Hey guys!  This week I finished the scene I was working on, and started work on the next scene.  Ten tasks are now complete, nine are in the pipe.

Like I said last week, it’s really fun working on totally new content.  This last scene was pretty cool, with two short branches, and some pretty cool (and IMO subtly sexy 🥵) characterisation of the heroine. The writing feels like it's going great.

Our illustrator lovely Victoria has been doing some really gorgeous avatar art, check out this cute little playsuit the heroine can wear in Bangkok!

Okay!  I’m done for the day.  Back to work in the morning!  🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys!  I’ve been doing more writing this week.  I finished the scene I was partway through last week, and nearly finished the next scene on my to-do list.

It’s exciting working on totally new content!  I’m really enjoying it.  I created a couple of cool new scenes with a popular NPC (Ian), and created some new NPCs for the heroine to interact with on her all-new side quest in Pattaya.

The writing experiment from the recent Malaysia beta seems to be making everything easier and faster to write now.  Hemingway said the first draft of anything is shit, and he’s right, but my first drafts feel a lot less shit than usual.  It’s pretty exciting.

Okay!  I’m gonna eat some food and take the evening off, then get back on the kanban first thing tomorrow.  🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys!  I’ve been working on the new episode this week.

After the writing experiment in the last beta, I’m really excited about finding some changes to the heroine’s voice.  I think I made her too nervy and overwrought, and too much of a doormat in a lot of previous drafts; I’m enjoying making her a bit spunkier and cooler.

A lot of the work I was doing this week was related to characterisation and planning.  But I also finished two tasks from the kanban board, and 90% finished two more.  It’s actually been a really great week, I’m really excited about where we are creatively right now.

Okay that’s it: short report because there aren’t really any problems to describe, I’m just trucking away.  I’ll get straight back on the kanban tomorrow morning.  🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys, thanks so much to everyone who played last week’s beta and gave me feedback, either in the community or in DMs.

Like I said, I worked really hard on it.  I was pleased that most people seemed to like the scene and thought it was hotter than usual.  Several players messaged me with constructive criticism and specific suggestions for improvements, which I really appreciated.  I’ll definitely squeeze in some of these changes.

The main feedback was to move the story forward to Bangkok, and this is now what I’m working on.  The new writing techniques I developed for last week’s beta are already being used in the next episode.  I’m in a really exciting, excited creative place right now and I am hard at work on the next ep!  Meanwhile our illustrator lovely Victoria is working on art updates created by the beta.

Okay gotta finish for the day but I’m gonna get straight back on it in the morning! 🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys!  This week I’ve mainly been writing and it’s both (a) challenging and (b) going great.  The tonal changes I made to the Malaysia branch are helping me a lot going forward.  It’s hard to explain without letting you play it, but I’m really excited.

Lifepath situation
Many people have asked about when the Lifepath will be released, letting you play the heroine's backstory before she became a secret agent.  It’s largely written and coded, currently up to 64,389 words – the equivalent of a novel in its own right – and lots of the artwork is done.

My plan is to release it – in stages – after the next episode.  We’ll aim to release one Lifepath episode a month until it’s finished, so the planned release schedule looks like:

– New Malaysia beta

– New Bangkok episode
– Lifepath in stages

Writing reflection
Some people have asked about it, so I wanted to talk a bit more about the changes I made to the Malaysia episode over the past few weeks, particularly the Max sex scene.

Lots of you know that I’ve been trying for a long time to write better sex scenes in Female Agent.  (A common criticism of the game is that it’s hot right up to the point where characters start having sex.)

I think my attempts at this so far have largely been meh.  I’ve certainly become a better writer… but the sex still just isn’t that hot.

For the restored Max sex scene, I’ve tried something genuinely different.  It’s a little hard to explain: but basically I stopped trying so hard to make sex feel sexy, and focused instead on making the scenario hot.

In the existing sex scenes there are too many sentences telling you touching feels good, Kate is getting aroused, Max is getting aroused, sex is escalating, etc.  After a while it all just blurs into meh.

So I took a lot of that out and just focused on vivid details, state changes, and choices about how to respond as the scenario develops.  (There’s now much less “his hands roam over your body” and much more “Max tugs your dress down, right there on the balcony”.)  Basically each beat tries to deliver some kind of concrete new image or decision point, instead of another paragraph saying everyone is horny.

TLDR: less explaining why the sex feels hot, more events that are hot to imagine.  It’s trusting more to your imagination, but the sex scenes all happen in your mind, really, anyway, so I think you might enjoy it more.  I certainly enjoyed writing it more. It feels really different.

Can’t wait for you guys to play it.  It’s 9.30PM now so I’m gonna wind it up for the day, but I’ll be back to work first thing tomorrow.  🦀❤️‍🔥