Saturday, December 19, 2015

The results

Hello everyone,

Firstly, here are the results out of 100: https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-P3FHG23J/

I was really surprised at how they turned out, leaning one way for the first half and then balancing out at the end. Most people like the idea of the game but it's a tighter split for whether it should be like a CYOA book or a game. Most people liked the customization for the player character, except it was a pain to do over and over. And you can get the rest from the link above... What surprised me was how often people read Ver002, with only 13 out of the 100 or so reading it only once.

Well, what I learned in the past 2 weeks was very interesting. After Ver002, I've noticed an influx of people checking up on my blog and have been trying my best to cater to them. With the release of Ver002.1, a lot of people were upset, which was both disheartening and startling. This past week has been incredibly stressful because before all that, I was just doing SaSA on the side as a fun\carefree creative writing story. Before, it was a means to relieve stress, but now it seems like the cause of it. It was exhilarating to have so many people become interested in my neat little story, but now the pressure seems to be turned on and I don't know if I like that.

So here's what's been rattling around in my brain... should I get help? I've been offered help before but have turned it down because I didn't want to have to creatively clash with anyone. I know exactly what I want to do with the story and have most of the scenes, twists and turns conceptualized. It just seems like an unnecessary headache at the moment. Should I push this for full time? Juggling a job with this project being such a huge endeavor is not very ideal. Despite loving the concept, I don't know if I can guarantee anything at the end of it all and would hate for people to be burned on an ongoing project, or have it take so long that supporters become restless or resentful.

Those are just thoughts I've been having. Bottom line is, I'm going to continue as planned with a few changes taken from your feedback. I'm also going to check on the blog once a week only to avoid the stress of having an audience and hopefully within the near future, have something resembling more of what I intend for the game to be like and have you all judge it then. Ver002.2 will still be coming out with fixes, a save system and the Kelly-James scene integrated in, as promised. Until next week then.

Monday, December 14, 2015

In response

I've been taking it easy over this past weekend and have been keeping track of the feedback. Despite having relatively few people chipping in, there appears to be an overwhelming number of people who dislike the new system. 4-5 commenters is no substitute for real statistics so I'm going to post up a survey. I understand a lot of people don't have time to answer in the form of creating an account and commenting so that'll be the best way to get 100 answers on whether or not people really enjoyed the new system.

The reason why I want to put out a survey is because I'm having quite a dilemma with what I want to do with the game and what people want. I understand people like the old system I get it, I enjoyed it too. Based on the comments I've received, this new varying sex style with numbers and trackers keeping track of whether or not you or your partner cums is a detriment to the game, which in all honesty I get; it's different, perhaps intrusive and may take away from the experience. But I believe people are incorrectly comparing this demo with the entirety of the last 500+ page version, which is unfair. In all honesty, the scene in the game is meant to replace the morning sex scene with Kevin-Judy, excluding all the variations (everything leading up to and everything that can happen differently). No one complained about the masturbation scene so... eh?

But why do it this new way?
Well, I already decided that I will not be writing the story/game on a Phase based system; the reason being that since everyone's story branches out so far that it would take me an incredible amount of time to get anywhere with it, (think 2-3 versions of the same thing). I was hoping that this new system would help alleviate those problems by accounting for variations, (think 1 version that changes based on what your actions/stats/whatever are). So, getting rid of the Phase system would require a day by day system, which should be time based, requiring you to do certain things to unlock more and more options for you as the days go along (aka. variation), as opposed to waking up the next day and getting a bunch of new content (which sounds good but requires time to write 2-3 versions of the same thing). What helps with variations? Statistics; how strong you are, how smart you are, how persuasive you are. And story markers; whether or not you've found out a certain thing about a certain person, whether you've done something before, etc.

What does this mean?
You lose instant gratification for a more complex story. Writing it the old way, would require more and more things to be added on as the days goes along. Good for you, bad for me. Writing it like this, all (most) variations are written the first time around, just hidden behind flags and gates. Good for you, good for me. I was hoping that the variations in the sex scene would give you direct control of what you wanted to do. If you were particularly good at any sexual stat, you'll exploit it on your partner and be rewarded accordingly. Also, it would make it so that you would never be reading the same thing two times in a row, although that's apparently what people are getting anyways. I understand it's not extremely good right now but it shows a lot of promise.

Can't it be a hybrid?
Not really. So, the new system spits out options depending on where your character is in the world. If you're home and the time is 8AM, then your family members are home and you can interact with them accordingly. The old system placed you at home and limited your options to that one starting point. Without a time system, there would really be no way to to account for all the crazy things that can happen. Basically, it's content on top of a time system vs. content that leads to more content. Incorporating code in the old story would technically work, but would require an entirely different system than the ones I've done in terms of accounting for what changes what.

What did I have in mind?
I wanted to make a looping system where the day would be hour based and have your limitations based off of where you are and what time it was. Depending on where you are in the world you would have your normal CYOA type options including movement options to encourage exploration. Every time you had positive interaction with a family member/friend/stranger, their affection for you would rise based off of how handsome/beautiful/charismatic/smart you were. And based off of their affections and your own stats, you could try and convince them to have sex with you in various ways, not unlike Ver002. BUT, where Ver002 gave you a number of incorrect and correct options, NO(almost none) options would be inherently correct or incorrect, giving you wildly new outcomes with the same options. Instead of waking up the next day stronger/smarter, you would need to work at it, via Sims style training and be able to keep your increased stats from day to day while everyone else stayed the same. Options would be opened to you gradually as you found out more and more things about the people who live in and outside of your town.

It is definitely different from what most of you have read, but I don't think it's a bad direction to take the game. Everything's still there, it just doesn't account for a time skip like the last story would have had.

Where do I plan to take the game version?
Honestly, I wanted this to be an alternative to a lot of gender-bending, furry and anthropomorphic games out there. Where it is based in reality and gradually winds up being some kind of weird, twisted, time-bending, sci-fi, smut story. Games I had in mind are: Corruption of Champions, Flexible Survival, Robozu and Cursed. They're not perfect games and neither will mine be. But in terms of content, I think mine would set it apart from everything else out there. Suggest me a game if I missed anything.

I suppose since I've been relatively quiet on the matter, it's surprising for many of you that I'm pushing the game version of it and it may be what's upsetting. Honestly, it's the best way I've figured out how to account for variations in the story and is not necessarily a bad thing.

The bottom line:
I'm okay with pressing on with the current planned format, perhaps dialing down on some of the "gameplay" aspects of it and making it more linear? I'm also okay with writing the story as one linear choose-your-own-adventure starting and looping on Phase 4 (the phase where you have godlike powers), because I really don't want to do Phase 1-3 just as an intro. We'll see though. I'll make my decision based on the first 100 surveys answered, so if you want to have a say please take the survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/N9T3DH6

Edit: Thank you for the comments, it's very heartwarming. As of right now, there are 48 entries on the survey so it will remain open. A small update on what I'm doing is that I updated Twine to the most current version, hoping that it will fix the inability to save. Good news is; it totally did. I was really stressed out about it because I didn't know why it wouldn't work as intended. Bad news is; it broke the (print:) function of the game, calling up an actual printer function instead of displaying your stats in the confirmation of character screen and whenever you pressed the  "Stats" button. It's been noticed by the developer of Harlowe so I assume it would only be a matter of time before a new update fixes it. It will hopefully address the problems with the lack of a back button but keep in mind, I'll only allow people to save at certain points, including world exploration, first key scenes and wherever I see fit. The goal of the save function is to have a place to return to if you shut the game off, not to have a foot in the door and repeatedly try to do one thing over and over. I suppose it could always be abused to do just that, but the main thing I want to push is that you (your character) is relieving the day over and over and have to deal with your successes and failures accordingly. There will always be optional content that has 100% chance of success and will be there if you just want a quick romp, (prostitutes, Johns). I will most likely be lenient with it during the beginning unfinished world, letting you save wherever you want, but with time and more content, it will gradually become constrained to world exploration.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Hot pocket

Hello folks, get it while it's hot.

Download it at @MediaFire or @Mega.nz. Alternatively, play it here @textadventures. (there is currently an error with textadventures. I'll put it up at a later date.)

Keep in mind, that this is an early test demo and is not polished at all. In fact, the Kelly-James scene is not yet integrated in. There is a female masturbation scene however and some different character customizations which is worth checking out. I'll release another version later that includes it.

I'm actually surprised how many bugs I was able to find while play testing, so I suspect you all will find a lot more. I am unhappy with the current stat tracking system because it's really complicated and confusing for me to program/set up the flags for. I may need to find a better solution for that later or just need to suck it up and do all the hard programming.

So, there's a certain structure I tried to follow when writing this. To create variations, it's basically 1 of 3 paragraphs randomly, followed by another random 1 of 3 then changing emotional states at the very bottom. Not all paragraphs are equal, not all of them are great and there may be some inconsistencies from one to another, I'll admit that. But I think it's varied enough that you won't be bored until the 5th, 6th time around.

Hmm, with this release I'm not really expecting any praises, I'd just like to know what you all think. There's a "game mechanics" button at the bottom of the front page that helps explain some of the systems that are going into the game. I welcome all discussion on what you hope will be in the game, what you think should be added, what's bad about it currently and all other comments, questions or concerns.

In order to keep things civilized, I'll be creating a new page for you all to post bugs, typo's, inconsistencies and whatever else on that page. Please don't post it here or it will be deleted and most likely ignored.

Edit: Haha, yeah, I found a lot more game breaking bugs, most of which I thought I took care of already. Instead of releasing yet another (probably still) broken version, I'm going to hold off until I have the Kelly-James scenes completed before pushing out the next demo version.

Edit 2: Keep in mind this is an early test version of the character creation, customization, masturbation scene and ONE (broken) sex scene between Kevin-Judy. There is LITERALLY nothing else.

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Well, I tried

I was hopefully going to release a demo version of the game today, but got caught up in some stuff this week. It'll probably take me a few days into next week to finish and release a test build with the beginning character customization, a masturbation scene and one sex scene between Kevin-Judy and Kelly-James. It's mostly finished, the hardest thing being making the first part of any one thing/scene/system. But, once I think something is finished, I remember that I have to add trackers into everything. And once I start building the trackers in, I realize that I need different systems to help account for all variations/flags/story, all compounding and taking an annoyingly long amount of time.

What I will be calling Ver002.5 will be a blog exclusive release, because it seriously is just a test build, so keep an eye out for it this upcoming week. I want the first official build to have the city movement system fully fleshed out, and a "lite" complete version of Judy and James' day, which will require a lot more work. Until then.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Options

So, here's what the sex encounter template code looks like:

(if: $partnerPleasure >= $partnerThreshold)[(goto: "Orgasm")](if: $pPleasure <= $pleasureThreshold)[(set: $skill1 to "Normal")(set: $skill2 to "Intimate")(display: "intercourseCalc")(display: "Menu")(set: $maxPassage to 3)(display: "randomPass")
(if: $randomPassage is 1)[](if: $randomPassage is 2)[](if: $randomPassage is 3)[]
(set: $maxPassage to 3)(display: "randomPass")
(if: $randomPassage is 1)[](if: $randomPassage is 2)[](if: $randomPassage is 3)[] (if: $partnerPleasure <= $partnerThreshold * .33)[](if: $partnerPleasure > ($partnerThreshold * .33) and < ($partnerThreshold * .66))[](if: $partnerPleasure >= ($partnerThreshold * .66)) (if: $pPleasure < ($pleasureThreshold * .33))[](if: $pPleasure >= ($pleasureThreshold * .33) and < ($pleasureThreshold * .66))[](if: $pPleasure >= ($pleasureThreshold * .66))[]

(link: "1")[(goto: "1")]
(link: "2")[(goto: "2")]
(link: "3")[(goto: "3")]
](else:)[(goto: "Orgasm")]

And between every one of those [ ] brackets, I have to put in roughly one paragraph. There would be 3 pages of these for one sexual position and that's not including any special variations. And then imagine that during the first 5 hours, from 7am to 12pm, there is the possibility for 3-4 sex scenes for Kevin-Judy and probably another 3-4 in the afternoon and 3-4 in the evening. Variations and specific player choices need to be accounted for, such as whether you're wearing a condom or not, whether your mother's wearing a towel and whatever else could change up the day... all in all, it's compounding and pretty crazy. All of that with consideration that besides the basic structure of the last story, it all needs to be newly written AND coded.

Putting the code down in a regular text editor is out of the question because it would look like a jumbled mess (see above). I can't even space things properly because Twine recognizes a line break in code as a line break in text, so in order to make it so that the text doesn't start in the bottom or middle of the page, I'll have to keep things like this. I suspect that there will be a lot more typos in this upcoming version and will most likely set up a separate blogspot page to take in debug and typo fixes. I still do not know how much longer it will take, but I'll try my darnedest to get it finish ASAP. I know there's really no time frame, but I'd rather do it sooner than later.

Monday, November 16, 2015

It's... different

So, the system is working out relatively well, what I've been struggling with is the actual story elements. Since there's no day 1/day 2 content barriers, it's a struggle getting everything (just the regular content) down all in one go. I'm also struggling with what should be considered the regular content, since it can branch out so far. And, since I changed the time system to a 24 hour system, there's a lot more content for all of the npc's. Thankfully, it doesn't look as messy as Ver002, but it's also not a cakewalk to write, program and organize either.

I've been working on the Kevin-Judy content and have most of her morning content mapped out. Kelly-Judy scenes are included in here too, but there is no sexual content planned for them currently.

Light rant:
To clarify, there will eventually be but it will be after I've established all the family character's normal day. What will probably be included are scenes where you convince her to have sex with her sons, to join an orgy or whatever else. As I've stated, light lesbianism might be included here. Inversely, I don't know what would constitute as light gay-ism. A blowjob? As a straight male, I'm not sure I'm comfortable writing that. And hey, you wouldn't force a gay person to watch straight porn, so don't try and force me to write gay porn. I don't really like lesbian porn either, but I can see it's appeal. In all fairness though, I will probably commission someone to write it at a later date. It WILL NOT be a main feature of the game and will probably only include non-penetrative sex. If it becomes a problem, I will take out all lesbian/gay scenes. I'm restating my opinion about it because it's been asked for a couple of times. Anyways...

Judy's afternoon content will probably be tricky to do because there's  3-4 more events instead of just the store and optional carnival. Her night content will remain relatively the same, so I'm not too worried about it.

After that's finished and there aren't too many loose ends, I will add in the Kelly-James content. To be perfectly honest, I've only ever written the Kelly-James story up to the afternoon stuff. Like the Kevin-Judy stuff, it will be relatively hard to achieve sex. There will also be less violence and more teasing from the get go. Some daughter-father domination is planned, but once again, it will be after the main content is down.

One of my main concerns right now, is that I want to take out the back button but once you hit a blank page, there's nothing to do but reset. Since there are numbers rattling around, if you back out of an option and a script runs again, it may be game-breaking all the same. This will mean I have to work twice as hard to round out all those edges, or cut the content so that there are no loose ends. I'll let you know which one I will lean towards as December comes closer. Also, as an update on my time release frame, it will be a little later than initially anticipated. I should really stop giving estimations...

Monday, November 9, 2015

Argh!

Lost a lot of time this weekend due to work stuff. Might lose a bit more due to Fallout 4 stuff. In all seriousness, I'll try to make up for the time during the week. It's quite frustrating.

Friday, October 30, 2015

Slight hiccup

Hehehe, I ran into a little problem with the time system. For some reason, my code isn't working as intended. Basically, I have the buttons called up on two separate pages, one sets up the parameters and coding of the button, and the other displays it. For whatever reason, when I have the code display both a 15 minute and 1 hour time pass, a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes passes by instead of just the value that is assigned to the button that you press. It's kind of annoying because currently, it takes 15 minutes to enter your bedroom and 1 hour and 15 minutes to exit. I have most of the house up and navigational, including the beginnings of interactions with the family and some secret variables and items already implemented.

I posted on the twine forum to get some help because I can't think of a solution that will fix this without serious breaking down and reworking my time/navigational system (which, in all seriousness is technically sound; I believe Java is just reading it incorrectly). So instead, I will be working on the branching stories for this weekend. Someone asked if the story will lose it's charm with the new system. Honestly, I don't think so. If anything, it helps fill in the gaps from the morning to afternoon to evening stuff. If by tomorrow or whenever I get bored/stuck with the family story stuff, I'll just start building the world anyways and have the bug be in there for now.

*Edit:
Success! I got some help off the Twine forums and the problem described above no longer exists (it was a syntax error). To add a little more info, I'm flushing out the Kevin-Judy and Kelly-James story. This means, following them and adding in all of their interactions for the day (not all the tangent story lines, just their average day and your early options with them). Other than that, I want the first release to be big enough to include the locations to train up your stats. A lot of the numbers behind the game are only lightly integrated in because the scenarios for them do not exist yet. Even so, once I add in the training stuff and a few more variables and systems, there will be nothing left to do but story line.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Rework update

To update everyone, I have the mechanics down and have successfully created a time system, a 24 hour schedule for the entire family, directional movements, player customization, stats, skills and story variables. I don't know how much people will enjoy the new system because it is VERY different from the last two builds, but shows a lot of promise.

After much debate and consideration, I will no longer be releasing an in-between version of the new system. What's the reason for that? Because I'll actually need to go out of my way to create a restrictive version of the game. Instead of that, I will add on the family story while expanding the world room by room. I'll try to work in first time encounters with every family member and set up a world big enough that there are places to go to train up your stats. And yes, since there are much more interactions with the family throughout the day, I will need to rewrite and add in the missing gaps. Good thing is, once I fill in those gaps, they will always be there for each consequent day.

It's slow work because I'm doing this after watching 2-3 hours of twine 2.0 tutorials and constantly need to add more variables and code or look up how to troubleshoot problems I encounter. I can't give a good estimation of how much longer it will take for Ver.003 to come out, but I can't imagine it NOT coming out before December.

Until next week!

*Edit: Check out the "Design" page if you really want to know what the new system will look like.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Survey's over! Long post, TLDR below!

The survey is now over! I'm ending it partly because I wanted it to be a weekend thing, but the site I was using sealed the deal. There were 105 responses and I was only able to see 100 of them without having a "upgraded" account. I received a lot of good feedback, so if you had something you posted and would like to share or add to the discussion, please post in the forums. Nothing is too little or stupid; it all gives me motivation to work that much harder.

So, what did I learn? For the sake of keeping things anonymous, I'll just share the results instead of the actual survey.

Out of 100 people:
58 people loved it
40 people liked it
2 people were on the fence.

Writing quality:
36 Greats
58 Goods
6 Alrights

Favorite story line:
Kind of surprised, but all the girls were given the same amount of love, with Judy in front just by a margin. The only responses I received on the forums for Kelly was that she wasn't diverse enough, so I thought it would be skewed to Judy being 1, Abby 2 and Kelly 3. It is actually, Judy 1, Kelly 2, and Abby 3 (by averages). I thought I did pretty well with her writing too. I'll quote a comment I received: "just the say, the Kevin-Kelly story is a wonderful thing, and I'd love to see more of it. It's the most unexpected mixture of bonners and feels I've ever experienced." - Anon

Version:
Harlowe - 43
Sugarcube - 34 (It doesn't work in chrome for some reason)
Both - 22

The main question, STATS:
Very strongly - 13
Somewhat strongly - 19
Can go either way - 41
Not very much - 18
Not at all - 9

I guess that for the casual player, (as in those who check up on these type of games from time to time) it would be nice to come back to these options. For those who are invested, it'd be pretty heart breaking to see this project start back at ground zero. Most people are willing to let me take it in either direction, so thank you for that.

What will this mean for the game then? Good news is... the system is MAYBE almost ready? I've been grinding it out and have been able to establish a lot of things including conditions, customization, stats and variables. As I've said before somewhere, I've originally conceived of the game to be more like this anyways and since the CYOA version was torn through, I'm going to make it more into a repeating adventure game. Thankfully, the Harlowe version of Twine is simple and complex enough that I have established most of the things I've set out to do.

Currently, I'm working on a morning masturbation scene for Kevin, AND Kelly, incorporating all these things. If you've read the "Updates" page, I've stated this a few days ago, but I'm going to announce it now that everything seems promising. Once I finish both the male and female morning masturbation scenes, I'll add the breakfast scene and then test out actual sex with how my system works. It should basically let you choose a position then actions to perform. Then, using a dice roll that's based on your stats, skills and experience, you and your partner gain a certain amount of pleasure. I've sort of tested my system out, but it may require a lot more tweaking. My test subjects will be Judy and James, so we'll see how that goes! I might push out an in between version for those who are interested to try out the new system...

Beyond that, I need to figure out a good movement system so that you don't receive giant time skips for no reason while still limiting how far you can travel on foot. I have the game set up to an hourly system, but with how V.002's story flows, either the story or the system will need a little rework.

Aspects being developed:
Mmm, most people said the family. A couple said Kevin-Shasha and Kevin-Kristine, which is surprising because no one has mentioned them on the forums. (Once again, feedback, comments and discussions is greatly appreciated) A lot of people did not consider the outside world, and I guess I can't blame them because I haven't released a version that dives into that too much. I have some content, it just wasn't worth incorporating while everything else was so incomplete. With the new system up, I can always add people and conditions to change the story variety up with no overt decisions leading to them. All of that would mean a (easy?) system, where I can add events after the first day with little need to connect all the dots. All in all, read my "Design" page to hear from a hypocrite...

Funding:
Very willing - 34
Indifferent - 57
Not willing - 8

This is one of the questions I've been asking myself and hinting to for a while. I know I, or whoever else makes online content, will sound like a broken record, but these things take time and consequently, money. I think with my time frame and considering the three (I hate myself) reworks, I've done pretty well. I've seen a lot less being pushed out over a much longer time frame. With that said, I understand the concerns of most people about supporting what is essentially a person who may or may not complete something. Let me quote myself and say, "This is not an easy idea by a fickle writer. This is an ambitious project by an invested mad man." I've been working on this for over a year and only released it one and a half month ago. No, I wasn't doing it full time then, but I've managed to squeeze out 200 + pages over 4 weekends.

Let me go into full transparency mode here: I've realized I cannot do a 9-5 job forever. I hate it. I'd much rather be a purveyor of smut. What do I want? Something that can replace a minimum wage job for me to drop it (America, everyone). What does that mean? 1500 monthly or 750 per bi-weekly update. How much do I want to charge? 1 dollar for full access. I have something planned for beyond that, but I'm not sure of people would be interested in it right now. Can this story be completed? Yes, definitely. How long will it take to finish? I do not know and cannot give an accurate estimation. What I can say is that I do not plan to do this for an extended amount of time (meaning within 1-3 years with stretch goals and over estimation added in) and that I am a workaholic. What will this mean? 36 dollars from one supporting member if I go to the 3 year mark. What I'm really looking for is a big audience, not wealthy investors. Do I believe it "deserves" to be supported right now? I think it shows promise and a lot of potential. I don't want to have to stick my foot in my mouth later on, but what you've seen/read is just the tip of the iceberg. I have conceived of a giant play ground for you to relive the day over and over in, that isn't only inclusive to the family story (it's there because it's hot!). I truly want this to be something like it's source material (Groundhog Day/Edge of Tomorrow/Source Code) and have a universe of options.

Comments:
The comments were very nice to read. A lot of feedback and thoughts pointing to some reasons why people can't support me monetarily with some concerns about the mechanics and rework. Overall, everything was positive and nice. It's surprising almost, although I guess if you hated it, you wouldn't have bothered to answer the survey. I giggled a little when people told me, what seemed like, their deepest fantasies. I can't answer all your questions here, so post them if you want a direct answer to it. Other than that, thank you for your kind words.

Finally to quote the joker: "If you're good at something, never do it for free." AND "Oh, and every day he doesn't, people will die, starting tonight. I'm a man of my word. [laughs]"


TLDR;
Loved it, good writing, Judy-Kelly-Abby in order, Harlowe, Stats - either way, wants family story to be completed, indifferent to funding, comments were nice and helpful.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Survey time

I was going to wait until a little longer to post up the survey, but I figured that whoever hasn't played it just isn't interested in it. It's a minimalist survey with poorly constructed questions. It would have been a lot easier if I wasn't going to change the game again, but all things are pointing in that direction. So here it is:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WBFRLGX

If you're interested and you've played the game, answer the survey to give me some feedback.

So, with the programming in mind, the more I work on it, the more plausible it all seems. I'm going to try and get a system up and running within the next few weeks. I'll then incorporate some of the content that's already there into the new system and push out yet another alpha version. It's quite a journey, but honestly, really fun.

Looking forward to your survey answers!

Update:*
Oh my god, I love you guys! I'm getting so many wonderful responses. It's funny because people keep pointing out things that I know the answer to, but don't want to give away. What I will say is: Yes, there will be pregnancy, yes, you can bimbo all the women in the family, no, there is not going to be any loli/shota-con, yes, there will be cuckolding, yes, there will be conclusive endings (with one true ending)... there is so much more here that I can't explain it all/don't want to spoil.

A few people pointed out some scenes that made me giggle because of convoluted it sounds... but, no one has pointed out the surprised butt sex between Kevin-Judy. Has no one found it? XD

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Thoughts...

I'm having some second thoughts about how I should design the game. I thought that I could finish the first day with little to no Twine coding involved and make it a giant story and all that. But I think I'm going to need to go full ham on this and make it into a game as much as possible. Because of the way it's set up and because of the back button, I went through (skimming) 50% of my content with very little effort, which is over 300 pages. I think that by having it be a game and being able to redo the day over and over and having stats and all that, it will pad (for lack of a better word) out the game.

It's funny because as I read the story I found out that: IF you take your time to read the story, it's quite good. IF you've gotten into the habit of skimming over AIF's, kind of like me, then it's just alright.

I am currently looking up tutorials for Twine 2.0. I still don't know the full capabilities of it, but I'm beginning to see where I can take the game. I just need to build a good infrastructure so that additional events, stats and counters will be easy to keep track of. This will probably mean going back and adding coding into every single passage, or redoing the whole thing all together...

For now, I'll just test out coding individually and wait until this weekend to put up the survey. Depending on how confident I feel with Twine, I may or may not start to add stats and start building the game again...

What's good is that Ver.002 is already a lot better than Ver.001... imagine Ver.003, lol. SO much work.

Edit:
Well, the good thing is: The twine coding does not look that hard AND I've originally planned for a version of the game that did include stats. I don't want to make any promises, but it seems probable to make a "playable" version of the game. I just need to include areas to go and places to train your stats and all that.

The bad thing is: How to save... The Harlowe and SugarCube story formats use different coding. SugarCube has a save function (which I don't know if it'll save variables), but uses Twine 1.X coding. I am learning coding for the newer Harlowe Twine 2.X, but it doesn't have a built in save system. I'll update this as I find out more...

Edit 2:
I know this is getting to be a long post, but it is relevant. There IS a save function, but looks to be no export. Stats are easy enough to add and keep track of. At the current moment, what's getting to me is the math. As in, how to come up with a formula that incorporates a little bit of X stat with Y stat and a base percentage to figure out if you're successful in some (probably sexual) interaction. All of that and then the hundreds of event counters that I will need in order to tell a sensible story. I'll leave you off at a high note: I figured how to make a prompt show up so that you can input your own name AND I've (sort of) figured out how to set genders, so you'll probably be able to play as Kelly right from the beginning.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Alpha Version .002!!

Hello everyone,

As promised, here it is, Sex and Sex Again Alpha Ver.002. Get it on MediaFire or Mega.nz and play it online at TextAdventures.

I won't lie to you, rebuilding this game from the ground up over four and a half weekends was pretty hard. I'm unhappy with it's unfinished state, but such is the way of early access. I figure that it'll probably take another 3-4 good weekends before I completely finish all the male-female(family) content. I don't like taking too long, nor do I like making people wait, so here it is for you to test out.

The most complete are the Kevin-Judy and Kevin-Abby content. I figured out why the Kevin-Kelly stuff was so hard to write... it's the longest one yet. I'ts at 150 pages and maybe 55% complete, (I should stop giving percentages because I over estimate too much). I'm quite frustrated, really because I took two weekends on it instead of one...

I'm going to take it easy for the next week or two and then post up a link to gather some info through a survey. I'm taking ideas on what I should work on next, so give me your suggestions! I'll also take any interesting questions you guys think I should include in the survey.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you guys think about this game so far. Thank you and enjoy!

*As a side note, I'm going to post this on reddit. Check out the "The game" tab for links to all that.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Update!

Hello adoring fan(singular),

I have an update for you. I ran into several walls and was unable to finish today. I was really hoping to give you guys a bigger taste of the world, but the Kevin-Kelly story line is too incomplete. The alpha version .002 will definitely be out next weekend, so look forward to that.

As a side note, I believe I am falling in love with Abby. She's just so fun to write. XD

Saturday, September 19, 2015

What's up

Hey, everyone!

I'm going to post this here, instead of on the forums because I don't want to give myself a bump. But, I am seriously excited about how well everything is going. Twine is much easier to use with it's visual interface, but I'm a little worried. When zoomed out all the way, I can see the limited space they're giving me. I'm currently trying to register on their website and seek some help because with just 80% of the Kevin-Judy story integrated, I am taking up about a third of the work space. If anyone is familiar, is the space limited on Twine, or will it expand as I reach the boarders? Other than that, I am laughing to myself because of the convoluted path tree...

I have concluded not all Kevin-Judy, Kevin-Abby and Kevin-Kelly choices will be fleshed out with the Twine release. It simply branches out too far and will take too long. I'll have to fill in the blanks for a later release.

I have checked and am humbled by the 3200+ people who have gave the Quest version a try. Thank you so much, I appreciate your time and feedback. Again, I apologize for the frustration, (it's been every other comment). I will make it up to you next release. Until then!

Monday, September 14, 2015

Sept 14th, 2015 Update

Hello, thank you if you've been following the blog!

What have I been up to for the last few days? Working, of course. In real life and on the story. I've transferred quite a bit of the Kevin-Judy story line down and am rounding out a couple of scenes. Depending on how much available time I have, I should have that down by either the middle or the end of the week. Then I'll do the Kevin-Abby story line and lastly the Kevin-Kelly story line. The rough estimation is still 2 to 3 weeks for a solid release. At least more so than the current Quest version.

I'm going to ignore some of the world building and Kevin-James and Kevin-Freddie story line. It's too time consuming to add little snippets of the outside world here and there because it's as complex as the day spent with a family member. Keep in mind, there are NO gay sex scenes between them. It's just for the sake of having a complete family experience. What will eventually be there is cuckolding, threesomes, cheating and whatever else I can think of involving a girl.

I'll open up a survey for those who've been following once the alpha Twine version is out and let you guys vote on what I should add in next; whether it's world building, Kelly's story line (the female protagonist), or whatever else.

Thanks for following and keep posting on the forums. I go over them every few days and try to answer questions as they come up.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Thank you!

It's so great to get feedback on what has been a year long pet project of mine. I apologize and thank everyone who were willing enough to try out the game, despite it being incomplete and very rough.

What's the next step? Well, I've integrated some more stuff into the game but someone has made a suggestion that I use a different engine. I'm going to research it and in the end, I might port it over to Twine or something else. Instead of releasing small updates, I'm going to hold off until there's a substantial improvement to it. I'll keep my eyes on the forums and on this blog, so expect to be hearing from me soon.

Update: Haha, I'm kicking myself because Twine is so much easier to use. I have failed you, internet...

I don't know how quickly I can rebuild the game, but I'll give it a shot. My guesstimation is a week or two for a much friendlier Twine version to pop up.

Monday, September 7, 2015

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I am IcarusDragon, creator and writer of Sex and Sex Again. I'll be posting here about most of my updates to SaSA so stay tuned!

I also have a hongfire post located HERE, a post on Fenoxo's forum HERE and a post on TFGamesSite's forum HERE.

You can play the current alpha release HERE.

Enjoy and tell me what you think!