A writing day
Hey guys!  Today Victoria has been working hard on the new avatar, and our new freelancer Mihail has been carrying out a technical tasking set by Lara.  These guys are all beavering away to bring you the new character creator demo, which will showcase the new low-maintenance avatar.
It's funny that I even have to write this – because it's so obvious – but in the interests of full disclosure:
  • For the first few weeks of MFAGA I felt (irrationally*) guilty about spending most of my time communicating with the team instead of personally writing/designing things
  • But having done that, they're doing an amazing job and I'm – I think for the first time ever – free to work on things you'll see in the following release, not the next one.

Today I storyboarded a brand new sex scene (of about the same size and scope as the graduation gown scene we added to the University).  This was a simultaneous attack on two MFAGA objectives: this new scene cleans up part of the backstory, while also establishing a template for team/community writers to follow.
Feedback from the team was good, and what I'm really pleased with is how quickly it came together.  Using our new storyboarding technique (on which more will be revealed SOON), I was able to prototype a whole new scene in just one day – in a way that team members could glance at and understand not just how the scene plays out, but how it connects into which part of the code (and therefore how their own ideas for alternative scenes would fit exactly into the storyline).
In a quick discussion we came up with a couple of new paths that would improve the player experience during implementation.  We've specified the avatar art requirements (which are minimal) as part of the storyboarding process, and because the scene is structured and plotted in advance it shouldn't take very long to write.
This is incredibly exciting because it raises the potential that – if we get the structure and the plot organised correctly – we could conceivably add in new mini-adventures, like the graduation gown scene, in a time frame measured in days not months.
This was always my vision for the game – new encounters (in Bangkok) every time you download the monthly update.  Today's writing work made that feel a lot closer (and it itself was only made possible through teamwork – especially with esclavage and CassieBare – about to design and share the storyboards).
Okay, that's it for today.  Have a great evening, and I'll catch up with you guys tomorrow!
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* BTW I don't mean "irrationally guilty" like "hahaha oh don't worry Crush you have nothing to feel guilty for".  I mean irrational as in crazy and harmful – not just to myself but to the project.  It's not served by me feeding my weird imagination about what I should be doing, instead of clear-headedly doing what actually needs to be done