New concept for a RAID mini game: One of the systems that I have not been happy with in this game is the raid system. I want to add something more interesting to take its place. In other words, I will start working on a new mini game that will substitute the old raid system. However, I will not touch the Perks, stats, items, outcomes, etc... That will remain the same. However, I will completely redo the mini-game that takes place when you click that big RAID button. Instead of a bunch of random checks, it will be miniature version of an active brothel simulation. Rather than going on lengthy detail on what it will be like, I've instead created this very rough conceptual UI blueprint: (see below)

As you can sort of see, there will be 4 different rooms where Elite, Alternative and Popular clients can spend time with the courtesans. I've been studying the drag-and-drop feature for Renpy and I plan to fully exploit it for this mini game. You will be able to chose between different room designs to build in these four slots and then start dragging and dropping customers from a queue so they can spend time with the courtesans. The more profit you make during this timed activity, the more damage you will inflict to the raid opponent. Like the other minigames, this one can be skipped using the cheat and it will take a while before it's fully cooked and added to the game.

Next Update: Coming up is the final Rank A training animation update with progression for all courtesans. After that, we can finally take a deeper dive on specialisations and continue the main story. The update will also feature new content for the Spa/Bathhouse.

New wife content: One of my priorities during these training-focused updates is updating the models for the girls in the game with better rigs and improved materials. It takes some time and the visual difference is subtle, but it is worth doing it because better models make better animations! Since I'm updating every courtesan, in the next update I will also update Sophia and Shannon. I plan to add a new affection animation for each + a new "visit the other wife" animation. 

New coom simulation: Since update 0.20 I have been experimenting with a new way to create cumshot animations that uses particles + metaballs instead of fluid simulation. It took a while to figure out all of the kinks of this kind of simulation, but I think I figured a good and reliable method to make them work. 

Next update: Continuing the Rank A animations, (almost done). The next update will feature more corporate wife content and new training animations for Hannah and the Pianist. Which means that the update after this one will be the last Rank A training animation update!

Current development plan: Now that players can have a feel of what expertise events will be like, the next updates will start alternating between training animations and static CG events. That should make development faster and more efficient so we can finish rank A as soon as possible so we can move on with the story and unlock more specializations!

New Status screen on the milk farm: Did you know that there are timed events on the milk farm? I am currently working on a screen that will show some flavourful stats that will make tracking these events easier.

Early access: If everything goes to plan, early access will come out at the end of March or the beginning of the next month. The next update will mainly feature training animations and rank A training progression.

Updating the entire game to Rank A: The next major goal for this game is to add full rank A progression to all courtesans. And this means 72 new animations that have to be created (36 PUMP and 36 PUMP):

Julia: 8 animations
Denise: 8 animations
Zoe: 8 animations
Nicole: 8 animations
Ayaka: 8 animations
Hannah: 8 animations
Pianist: 8 animations
Doctor: 8 animations
Troupe leader: 8 animations

In addition to the training animations, there is also this peculiarity for Rank A in which every courtesan gets a unique event for each specialisation perk with unique CG(s). That means each courtesan will also need at least 9 new CGs (probably more than that) for those events, since each specialisation has 9 different perks.

It's a lot of posing, rendering, and editing to do! Not to mention the code that is needed to implement all of this into the game. It's definitely not something that can be done in a single update, I'm setting up a goal to get all of this done by April. After completing all this Rank A content, we can move the story towards the Industrial District and add the next brothel level.

Next update: Rank A (continuation 1): The next update will be out in February and will feature full Rank A progression for courtesans that I managed to complete by the first week of February (early access). I will work on them according to their order in the training list, which means Julia -> Denise -> Zoe -> Nicole, etc... Also the remaining expertise perk events will be made available for Caroline. Also planned is a notification system to nudge players towards the requirements for Rank A and a description for each expertise perk. Finally, there will be a variety of bugfixes, including a fix for an infamous glitch where climax animation playback would be disabled for certain players.

In this post I will detail the upcoming Rank A progression and the specialisation system.  
  
Specialisations: I'm currently working on the Rank A training progression system, which will be a bit different from the previous ones. In rank A, you will be able to 'Specialise' your courtesan after training all her stats to the max. Doing so will unlock new events for that courtesan and also earn you expertise points. If you want, you can remove the courtesan from the specialisation that she was assigned and then retrain her for another specialisation. Each courtesan has her own set of Affinities, representing the specialisations paths that are available for them. In total, there are 4 planned specialisations.  
  
Expertise points: In addition to specialising your courtesans, you can use their expertise points to upgrade your brothel. A new expertise 'tech-tree' of sorts will be made available for your brothel, where you can spend points to push your brothel in a different direction. This will unlock new events, most of them focused on niche content. Eventually you will have to complete at least one full expertise branch to progress in the game. 

Late game considerations: At first, the player will be encouraged to focus on one or two branches of a particular specialisation. There will be some specialisations that can be unlocked earlier or later depending on their choices during the story. However, those that want to unlock every branch of every specialisation will be able to do so eventually by retraining their courtesans and progressing in the story.  
  
Upcoming 0.20 update: The next update will feature a prototype version of the rank A progression for a single courtesan: Caroline. She will be a guinea pig of sorts for the Rank A progression! The breeding specialisation will also be introduced.