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.  🦀❤️‍🔥🎄

Hey guys! I worked all 7 days since the last report, no days off.  No peace for the wicked. 🤪

The changes I made on Friday 5th were really helpful and have made the whole thing much more fun to play.  This week I updated multiple scenes to reflect the changes to pacing, structure and tone, and I'm really happy and excited with where the writing is now based on these changes.

This draft has now succeeded at the main thing I wanted it to do (and the main thing I want to keep doing, going forward with the game): make it less of a slideshow. Malaysia now has two separate mission paths ("operator" vs "honeypot", a microcosm of the heroine's whole core conflict – I know that most players will choose "honeypot", but I think the existence of a viable alternative path makes it hotter).

It also has a separate ending, with entirely new NPCs, for players who prefer to skip past the Max mission entirely. This ending's short but I think it's sexy, and kind of sweet. I wrote it on Wednesday, it took 10.5 hours.

There are also lots more skill checks and decision points than there have been in previous episodes.

I need to finish editing the Max date (which I'm partway through doing), and edit the Max sex scene (which I'm hoping to start on by Wed or Thurs this week). Fortunately I think this is going to be pretty straightforward because the changes I made on Fri 5th included big characterisation improvements for Max and the heroine, and it's making their (now optional) chemistry much hotter and easier to write.

Okay, it's been a long day and my brain is mush once more. I will rest it tonight so it is fresh for more work tomorrow. 🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys!  I wish I could always only report smooth progress, but this week was creatively frustrating and involved some uninvited challenges.


Problem
I worked all 7 days since the last report, no days off, but I wasn’t able to get the remaining scenes into the place I wanted.

I know it’s just porn, but I love this story, and when it feels like the version on the screen isn’t coming out like the version in my head, it’s demoralising.

I kept grinding, but you probably know that when you’re struggling is when the discouraging voices seem really loud, and you feel like maybe they’re right, and this sucks, and you should quit.

For inspiration I went to Ira Glass:

And fucking Macbeth:

I love you guys, it humbles me that you believe in me.  So I kept going o’er.

Solution
I’ve learned that sometimes when I’m in a negative place about the writing, it’s really my subconscious trying to warn me that grinding isn’t working.  And I need to stop trying to bend the plot and the NPCs into doing what I want them to do, and instead rework them to make everything flow more logically.

This feels like it’s adding on time, and that’s hard when there are persistent external voices telling you it just needs to be done (and making fun of you because it’s not done).  But it was the solution.

Thursday night really sucked, but on Friday I replayed the whole sequence from scratch and just gave myself permission to think and be creative.  All it really needed were some extra beats (for characterisation) and player choices (to nudge it a little bit further away from “Powerpoint slideshow” towards “open world”). 

It feels great now, everything is slotting into place, but it’s past 2100 on Monday and I need to sleep before I can keep pushing forward.  And I need to write this report before I can sleep, because XG told me I can’t skip them. 😭

Okay.  Report done – sleep next – more work tomorrow.  I’m really excited about hitting it with a fresh brain (and fresh coffee) in the morning, the stuff I added over the past few days feels really good.  🦀❤️‍🔥

Hey guys!  I finished the action scene I was working on, on Wednesday (as targeted).  I’m really happy with it, and am now back to editing the remaining Malaysia scenes.

There are basically three scenes left to edit:

I’m currently working across all three at the same time, because they’re inter-related – e.g. I realised today the best way to fix a boring, railroady bit in part (2) was to go back and put an extra player choice into part (1), if that makes sense.

Still, I’m aiming to get part (1) basically locked down tomorrow, and part (2) locked down by Sunday, so I can switch all my efforts to just making part (3) hot as fuck after all this tension and buildup and get this episode ready to go.

🤪 It’s 2030hrs and I’m totally frazzled, so apologies if this was a dull report.  I need to rest my brain for a few hours but I’ll get straight back on it bright and early tomorrow morning.  🦀❤️‍🔥