V0.7.1 Progress Report

Hey everyone,
I wish you all a very happy new year. As I wrote last week, 2024 has been a crazy year of changes for me, and hopefully, 2025 will normalize life a little more. I have surgery next week, though, so I hope you understand that with that and the past holiday season, the V0.7.1 progress is a little bit slower than usual again. A lot of the behind-the-scenes coding is done, and now what's missing are several graphics and the writing. I'm still planning to finish this month, but I can't really predict how much surgery is going to affect the release timeline right now. Also, I'm very excited about the content of this patch again, and I want it to be done right. Anyway, here are the main features of this upcoming patch:

1. The Fae Story

As the patch title suggests, the main new content in this patch is going to be the fae realms. In the BMO universe, the fae realms are mystical realms beyond reality, where the threads of time become visible. Getting there is a continuation of the Damaris storyline. I don't want to spoil too much, but I'll say that you will be able to see a few more of the faeries, and it will contain a new transformation ending. I'm also planning on adding more scenes to Damaris' daily interactions, but that will not be finished. The fae realm story will finally unlock the fae dress and also another new mechanic that I'm describing below.

2. World Seed

A big problem for the gameplay that I've been struggling with for a long time is randomness. A lot of events in the game trigger at random times, some stat checks are D&D-style dice rolls, and, of course, the end-of-week shows have random wheel spins.
I generally like those mechanics, but they have a huge issue in the metagame: saving and reloading become one of the main gameplay mechanics. It's fine if that's the decision of any one player, but it has become the number one thing players recommend to others on Discord or other discussion boards. A minor issue is that it doesn't really fit with the idea of entering a new parallel universe when starting a new game.

So, starting with V0.7.1, each New Game will come with a World Seed, and all random rolls will be determined by that world seed instead of a random roll during gameplay. This will hopefully strengthen the narrative for the multiverse concept. As you can see in the GIF, you will also be able to see when and what part of the world seed just affected the outcome of an event. (I'm still working on a better UI, but I'm not sure how big the priority is right now.)

While that will mean that saving and reloading will always yield the same result (and I understand some of you might not like that), do not worry. I will not leave you without any way to change these outcomes. Quite the opposite. I've come up with a new mechanic that'll actively gamify the experience.

3. Fae Magic

Luckily, in the fae realms, all possibilities that the world seed contains become visible and changeable. So, learning their ancient fae magic will unlock the ability to change the world seed a limited amount of times each day.

The gameplay loop might be as follows:
- Find the world seed ID that is responsible for the outcome you want to change
- Find the seed ID in the fae realm
- Change the numbers around until your ID has the desired value

It's probably not that easy to grasp from my explanation, but I hope it will be clearer in the final gameplay.

 This way, you will, for example, be able to predetermine the outcomes of the weekly wheel spins, and so I hope that, all in all, that will make players happier than the underlying randomness fixing. This is also a way to bring back some wheel choices that were unpopular before, like the nine piercings options - you'll just only be able to trigger them manually in the world seed.

4. Character Start Rework / New Body Proportions

As you know, I'm trans, so this game was always meant to be about that. I've decided to make some changes to the character creation screen to reflect that. To be clear, I'm not removing the cis female character start, but I'm hiding it behind an extra click and adding a warning that the gameplay will not contain all of the content. This will give me the option to write for the main character in more detail because I don't always have to come up with a similar story for the female start. So, I will be able to add more transness storytelling to the AMAB character properly.

However, I know that not everyone wants their characters to start with a super-male body, so I'm adding new body proportions between the old AMAB and AFAB bodies. Thus, you'll still be able to choose a more feminine body at the start. I don't actually have these graphics yet, but I assume that they won't take that much longer.

I'm also considering adding a new system that will clearly make characters want to be feminine (but only to a certain degree) from the start, as I did in Femdemic. However, many factors will make or break the mood system's game design, so I'll have to take this one very slowly. I'm not sure yet how much of that will be in this patch.

5. Weekly Show Writing

For every patch for the last year, I've been adding one thing for the "All Enemies" branch, where you attack and eliminate your fellow contestants. In the current version, eliminating someone will still make them answer just like normal in every end-of-week show, though. That'll change with the next patch. I'll rewrite all of the existing shows so that the other contestants' reactions to the outcomes align with their transformation state. It'll probably be way more work than anyone will be able to appreciate, but it's a must-have nonetheless.

That's it for this next patch cycle. I'm really excited about introducing you to some new characters and changing the gameplay loop regarding the world seed. I also hope that even if you're a little hesitant about the world seed change, you'll at least give it a try and see my vision for yourself before judging.

I'll be back with the Alpha release as soon as possible.

Best,
Kim