Late report
Hey guys! Sorry for the late report. I’m part-way through four different Female Agent tasks right now, and none of them are complete because I suck at multi-tasking. 😕
My priority is finalising the plan for the next episode. I was intending to jump straight into one of the three side quests we’ve set up in the previous two episodes (White Russian, Big Mac and Booth Babe). But after a few days struggling with outlines, I think we need to insert a mini story episode first.
The purpose is really just to set conditions for the side quests (and the next main quest episode later). I’m picturing something much smaller in scope than the past couple of episodes, so hopefully it should be ready much more Soon™.
I just finished outlining this new mini-episode today, but I haven’t yet shown it to anybody for feedback, so I'm not sure if I'm a genius or a fool.
I’ll get it into a shape that other humans can understand tomorrow, get feedback, and publish a solid plan here once I’m sure it’s not a crazy/bad/unsexy idea.
Other things I’m working on
– Public release of 1.17. This should’ve happened last week! (But I figured it wasn’t a big deal, since everybody got the Early Access version anyway.) This will be ready in a few days, I got distracted with planning 1.18.
– Opening up the source code to other developers. This has been suggested a few times (most recently by q5 on the Discord). In theory, this could speed up development a lot, but there are also challenges to it that we discussed on the Discord. I’m not exactly sure what the best thing to do is, but I'm looking into what's required technically.
– Investigating AI generated location photos. Nobody talks much about the location photos, but I think they save me a lot of descriptive writing, and also set the scene better than words alone could.
Finding the right images can be time consuming (because the scenes in my head don’t always come up in image searches), so I’ve been seeing if AI can help.
Early indications are good! Example image created by Stable Diffusion:
“A dark SUV, with tinted windows, pulling over on a street in Bangkok, at night.”
I feel like the AI isn’t exactly sure what road markings are but, like they say in the army, “that’s close enough for government work.”
Okay, sorry there’s not much to report, just wanted to let you know that I’m only radio silent because I’ve got my head down on game work. I will report again Soon™ with the firm plan for the next episode.
Comments (9)
I feel I speak for a lot of us when I say, We want more sex for the MC female agent. Please don't waste time adding 'ways' to AVOID sex for her. If you wanted to rework or spend time working on an already released part, please use it by adding MORE ways for her to be sexually used, and abused. This game isn't about a female agent avoiding sexual exploitation. Don't miss the mark, this game is about a sophisticated intelligence agent with an exhibitionist, or submissive or masochistic tendency who goes undercover in a brothel and ending up being thoroughly used and abused sexually, most of it on her own volition. Please don't make it about her avoiding all this.
Just chiming in to say that open-sourcing the engine is a great idea IMO. The great thing about Female Agent isn't the engine (though the engine is pretty good for twine), but rather the story, characterization, and world-building. Sharing the engine code doesn't endanger that, and it doesn't mean that you couldn't have a closed license on the assets FA needs to run. A strong copyleft license on the released engine code would mean that any development others do on the engine would have to be open-sourced as well, allowing you to incorporate additions/improvements others make, and give you more time to focus on the meat of FA development, rather than the bones. Should be a win-win, and will also mean that FA can be supported years and decades into the future.
i will say unexpectedly. I found a lot of joy in just seeing how Bangkok looks and functions through this game, and i don't really think AI can Replace that feeling, but this would arguably not, really be the main focus of the game but more like a fun feature, rather than a necessity.
This sounds intersting. Maybe it's just that my expectations have been set way high, but the last episode slightly underwhelmed. Each individual scene felt well done and polished, the story worked, the characters were fun and the sexy bits were sexy - but for some reason it didn't feel quite right and I didn't want to post until I'd played through a couple of times and had time to reflect. I think the issue for me is that this episode didn't have the sense of peril that the spy content does. When Kate is doing espionage stuff or in the club, I always feel glued to the text, checking every line for hints that something might have gone wrong. In this one though, the sense of "pretty girls feeling superior to everyone while doing drugs and no one gives a shit" just didn't capture that feeling. Maybe as well - and I'm not sure I'm using the right words here - it felt less exploitative and more empowered, which kind of undercut the atmosphere set up around the Bangkok OC sex trade. The girls feel rich, free, and as if they are loving life, and that just didn't mesh with the feel I had got from previous episodes.
I agree with you. There's a high level of dramatic tension in the scenes at the club, I guess because the agent has very little control over the situation. Even less than a broke backpacker because quitting the club means quitting the mission. Girls' Night Out lacked tension. It could have used some drama, maybe some rivalry. It felt flat and went on too long. It's good to ease the tension sometimes, but I'm concerned that the 'optional' missions will go the same way. I'm hoping for some spicy twists in those stories to keep them interesting.
I'm more disturbed by the 3rd side window than the sketchy road markings. From what I can tell, southern Asia barely cares about road markings anyways. XD
<p style="color: #008600;">Oh, don't worry! It's great that you're immersed in content creation. I'm sure it will look great in the end.</p>
SD to generate scenes is a great idea IMO. You may want to try img2img instead of just txt2img in order to get closer to your intended look. More and more specificity in the prompt is also a huge contributing factor.
https://youtu.be/nJ28KcV05Ns AI generated pictures have been used by John Oliver and on last Friday by Stephen Colbert. The picture you provided is lovely.