Happy Easter!
Hey guys, Happy Easter! Last week I started work on the next episode, White Russian.
The side quest itself is outlined, but around it we want a few more scenes in the club (so the main quest also advances). I planned out what all the scenes should be, and spent some time working out how to make them hot and interesting.
One scene in particular – which I think could have been quite ‘meh’ if we took the obvious path with it – has been made surprisingly hot with a little twist to the setup. 🥵
This week, I’m going to produce beat sheets for the scenes. I think these worked well in the last episode, and helped speed up delivery time overall. Even though it added an extra stage to the process, it ended up saving time in the editing phase.
Update on the Lifepath
Earlier versions of the game included a feature called the Lifepath, once memorably described as ‘the most absurdly detailed character creator ever’. The Lifepath let you play through your heroine’s youth, making key choices that would adjust her skills and experiences, and (once she was over 18) play through some of her defining sexual experiences.
It was lots of fun, but it was taking forever, so I took the decision to shelve it and focus on the main quest for a while. Recently there was a spirited Lifepath discussion on the game’s Discord, so I thought I should give you guys an update.
Required work
The Lifepath needs a few changes before we can link it up to the main quest:
1). The childhood section needs to be expanded so it works for all five nationalities (it currently only works for UK agents).
2). The university section needs to be concluded.
3). A career section, covering recruitment, training and agency career, need to be added.
Planned improvements
I think the early parts of the Lifepath (in version 1.11) work pretty well. It would be nice to add some more content, but it’s basically fine, and I think the only part that may need a substantial rewrite is the foreign adventure for Working Class heroines who aren’t British (working as a holiday rep in the Med is a very Brit-specific thing, we may need to write alternatives for North American/Australasian heroines).
I feel like the existing university section needs a rethink. What’s there is good, but it’s too linear. I think it’d benefit from a range of shorter, more varied encounters. For instance:
Instead of always having a one-night stand with Simon, there should be a variety of possible sexual encounters at this point (ranging from 'one night stand that leads to a relationship' to 'one night stand that is just her getting used and fucked' to 'heavy petting with a hot guy that she doesn't let go any further').
Instead of the long affair with the professor that is entwined with the main narrative, this should be something that can happen but doesn’t need to be so detailed and long-winded.
Additionally, all the choices the heroine makes at university (e.g. joining the volleyball team, being an actress, getting a part-time job in an office) should have the chance of triggering short optional sexy encounters (like the volleyball team doing a nude calendar shoot, or the heroine being romantically pursued by a guy from her part-time job).
And there should just be other events that can happen during a playthrough (like a Geek Girl heroine reconnecting with her childhood pals Tom, Mark and Josh for a cosplay convention, or a Rock Chick Kate partying hard with her university band).
So I feel like the uni section needs restructuring to add more width, variety and randomness.
Summary
The benefits of finishing and integrating the Lifepath are:
1). More differentiation of your heroine, which leads to
2). Opportunities to reflect that in the main quest.
The main criticism of the main quest is that it’s too linear. At some point in the future I want to go through it and add width, randomness and branching opportunities to the existing scenes; having a variety of character backstories to work with will really help with this. (As a simple example: knowing her past experience with drugs will make the main quest drug scenes easier to write and branch. Knowing if she’s the kind of girl who typically says yes or no to one night stands will make all the sex scenes easier to write and branch. etc)
So the official position is that I do plan to revisit, improve and integrate the Lifepath. However: doing that will, of course, mean we’ll have to work on that instead of the main quest. I think that, for now, it makes sense to push forward until at least the point in the main story where the heroine’s established as a bargirl before we jump back to the Lifepath and start adding width.
TLDR
Lifepath yes, but not Soon™.
Comments (20)
Totally forgot to respond to this post, but I must that guy that like the lifepath as much as the rest of the game :-). In fact, I'm still waiting the lifepath to return before restarting to play. And I hope the bicurious kink will come back one day.
Thanks for the great progress report. Looks like you still have a lot of work ahead of you. Well, then I wish you good luck and great productivity!
100% the focus should be on bargirl path rather than background at least for the moment. Speaking of… Is becoming a bargirl something that will happen in the next couple of updates or something planned down the line? I also think that it would be a good idea to have the two women who run the club take you to get a “farang whore” makeover. Things like tattoos, bleached blonde (or some wild colour). I feel like those two have been under-utilised, and could serve as devices to get the MC more submissive and better trained as a bargirl. Dominating her into obedience not through sex (although could be implemented) but rather through presence and authority.
Full agreement here. I hope Crush can integrate your ideas about the madams in the near future in the convergent pressure by the HCC to make the MC a bargirl. The idea to let them give her a makeover is hot and builds on previous scenes. Not sure if it would fit in the plot at this stage, but another makeover element the two may well deem appropriate (both for the job in general, and to give the MC the full Western bimbo/pornstar look) is a boob job.
Incoming long post. I like to write stories and my favorite part of the process is creating and developing my characters. I love giving them background and filling in their past. Like; where were they born,what was their home life like, were they rich, poor, middle? Favorite subjects, friends, values, goals. I love writing this stuff because it makes the characters multi dimensional. It makes them feel real. That’s why I loved the lifepath. It made the main character “our” Kate. It made her feel “real”. Here’s this character we built from the ground up, now let’s watch as Crush puts her in these crazy situations and see how she reacts. It made me, the player, feel more invested in the story and makes all the twists and turns (and sex) have that much more of an impact. It’s what made this story above and beyond a lot of other adult games. Again, I’m NOT saying that Crush has to stop the Bangkok chapters NOW and focus ONLY on the Lifepath. I still play the game now and enjoy it immensely. And, if he decides to scrap the lifepath entirely, I’ll probably still play it. But to me, it would only feel like half a story and half a game. That’s just my opinion.
I think the issue for me is I preferred the other builds of the game. My favourite scene was the night out in Glasgow, the wet tee shirt competition, the porn shot and training seduction skills. I can't remember what build of the game it was, but I also enjoyed blowing a guy in the back seat of a taxi and blowing the friend in the life path.
I have personally much prefered LifePath, your choices had bigger impact on the story. More attire customization/choices/reaction would be appreciated as well.
Crush, let me state that about this issue, you have my complete support as a fan and patron, esp. as it concerns giving priority to completing the transition to bargirl (and hopefully getting some initial glances to how she functions in the new situation).
I'm already impatient, I got very hot in the VIP Lounge
I enjoyed playing Life Path, but I found the customization options to be limited. In the future, will there be as many options as there are in the main story, including age, hair style and whatnot?
Your flowchart could be understandable, but I REALLY hope you will not be in a pinch later on. I really wish that you don't have, in the future, to think about rewriting all the main quest almost from scratch, only because you can't align it with lifepath in a satisfactory way!
Well yes. I must agree to this. What‘s the saying? If in doubt leave it out….
It is no more necessary to start writing any piece of fiction at the beginning than it is to create a painting from the left of the canvas to the right. Loving the game so far, so keep on keepin' on
Sounds like a good plan. I am very much in favour of bargirlization (funny word) first….
Has Ep 1.18 already been released?
Hey, love the game. Sorry bad english but. Are you guys not worried that by putting on hold some fondations of the game like the life paths, the skills and perks system lead you to have a lot of more work to do or stuff to remake and re-write at the end? Seems a bit counter productive to me. You know, you should build the house from the ground up not starting with th roof or it's gonna cause a lot more issues and work at the end for nothing. Anyway even if i don't agree (or understand) your approach to make the game you have still my support, love it i'm just a worry wart i guess^^ :)
I don't think integrating the Life Path is feasible at all.The premise for the current content in Bangkok is a not-so-experienced agent who's just discovering some of her kinks. (How many partners did she say she had? What are her afterthoughts following events at the club?) For the Life Path to fit with the rest of the story, it would have to be very dull... My suggestion is to spin it off and potentially license it to another team.
That is the premise of the current content in Bangkok AS IT IS WRITTEN. Which is, very linearly and with basically no options to do anything other than what the story demands and very few ways for us to characterise our agents outside of what fits directly with the written content as Crush was writing it. The idea behind the Lifepath was always to allow the player to both recontextualise the actions of the agent and also to define that context and who their agent was, everything between a desk jockey on the chance of a lifetime to an experienced field agent who has been thrown into a new area outside of her normal expertise and told "get it done".
I hoped that we'd see an implementation of the life path at some point. I really enjoyed playing it back then. But I agree with you that it should not be a priority just now. I hope that we'll get to play some of the side quests soon. There's quite a bit of potential there. Thanks for all your work. Can't wait to for the next release.
This is a great report. After reading it, I feel that there is a lot of work to do. I hope it goes well. Love you Crushstation❤~