Hi all. I'm sorry for the lack of updates... I try to put in visuals whenever I write one of these developer logs, but the Affection System just doesn't really have any new visuals (other than some fancy heart effects and a new information screen, which is posted with this log and is not finished...). So, while I don't have any new screenshots to share with you for now, I am going to go ahead and give some more information on the Affection System and how that's going.
First of all, completion status:- The backend code is finished. A new title has been added specifically to enhance the player's ability to gain affection points and the calculations that decide how many points are earned have been finalized.- Continuity variations are still very much 'in progress'.- Decisions as to exactly which scenes are locked behind which affection point milestones are still wishy-washy. They're becoming more clear as the writing work continues, but they may change in future versions as more players share their input.
What will change with the new Affection System?- Existing players will probably fall right into it and be just fine. All of the progressions that you're used to will remain more or less intact, they'll simply be locked behind an affection milestone instead of a semi-arbitrary list of previous actions.- Affection 'milestones' have been implemented. The Affection System is based on heart containers... the player starts with one heart and will unlock an additional heart once that heart is filled (filling the heart is the 'milestone' I mention so much), up to a maximum of 5 hearts. Each heart represents a new 'level' in the relationship and unlocks additional interactions. Initial milestones are only triggered by earning the required amount of affection, but later hearts will require additional actions from the player (dates, gifts, etc).- The girls will now give you a gift or two (just to let you know they're thinking of you). These are currently only visual changes to your desk, but room decorations may become something similar to the flags with their own buffs in the future.- Since I'm already altering so many existing conversations to include possible relationship/affection/title variations, I've decided to also continue the plot points for the polyamorous storyline. Our heroes will finally talk to Miri about why Lani's curse is not acting as expected, and then... another pause in story-telling.
There have also been some quality of life improvements coming in on this next one, though not as many as I'd like. The in-game settings menu now has some additional battle options that are independent of the auto-battle (animation skipping being the main one). There are some updated screens in the dungeon reward interface, some omissions have been corrected in the operations of the dungeon tent, more variations have been added based on titles, etc.
I can't say for sure, since visuals are always a time-consuming endeavor, but I'm hopeful that my initial release plan for the end of February is able to hold. I have unfortunately removed a lot of pie-in-the-sky plans for this update in order to maintain that release date, but getting all of this in place and correcting gameplay continuity is more important than poor Kermit and his microtransaction shop... I'll do it next time, Kermit. Don't look at me like that.