Preview

For a change, we are starting with the previews today. First, here is the usual pie chart detailing the line count of each LI:

I have to admit, this time around I suffered a little bit from a lack of motivation and inspiration. On one hand, this means, I’m a little bit behind in schedule and haven’t done much regarding renders or animations… On the other hand, the distribution is a little bit uneven…

As you can see, Sarlé will have a rather large quest line, followed by a major Lin event. But Ladira, Rachel, Sabrina, and Pirlia are a little bit on the low side… If you have good ideas for these four, I’m all ears. Additionally, we will talk about Pirlia later…

Similar to the last updates, this one here will again feature a longer linear part, which will continue directly after the last cliffhanger. After that, it will be a normal “on-the-ship” update with mostly side quest content.

It the moment, about 15% of all the renders and animations for the next release are already done. I guess I will have the next update ready somewhere in December…

NTR

To be honest, I somewhat imagined more interaction below these posts, but I’m certain this topic will stir up some engagement…

As you can probably refer from the last cliffhanger and the uncharacteristically large spike in Annica's lines, she’s going to join the ship and finally become a full LI. But the problem is, that she comes with baggage… her brother… Sadly, I have already characterized Adrian as someone who wouldn’t just idly stand by as the MC continues to build his harem. Therefore a little discussion about NTR is needed:

I once read a take on NTR stating, that they like having the possibility of NTR in a game because it gives the game some kind of tension and the risk of failure. As I’ve explained before, I want to make the game 100%-able in one run and as long as you don’t ignore fourth-wall-breaking warnings, you will get to see basically everything the game has to over sooner or later… This means, there will probably be no possibility to permanently screw up and lose a girl.

But there could be the chance to get NTR-ed, which is still a source of tension… But there’s another problem with this approach: The metric to determine whether or not a girl will cheat on you, is most certainly going to be the affection point system. But since Funkelregen is a free-roam / sandbox game, I will most certainly punish people for simply doing events in the “wrong” order.

But I could also go even further: Maybe the MC and Adrian come to an agreement, which allows them both to fuck all the LIs without major problems.

This “free-use” scenario is a possibility, but probably the worst… for once it’s the narrative least engaging one and goes against most player expectations/preferences. Also, many of the LIs shouldn’t play along with this. For example, Rachel is already making wedding and retirement plans with the MC…

Ok… now to more realistic possibilities, that will not make 90%+ of my community implode…

First, there’s the usual AVN tradition, where whenever another male approaches a LI, she (instantly) refuses in favor of the MC. Of course, this could also work in my game… but only with one big problem… or rather a 114 cm tall problem…

I’m pretty sure everybody here can guess, that leaving Saefia and Adrian in the same room alone for more than 5 minutes could result in NTR. At the moment the relationship between Saefia and the MC isn’t deep enough for Saefia to be (fully) faithful to the MC. In other words, I will have to deepen the relationship between the two in the next few updates. This will lead to an increase in text and sex scenes for Saefia in the next updates (see the topic below and above).

Additionally, there’s a little idea flashing through my mind… Maybe you could catch Saefia and Adrian in the act. After that, the MC is (understandably) hurt and wants nothing to do with Saefia for a while. In the meantime, Saefia realizes, that her relationship with the MC is the only “real” one she ever had and the only one that went beyond a one-night stand, so she comes crawling back to the MC…

This could become a very impact-full moment in the development of Saefia, but I’m also aware, that my writing skills may not be sufficient to pull that off… This could probably lead to even more people disliking this already questionable LI…

The next solution to avoid NTR I like to call the Eternum approach: Here, the male sidekick is lusting after a girl, the MC (and to an extent the player) have no interest in. In the case of my game, this will be the character, who is now just called “Time Warden”. For reasons, that are probably obvious by now, she will never be a full LI and not be plowed by the MC, while remaining an important character story-wise, with whom paths will cross soon.

Also Adrian will never be able to score with her for several reasons. Also, it could become a running gag, that Adrian is the only one too dumb to realize, he’s trying to hit on his own goddaughter… Also, Lisaeria could be another candidate for this...

Until now, I’ve only talked about mitigating the downsides of having Adrian around, but one reason to keep him around is, that you have an easily available candidate for possible MMF threesomes later in the game. These will be, of course, optional/avoidable/with the MC’s consent.

Initially, pictures pop into my mind of the two friends spit roasting Sarlé or double penetrating Sabrina. Some more complex scenes could be with Zoela, who gives both of them a handjob at the same time and whoever cums last will be ridden by the little mistress, while the other has to watch. Also, Minerva is planned to be a “the more the merrier” kind of person. (This is just a brainstorming and not a fixed road map)

Also, I could make tension-filled storylines with the MC and Adrian "fighting" over the LIs and finally starting to hate each other... but for the record, I have to admit, that I have no major plans on how to continue Adrian's story...      

Instead of keeping Adrian around, we could also go the nuclear route and kill him (narrativly) off… According to my current plans, the end of V0.8 will have a major battle and it would be easy to severely maim Adrian at this point, so he basically spends the rest of the game in a hospital on Vesella.

Additionally, this could fuel a “survivors-guilt-plot” for Lin, who wants to make sure nobody dies again under her command…

So all in all we have the following options:

• Free use / sharing
• NTR based on affection points
• Girls reject Adrian a priori
• Girls reject Adrian (with a Saefia upsi…)
• Adrian focuses on side character(s)
• Kill’m off!

If you’re reading this, you probably have a poll somewhere on your screen, where you can voice your opinion on the future of the game with a single click. Additionally, I’m also hoping to see some rather fleshed-out comments from you, since this is a very difficult topic…

And before you ask, almost all side quests in V0.7 are written as if Annica and Adrian aren’t yet on the ship.

Sex Scenes

Hi, my name is Janamus, I’m German and I’m surprisingly good at math and statistics, so one day I woke up and made a list of how many sex scenes each girl has. The following diagram counts how many (sexual) animations each girl has:

First I guess nobody is surprised, that Annica has the last place for obvious reasons…

But the second last place on the other side… Let’s be blunt: It’s more or less a mistake from the author’s side when the most slutty LI has the fewest sex scenes… As I’ve mentioned in some devlog, I want the sex scenes to feel at least somewhat earned, and since Saefia’s attitude is something like “I’m bored, let’s fuck!” I probably was a bit too cautious with rushing her sexual relationship… To correct that, Saefia is the first one to be granted a sex scene in V0.7, which will catapult her in front of Sabrina.

Speaking of which… Sabrina is also very low on scenes… at least she got her first real one this update… The problem with Sabrina is of course, that she herself despises the sight of her lower body. Although she’s one of my personal favorites, I took me far too long to find a workaround for that… But at least by now, I have a plan for the next scenes starring Sabrina…

The last LI I want to specifically talk about is Zoela… the second of the uncharacteristically celibate Illabs… The big problem with Zoela up to now was, that she basically had the monopoly on main quests. Although Zoela has 17% of all LI’s lines, most of that was spent on developing the main quests and not on the relationship between her and the MC. I think, the only event, whose only purpose was to deepen the romantic relationship between her and the MC, was the drinking event with her and the MC back in V0.1.

The only reason she’s not on Saefia or Sabrina’s level is, that her own scene has 6 individual animations as well as a few teasing scenes spread throughout the remaining game. I hope the two teasing events in the last update kept you well entertained…

I don’t have much to say about the other LIs or rather I don’t see a need to change/address something.

But to be more general: The time of the sex scare early game with only 2 animations per scene is over by now. Therefore I want to focus on fewer, but longer (and maybe better) scenes. I’m aiming for about 3 scenes per update (i.e. one per beta). This means it will become way less likely to find 4 to 5 scenes per update like in the last 2 updates. Therefore the next update is planned to only have 3 scenes, which will consist of 5, 5, and 4 animations each with respective updates to the showers.

Also, I have by now gotten a few people pointing out my quite slow sexual progress and the fact, that until now, no penetrative sex with a main line LI has happened. Well… that’s going to change next update… twofold…

Main Quest Update

When we meet up again for the next big devlog, the texts for V0.8 will most certainly already been written, so I have to talk about this now:

At the moment the main quests are a little bit one-dimensional. Basically for the last updates (V0.5, V0.6, V0.7) the fundamental gameplay loop concerning the main quest is as follows: Talk with Funkelregen, fly to a certain relevant position, experience a long linear section, and repeat.

This is mostly due to the fact, that we are in the middle of two plot strains. The first “chapter” of the game (if you want to call it that) is about “something is fishy on the ship”, which pretty much ended in V0.4, and now I’m in the middle of building up to the “something is fishy in the galaxy” part – hence the little bit of a drought…

To over-correct this, I’m planning to make V0.8 basically a “main story only” update. This means I will focus on continuing the main story with little to no regard for LI’s side storylines. The only exception is probably going to be Sabrina, whose next major story segment needs to happen in the main story segment of V0.8. I hope you got her affection to the appropriate level by then…

Contrary to the other main quest update (V0.4) V0.8 will not be just a big blob of linear storytelling with maybe a limited free-roam section. Instead, much of the storylines will work within the existing ship-bound free roam as well as some zick-zacking through the galaxy. At the very end of this update there will also be a big battle in which Adrian could meet his maker…

The text distribution for V0.8 will therefore most certainly look very distorted, since I will only adhere to the needs of the story and will not even try to generate an even distribution. This will also be exacerbated by the fact, that half the side character cast will make (major) appearances in V0.8.

One drawback of this main quest update is, that my current draft only features a single sex scene and it’s even with a side character, although you will be allowed to go all bases… When I have time/budget to spare, I’ll maybe make a scene with Sarlé, Rachel, or Ladira, since their next scenes won’t require much built up…

If you’re firmly against a main story update, V0.8 could theoretically become an event like most others: A little bit more main story than usual with a bunch of side quests. The drafted story of V0.8 would be split in the middle and you would have the usual 3 scenes per update.

Additionally, if we’re going to split the main story, you will have to pick another option for our NTR/Adrian problem rather than killing him off. I can’t pretend for 3 updates, that he doesn’t exist.

Minigame / Features

Often minigames or similar things are often disliked in AVN. But concerning the minigame from V0.5.1 I got no comments until now. This means, that there were no game-breaking bugs and no one was so offended, that they felt the need to write a (negative) comment.

Often the criticism of minigames in an AVN is, that they destroy the flow of the game and add nothing to the game/experience. The space combat, on the other hand, skips itself after 3 failures and it serves a narrative purpose: It demonstrates the universe's power scaling and Funkelregen’s claims of being the most powerful/advanced spaceship in the current galaxy.

Furthermore, another space combat is planned at the end of V0.7. I’m not sure, if I will include it in the third beta already or if I wait for the full release… Anyway, I hope you will like this one as well...

As I’ve already mentioned in another devlog, I want to give myself a programming challenge each update – something where I don’t have to think about what to do, but about how to do something. This usually results in a new feature for you or something like that. For V0.6 and V0.7 these features are their respective space combats.

At the moment, I’m not sure what this challenge is going to be in V0.8. One possible feature, that gets requested more often lately is a gallery and by now you can easily justify the need for one – just look above…

But as I’ve mentioned some other time, I really enjoy the idea of justifying a gallery as an in-universe manifestation of the MC’s supernatural abilities. But the plan is to grant him his first batch of power-ups at the end of V0.8, so they will be playable in version V0.9.

Additionally, I’ve got questions for every single affection threshold in V0.5. Therefore I also wanted to rush the main story to a point, where I can introduce a system to right possible “fuck-ups” through some “wibbly wobbly, timey wimey“-stuff. This system is also planned for V0.9.

Reworks / Pirlia

At the moment, I have finally cleared my backlog of crappy animations from V0.1 and V0.2. From my perspective, there are no animations/scenes, where I could achieve a significant improvement in animation quality. If you think there’s another section of the game, that is needed for a rework, I’m all ears.

As you could have guessed correctly, Pirlia is still on top of the list of the most disliked LI:

For starters, Pirlia is of course disliked by some due to her femdom content. It’s a shame that this is not something all can enjoy, but that’s a totally legitimate reason to dislike her. But I have to admit, that her specific take on femdom is rather one-dimensional: Basically all three of her scenes consisted of demonstrating her physical might and pressing her partner/victim into her crotch only she’s satisfied. In the future, I will try to go on a more “sophisticated” approach with her…

One other criticism I got was, that they simply dislike Pirlia’s character. And I can somewhat understand where they are coming from… By now I can see, that there are 3 or 4 instances, where she’s (unnecessarily) mean and there are little to no redeeming characteristics as long as you are not into big dominant women. Therefore I am tempted to rework a few of her older events to make her more appealing in terms of character.

In addition to that, Pirlia is also the most underdeveloped LI in the game - except Anni of course… She has the least amount of lines, only closely followed by Ladira, but that’s a story for another time…

When I look at the dissatisfaction with Pirlia, I sometimes compare her to Lin. There’s no way denying it, that Lin is a very unlikable character at the beginning of the game. If I were to conduct a poll like the above in the aftermath of V0.1 or V0.2, I’m pretty sure Lin would have beaten Pirlia without a struggle… in fact, one of the very first messages I ever got was from someone not liking Lin…

But I have to be a little bit proud of myself after I was able to make her way more likable and now she’s the second least disliked LI only after dear sweet little Rachel. Maybe I will be able to salvage Pirlia in a similar manner if I focus a bit more on her… there has already been a crack in her tough persona… maybe she will be more vulnerable towards the MC and will open up more…

But of course, there will be some of you who think Pirlia (at her current status) is unsalvageable and don’t want to force themselves through the game until she might become better… Therefore, I wanted to ask if I should spend my energy/time on reworking some weak/bad events with her in the early game or if should I focus on further developing her character.

Somehow related to this is my future proposal for reworks: Back in the winter of 2022, when I barely knew what I was doing, I of course made some mistakes… The by far most long-lasting of these is the gym. Its lighting is just horrible… Since many events this update take place in the gym, you may have even noticed, that I had to do some ad hoc lighting changes, resulting in random changes of brightness between camera movements…

Therefore I have the idea of reworking all the visuals for all the scenes happening in the gym. This of course will take a lot of time, so I will probably spread the workload over 3 updates or so…

Additionally, 90% or so of all events in the gym center around Pirlia, so this could be an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone… So if you have any suggestions for the gym or Pirlia in general, I’m all ears...  

Minimap Readability

I have a question for all the new players (or the ones with a good memory) regarding the minimap: Were you able to understand the minimap immediately?

The linear prologue shows you around a bit, but it doesn’t give you full overview and the map on the other side, doesn’t directly tell you what each room’s purpose is, and yet the quest log assumes you know all the rooms’ names.

Therefore I wanted to ask you if you got lost on the map. In the earliest stages of the game, I thought about adding tooltips to each element of the map displaying the room’s name, but this quickly caused visual overload and reduced readability… Maybe there’s some other way like inert text, that displays the name of the room…

Additionally, there’s no indicator in which room the MC currently is. Therefore some sort of indicator could be helpful…

Showers

Except for my editor sometimes, I have gotten little to no feedback for the showers. By now they start feeling a little bit like a chore to me – something that I think I have to do, but with little to no idea, if it’s even necessary/beneficial…

Therefore I want to ask directly: Do you often use the showers? Are you satisfied with its randomized manner? Do you think it’s annoying, that you can’t decide which girl you get and what scene you will get? Do you think it’s necessary to expand this “soft gallery”?

Hair

As you’ve probably seen, the girls’ hairstyles almost never change – the only exceptions are Sarlé, Rachel, and Lin in like a handful of cases. This is mostly because my semi-face blind ass would get a seizure when the girls randomly change hairstyles and would need a few extra seconds to recognize them. Additionally, since this is a free-roam AVN, changing hairstyles (permanently) could lead to continuity errors or to (unnecessary) work for me.

But one character where changing hairstyles could be useful is Lin. Her usual high ponytail fits her usual bossy character quite well, but maybe something else could be fitting better, whenever she shows her submissive side… I’m thinking about the louse hair, she has during her sick day for example…

Keywords

Uff… I’m pretty sure this here has to be the longest devlog, I’ve ever written and there are also some heavy topics, I need your perspective on… So, here are the keywords, i.e. the points for which I need your input the most:

• The NTR/Adrian problematic
• V0.8: Normal events ↔ Main story focus
• Gallery: Now ↔ Later
• Other requested features
• Scenes/Events in need of a rework
• Improving Pirlia (Rework ↔ Further development)
• Minimap readability
• Thoughts on the showers
• Changing hairstyles (Especially Lin)

I'm looking forward to reading your comments and of course, you are also allowed to write about anything else you want.