Thank you all for tuning in to my way to large dev diaries. As usual, I’ll read all your comments and this time I’ll respond in time… I promise…

And of course, this here will contain spoilers for version 0.3…

Type of updates

 Last time, I asked whether or not you prefer equal attention updates or more focused updates. The answers were mostly “Do as you please” and I interpret that as “Fuck around and find out”.

Updates 0.2, 0.3 as well as the free-roam phase of version 0.1 are so to speak “on-the-ship updates”, in which the entire content takes place on the ship. Here I can give every girl about the same amount of content and focus mostly on side missions. These updates were only possible due to the fact, that the main quests were ship-bound as well.

But by now, we had time to get to know the cast, and the “Monster in the Closet” quest line has apparently drawn to an end. So, in future updates, we’ll start venturing out and visiting other places.

Version 0.4 will consist mostly of a big storyline, which contains the “Breakdown” quest line, which is teased at the end of 0.3. This line will split into linear parts on the ship and into a limited-free roam back on Legestor. All in all, this will take up about 70% of the entire update. The rest are the new obligatory trio of breakfast events, 4 small main quest events, I need to ease the way towards the next main quest-related cliffhanger, and a handful of side quest events, I really wanted to write.

This update will therefore be a “main story update”. This also has the side effect, that the text distribution will be a little bit uneven. As you can see, Zoela, Lin, and Saefia will be sort of the stars of the next update and I apologize for not finding a way to squeeze in Annica.

Version 0.5 will then probably again be an on-the-ship update, where I’ll try to equalize the differences created by 0.4. Additionally, I’ll also add a major side-quest-event to 0.5. Contrary to my teasing in the last dev diary, we won’t follow Sabrina onto Kassiopeia, but we will instead follow Rachel home. The Sabrina/Kassiopeia storyline I have in mind will need a little bit more built-up and a good reason to venture to Kassiopeia in the first place.

Furthermore, Version 0.6 will mostly consist of 2 interlinking linear main story blocks with barely any on-the-ship free roam. Version 0.7 on the other hand, will start with a short linear main quest event and a larger free-roam phase. The end of version 0.7 will feature again a larger linear main quest block, that will be divided by the cliff-hanger-ending of 0.7. Version 0.8 will then start with the remains of the mentioned block, followed by a free-roam block and then again a larger story block leading towards the cliffhanger ending of 0.8. For 0.9 and onward I don’t have concrete plans, but 0.9 will probably be an on-the-ship-update after the story-heavy updates.

I’m unsure if it’s unhealthy to plan that far into the future…

But of course, that’s mostly a rough outline of a story and nothing too concrete, so you are free to tell me, what you think about the type of updates…

Galaxy map/Features

As I’ve already teased, from now on, many main quests will take place outside the Funkelregen in other places, so we need a way/interface for that. I’m sure you’ve all seen the globe-shaped holographic map in the middle of the bridge, that just screams “hotspot”. From Version 0.4 onwards, it will be clickable…

The hotspot will then lead to a Mass-Effect-ish galaxy-overview map, from which you’ll be able to pick a destination. For the start, the only available target will sadly be Legestor. That means you’ll be for now only able to traverse the same screens, you’ve already seen in the mentioned limited free-roam on Legestor.

So for now (V0.4), the galaxy map will just be a test of concept. Although the spots will not be active, I’ll add all the other places/planets already listed in the wiki to the map as well, so you’ll get a scene of scale and distances. That sense is usually what modern sci-fi media lacks…

Generally, I want to create a new feature or something every update. First of all, that’s for you so you don’t get bored and secondly, I want to give myself a “programming challenge” every update, so I stay with the project as well and not abandon it, to start something else…

For version 0.1 I basically built everything from the ground up and had to learn everything from almost zero. In version 0.2, the quest log was added and version 0.3 has the cabin and showers reworks. 0.4 will have the galaxy map and from there, it is planned to put a great UI rework in version 0.5, which will get rid of standard RenPy-UI. Then later in version 0.6, I’ll try to implement turn-based space battles, which will be way more in-depth than the battle in Path of Banishment and will feature real UI instead of the standard RenPy-choice-menu.

0.1 : Basically Everything

0.2 : Quest log

0.3 : Cabin/Shower rework

0.4 : Galaxy map

0.5 : UI rework

0.6 : Turn-based space battles

0.7 : …

0.8 : …

0.9 : Gallery, Choice rewriting

Of course, you can feel free to suggest additional features and if there is high demand/urgency I can change this road map.

Languages

Of course, it is kind of an author's convenience, that the League’s common language is plain Terran English, and therefore almost every character, we’ll ever meet in this game, speaks at least a little bit of English or is a telepath, who doesn’t need a spoken language. .

Besides English, there are a few lines in the game, that feature alien gibberish, that you’re basically not supposed to understand – in future updates, alien gibberish with story significance will be subtitled.

But of course, there are also the German and Latin bits: I am certain there are only about 3 people here who, that like me understand both these languages. Now I’m asking the others if you’re put off by the German/Latin bits or can you usually guess their meaning by context. Do you want/need subtitles/translations for these lines?

Gallery

By now there are enough sex scenes to justify a gallery system of some sort. The reason, I haven’t implemented one yet is, that I wanted to do it like in Lucky Paradox. If someone has played this visual novel before, you know, that the gallery isn’t just a feature for the player’s convenience, but an in-universe feature, tied to the paranormal abilities of the MC.

 I kinda like this idea and want to sort of copy that one… But as you can see in the table above, the story will take quite some time to get to that point. So my question is, if you are willing to wait, or if you prefer a provisional gallery before we get to that point in the story?

Reworks

From my perspective, during the making of version 0.3, I crossed the line from “oh, he’s still learning” to “acceptable” in regards to the qualities of my animations. Therefore I maybe should remake some of the older animations, which are quite stiff/awkward/bad. This particularity applies to the animations in the first version of the game:

It should be no surprise, that AVN players are here mainly for the horny stuff. But on the other side, you only achieve greatness, if you get players to say “I would play this game, even if there were no sex scenes” and you only achieve this state if you prioritize story over horniness.

But this leads to a dilemma at the beginning of every AVN. You need to lure in people with sex scenes, but at the same time, it would destroy any story/relationship development, if the MC was able to bang a LI’s brains out from the start. AVNs usually solve this dilemma by introducing a (one-off) side character, with whom the MC can have his fun, while the real LIs are introduced Eva from Eternum is a good example of that.

And me? Well… I quite fucked up on that part… First of all, all sexy scenes from version 0.1 are fundamentally just horniness for the sake of horniness. They have next to no buildup and almost no story implications. And the worst offender of them all is Ladira’s hand job in the prologue…

First of all, the event “ladira_syndrom_1” from the last update is actually just the hand job scene from the prologue, but simply better in every metric – even Pirlia and Voice’s explanations are basically identical. Therefore I’m thinking about scrapping that scene. Personally, I also think, that the blowjob from Ladira is the best animation, I’ve ever made on a purely craftsman's level.

As a replacement for a sex scene on the first day of the prologue, I am thinking about Saefia. I could pull forward the moment when the MC walks in on Saefia while she’s masturbating in the showers. Instead of leaving out of politeness, the MC stays and receives a hand job or maybe even a blow job from Saefia. Ironically, a built-up and consequence-less sex scene, in the beginning, would be helpful for the characterization of the little nympho… 

Next on the chopping block is the dream sequence of version 0.1. It’s just quite bad/stiff on a technical level and it’s in dire need of a remake.

But more generally: Do you think, I should even remake older scenes or focus on new content? Which scenes/events should I rework? What are your thoughts/ideas on the Ladira hand job scene(s)? 

Harem vs. discarding girls

It should come as no surprise, that the end goal of a game like this one here is of course a harem of some kind. Furthermore, I personally am a 100% person in games even if I do not completely like a certain character/girl/fetish. Naturally, I applied this approach to my game and ended up with a complicated net of quests and dependencies, where you were basically forced to see everything.

But I had longer discussions with people, who for whatever reason dislike a certain LI and asked how to best avoid them/their scenes. Since that wasn’t really planned, I had to give rather vague and unhelpful tips… To make this crowd more happy, I’ve decided, that main quests from now on will be more platonic or contain easily avoidable content.

But if you’re part of the 100%-gang, I want to calm you. It is still planned, so you can easily 100% the game. You will only permanently miss scenes content if you really choose to and ignore obvious warnings or decline obvious sexual offers from LIs.

Progress Report

First of all, I have good news: Basically, all of the texts as well as 70% of all renders and animations for the story part of the next update are already done. These 70% don’t include the galaxy map, the new entry into the shower rotations, reworks, or whatever you burden me with under this post. After this post here goes live, I’ll also post some sneak peeks on Patreon.

If everything runs perfectly, I might be able to release the next version at the end of February, but it’s probably rather going to be March.

Keywords

If you’ve made it this far through this wall of text, you’ve probably forgotten the start of the post, so here are some keywords, I’d like to hear your thoughts about. Additionally, you can of course write/suggest/criticize anything else you want here as well.

• Thoughts on the road map
• Feature request
• Subtitles for German/Latin
• Gallery: Now ↔ Later
• Suggestions for reworks (Especially for Ladira during the prologue)

Thank you for helping me in making a better game.