Tuesday, December 29, 2015

ALPHA 0.5.6: "Das Kapital"


This update is a major step towards 1.0. It adds two more facilities, completing or nearly completing the final complement of them. It also significantly expands player involvement in the player character's business pursuits, though like most of the other non-erotic content, this can easily be ignored. As such, this update is heavy on structure and light on content. The new features are in a relatively spare state for now and will require several event-heavy updates before they're fully realized.

Through recent playthroughs, I felt the player character was fading out too much. So, he can now start a slave trade focused corporation, complete with IPO, share price fluctuations, price shocks, dividends, et cetera. This is going to be a rich source of random events; things like the ability to name and customize your corporation are definitely planned. Before the business majors in the audience jump down my throat, please understand that this is a very broad-strokes rendition of corporate affairs. It bears about as much similarity to being a CEO as Call of Duty bears to being a soldier, or Madden bears to being Tom Brady; that is to say, very little. That said, if there's anything business experts feel I can do to push up the verisimilitude within the context of what's here, let me know.

I have recoded the way the game decides which slaves to display where. Bugs like slaves inappropriately appearing on the main menu when they should be in a facility are likely. As usual, thank you all for your playtesting and feedback.

Download: DropboxMegaPrevious saves will not work. If you have not started a new game with a fresh download, please do not report bugs.

0.5.6 Changelog

Major additions:
  • The Master Suite, a facility associated with the fucktoy assignment. Its leadership position is the prized Concubine, and it features an upgrade that will pamper its inhabitants.
  • The Cellblock, a facility associated with the confinement assignment. Its leadership position is the sexually aggressive Wardeness.
  • Corporate management, available from the economics report every turn after it is unlocked by a basic level of reputation and cash on hand greater than ¤30k.
  • Significant recoding for better performance.
Minor updates:
  • Reduced income from liquid assets to encourage incorporation.
  • Added a Rules Assistant diet setting that fixes unattractive weights rather than forcing a single weight outcome.
  • New hardcoded slaves.
  • Heavily rebalanced slave pricing.
  • Bugfixes.

Sunday, December 27, 2015

ALPHA 0.5.5: "To The Death"


By repeated and vociferous request, this update adds lethal pit fights. These will remain basic; they're a simple extension of the existing pit fight code. I'm being fairly ruthless with myself about keeping the focus on sexual slave management for FC. Things like direct attacks on other arcologies, in-depth combat, and Thunderdome will have to wait for my next project. At this point, one of my chief goals is to add more content to FC without adding more code complexity, since FC is starting to run Twine a little ragged. Pit fights are intentionally balanced so that they cannot form a central part of arcology life. They are very useful, however, in advancing the Roman Revivalist future society, and with that society properly advanced a gladiatorial fight every turn should produce all the reputation a First Citizen ever needs.

Never let it be said that I'm not responsive to requests. The very first facility, the brothel, appeared after players surprised me by keeping more than ten slaves, which cluttered the main screen and led them to request a way to let good slaves work unsupervised. (I was indeed stupid enough to think ten slaves would be the average.) This update adds a resting facility. At this point, I can state with confidence that there will eventually be a facility associated with every major assignment. Next up are a master suite with chief concubine to store fucktoys and a prison with a wardeness for breaking.

I have plenty of slaves to write events for; hold reports of slaves without events for now, please.

Download: DropboxMegaPrevious saves will not work. If you have not started a new game with a fresh download, please do not report bugs.

0.5.5 Changelog

Major additions:
  • Lethal pit fights.
  • Labia in four sizes, labiaplasty to reduce them, and, with the surgery upgrade, labial enhancement surgery.
  • New random events for devoted slaves with large labia following a workout regimen that makes them uncomfortable, for highly devoted slaves on restricted speech rules, and for intelligent slaves on restricted speech rules.
  • Basic timed assignments, which drop a slave's assignment back to resting after a month; this functionality is in an early state for testing and feedback, and cannot be used to sentence slaves to a facility outside of events.
  • Upgraded the pool from a simple penthouse upgrade to a facility which heals slaves to full and then kicks them out. Complete with upgrade and leadership position, the motherly Attendant.
Minor updates:
  • Improved and expanded encyclopedia entries on how to play, including a leadership position guide.
  • Updated several leadership positions' requirements; this review is not complete.
  • Added sentencing to the arcade as a punishment option to many events.
  • New races: Southern European, Semitic, Malay, Pacific Islander, and American Indian.
  • Growth hormone settings for the Rules Assistant, which can now be told to grow slaves to girlish figures, to stacked figures, or can be told to grow slaves and not stop. The RA will prefer to keep slaves very healthy, so with these options active players should expect to see the RA intensively micromanaging drug regimes.
  • Many assets now grow based on size, with small assets growing quickly and already huge ones growing more slowly.
  • Increased size caps for many physical attributes, including tits, asses, clits, dicks, balls, areolae, nipples, and lips; improved descriptions to support the new sizes.
  • Adjusted random slave generation so that the most extreme body attributes will not appear randomly and must be created.
  • Future societies will now disable related variety bonuses for the brothel and promenade; it should remain possible to get the perfect variety bonus by satisfying all remaining variety requirements.
  • Degradationist future societies now approve of heavily tattooed and pierced slaves.
  • Body purist future societies now approve of slaves without tattoos and without heavy piercings.
  • Code revisions for better performance.
  • Bugfixes.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

Modding FC


I've been asked about modding frequently enough elsewhere that it's worth setting my position down here. For the attention-challenged, the short version is this: attribute FC to me and link back to this blog when possible; let me know what you're up to; please respect the exclusion of underage content; otherwise, mod at will.

The idea that people would be interested in modding a game of mine would have been pretty inconceivable to me three months ago, and is really exciting to me now. As far as I know, Twine games are inherently open source. Even if I wanted to restrict modding, there's no way for a Twine author to do so that I'm aware of. If you're interested in modding FC or seeing my novice coding, download the GitHub repository and follow the included instructions. If anything isn't clear, email me and I'll explain.

Since I have no ability to control modding, my one hesitation has to be a request, not a demand. It's this: please respect the underage content restriction. Here's why. I like FC; I like writing it, coding it, and playing it, and I like seeing others enjoy it too. I'm doing this for fun. Even after 1.0 I intend to keep adding scenes to the game at a reduced rate for a long, long time. So, please leave FC's author appeal intact so I can keep doing that.

There are two things you can do to make my life easier. First, attribute FC to me, please, and backlink to here where you can. It's courtesy, and it will get people with questions about the base game to where they need to go. Second, let me know what you're up to! If your desired changes are small, I may just make them. If not, it's still fun for me to hear.

Finally, I'll link to good mods. In fact, I'd consider including good mods in the game, or making simple code accommodations for them. Several would-be modders have contacted me with plans for simple stat changes – unsurprisingly the TFGames stalwarts want more perfect MtF transitions – and once things stabilize, these could even be included as alternative start options.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

ALPHA 0.5.4: "A New Rome"


I rarely miss an opportunity to set myself up to bring something in early and under-budget by announcing a later date than I think I can make, so here's 0.5.4. After four hours of playtesting I hope this one is less broken than 0.5.3. I'd like to thank everyone who's been helping me by leaving bug reports and feedback. Since you all seem to have a high tolerance for bugs, I've been taking some of the time that could go to thorough internal debugging and writing content with it instead, since I can rely on you to backstop me. FC has a lot more content than it would if I felt it necessary to dump more hours into testing before each update.

This update adds five requested clothing options. I am quite aware that the kimonos and hijabs miss a lot of cultural nuance. Hijab is used in FC in the broad sense, not to refer to any specific garment (it literally means covering, nothing more). I understand that kimonos, particularly the types of obi (the sash part), can have all sorts of meanings. I am not sufficiently motivated to do the necessary research to figure out the differences between traditional kimonos whores and Head Girls should wear, but if someone feels like posting the basics or emailing me a rundown, I'll add them.

The event options in this update range from decently kind all the way down to terribly cruel. One thing I'm trying to avoid is misleading the player about which options are which. If you make a choice in an event and you're unpleasantly surprised by what happens, that's bad; let me know so I can make the choice descriptions more accurate.

Feedback request: If you see the placeholder event that is displayed when a slave isn't eligible for any other individual event, use the slave upload function to post her stats here. Doing so will show me what types of slaves still need events written for them. It would be useful if you could append her assignment at the time, too.

Download: DropboxMegaPrevious saves will not work. If you have not started a new game with a fresh download, please do not report bugs. Latest hotfix at 19:00 PST. Hotfixed issues include misapplied future society bonuses, clothing description problems, bad weight description code, and a bad event title.

0.5.4 Changelog

Major additions:
  • New society model, Transformation Fetishism: mutually exclusive with Body Purism; bonuses for slaves with implants.
  • New society model, Slimness Enthusiasm: mutually exclusive with Asset Expansionism; bonuses for slaves with girlish figures.
  • New society model, Roman Revivalism: advanced by good leadership and pit fights; enhances prosperity and will drive down the market price of slaves. Just because I was feeling self-indulgent.
  • Many society models now not only enhance related bonuses, but reduce or remove bonuses to which they are logically opposed, e.g. Asset Expansionist arcologies stop appreciating slim slaves.
  • Broadened the weight range to create three weights the game considers attractive. Average weight is still best for combat, while the highest attractive weight is a disqualification for girlish figure.
  • New events to cover slaves not previously eligible for any individual event, including events for devoted anal virgins, disobedient slaves with balls, newly devoted slaves, severe addicts, masturbating nymphomaniacs, and obedient idiots.
Minor updates:
  • Two minor arcology upgrades: a warm pool that improves the rest assignment, and a diet sensor suite for the kitchen that improves dietary efficiency.
  • The Rules Assistant can now be set to fire every time the main menu is displayed.
  • New Rules Assistant diet options to support the new range of attractive weights.
  • Rules Assistant musculature options, which it will automatically start applying only after the desired weight is achieved.
  • Now possible to order custom slaves with specified intelligence and education.
  • Five new clothing options: schoolgirl, nurse, BDUs, kimono, and hijab.
  • New surgical option to give a slave sharp teeth; both this and the preexisting dental option can now also be reversed to normal dentition.
  • New surgical option to tighten loosened orifices with micro-surgical rejuvenation. With the surgery upgrade virginity restoration becomes possible.
  • Surgery on unhealthy slaves now has a chance of being lethal.
  • Conservative suits, maid outfits, and the new kimonos are now considered respectable enough to avoid offending religious sensibilities; hijabs appeal to them.
  • Added a milk production bonus for slaves at the highest attractive weight and above, and a production penalty for slaves at the lowest attractive weight and below.
  • Four new acquisition events for the new society models.
  • Obedient slaves choosing their own clothing will obey societal preferences on clothing if any are present.
  • Lactation-inducing drug implants will increase breast size at an increased rate for slaves below a D-cup, at a reduced rate for slaves above an H-cup, and not at all above an N-cup.
  • Bugfixes.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

ALPHA 0.5.3: "Rank hath its Privileges"

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

ALPHA 0.5.2: "Brave New World"


Updates get titles now; I retroactively titled 0.5.0 “Hell Unending” and 0.5.1 “Do No Harm.” If you played those versions, you know why.

Much of FC's development has been a give-and-take between my vision of the FC world, and the worlds playtesters have been building with FC. Nothing makes me happier as an author than to see players engaging with the game, so I try to support that when I can. I've seen some great comments describing the brave new worlds players are building, so this update is designed to reward that. Choices range from the radical, like lionization of slave pregnancy, to the traditional, like the institutionalization of race relations. (These can be customized, but the default settings are continent-specific.) At present, the benefits of building an advanced slave society are limited to reputation boosts for owning slaves that comport with the society's mores, but that will change with future updates.

If you have a vision for your arcology's society that the societal models included with this update don't support, let me know. If it's reasonably consistent with the FC world, I'll add it.

I am very aware of the exploit that involves repeatedly visiting the slave description from within an event passage to repeatedly get the benefits of the event. I do intend to fix it, but I'm looking at doing so by radically improving the way slave descriptions are displayed. Until then the exploit will remain as is; the usual admonitions about the it being up to the player to define cheating in a single player game apply.

Download: DropboxMegaPrevious saves will not work. If you have not started a new game with a fresh download, please do not report bugs. Latest hotfix at 18:30 PST.

0.5.2 Changelog

Major additions:
  • Ability to shape the future of society. An event will appear partway through the game when the player reaches a basic level of reputation that unlocks the ability to start influencing the arcology society. 
Minor updates:
  • Personal attention now prevents devotion loss due to intelligence, to encourage tactical use of PA.
  • Two new slave induction options: first aid and impregnation.
  • Added future society advancement to slave induction options that fit.
  • New encyclopedia entry on future societies.
  • The game now checks the player's cash for the indebted game over only once per turn (on the economy screen), and should now give a one turn grace period.
  • Reduced reputation penalties from the arcade.
  • Various description and UI improvements.
  • More nicknames.
  • Bugfixes.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

ALPHA 0.5.1: "Do No Harm"


Twine and I both have some serious limitations. Twine, for its part, is not at all intended for a management simulation. Meanwhile, I am working with no previous programming experience whatever, meaning that coding decisions made early in the FC development cycle were made with a tiny fraction of the experience I have now. Between the two of us Twine and I can produce some spectacularly inefficient outcomes. Some of these are likely to be intractable given Twine and the time I have available. Others I'll address as I can. Much of my time for this update was spent removing for loops wherever possible, so it should cut down on lag, especially before events.

As FC moves towards 1.0 and really starts to stress Twine and my coding abilities, the goal is to add content that doesn't add code complexity (and thus lag). One area in which I'll specifically call for suggestions is facility upgrades. I'm pleased with how most of these play at present, since they add content without unduly bloating the code. Let me know if you have an idea for how to further refine a facility: good suggestions will be those that result in something more interesting than a simple income boost by changing something more fundamental about how the facility plays.

Another area in which feedback is useful is difficulty, since that's going to become more of a focus in upcoming versions. Playtesting for difficulty is actually quite impossible for me, since I know the code and therefore can't imitate a player who doesn't. The default settings should produce a level of difficulty that isn't too punishing, but does require that the player be awake and paying attention. Let me know.

Submission request: As posted on /d/, I could use some assistance coming up with more and better nicknames. If you've got good nickname ideas leave them in a comment here. As always I'll only add submissions I like; in particular, low-effort racial slurs are unlikely to be included since they're tawdry and boring. (Clever racial and national nicknames are fine.)

Download: DropboxMegaPrevious saves will not work. If you have not started a new game with a fresh 0.5.1 download, please do not report bugs.

0.5.1 Changelog

Major additions:
  • Revised event code. The most significant effect on gameplay is that the player is now eligible for more events per turn than previously: in addition to all other events, a single slave is selected at random to experience an individually focused event, each turn; the game then selects from events for which she qualifies. Slaves in facilities are not eligible for this, giving a degree of control over which slaves appear.
Minor updates:
  • Added a third living standard between spare and luxurious.
  • Increased expense of the luxurious living standard.
  • Added penalties for recruiters and head girls not on luxurious living standards, and applied luxurious living standards to all facility leadership positions.
  • New event for slaves who are not yet broken by the arcade. It is somewhat unkind.
  • One new event for each of the facility heads, for six in total. These events require some of each position's specific stat bonuses to be fulfilled: for example, milkmaids must be healthy and muscular to be eligible for theirs.
  • New prestige event for slaves being cockmilked, very similar to the prestigious cow event.
  • Reduced glory hole income, including for slaves in the arcade; reduced impact of the arcade upgrade; increased cost to build, expand and upgrade the arcade; added minor reputation penalties for having slaves in the arcade.
  • New nonrandom event featuring the nurse that appears in one of the refugee event options, by popular request.
  • Selling slaves in relationships will affect the unsold partner.
  • Quick review of hardcoded slaves to add education and intelligence; their creators are encouraged to correct mistakes there.
  • Spread eight more turns out among preexisting plot events, which are now spaced out until week 60.
  • Bugfixes.

Sunday, December 6, 2015

ALPHA 0.5: "Hell Unending"


This is the largest single update yet, and has been difficult to playtest thoroughly. It was both easier from a code perspective and more convenient for me personally to collapse what would have been several daily updates into a single large one. Depending on how this release goes, I may continue this approach. This update adds an intelligence stat to the game. It impacts almost everything in one way or another, so I will not exhaustively list everything it does. Generally, though, higher intelligence makes raising devotion harder, and virtually everything else easier. Education is the only way to raise intelligence. I do not intend education to become a big part of FC, so it's limited to a simple two-state stat: is this slave educated, or uneducated? For the PC's purposes, a month or two spent learning the culture and expectations of the arcology would be plenty to qualify for educated status. Education cannot improve already-high intelligence, so for slaves so blessed, the only purpose of educating is to increase price.

The overall balance effect of intelligence is going to take a lot of playtesting to establish. However, I do hope it will reward close attention while not irritating more relaxed players. It should further distinguish assignments like whoring and public service from milking and glory hole duty, since intelligence only matters for the former. Slaves for skill-based assignments will take more time and effort to perfect but be more valuable for the effort. Furthermore, intelligence reduces the interchangeability of slaves. Education can only improve intelligence one step, and it's currently a five-state stat, so the ideal slaves for leadership positions must start at at least above-average intelligence.

Balancing is tricky. I've been feeling some distant sympathy for David Kim (who's basically in charge of balancing Starcraft) over the feedback on the lactation nerfs. This update directly buffs milk production, though not back to where it was in 0.4.8, and adds another way to indirectly increase it.

If you enjoy FC, you should check out Jack o Nine Tails by OldHuntsman, which I consider the greatest slave management game yet made. It's the only h-game I know of that presents a genuinely satisfying gameplay challenge. When I first played it I enjoyed it so much that I wrote a story set in the JoNT world. It's novella-length, and by virtue of it having no competitors that I know of, I will claim to have written the English-language novelization of JoNT. One of these days I'll bring a project in under 25,000 words. One of these days.

Download: DropboxMegaPrevious saves will not work. If you have not started a new game with a fresh 0.5 download, please do not report bugs.

Latest hotfix Monday, December 7, at 18:45 PST.

0.5 Changelog

Major additions:
  • Intelligence, a new stat which is arguably the most important in the game because it impacts almost everything and is very difficult to raise. This feature is not really complete: for example, almost all hardcoded slaves remain at the default intelligence value.
  • Education, which is handled as a modifier to intelligence; it is limited to a simple educated or uneducated status.
  • New assignment that directs slaves to take slave classes under the supervision of the personal assistant. These increase devotion, teach basic skills, and increase effective intelligence through education, at a rate determined by the slave's preexisting intelligence and devotion.
  • New facility, the schoolroom, associated with the class assignment. Includes a new leadership position, the schoolteacher.
  • New psychosuppressant drugs that increase obedience, reduce intelligence, suppress sexual and behavioral quirks, and can cause submissiveness.
  • New facility, the arcade, associated with the glory hole assignment. Includes a powerful upgrade that greatly increases income at the cost of rapidly ruining slaves.
  • brothel upgrade which automatically doses all inhabitants with high doses of aphrodisiacs to improve revenue.
  • promenade upgrade which adds a small amount of progress to the recruiter for each slave working on the promenade.
  • servants' quarters upgrade which improves devotion gain and upkeep reduction.
  • dairy upgrade which improves health and breast growth.
  • A collection facility upgrade which improves production.
Minor updates:
  • Complete review of the 0.4.10 code based on a comprehensive proofread by a very dedicated anon (and /k/ommando). More than three hundred minor errors were corrected.*
  • Added pre-enslavement career tracking to some randomly generated slaves; at present these are for flavor only and have no significant stat effects.
  • Buffed basic milk production and bonus from induced lactation, though still not to 0.4.8 levels.
  • Buffed cum production.
  • Submissives now enjoy crawling.
  • Some code refactoring to increase performance, which is still a long way from where it should be.
  • Balance changes to the way beauty is calculated; the overall effect is a blanket reduction of both slave prices and prostitution income.
  • Returned the dildo gag in the form of a restrictive leather collar that includes one; like its previous incarnation it is removable and will not prevent slaves from speaking or performing oral sex, and will confer basic oral skills.
  • Added a rules assistant option to specify a standard of living for obedient and better slaves; fearful and worse slaves will still be set to spare.
  • Several preexisting events now have unusually advantageous options that only appear if the arcology features a busy collection facility.
  • The Slave School, St. Claver Prep, and the Gymnasium-Academy now educate their graduates; the Growth Research Institute and L'Ecole des Enculees do not.
  • All sexual quirks can now be overridden by at least one fetish; the nymphomaniac fetish removes any sexual quirk.
  • All behavioral quirks except quirky can now be overridden by at least one fetish.
  • Being confined, working in a glory hole, or being in the new arcade will all prevent the formation of relationships and rivalries.
  • The devotion bonus for being a head girl or a recruiter increased for intelligent slaves and decreased for stupid ones.
  • The most minimal autosurgery assistant setting will no longer alter lips.
  • New hardcoded slaves.
  • Bugfixes.
* Anon's correction of 9mm Parabellum (a compact, effective and inexpensive pistol cartridge) to .45 ACP (a chubby, slow, and overrated relic) in one scene was not made, because Anon is wrong.