Course of Temptation Dev Diary #52 (Patreon)

Hello friends! Welcome to... another dev diary!

We are on v0.5.2f, fixing in particular a bug with group scenes that I recently created while trying to fix a different bug with group scenes. It's just like that sometimes. Barring anything particularly severe suddenly rearing its head, that's probably the last bugfix update for the month.

Progress on 0.6, the River Rat expansion

This week was about buckling down and writing a bunch of possible random events for the River Rat server job. I ended up creating a couple new event subsets to serve the job's narrative needs: events that can occur upon clocking in, and events that can occur just after serving a table before you return to the River Rat location passage.

The post-serving subset contains events that aren't about serving any particular table. Currently it mostly contains events relating to whatever the venue's "main feature" upgrade is — so, people watching games, or singing karaoke, or a band getting ready to play, and stuff like that. Each of these has a slightly different small positive effect on the venue, an extra bonus in addition to just shifting the place's demographics.

I also added in several events reacting to the "vibe" of the place. The attitude you take towards customers (for example, being flirty with them) will gradually shift customer expectations. You'll see this reflected in how they react to you as well as how they react to other servers.

The owner will notice this shift too. If the place has gotten a sexy vibe, the owner will lean into it, initially by ordering new uniforms not unlike those used by a certain popular boob-themed restaurant. As the sexiness continues, the uniforms will continue to grow skimpier.

This uses the River Rat upgrade system that I built previously, the same one the player will have influence over once promoted. As you ascend into more of a management role, you'll gain direct input into what the uniform is and will no longer simply be subject to the owner's wishes, as well as being able to upgrade the venue in other ways. But, while you're essentially entry-level, I thought the relative lack of control would be exciting.

You can also choose to act as the consummate professional, and the place's overall atmosphere will reflect that as well, with uniform changes and all.

While one goal of this location is to provide many opportunities for skill increases in Submission and Dominance, the truth is that having to serve people for tips doesn't really put one in the best position to act dominantly! There are some opportunities for this regardless, and I'll keep trying to brainstorm more, but I think it may be something that you can more naturally lean into once in the bartender and then management roles. I may consider adding a path to being hired as a bartender directly for players who really aren't interested in the server role.

Some feedback I get fairly often is that a lot of events are all or nothing — either you agree with what's going on by wholly committing, or nothing really happens. Players want opportunities to be convinced, to be able to get to the sexy times before they're fully uninhibited. That's good feedback, and I agree! Revising some older events with this in mind is definitely on my list.

In the meantime, I'm keeping it in mind as I write these new events. For example, if your only option is to refuse the above, you may get another chance:

The actual skill requirements are subject to change. But the point is that having multiple paths toward at least something happening is definitely a good idea, I think.

Anyway, writing server events will continue to be my project for today after I post this dev diary!

Next week

For next week, though, we find ourselves near the end of the month. Almost time for the next monthly update! There are some good things in here already from contributors, with a new QuickieBurger breakfast menu from Falc and a revision to the save system from majou. There are a bunch of contributed events, clothing, and other items I'll go through and implement too.

I have a bunch of things on my list to add, from the ability to name your pets to an alternate path for accessing the porn shop's gloryholes, and as usual, I'll be trying to check off as many things as I can. I'll probably post a poll in a day or so to help me pick a particular focus area.

Okay, that's all for this week! Given the timing of things this month, early access and a changelog are due next Saturday, so I will probably just incorporate dev diary stuff into that so there's just one post. But until then, thank you as always for your support! I appreciate all that you do!