Update (04-Jun-2022)

Hi All,

Weekly Update:

Last week, I focused on writing morning events. These events will be erotic events that typically revolve around how the main character is dressed. I think I've finished writing them. I actually wrote them twice. I wrote them once, wasn't really happy with how it would work, and then re-wrote them. I'm still not 100% on how they sound, but I think it's time to put it into the game, and see what you think. Next week, I will focus on adding these events into the game.

Dynamic Scenes:

I want to talk a bit about an event writing strategy I'm using, that I like to call Dynamic Scenes. The hope is to make a scene highly repeatable. This is valuable, because of the simulation nature of this game, and how long this game is. To do this, a scene will be made of lots of interchangeable blocks. For example, the scene might start with an intro block to set the scene, a couple of middle blocks, and then an ending block to wrap up the scene. These blocks can be randomly selected from a pool of blocks, and which blocks are available can be dependent on several factors. What I hope this does is make two runs of the same scene feel a bit different, and also evolve the scene naturally as the player progresses through the game. As an additional benefit, this is a highly scalable structure. It's super easy to add new events to this scene, later down the line.

The morning events is a dynamic scene, where what can happen in the middle grows as you get further in the game. In this case, what unlocks more blocks is adopting new obligations. This is also interesting to me, because the morning events you see in one station will become different from what you see in another station, just because of the different obligations adopted in those two stations over time.

Other dynamic scenes might include scenes when the main character visits the officers. In this case, new blocks or events can become unlocked by raising the relationship level with that particular officer.

I'm pretty excited about this system. Let's see how it goes.

Personal:

While writing the lewd morning events, I found listening to music really helpful. I was listening to the music in Rimworld, but also Starcraft, and also the soundscape in Elite Dangerous. I should also include Rebel Galaxy, to be honest. They really dig deep into the Blue Collar America vibe. Their second game even has a female protagonist, doing pretty much the stuff that the main character of my game is doing.