Hey guys, I'm very sorry for the long radio silence. I've been working non-stop on the game, but I needed some time to work and experiment alone on something important.

I know that “going dark” was really shitty and unprofessional, and you guys have every right to be pissed off with me. The truth is that sometimes – when things are creatively difficult, and I’m feeling like shit – I let the stress and doubt and haters get on top of me, and I feel like I need to just fuck off and fix everything before I can show my face again.

I knew it was the wrong thing to do even while I was doing it (which just added to my negative emotional spiral), but I did it anyway, because I didn’t have the mental bandwidth or emotional energy to be the crab you deserve.  I'm sorry and ashamed for handling the stress so badly.

Progress report
I’ve been busy finishing the entire Lifepath in the game engine.  This was originally planned to be spread over four separate releases, but I realised that (A) it was taking too long to make and (B) it wasn’t turning out like I wanted.

The point of Female Agent has always been to make the game I wanted to play: an RPG with a highly customisable heroine, who alternates between kicking and showing some ass to get through the main quest.

Starting a new game shouldn’t be the long, intricate grind it was becoming – the Lifepath I want to play is a fun, highly interactive character creator, where I get to create and customise an aristocratic English rose or an all-American cheerleader with a unique backstory the game will reference later, stick her in MI6 or the CIA, then call her in for a meeting and tell her that she’s trading in her business suit and laptop for a thong and high heels to go undercover.

So I sealed myself away and did some absolutely brutal redesign work (which will shortly go out to testers for feedback).  So the next release will be the entire Lifepath, i.e. the next release will be the previously planned four releases, all rolled into one, and I think it’ll make the early game much more replayable and better paced.

Next steps
Now I have clarity and my idea for a redesigned Lifepath is now finished and working in the engine.  I need to push that out to testers for feedback and improvement, and of course there will be new artwork required from lovely Victoria.  So my next step is going to be detailed comms with V and testers.  We’ll aim to get the entire Lifepath to you as soon as possible.

Again I’m really, sincerely sorry for the radio silence.  It was unprofessional of me and I’m going to make up for it with better comms and a better game for everybody.

🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys!  I’m so sorry, I wanted to get the playable scene out to you before Christmas.  I’ve been working desperately hard on it but it’s not ready 😭

I’ll get back onto it either on the 26th or 27th, and you’ll be able to test it shortly after that.

I’ve also been doing some really important (and quite radical) design work on the Lifepath, but more on that soon.  Sorry I couldn’t finish it in time for tomorrow, my original plan didn’t work out like I’d hoped, but the new approach is a lot better, I just ran out of hours. ☹️

Hey guys!  While our illustrator lovely Victoria is busy doing art work, I’m taking the opportunity to make improvements to future episodes.

– Warning, long post about design changes ahead –

One of the main things I want to make better is the game’s sex scenes.  A few people have pointed out that the build-up to the sex scenes is usually really hot, but the sex itself underwhelms.  Like in my real life 😭 (Just kidding, I’m brilliant at it.)

I think the main problems are that the heroine (called “Kate” internally, for convenience) is too passive, the scenes feel too scripted, and the NPC partners feel interchangeable.

Using an upcoming sex scene as a base, I tried redesigning it to fix these problems and make it hotter.  I started by adding in periodic initiative checks – like in tabletop RPG combat! – where each partner gets the opportunity to make a choice and nudge the scene in a new direction.

This created a branching structure where, at different points, Kate can either be bold and audacious and sexily drive the scene forward, or the NPC can take control.  

Both are sexy for different reasons, and it’s not quite as simple as just being “dominant” or “submissive”.  For instance, a BJ is a BJ, but it has a different vibe if (a) Kate sexily crawls down the bed to do it, or (b) the NPC pushes her head down because now he wants her to suck his cock. It's the vibe and the context that make it sexy, not so much the physical act itself.

Having these different options doesn’t require a lot more writing; in fact, in some ways it makes the writing easier.  The complicated part is organising the scene so all the options fit together:

I added in tracking for each partner’s Arousal meter (maxing it out causes orgasm).  Partners make Sexpertise skill checks to increase each other’s Arousal.  This is actually something I’ve tried to achieve in earlier sex scenes, but I could never make it feel right because of a design flaw.

The flaw
Here’s how I designed it originally.  Both partners make Sexpertise checks, leading to four possible outcomes:

The first problem is this caused a lot of writing. Each sex interaction needs four variations (and two of them each require a further four interactions, two of those requiring a further four interactions, etc).

It also created a very predictable (and unrealistic) rhythm and structure that you can probably recognise – sex begins, 50% of the time Kate orgasms straight away, and the male partner usually comes straight away after.  (This structure is one of the reasons the partners all feel interchangeable.)

The redesign
🤔 I realised that, generally, sex scenes actually end with the male orgasm – Kate’s are kind of irrelevant?  (Not to her, but you know what I mean.)  By splitting apart the Sexpertise checks and doing them in a linear order, we create much more interesting and varied results:

In this example, Kate might end up being fucked in one, two or three positions.  Thorson might make her come once, twice, or not at all.  The scene could either be a quickie or a marathon, based on dice rolls and the level of Arousal each character started with.  It’s become much more dynamic and has broken out of the scripted, stilted structure imposed by the original design flaw.

It only gets more exciting when you consider (a) throwing in some initiative checks and (b) incorporating the new RPG stats into the scene.  Sexpertise checks are buffed (or debuffed) by each partner’s Arousal and Beauty scores.

This creates exciting potential dynamics for sex scenes, e.g. Arousal mismatches (Kate highly turned on but unsatisfied from a previous encounter, going into the next encounter with a hair trigger); Beauty mismatches (unattractive male NPCs finding it easy to come with Kate, hard to make her come); Arousal pre-buffs (Kate or other bargirls increasing client Arousal with stripping, flirting, girl/girl shows); individual NPC preferences (things that arouse one client not arousing another – clients of type Degrader prefer a different kind of dirty talk than clients of type Fantasist), etc.

Testing it out
I’m very excited about this improvement, which I think will solve one of Female Agent’s big problems and make all the sex scenes hotter.  While V works on the next episode, I plan to make the scene design in Figure 1 above into a test scene in the game engine, and push it out as a beta.

Let’s time how long it takes and see if you guys think it’s an improvement – hopefully, your feedback could make it even better.

Okay, I’m gonna start now! Time me! 🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys!  The writing and coding for the next episode is now done. The taskings left are mainly avatar related:

1). We need to fix various layering and positioning glitches related to the recolourable skin, hair and eyebrow layers.  Our illustrator lovely Victoria has had to redraw a lot of the assets, which is time consuming work.

2). I changed the script a lot, and ended up specifying a bunch of new wardrobe requirements that lovely Victoria now has to draw.

Art takes time and every single asset is hand-drawn, so please be patient and let V cook.  She loves the game nearly as much as I do* and wants to do a great job for you!

NEXT STEPS
While V is cooking, I’ll switch over to writing on the next episode, to speed up production of that.

This episode has taken a long time to produce, but a lot of the work has been making big changes to the avatar and RPG system.  Those changes will carry forward into future episodes, so you should start to see them flowing through much more quickly.  Thank you everybody for your patience and support.  The game would not be possible without you.  🦀❤️‍🔥

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Good morning, guys! ’Tis the season to be spooky, and our illustrator lovely Victoria has been fixing some scary glitches plaguing the various youth avatars.

These were caused by layering problems that weren’t visible in Illustrator, but only appeared in the game engine.  V was able to diagnose the cause and fix it by manually reorganising the layer structure in Illustrator.

This is the kind of problem that sounds trivially easy to fix, but in fact is a complex and time consuming pain in the ass.

The good news is the avatar (of all ages, including the interesting ones) looks tweaked and better than ever!  V has been working so hard on this and I can’t wait to show it to you.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on story and scene edits for the next episode (and planning for the following one).  I can’t talk about it without spoilers, but I’m excited about the improvements I feel like I’m making.  I’ve always hated 95% of my writing (the other 5%, I'm absurdly proud of), but I really feel like even if the writing isn’t as great as I wish it were, the flags and choices we’re adding to these early scenes are going to pay off so much later.  🤞🏻😬🤞🏻

I’m adding some cool stuff in these scenes and edits, but it’s nearly good to go from a writing perspective.  The code improvements we’ve made (mainly character sheet & RPG stats, but also some under-the-hood “refactoring” which will slightly speed future scenes up) are significant.  I’m really frustrated it’s taking so long, but I’m also 100% convinced this is the best thing for the game.

Next steps

Lovely Victoria is finalising avatar tech fixes (which will need to be coded in).  I’m almost done with story edits (there are a few more things I wanna take a pass at).  There’s some new avatar art requirements Victoria will need some time to work through (this isn’t her fault, I’ve been specifying changes and new art requests while I've been editing and tinkering).

It might be the case that – for the first time ever, I think – my work on this episode is going to be finished before the art. 😮 (I say again, this isn’t V’s fault, it’s just that she’s been given a huge and complex tasking.)  If that does turn out to be the case, I’ll just start work on the next episode.

Okay, that’s it for this report.  We’ll keep pushing on and get the episode out to you as soon as everything is working.  ❤️‍🔥🦀

Hi guys! ☕ 🦀 Short report this week, because we’re mostly working on behind-the-scenes stuff at the moment.

Our illustrator lovely Victoria is busy working on new art.  In addition to all the avatar improvements, the new episode has a large number of wardrobe requirements.

For example: in the next episode, a few scenes are set in high school.  This is where you set the heroine’s high school clique – alpha female, athlete, geek girl, or rock chick.  (These will individualise the heroine’s backstory, unlock new dialogue options with NPCs later, and also now have a game mechanics effect, e.g. athletes get the Amazon perk, giving them +1 to all Physical and Firearms skill checks.)  Of course, because the Lifepath now supports five different nationalities, we need five different school uniform looks, so lovely V had to draw five times the assets for this scene.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working mainly on scene edits, cutting bloat and adding in new flavour text variations and dialogue options.  TLDR; we’re working hard on the next episode!

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There was some interesting talk on the Discord yesterday about different backstories people want for their heroine (referred to internally as “Kate”, for simplicity).  Some players prefer a “good girl” backstory, some like Kate to have a more checkered past littered with hookups, drug use, etc.  This is actually highly relevant to the writing right now (karan’s comment actually made me realise that a certain scene from the next episode needs another dialogue choice in order to fully support the “good girl” playstyle). 

What’s your preferred backstory for Kate?  Let me know here, in Discord or in DM if you’re shy 🥰 – it’ll help me make sure the game has the right options.

Okay, that's all for this report! I'm going to get back to work. 🦀 ❤️‍🔥