ITCH | MEGA | ITCH-DELUXE | MEGA-DELUXE
The first couple of side quests are in! I generally did some iteration on my plans for side quests and planned & implemented the first two. The first one is actually a quest I had originally meant to give Edwin in SKA, but didn't end up doing because the non-respawn nature of enemies made it so the quest had a unintentional fail state.
Not much else to say about the first quest without just repeating its story, it's basically just a guidance quest with some gimmicks where you have to use certain items on certain enemies. To connect it with the corruption system, you can ask Edgar to help through the new Quest category in the negotiation menu.
On that note, I flipped the logic for full negotiations where you have to first select an Edgar clause and then construct your own. The reason is to prevent time with custom clause construction if there is no clause you want to accept from Edgar (or maybe even that provides enough value). Also, the knowledge of the max value you can ask allows me to prefill some entries - currently picking the maximum possible gold value if you ask for gold. Please tell me what you think in comparison to the old full negotiation flow!
Another minor detail is that the Alchemist receiveda name. I plan to give more and more characters a bit of name/character/background as I expand Thornefield with more quests so that later-game quests can have a better impact on these characters.
As for the second quest, the concept of dueling makes a comeback and it introduces two named characters on Team Edgar's side.
It's evil Desmond with black hair!!
They will pop up on Day 5 (First WINDAY, although I'm now not sure if that's a good timing... I put it there because originally the bookstore would open then and I moved that up but maybe it would be better to start this development after the first week) and start harrassing Rean until he proves himself in a duel. Of course, Edgar will offer his help in this...
If you have a "If Rean gets defeated, Liora must accept a date invitation" clause, this will also trigger from losing the duel. Otherwise, losing doesn't have negative consequences except for losing a day and Rean can re-challenge Garrick. The main reason for this character to exist is mostly so that future quests can have another named interaction point on Team Edgar's side as I fear using the generic thugs could be confusing.
The second new named character, Ariadne, I was pondering for quite some time if I should include here. I mentioned it in a previous post I believe. While I'm still unsure about her receiving a standing image (in particular since our artist is behind schedule), the value of having her is just too big. Conceptually, she will function as a trainer character and will offer to teach lewd skills (not in the game yet though!). In addition to that, there are other event avenues due to her room in the inn being right above Liora & Rean's.
Finally, I have added a simple Mood System for Edgar for better visualizing his active decision strategy. Currently the moods are: Neutral, Cocky (Feels like everything is going slow enough to corrupt Liora), Impatient (Too little progress is hurting his Prestige).
Aaand that's it for the week! I have also started updating the Festival event in SKA to use the new Twin Drill variation if you enter the Festival with at least 70 Maid Performance. However, that's still incomplete and we also have some more bugs I want to fix before throwing out another build. But it's very likely we will be doing a 1.1.1-beta release next week.
Changelog 0.1.0-prerelease-9 (08.08.2025)
Implemented quest stub Alchemic Experiments
Alchemical Experiments: Implement Test Vials
Alchemical Experiments: Implement Edgar Negotiation
Alchemical Experiments: Implement objective reporting to Alchemist
Alchemical Experiments: Implement objective giving Ether to Alchemist
Implemented quest stub Duel!!
Duel: Implement objective investigate Garrick
Duel: Implement objective negotiate help
Duel: Implement objective have Rean duel Garrick
Swapped Edgar Proposal and Proposal Building during Full Negotiation
Implemented Edgar Moods
Balancing
Reduced most book reading times by 1 since no reading proficiency
Bugfixes
None