciate the amount of dedication and care you put into it.
Yeah, I think Michael Josten and Gifted Monster have good points here. As for a good guide for the use of money/resources/time, I think WifeTrainer is your strongest guide, though the mechanics of your game are significantly different. In WT, money lets you upgrade your accoutrements that help you drive your charges towards certain outcomes. I think importantly, it means you can get a "choice ending" for each character, more tailored to your preferences, ie if you can keep sleeping with one of the wives after, or if she becomes a magically enslaved pet of yours. While that drastically increases the needs AND restraints of RL images and content, your paperdoll system should be much more able to handle things, even though the art would probably take a fair bit to catch up. I think an additional resource investment into tailoring our victim-I mean "test subjects" to at least a few sets of exclusive content is a great way of making it feel like your extra work has been worth it, without grinding or "upgrade bloat".
Michael Josten
It's a thin line between "too easy/Money Collector" and grinding. At the moment, the game tends to be a bit on the "money collector" part, at least after some initial time. Just putting the serum use to a Multiuse could shift it to a grinding part too easily. I like the idea of combining serums to achive an effect as the Gifted-Monster brings up. I could give the MC a bit more control about the paths a serum would bring and offers more uses for the additional serums. Additionally you need some more money sinks to prevent to much money. The possibilities are more clothes, MUCH more clothes, more exotic items or better additional items you need to achieve wanted changes on a character. for example: To have Penny act more slutty you need MCS-1 to open her mind, a serum, that makes her an exibitionist and a fine set of lingerie. So the MC have to invest for maximum effect and needs time and money for controlling the whole company, investing more to have the maximum efect on MCS 3, 4, 5 paths and possibly have to decide, what person he wants to control completely.
Gifted-Monster
Have you considered requiring that each upgrade path might require a dose of MCS AND another serum? So for example, MCS + another serum? You could also add in specialized paths that require increasing doses of alternate serums. For example, let's say you want to turn the mother into a really big-breasted cow. You'd need to dose her with MCS + Breast Expansion serum.
John P
Also, more clothing options, of course.
John P
If you are going to paperdoll, just more customization options for the MC would be pretty cool. From some ridiculous stuff, to simple, like tattoos and piercings. You are already kindof going that path with serums, but you could easily put part of the customization with money.
