Hi guys! This week I took Christmas Day and half of Boxing Day off.
My aim last week was to get the Max date edited by Wednesday which was achieved. I took Christmas off, and in a half-day on Boxing Day I wrote an extra outro to Malaysia which can be triggered from the new Max date.
Since then – Saturday to Monday – I’ve been working on the Malaysia sex scene. One of the problems with Female Agent is that the sex scenes are hot right up until the sex and this is something I wanted to try to fix this time. I’m trying to write it in a totally new style and it feels really exciting and hot, I can’t wait to get feedback on it. (I honestly don’t know if it’s better, but it’s definitely different and it seems much hotter to me. You guys, of course, will be the judges. Contributor Behbeh played through a rough draft of the work in progress earlier today and gave good feedback on the new style.)
It’s flowing really fast, I would probably have finished it today if I hadn’t had 1.5 days off for Christmas (but my family would’ve finally done the right thing and disowned me). My brain is frazzled now but I’ll get back on it tomorrow.
Structural changes
Here and in the Discord there’s been some really interesting talk (thanks everybody) about how Malaysia was fine and not everybody understands why I wanted to rewrite it at all.
Part of the reason is characterisation of the heroine (and this is important, we need it in the next few episodes). But the other reason is player experience. Female Agent was always supposed to be the game I wanted to play, that’s the only reason I ever made it. One reason I hated the Big Mac episode – and ended up not finishing it, despite positive feedback – was just that I didn’t want to keep playing a game that felt like a Powerpoint presentation. If I’m gonna keep doing this then I want more decisions, genuine branches, and skill checks.
To illustrate, here’s a diagram of the Malaysia experience in the last release. Red rectangles are scenes with no options, all you can do is click through them (like a Powerpoint). They’re not necessarily bad but they are rigid and kinda boring once you’ve played them once. Green circles are scenes where dice or decisions can affect the outcome.
For contrast and to illustrate what I’ve been working on, here’s a diagram of the edited Malaysia experience (blurred to avoid spoilers):
So it’s not like the perfect episode (that’d take forever, and it’d have no red on it). But hopefully it’ll be a significant improvement: lots more decision points, and a genuine alternate branch that some players will prefer to the main.
Okay, it’s really late, I’m gonna crash and get back to work tomorrow morning. I love you guys so much 🦀❤️🔥🎄