UPDATE: OCTOBER 2020


Hey, everybody. It appears I’ve been on a bit of a “when it’s ready” trend as far as new builds go, as I know it doesn’t go over too well when there isn’t enough new story content in a release. So, I apologize for that, and I hope to have the stuff I’ve been writing integrated into the game before too long.
I’ve been completely ADHD when it comes to this update , getting distracted by every little thing that’s come up while working on the game. (I’ll repeat it as many times as needed: I tend to hop around a lot in what I’m working on because I’m a hyperactive, easily-distracted, rabbity-thing that has a hard time staying focused.) I was cognizant enough to have been taking notes on what I’ve been working on, though, so at least I’m prepared for this update post. So if you haven’t been following my random posts on Discord, here’s what I’ve been doing lately:

Story
Jumping around a bit on this. I started with a focus on sex scenes—particularly working on some girl-on-girl stuff and looking into updating the old ones to better track the PC’s experience. As always, this is one of my weak-points from a writing perspective, so these tend to take me a while to do.
Laila’s been getting a little love, now, as more of her prerequisites are in place. I think a future update will break the bar areas off from the main free-time events so that you can get a drink/chat with the bartender before doing your main activity for that block; otherwise getting to talk with Laila will be too random.
One of Scarlet’s storylines is slowly coming together—though, as always, it’s a bit tricky to plan, as I have to figure out what the PC’s possible attitudes are towards it, the relationship status with the other people involved, and how to handle various other wrenches that can be thrown into the scenario (what if the PC decides not to show up, or what if another event takes place at the same time?). Writing is in-progress for a few different scenes, at least.
I’ve written some scenes for John. I’m not sure why, other than it was on a whim while considering that it might be nice to give people another shot at meeting him. Haven’t decided which, if any, will be going in.

Helping Me Help…Me
As a continuation of my earlier “commitment” to “housecleaning” on the Interns project, I’ve started a document to act as a map for the crazy code of the game. (Might be a good “Behind the Scenes” update for next time, now that I think of it…)
I’ve created most of the systems for Interns on-the-fly, and often find the code to be a confusing maze whenever I need to add, edit, or just remember how things work. To make it easier on my future self, I’ve been updating this new document whenever I wade into these systems, writing down the label names, what file they can be found in, what labels/functions they call, etc.
This code outline has already helped me a lot when trying to figure out how to get those Cynthia scenes inserted into the mornings. Updating it for the evening free-time events has provided me with some good insights on how I can clean things up the next time I have a chance. A lot of sections can be broken apart so that elements that are reused frequently aren’t duplicated; an example being the second evening block repeating most of the first, and all of the code that handles skipping time blocks when an event needs to take up more time than normal.

Making NPCs Classy
Another one of my writing projects is to add additional character introduction scenes, and along with that comes the challenge of figuring out a way to handle who you’ve already met and who it’s important for you to meet ASAP. 
So far, the plan is to have some code to push forward character introduction events that you’ve been missing in order to get you access to the important ones (so that you don’t go a month or two in-game without ever coming across them).
As a part of this, I’ve also been laying the groundwork for moving NPC information to a new object class. Hopefully this will make for a more uniform way of pulling information. (Has the PC seen them? Met them? Met them as a guy? Are they friendly? Etc.)
Trickiest part so far has been trying to figure out how to update old saves, as there’s a mess of existing variables from the early game, the meanings of which I’m not entirely clear on. I *think* I have something in-place that’s working.

The Dungeon Master
No, no…no sex dungeon yet (planned, but not just yet). Just the first section title I could come up with that fits the topic.
Some of the story ideas I have require  the game to be able to figure out how you’ve been playing the game. Has your PC been hiding in their room whenever possible, avoiding everybody? What about the opposite approach—is she having sex with anyone and everyone? Has she been snooping around, or has she been a good girl who does all of her work as assigned?
Knowing what you’re character has been up to will allow me to serve up special story scenarios that fit with how you’ve been playing. The trick is figuring out how to do it.
As this will likely come down to adding variables to all sorts of game events/actions that don’t currently have them, it’s the sort of thing that will require players to start a new game. I know how much people hate that, so I’m hoping to have a reasonable plan ready for when I do my next pass on cleaning up the work-day event pickers, so I can kill a few birds with one stone. Twi on Discord has already given me some great suggestions how to do this.

Willpower and Mind Control
Work on this still continues, and was my main focus last month. I’ve been doing testing of what I’ve come up with in a stripped-down build that compiles faster, and the menu portion is coming along. I’m pretty excited for when I’ll get to put this in place and can go back and start adding these events—it’ll make some existing scenes a bit more interesting with MC checks finally in place.

Graphics
On the graphics side of things, I have the third full mirror pose pretty much ready for the coding phase. If all goes well, that should make it into the next build. I’ve got one more of those in-progress (for the “most comfortable as a girl” stage), and then I’ll have to take another crack at the face closeups and see if I can get makeup working.
I’m still playing with new set and prop 3D models and have been doing some test renders to enable me to get some good-looking CGs with less Photoshop work. Unfortunately, I still don’t have everything I’d like to have…it  would be great to have more variations on hotel rooms, but I’m looking at what I can do with the various props I do have access to.
At the very least, I think a lot of what I do have will help fill out more of the TV content. I’m hoping to make some more generic content so there’s at least some nice visuals to make the unlocked channel a bit more fun to check out.