Hey guys!  This week our illustrator lovely Victoria completed one of her big art tasks (a body reshade, and some changes to the small breasts requested by fans), and got partway through the second one.  All assets need to be hand-drawn, and these specific tasks are complex because they involve interactivity with multiple layers, expertly applied meshes and lots of fine tuning to make them look right.

I completed around 20 tasks this week.  The progress bars look like this:

I’ve been completing mostly boring but necessary things, like fixing dead links, and making sure that playing scenes in different orders doesn’t break the game.  (Spoiler alert: it did. 😩)  I’ve also been writing every day, patching in placeholder texts with things like actual UI alerts, and fixing various bugs and problems.  And also doing some planning and prep work for the next episode.

I did a couple of cool things like restored the options for the heroine to wear glasses in her day-to-day (set her Physique stat below 0 to unlock this), or have six-pack abs (if her Physique is maxed out).

I worked every day except yesterday (when I was feeling drained and burned out and unable to do good work, so I thought it’d be better if I took a day to rest).  I got straight back on it this morning.

I’m feeling kind of down because I wanted to get more tasks finished and I feel frustrated that everything takes so long.  But I work on it until I’m frazzled (almost) every day. 🫩 I’m doing my best.

Sorry for being low morale.  I’ll get an early night and get back on it tomorrow. 🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys!  This week, Thalion – an FA fan who is also a web developer and software project manager with 19 years' experience – offered to take a look at my working practices and see if he could identify areas for improvement.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I made the list of all outstanding tasks and shared it (along with the alpha test) with Thalion.  I've also been sending him updates at the end of each day on which tasks got completed.

Right now he's just getting a feel for the way I'm currently working (and the velocity) – I’ll ask him to share his assessment with the whole community when he’s ready (even if his conclusion is that I'm a dick 😬).  For now, even just making the list and updating it every day has been helpful to me.

On Wednesday I identified 84 tasks in four categories, which is actually more than I thought (but a lot of the tasks are small).  Besides the art (which is all hand drawn by our illustrator, lovely Victoria), it's mainly things like bug fixes, polishing scenes, fixing stub branches and broken links, etc.  All the boring things that I never realised went into game development, I thought it was all just about having fun ideas. 🫩

Since then I completed 18 tasks:

(Victoria is getting the two most difficult art tasks out of the way first, so her bar will start moving up quicker once those are out of the way.)

I’m tired now so I’m gonna get to bed, then I’ll get straight back on it in the morning.  🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys!  This week I pushed the new art requirements out to our illustrator lovely Victoria, and got some alpha testers to play through the new Malaysia scenes for the first time.

Feedback on the alpha was positive, with some very helpful improvements suggested for clarity and characterisation.  Most of the suggestions were small tweaks that will make a big difference – thanks Behbeh, Mariam Hallows, Lizzie Mitchell, XG, The Lost Engineer, Bread Pitt and Lara for playing through and contributing ideas.

Art is underway.  Victoria is currently working on some avatar improvements I requested – sneak peek of that soon but some stuff she sent me over the weekend is looking greta – and I also sent her 15 other art requests that she’ll move onto next.


Next episode outlining
There are two big set-piece scenes planned for the next episode:
– new scene: the (optional) wet t-shirt contest at Choppers Bar
– new scene: the heroine’s try-out shift at Hard Cock Cafe

These were only vaguely outlined, so I carved out some time for detailed planning of both scenes (including creation of five new NPCs).  This was exciting creative work and I absolutely loved doing it.  I worked on it for longer than I’d planned to, but I think when you’re lucky enough to get a burst of wild inspiration you just need to ride it out and make the most of it.

I’m so excited because I’m now confident that both scenes are going to be stupidly fucking hot.  Normally I’m not sure if people are going to like upcoming scenes, but I think these two are going to be the #1 and #2 hottest scenes the game has ever had.  Cannot wait to get these working in the engine and out to you guys.

The new try-out scene also let me make some improvements to the Connor recruitment scene – which coincidentally got a lot of discussion in Discord this week.  Some players hate how rape-y that scene is; some worry that sugarcoating it might harm the story.

Of course, you can’t please all the people all the time, but I redesigned the scene in a way that I think both (a) cuts down the ick and (b) is actually much, much hotter without (c) losing the boundary-blurring, “casting porn” vibe that I think was hot about that scene in the first place.  Again it’s going to be really hot. 🥵 Thanks to everybody who discussed it in the Discord, your timing was perfect, I was keeping quiet (so as not to interrupt) but I was taking notes the whole time.


Next steps
Lovely Victoria is busy with artwork.  I would love to start writing the next episode but I need to finish up the things I mentioned in the last report – filling out some stub branches, pushing in some alternate branches, and fixing up the “connective tissue” between scenes and branches.  None of this stuff will require new artwork, so I’ll be working on this while V sexes up the avatar.

I know I said I’d aim to get a detailed checklist of remaining tasks out in this report but I didn’t do it – I was too busy scene planning the next episode.  I’ll definitely produce and publish the checklist in the next report.

Okay, that’s it for this report.  I’m actually going to just chill out this evening so I’m fresh and recharged to restart work tomorrow morning.  🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys, Happy New Year!  2025 sucked for Female Agent, but 2026 will have multiple releases.

This week my aim was to finish the new rewrite of the Max sex scene which – as of about 2026 PM – is just finished.  🥳🥂

Like I said in the last report, Female Agent sex scenes tend to be really hot right up until the actual sex.  At which point:

It’s really lame, I hate it, I wanted to fix it if I could.

I don’t wanna say I’ve cracked the code, that everybody’s going to think the Max scene is the hottest thing anyone (or even just me*) has ever written.  Necessarily, at this point in the story, it’s quite a vanilla sex scene.

But I can say it’s really different, maybe the shape of things to come.  I pushed myself to get into the characters’ heads and figure out why they’re fucking and why it’s hot.  And I did something totally new with sex scene game mechanics – with more choices, and skill checks more about boundaries and inhibitions instead of roll a 7 to inflict an orgasm!


Current status and next steps
The rewriting is now done, with three caveats:

(1) there are some stub branches that need to be filled out (e.g., in the current sex scene, only the “no condom” branch is written – the alternate branch with protection needs to be worked into the code). 

(2) there are alternate branches to the sex scene that I want to include (basically a few different positions/locations), but these aren’t necessary for the next release, and can cannibalise the current draft (since these are the same characters and broadly similar emotional beats, just different places/positions for extra flavour and choices).

(3) there’s some “connective tissue” that needs to be added throughout (i.e. there are some points where the player is supposed to be able to do things in different orders, but that’s not currently implemented in the test version).

But it’s largely done.  Writing is always the big fucking bottleneck, so this is a big deal.

Other things that need to be done:

So tomorrow I will shit all over her to-do list as my main priority, then get a playable version out to the alpha testers for feedback and improvement.  This week I’ll aim to create a detailed checklist of remaining tasks before release, and post it like I did with the Halloween release so you can see how close it is.

But I’m too fucking tired tonight because I am 100.  I’ll get straight back on it in the morning.  🦀❤️‍🔥

—

* what is the hottest thing I’ve ever written?  🤔 i think it might be miss wet t-shirt at Oceana

Hi guys!  This week I took Christmas Day and half of Boxing Day off.

My aim last week was to get the Max date edited by Wednesday which was achieved.  I took Christmas off, and in a half-day on Boxing Day I wrote an extra outro to Malaysia which can be triggered from the new Max date.

Since then – Saturday to Monday – I’ve been working on the Malaysia sex scene.  One of the problems with Female Agent is that the sex scenes are hot right up until the sex and this is something I wanted to try to fix this time.  I’m trying to write it in a totally new style and it feels really exciting and hot, I can’t wait to get feedback on it.  (I honestly don’t know if it’s better, but it’s definitely different and it seems much hotter to me.  You guys, of course, will be the judges.  Contributor Behbeh played through a rough draft of the work in progress earlier today and gave good feedback on the new style.)

It’s flowing really fast, I would probably have finished it today if I hadn’t had 1.5 days off for Christmas (but my family would’ve finally done the right thing and disowned me).  My brain is frazzled now but I’ll get back on it tomorrow.

Structural changes
Here and in the Discord there’s been some really interesting talk (thanks everybody) about how Malaysia was fine and not everybody understands why I wanted to rewrite it at all.

Part of the reason is characterisation of the heroine (and this is important, we need it in the next few episodes).  But the other reason is player experience.  Female Agent was always supposed to be the game I wanted to play, that’s the only reason I ever made it.  One reason I hated the Big Mac episode – and ended up not finishing it, despite positive feedback – was just that I didn’t want to keep playing a game that felt like a Powerpoint presentation.  If I’m gonna keep doing this then I want more decisions, genuine branches, and skill checks.

To illustrate, here’s a diagram of the Malaysia experience in the last release.  Red rectangles are scenes with no options, all you can do is click through them (like a Powerpoint).  They’re not necessarily bad but they are rigid and kinda boring once you’ve played them once.  Green circles are scenes where dice or decisions can affect the outcome.

For contrast and to illustrate what I’ve been working on, here’s a diagram of the edited Malaysia experience (blurred to avoid spoilers):

So it’s not like the perfect episode (that’d take forever, and it’d have no red on it).  But hopefully it’ll be a significant improvement: lots more decision points, and a genuine alternate branch that some players will prefer to the main.

Okay, it’s really late, I’m gonna crash and get back to work tomorrow morning.  I love you guys so much 🦀❤️‍🔥🎄

Hey guys!  It’s been another long week, no days off.  But fuck days off, we have a game to make.

I said last week I wanted to finish editing the Max date by Thursday.  But it took more hours than I wanted.  The new version of the Max date is now 85% done and I expect to be finished with it tomorrow or Wednesday.


Why the extra work?
Broadly speaking, for a scene in FA to work it needs to be either sexy (best case), exciting (second best) or at least short.  The Max date scene was just coming out long.

I wanted to fix it.  My first idea was ramping up the sexiness – but without context and build-up, it didn’t come out as sexy as I wanted, it just felt fake and meh.  I don’t know how to explain it exactly – I guess like when you’re watching porn and the characters just start fucking for no believable reason?  (This is why I often watch porn with the sound off, I have to invent my own stories 😬)

I made a bunch of changes to pacing, mood & vibe, and something subtle-but-important to the heroine’s characterisation, and all of a sudden the scene started taking on a life and character of its own. It just felt correct (and the hotness was coming from the characters themselves, not the scenario I was trying to impose).

But all this work took time.  Like I said, I’m expecting to finish it inside the next 24-48 hours.  Then I’ll move straight onto the sex scene.


Morale transparency
Sometimes I feel like the pressure is impossible.  When a scene isn’t working, it takes time to fix it, so I throw myself into that.  But I feel guilty for putting in the extra time.  People tell me to just release it, like I’m deliberately holding a finished episode back or something.  Really what I’m doing is working my ass off to get it ready for you guys.


Days off this week
Obviously I need to take at least Thursday off this week, just so I’m not the worst human in Christendom.

But I know everybody’s waiting for the next ep to drop, so I’m not planning to take days and days off.  I’m gonna get an early night tonight, and do my best to get the date scene finished tomorrow. 

Merry Christmas to everybody, guys!  I love you all.  🦀❤️‍🔥🎄