Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Writing Binge

I've been doing a ton of writing the past few days. I've spent time editing old events to use the tag system, I've written some new things for encounters, and I've also gotten around to adding in some new endings.

Here's a sort of teaser of the endings I've been working on. I say teaser, because all of the new endings are blanked out!



What? It wouldn't be much fun if I released a full list of all endings and how to get them before they're even released! Alright, I'll say that one of the new yellow ending chains has to do with finding "respectable" brothel work.

The first thing worth noting is that the endings are split up into tiers. You'll always take the highest tier ending that you quality for. There is no way to quality for two endings at the same tier due to the way qualifications work, so it should never be a problem. A lot of endings evolve into another ending when additional qualifications are met, whether it's from skills, events completed, or even your race.

Another point is that most endings evolve into a different type of ending. Looking at the flowchart, it looks more complicated than it actually is. Get one of the typical endings, and then have a specific set of stats, a particular accomplishment, or the right character setup. Having a virgin character that's well-accomplished might lead to one of the T3 endings, whereas having a virgin character that's consumed scores of dicks might soil your chances at getting the T2 ending, even though you're a virgin. This means that getting the highest virgin endings is going to require a certain amount of restraint.

I mostly wanted to expand pregnant (red) and virgin (green) endings. For those that don't know, there is currently a hidden stat that keeps track of if your character was fertilized. In order to keep the game from being anti-fun, a character can't get pregnant on their first intercourse. The chance to get pregnant increases the more intercourse a character has. This is to make sure that characters who are forced to put out don't have to take a 20% or so chance to get the worst endings. Well, it's subjective or not whether they are worse - red endings are basically all highly sex related, and might be preferred. Previously, no yellow endings were, but there are a few sex-related yellow endings drafted up now.

If you haven't picked up the clues, the theme of this next update is tailoring the game to suit your characters, with additional customization, events actually describing your character, a journal keeping your characters history, and additional endings that show how your choices affected the outcome.

I have yet to get around to working on the failure endings. Those will be one of the next things I work on.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

User Interface and Customization

When I first started Bounty, one of the most important things I had to do was design an interface that would stick. While I figured that the interface would have to be improved and changed as time went on, it was important that it could hold everything that I wanted to shove into it. For this reason, the interface in Bounty is slightly more complicated than some similar text-based games, for better and for worse. 

The best aspect is that I can implant menus, status screens, options, or anything else with impunity. Some menus contain just a few buttons, while others contain stacks of buttons and information. Every screen is designed separate from the others, although a few screens actually share so many features that they're indistinguishable. Some screens could be designed in a similar manner, but I've opted to make them look different enough so that it's easy to tell by the organization of the screen what you're looking at - the rules menu shouldn't be easy to confuse with other menus, for example.

This approach isn't without any downsides. Unlike similar games, I don't have one static region to print data to. Bounty's menus can have text in different regions which can be a challenge to work around sometimes. I've dubbed the text boxes "readers", as I've experimented where they should be placed in order to maximize the amount of text that can be displayed without taking too much real estate on the screen. 

This is what it looks like when I'm editing screens.
Every screen has three types of elements that are placed into sectors: buttons, readers, and text boxes. Buttons are simple enough to understand, and come in a few different sizes, ranging from a whole sector, to half a sector, down to the circular buttons in the corner of the screen used to continue to the next page of encounters. Left-clicking a button cycles to the next option, and right-clicking reverts to the previous option. Readers are designed individually for each screen for the sole purpose of outputting the data that the player needs/wants to know, from stats, to lists of perks, to item descriptions. Finally, text boxes are regions where you can click to begin typing in. What, you don't remember any text boxes in the game? That's because the first usage is being implemented in this next update to collect a character name.

This might sound boring, but the reason I'm writing about (or thinking loudly about, more like it) the user interface is because I'm finally completing the final screen of character creation, which is the screen where you can customize the appearance of your character. When deciding how to implement the interface for customizing your characters, there were a few options, and one stuck out as the clear winner due to the way the engine is built. I could have displayed multiple screens asking for individual traits, i.e. "What is your skin color?" where you would click a button before choosing to move to the next decision, but that would have been a waste of time, for both me and anyone who plays the game. If this game was a graphical game, I'd have to display the character, and have tabs to cycle between customization options, but this isn't the case, either. 

In the end, I decided to just display the customization options on one screen. In this manner, all of the options are available at a first glance, so there should be no backpedaling during character creation.

I feel like I wrote this post for the purpose of posting this image.
There are also a few things I wanted to share about the character creation. Each race has a different range of possible skin colors. Humans have the most common set of skin tones, which are included with most elves and dwarves. Other races have variations and limitations on their skin colors. Hair and eye colors aren't limited by race, but they are limited to natural(ish) colors (at least until changes can occur mid-game.) Some races have options exclusive to them, such as the "Elf Ears" option shown above. Height/weight are based on the averages for your race - playing a halfling and choosing average means you are average for a halfling. Finally, the "Other" option encompasses things such as freckles.

I've been inserting tags into all of the current events. I'm not finished yet, but the events definitely feel more tailored for the character.

Friday, May 20, 2016

The Next Week's Development

A post or two ago, I mentioned that the next release was going to focus on polishing locations and adding alternate location events for characters of different races/perks. This addition isn't going to come alone, since a few other features need to be present in order to accomplish this. In this post, I'm going to cover a few of these new additions required to get to that point.

Tags

This is something I've been tinkering with for a long time, and is vital to the next update. It's a simple concept - text will be tailored more around your character. It might involve your Elven ears, hair color, virginity, or even the clothing you are wearing. This means that events and encounters will be much more tailored to your character, helping

Like I said, I've been messing with this for a long time. The database of tags is basically complete at this point. I just need to rewrite bits of everything to accept the tags, which is more time consuming than difficult. I can't continue forward without having this complete, so now is the time to hammer it in.

Currently, the smallest entries are things like hair color and skin color, since those can typically be filled with one word, i.e. "Your auburn hair" or "soft, obsidian skin". In contrast, the clothing entry is the largest, since there are 10 different sets of clothing in the game with varying degrees of removal, i.e. a short skirt can be removed by the character, pulled down, ripped off, or panties just pushed aside.

The Journal

Sort of a staple in these sorts of games, the journal is a page you can access from the stats menu that recounts the actions you've taken throughout the game, while also describing your character. This will give you a good option for tracking everything throughout a game.

I'm still working on the specifics of how things will be delivered. Right now, I'm experimenting with different methods of delivering the information. I'm thinking that it'll be read less like a block of stats, and more like an actual diary/journal that someone might keep. Stats will have a bearing on how the journal is written. A character with a higher mind might write in greater detail, whereas a character with lesser mind might have simpler descriptions or thoughts. More intelligent characters might have journals describing themselves as unsullied, or have more upsetting thoughts about being raped. Less intelligent characters might just shrug it off as a thing that happened.

Fun fact: Early in development, I considered having the mind stat correlate to how easy it was to become upset. An intelligent character would get upset more easily and find it harder to look past everything in front of her, while a less intelligent character would care less about consequences and be easily entertained. I never implemented this, because there isn't yet enough of a bonus to having a high mind score at the moment outside of making extra cash at locations that would be more oriented towards intelligence than sex work or labor.

More Character Customization

In order to populate the journal with all of the required information, character creation is going to be made a little more in-depth. Character creation now includes some basic character descriptors, such as hair color, name, and skin tone.

At the moment, these additional options have little to no effect on the actual game.

Next Update?

I haven't been able to post/update in a while due to personal reasons, but that's all in the past. Because of everything, I also have a free week next week before I have to return to work, so expect a marathon of posts and progress for a bit before rescinding to the typical weekend updates with occasional weekday spillage - I fully intend to make up for lost time. I plan on releasing a major version somewhere during the middle of all of this, including the above additions, along with more that I'll be posting about as they're completed.

For a vague schedule, I'll be spending the first few days completing features, followed by a day of catching up on the bug tracker and polish before releasing the next update. After that, I'll spend another day fixing anything reported before spending the rest of the time working toward the next update.

Friday, April 1, 2016

Bounty Alpha 5

UPDATE 4 - Bounty Alpha 5.4 hotfix released. Fixes:
  • Racial icons have had their racial features increased in contrast and will probably be modified again in the future
  • Fixed crash occurring in foreign settlement and barbarian camp equipment shops
  • Locations in advanced settlements should now properly warn you when an action will break the rules you've set

UPDATE 3 - Bounty Alpha 5.3 hotfix released. Fixes:
  • Fixed a crash that occurred after the daily preparations screen whenever mood is 0

UPDATE 2 - Bounty Alpha 5.2 hotfix released. Fixes:
  • Fixed the Stretchy Body flavor text, which was being swapped with the default text for being roughed up
  • Fixed a glitch causing some of the new flavor text to not appear

UPDATE - Bounty Alpha 5.1 hotfix released. Fixes:
  • New saved games can now be created




I'm excited to finally get this out, and I hope everyone enjoys it. I've completely overhauled the status screen and increased the depth of the game at least tenfold. Just a sneak peak at some of the new features:


The Tit-o-meter is of course using placeholder art, but is a very important interface for determining the leniency of your bust. Also shown is the new quest system. Some clients might offer you quests, which you can solve by traveling between towns and progressing the story. Be careful, however, as there is no way to backtrack to a town you've already visited. I won't spoil all of the fun and spoil everything, so the last thing I want to mention is the new Gem currency. You can purchase Gems by clicking on the button in the top right, and can consume Gems in place of actual money, or in order to bypass certain encounters.

Overall, I think this update is a real game-changer.

This patch is a little more than a simple bug fix or two. As development moves forward, more and more features have been "withheld" due to instability. Before moving forward and finishing more and more features and content, I went back to work on fixing and polishing everything that has been withheld so that I can start rolling everything out. As such, this is the single largest bug fix I've released.

During this process, I implemented the vast majority of text I had withheld due to some weird issues. I have not been able to reproduce any of the crashes I was experiencing previously in this version. This is the most stable version released to date. Alternatively, it could very well the most unstable version I've released, because I might have overlooked something silly, or due to all of the new additions. Oh no, the second thoughts!

I wanted to start this post pointing out the BUG REPORT form I've added to the top of the page a few days ago, but it seems like people have noticed it already. I've added this just to streamline the way I get data from anyone having problems.

Regarding saved data - old saves are compatible with this version, but may have weird glitches that do not effect gameplay.

Note: a few changes may not be documented due to how many things were fixed. Some fixes may have inadvertently fixed other things. Also, some of the events in the new areas may seem equal or only slightly better than other locations. This is to be changed once alternate location scenes are a thing.

Also important to mention is that every one of the advanced settlements were written with variant events in mind. At least one location in each of the new settlements might seem weird, due to the variations not existing yet, i.e. pagan shrine, church, lake, etc. There is something more to these locations that is not yet functional. All of the locations included in this update are the final amount of locations for the 'base game', and future efforts will be put into improving them rather than adding new locations.

Buckle up, because these are some hefty long patch notes!

New Additions:

  • Fame system implemented
    • Renown increases client base
    • Value increases pay earned during encounters
    • Allure slightly increases negotiation
  • Options menu given a set of buttons to spend fame points
  • The six advanced settlements intended to be released in the previous update are now available and are 99.99% guaranteed to not cause any crashes
    • They still haven't undergone the testing that the previous settlements have, so please report any abnormalities
  • Additional text has been added to encounters
  • Text has been added to the character creation screens explaining races and sub-races
  • Encounter races are now functional
    • You can see what a settlement's population is when you look at the travel options
    • Loading an old save will automatically set your current settlement and all current travel locations to human settlements
  • Added the Xenophobic perk, exclusive to mountain dwarves, to reflect their issues working with other races, which reduces the pay you earn within non-dwarven settlements by 10%
    • This is additive with your rules for price, reducing the cheap option to 70%, and the expensive option to 110%
  • Added the Fae perk, which is to be used to alter future encounters as the fae halfling and the wild elf
    • One of these events involves the fairies in the enclave, who serve no purpose until alternate scenes are added
  • Added the Recruit perk, which can be earned by training at the barracks
    • This perk was known earlier in production as Fencer and has since been renamed
  • Added a temporary data block on the data screen to give an idea of what saved games are there until I finish the journal feature
  • Added new items across various stores, including scented candle, elven cloak, silken sheets, perfume, and tonic.
    • Scented candles and silken sheets can improve your mood daily, but are costly and only improve in small amounts
    • Elven cloak decreases the chance you will encounter a bounty hunter while they are in a town, but does not stack with the black goblin bonus
    • Perfume is automatically used once per day in order to increase your client count
    • Tonic can be manually consumed to guarantee maximum affliction recovery whenever your day begins (similar effect to temple divine healing)
  • Added the credits button to the title screen along with a simple credits screen, which includes two tiers of supporters - any supporters who have contributed $10 in one month, and all project supporters who have donated at least $10 throughout the project's life
    • If you support the project but either don't want your name listed, or want a different name listed, please message me either on Patreon using the account you pledged with, or send me an e-mail from the address you donated from
    • Going forward, the credits will only be updated at the end of each month

Balance Changes:

  • It's now slightly easier to shake off afflictions
  • Divine healing at the temple now provides a bonus chance to removing afflictions
  • Vaginal and anal are now innately worth 20% more than previously in order to make them more attractive options considering the additional risks involved
  • Resetting potential travel locations now costs more each time you do it
    • The cost resets to default after the day ends
  • There are now diminishing returns on time gained when traveling with 10 or more days left before bounty hunters arrive
  • Relief Girl has been entirely reworked, granting a small fame bonus when you enter a new settlement, but has a lower travel discount
  • Using your action for the day to visit one of the locations now prevents you from traveling until the next day

Bug Fixes:

  • Loading games deleting sub-races
  • The way perks were handled has been completely remade from scratch, fixing a huge number of perks not functioning as intended and is fairly extensive, since I repeatedly tested every single perk during this
    • Healthy now properly increases the health modifier
    • Immunity now properly reduces damage taken
    • Perks that give multipliers should be more accurate
    • Basically every perk should work as intended right now
      • Except Party Girl, because groups don't approach yet
  • Crash that occured while sometimes loading games
  • Error that made the game unplayable on some systems
  • Error that caused severe graphical glitches on some systems
  • Error that prevented the browser version from loading in some browsers
    • The browser version has been tested with Chrome and Firefox, but should work with any HTML5-compatible browser
  • Crash that occured when the browser version tried to do math
  • The default race is now human and the default sub-race is the first sub-race of each race
  • Disabled loading game slots when there is no saved data in those slots
  • Changed the debug mode key away from Alt
  • Fixed alignment of certain portions of the status screen
  • Fixed more text running off of the screen
    • If you find any more, please let me know which screen the text is running over on
    • I've also included a 'Text' option in the bug report form, if anyone prefers to use that
  • Fixed the buckler only working in certain types of encounters
    • To clarify, the buckler should always reduce the amount of damage you take in combat by 1
  • Travel button no longer disappears, but will still be locked if you've been captured by slavers and haven't purchased your freedom yet, or if you have already used your daily action



Thursday, March 17, 2016

Mid-March Progress

Good evening, everybody! It's been a little bit since I've posted a progress report. I didn't have anything interesting to say about it until now, so I figured the time is right.

Last update, I had to withhold some stuff due to things causing bugs or ultimately causing the game to be unstable. This isn't the first time I've had to do this, although it's the biggest feature I've had to hold on to for a bit longer. Ultimately, I decided that I would polish things on the back-end before pushing out the next update, but one could argue that I got a bit more zealous than expected!

On that note, I do have a tight schedule to get things done. Sometimes I haven't had a chance to thoroughly playtest a new feature, and occasionally, it shows. I'd have time to test if something works, but never the time to sit down and assure that it's not causing any issues elsewhere. This has changed recently, as I've spent a good amount of time playing whack-a-mole with the new additions. My work over the past few weeks has been dedicated entirely to testing and fixing everything possible, resulting in possibly the biggest upcoming bug fix yet, and the implementation of entirely too many things that I had to shave off for one reason or another.

Or maybe I shouldn't refer to this as the biggest update to date, because it's almost entirely the introduction of content that should have been released in previous updates?

Perk Overhaul

I've completely dug up perks and laid them back down from scratch. There were a few reasons for this, one being that the old method was leading to a lot of perks not functioning as intended, and another being the problems encountered while implementing new perk flavor texts. While the perks themselves have not been modified, I've gone through and thoroughly tested perks since doing this, and I've yet to find a perk that is not giving the intended bonuses (exception: perks that reference things not yet fully implemented).

With this change out of the way, all of the flavor text I've written for perks are functional for the next update.

Client Races

A feature that was pulled early on in development due to issues being caused, races are now back in the game for nightly encounters. The elf trait that was always designed to cause trouble around orcs is now fully functional. The travel menu now has icons depicting what race is to be expected within a settlement. Human settlements are typically populated by just humans, with the occasional half-elf and halfling. Dwarven settlements may also have the occasional halfling. Elven-controlled territory contains only various types of elves, including the occasional half-elf. Orcish lands are one large perilous dick-trap for elf characters, although they might be lucky enough to run into a goblin. Mixed settlements exist, and you don't know what you'll encounter in there.

Additional flavor text included

This should add a bit more choice when choosing where to flee, especially when combined with advanced settlements.

Fame System

Replacing the previous suicide-by-dicks approach, the fame system stores up fame points you've earned within the settlement and allows you to spend them on three different types of bonuses. This is the first attempt to hammer out the way fame works, and I think it came out rather nicely. You can now control whether you receive additional customers, better prices, or even augment your negotiation abilities with fame. This new method of handling fame should provide more options for playing the character you want to play, and less situations where your character overdoses on semen.

Left click spends points, and right click returns points

Scrolls of Charm have been modified to work within this new system (read: rebalanced). Of course, fame is still reset when you leave a settlement, so remember to build up fame where it's most important!

Advanced Settlements

The big thing from last update that I had to withhold that caused me to begin polishing everything up to begin with. I've been most vigorous testing these new settlements, because settlement-based crashes could outright destroy saved games. So far, I've yet to reproduce any previous problems.

Pending: descriptions of travel options

I won't talk too much about these, since I've touched on the in the past few posts. Right now, the goal is to get these into everybody's hands so that I can start to get feedback on the advanced settlements.



Outside of these four big changes, a few balance changes and additional bug fixes are incoming, not to mention the other additions inserted. This update should be coming relatively soon, since all I have to do is plug everything back in and sand a few edges. When I do release this update, I'm also going to be releasing a rough development roadmap I've prepared up until the v1.0 release, to give everybody an idea on what I'll be working on the most.

One final thing - I discovered yesterday that I've been the victim of an overzealous spam filter. This is a huge problem for someone who regularly reads and writes words like "cock", and it should all be taken care of now. I'll be spending a good portion of tomorrow night replying to e-mails that I received that were incorrectly filtered, because I apparently have multiple dozens! And thanks to everyone who has posted feedback here, elsewhere on the internet, or in my e-mail. I'm considering making a Q&A post based on some of the questions I've received multiple times.

Monday, February 29, 2016

Bounty Alpha 4

I've wrapped up a working build for Bounty Alpha 4. It is available in the downloads tab at the top of this page.

Update: Text import from the new settlements was doing something silly to save files. I can't seem to figure out what's causing it right now. Instead of delaying anything again, I'm just releasing this version with the new settlements disabled, along with a bit of the additional text, since it's otherwise game breaking. I can't stay up any longer, so I'll patch it in tomorrow. Anything in the update notes regarding the new settlements is on hold for another day or two. The items and location events in these places remain inaccessible at this time. This update has been as smooth as cottage cheese.

Caution: Saved data from before Alpha 4 is not compatible with this new version due to changes in the way certain data is stored, and the inclusion of sub-races.

I sure put together a wall of text on this one. The update notes are at the bottom of this post if that's what you're looking for.

I intended to bring forth more timelines sooner rather than later, but ultimately, I've decided to hold off just a little bit longer on that. So much still needs to be changed/added in the base game as is, and it'd just increase the amount of time it would take to make those changes if I pushed more timelines right now. So for now, I'm going to work on fully finishing the first one before releasing the next. This isn't so much an issue of having the content incomplete as it is wanting to get things more polished so that I'm not burning time bringing other timelines in line with the amount of changes I'll be making.

One of the bigger changes this update is the new afflictions system, which causes problems for characters that don't take proper care of their hygiene. Afflictions are a work-in-progress (like everything else) and are subject to being changed. They're not very detailed at the moment, but I do intend to work on more text regarding illnesses and STDs in the future, since there is definitely a demand for it, and it wouldn't make sense to water down the text anyway. The system was put into place with all the proper hooks I need to work on it later, which will be sometime after the next update.

Next Update

While there is still a lot to be done, the next big update I release will address the lack of variety in location events. Right now, almost every event is static. I'll be adding alternate events that occur depending on your perks/race, which will have a huge effect on the way different races will view different regions. Because of this, I want to try to avoid doing anything drastic to race balance before the next big update, as some races will have easier times at certain locations afterwards. This means there will be more events based around exhibition, racial features, paizuri, anal, and a few others. This also means that I'm going to be more extensively considering any suggestions regarding events over the next month - just because I have a lot of planned events and variations doesn't mean that I don't want to hear more. It might as well be called Alpha "The one with all of the good stuff".

While the focus will be polishing locations and adding different scenes that occur, some locations will also gain more options. I'll be focusing on the locations that have less than 3 actions to try to round everything off.

This update will be ready once I have completed at least one alternate event for every single action at each location, although some places will have multiple variations. This will be an intensive update, and is going to take a while to roll out, since I will be over doubling the amount of text I have written to date for that update.

Until then, I'm going to spend a few weeks polishing up what's already here, fixing any issues that get reported and adding quality of life improvements. Data screen, I'm looking at you. It's past your time. I'll also be releasing the incomplete events to fill out the rest of the new locations. And after the next big alpha release, I'll return to hit the mechanics as hard as I can.

Other than this, I'll create a road map to the v1.0 release with all of the thing I need to finalize before the game is considered complete. This will not be a definitive list of features, as things will be added that aren't on the list, and I'll continue adding things long after a v1.0 release. It's basically just a point where I can step back and say, "Wow, I'm really pleased with what's happened so far."

What Happened?

As a lot of you might have noticed, I not only missed the deadline I had set for last week, but I had also fallen off of the radar for almost a week. The initial delay was caused because I overestimated how fast I would be able to get everything prepped by a pretty sizable margin, which meant I needed to push things back a few days. That's entirely my fault - I publicized a deadline, and then completely flew right by it. I know a lot of people don't mind, considering that it just means more time is being put into the game, but I shouldn't post deadlines that I'm unable to meet, so I'll work on that in the future. I won't dish out ETAs until I'm almost prepared to roll things out.

Another thing I wanted to mention for the sake of transparency is that earlier in the week, I lost progress due to a file corruption that occurred during a power outage caused by snow. I was silent for a few days, since I was busy catching up with what I had worked on and making sure everything was okay. Since I back up files weekly, I didn't really lose anything valuable, other than half a week of time. That's nothing, considering how long I'll probably be working on the project. It even gave me a good excuse to re-implement afflictions differently, because I wanted something more dynamic. Everything is okay, and work is progressing as normal.

Anyway, on to the changes in this update.

New additions:

  • Six new advanced settlements have been added, including Island, Capital, Enclave, Cult, Eastern, and Barbarian
    • Each advanced settlement can only be reached from a specific type of settlement, as they are too specialized to attract general traffic from other locations
      • Island settlements are practically resorts, and while they can only be reached by ship, travelers departing these settlements aren't limited to only port cities
      • Capital settlements are hedonistic cities that consume lots of food and are entertained by grand attractions
      • Enclaves are home to wild elves who seek to separate themselves from civilization, but wise traders often know where to find their settlements
      • Cult towns are intent on infiltrating and undermining the primary religion of Vesta
      • Eastern settlements are hidden pockets of a culture unlike the rest of the land, and seem like very attractive stops to those who would study cultures across the world
      • Barbarian villages are recently conquered lands that are still subject to being reformed, often requiring a sizable military presence
    • Locations at these settlements are still a work in progress to be released in the upcoming weeks, so some of the towns may seem very light on the options right now (mostly the coliseum events)
  • Sub-races have been added
    • Pure-blood elves have been compressed into a single elf race
    • All races except half elves have sub-races
  • Naturally Wet, Perfect Ass, Nympho, and Feisty have been granted minor bonuses that are only available for as long as virginity is intact
  • More text additions in various locations
  • When visiting locations, buttons which start events that clash with your options are red
  • Status button and perk button will now brightly glow if you have a free perk to spend
  • Afflictions added
    • Afflictions are currently caught by random chance through encounters, and are very rare unless you have poor hygiene
    • Being came in also increases the chances
    • Afflictions may recover or become less severe at the beginning of each day depending on any perks or modifiers you have to resistances
  • Afflictions screen added to the status menu to give you an overview of your current state

Balance changes:

  • A few locations have had their bonuses increased slightly

Bug fixes:

  • Reverted a change that disabled defeat upon reaching 0 life
  • Versatility should now function as intended
  • Selling virginity no longer grants significantly lower cash than intended
  • No more outdated string insertions, meaning no misplaced spaces and periods

Known Issues:

  • Traveling to and from an island settlement currently has travel encounters that refer to things like "wagons" and "roads", which will be fixed in the future when unique travel encounters are being implemented
  • The coliseum events are very limited right now, as combat encounters require more writing than traditional encounters
    • There is only one option when visiting, which results in one event
    • A future update will add the rest of the events to the coliseum, including progression through different encounters, another option for a different type of fight that might result in things becoming a little more 'heated', and a final option where things are slightly less heated, but still very lewd
    • These encounters will be included individually in any bug fixes/changes I release going forward, as they are completed
  • The new racial menu does not have the readers functioning yet, so there are no racial descriptions as intended.
Finally, since some of the features implemented are highly experimental right now, I'm going to keep the download for the previous alpha available on the downloads page alongside the new version.

Monday, February 22, 2016

Afflictions Poll

Update: I'll be finishing up the second option and adding the option in the configuration menu to toggle whether or not details will be given about these things, although the text and that option are not a high priority at this moment, and will come later down the line.

---------------------

The next release is being held back due to some issues in the design of the afflictions system a.k.a. the hygiene penalty. Namely, it sucked, and I've been converting everything into something more acceptable. But during all this, I've come to a point where I'd really like some feedback before I continue, since the system implemented now might last quite some time.

There are two ways I could proceed here:

  1. Implement afflictions, diseases, and illnesses with specific names and details. This would make every affliction unique, and would contain more writing, but these wouldn't be pretty. The text might be off-putting or disgusting at some points.

    Having intercourse with zero hygiene could result in some nasty text, developing a specific disease that needs to be tended to. This is more similar to the average afflictions systems you find in RPGs, sans the descriptions about crusty body parts. This option would provide more flavor text.
  2. Implement afflictions, diseases, and illnesses with vague effects. This would spare the nastiness of afflictions, since the player would be given a general idea of what the effects of something were, and there would be a whole page dedicated to detailing what stats are currently being penalized due to afflictions.

    Intercourse with zero hygiene would result in a more vague description, followed by a list of penalties provided. If you've developed multiple afflictions that effected all of your stats, and you used an item to soothe the effects they've had on your vaginal skill, that penalty will erase, and the other symptoms and penalties will still be around (but decreasing more rapidly). This option may be more interesting.
The first method was similar to the original intent, and the second method is something I've been thinking up to replace all of this with so that nobody would catch an illness and immediately distance themselves from the game after reading about it. Most parts of this game, the intent is to add more depth and description, but afflictions may be the exception to this. 

If you could, please make a selection in the poll here. I'll wait for today to pass so I can gather some feedback before completing everything. Anyone can go a step further and post in the comments here why they prefer one over the other.

I apologize to anyone who was waiting on the next update only to have it pushed back by this. The game has been out too long without an actual penalty for having no hygiene, so I really, really need to get this in.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

One More Day

While I planned to release the next update tonight, it'd be better if it was released tomorrow. The reasoning is, I'd like to spend an additional day to make sure everything is plugged up and fully functional. Since I get the most work done during weekends, I'd like to use the rest of tonight and some of Sunday to get some of this worked out before releasing.

The addition of sub-races changed a little bit regarding perks and the back end, and I need just a little bit longer to make sure everything is running smoothly. I'm also implementing a way to get a vague idea if a location violates your options, which should help both with exploration in the new areas and in future changes where events can be modified into something else via perks/stats.

I hate to miss deadlines, but the alternative is releasing a build potentially buggier than any previous build, and I don't think that's acceptable.

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Bounty Alpha 3.2

This is just another update with a few additional fixes. It also includes some work I've been doing to bring the settlement encounters up to date with the standards being set by locations and travel encounters. Settlement encounters were the first system to actually be implemented, so this should make things more stable/more reliable. More fixes than listed below exist in this update due to this fact.

The biggest bug fix was something causing the browser version to crash spontaneously on a select number of systems. It took me a while to be able to reproduce it, but I think it's fixed in this version. The solution required the rewrite of the way settlement encounters worked, which I was working on anyway. If anyone uses the browser version and experiences this again, let me know.

This will be the last update until the release this upcoming Saturday night, provided nothing goes horribly wrong.

Like always, you can find the newest release in the Download tab at the top of this page.

Known Issues:


  • I forgot to update the perk description for Succubus, and it does NOT give a point of negotiation, but increases the price of negotiations back to normal

New additions:

  • Additional text added when you give oral while having the perks Titfuck or Deepthroat during encounters, and the occasional stretchy body line for vaginal if roughed up
  • A little bit more text implemented
  • A reader has been added to the options screen to describe what the current value of the rules mean in better detail

Balance changes:


  • Effects of both soap and luxurious soap very slightly increased
  • Negotiation changed for reliability
    • Base negotiation increased by 1
    • Negotiation attempts now cut the amount of money you receive in half
    • Succubus perk changed to increase the amount of money received when negotiating back to the default value.
      • These changes should make negotiating less hit-and-miss early in the game, while maintaining the cash flow from having all of the negotiation perks while accepting only one or two actions
  • The value of selling virginity now increases faster, gaining an additional bonus from vaginal skill accrued from perks (since actual sex levels would have taken it already)
  • Mastery now also immediately increases level by 1
    • This has no direct effect other than increasing the amount of experience required to reach the next level
  • Multipliers tweaked to work better in encounters, potentially modifying how much more/less money is earned from charging higher/lower prices
    • Expensive/cheap options are now multiplicative with other bonuses instead of additive, directly increasing the impact of the Footjob line.

Bug fixes:


  • Fixed a crash that may occur in slaver camps
  • Food won't get stuck after the all-you-can-eat fruit buffet in orchards
  • Versatility and Mastery are now possible to choose as half elf as intended
  • Mastery now actually gives the free perk slots as intended
  • Brothel - Peddle Self brought in line with University - Advertise
  • Some instances of intercourse not taking virginity have been fixed
  • Replaced a function used in encounters that was eating spaces in the exact same place every encounter
    • It took me weeks to find out that a string insert was causing this, when I had just assumed it was a font issue
      • I feel silly
  • Fixed an issue causing the browser version to spontaneously crash after a day or two



Sunday, February 14, 2016

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Bounty Alpha 3

Boy, has it been a job. There's still a lot of polish that needs to be applied, and a lot of stuff that needs to be added, but this release has a lot of the work I need in the back-end to make everything go more smoothly in the future. It's another step towards leaving alpha stage, and I'm glad to have gotten this far. I'm in this for the long haul, so I've still got a lot to do over the upcoming months.

It's worth repeating that this release is an alpha release, and is not feature or content complete yet. Crashes or irregularities may occur, and if they do, please report them so that I can fix them as soon as possible.

I haven't had time to balance and refine everything as much as I'd like, so some numbers may seem off. Content may be too hard or too easy at the moment until I have time to tweak everything. Prices may seem too high, and payment may seem too low.

To play the current version, visit the download tab at the top of this page!

Changes:
  • Browser version is now available
    • Saves are not yet compatible between the downloadable version and the browser version
  • 'Lovely' dice and bar added in configurations as my Valentines present to everyone
  • Timeline system is now functional
    • Only one timeline exists at the moment
    • Three timelines appear on the menu, but they are all the same as the first timeline at the moment - see KNOWN ISSUES below
  • Seven different endings added, with three main endings and four variants
    • Endings depend on how you've performed over your travels
  • Minor enhancements to encounter text, mainly the addition of text for having the Footjob perk
  • Travel encounters are now functional
    • Danger on the road can range from mild to extreme, as failing one encounter could cost you your virginity, whereas failing another might cause you to be taken somewhere you don't want to be
  • Slaver camp settlement added, holding two locations with two events each
    • You can not willingly travel to a slaver camp
  • Most perks that weren't functional now work as intended, and perks shown in the sample tree from a few days ago have been implemented
    • Perks that aren't functional due to the content they were to be introduced in not being completed are either not attainable or have been locked to prevent useless perk choices
    • Some perks may still not yet be fully functional until everything is polished up, although until that happens, I don't know which perks are still not plugged in correctly
  • Town icons in the travel screen have been updated, mostly due to the creation of future settlement icons
  • Travel reset button added, letting you spend money to randomize your potential travel locations
  • Two town traits were added
    • Wealthy (stack of gold) increases the money you earn in these towns
    • Destitute (small pile of coin) decreases the money you earn
  • Game can now be loaded from the title screen instead of having to start a new game to access the data menu
  • University class event now active
    • Repeating this event a few times will grant the player an Apprentice's degree, which allows purchase of magic scrolls from the magic shop
    • The only two scrolls that exist in this release are a rejuvenation scroll and a charm scroll
      • Rejuvenation heals life
      • Charm increases fame, which dramatically increases the amount of customers and money you can make, but remember that fame drops to 0 when you change settlements
  • Some races now have altered starting attributes
  • I know I'm missing a few changes
  • And of course, everything listed in the blog post from last weekend
Known issues:
  • There is only one timeline available, but three are displayed. These were for testing purposes and are all the same as the first timeline.
  • I killed the training location in the barracks yet again, special thanks to strange interactions with slaver camps (I don't even)
As I said yesterday, I have a few things nearly complete that weren't able to make this update due to time constraints. They'll be ready next update, since all of these features are near-completion. This includes:
  • Completion of the six advanced settlements
    • This will also approximately double the amount of available location events in the game
  • Sub-races, allowing different choices for each race
  • Appearances are coming alongside sub-races
    • A common sense feature for describing your character, and may be used in some scenes
  • First release of afflictions, diseases, and illnesses, giving a reason to keep hygiene high
  • Perks exclusive to virgins that can be changed to more useful perks if virginity is lost
    • Elf Maiden is already in and exclusive to virgins, but currently has no use if virginity is lost
  • The second timeline, taking place years after the first
    • The republic has begun an invasion on the kingdom you're supposed to flee to, pushing your goal further, and creating a region that's far more dangerous
So the next release is going to be packed with a lot of stuff that would have been in this one, had I a bit more time. It's also going to be a significant increase in the amount of content in the game, with various different scenes for various different types of players. Further down the line, the next changes that need to be made include:
  • Location events having alternate effects depending on race/perks/items
    • For example, dwarves might have a blast drinking at the tavern, carrying toys could change scenes with women, and certain sex perks could entirely change the scene and outcome of different locations
    • This change is going to require a HUGE amount of writing, and is going to take a while to be implemented
  • Combat overhaul, applying the concept from travel encounters to all encounters
    • This means that lost combat against hunters or potential rapists might still be escaped, and the text will reflect on your fighting style
  • Additional items, including spell scrolls, item enchanting, and sex toys
  • Significantly more flavor text
    • This applies to almost everything, from perks, to race, to clothing, and will take a while to get everything sorted
  • Specialized requests, including female clients and strange requests that change the way nightly encounters can play out
  • Group encounters, where nightly encounters can include groups of 2 or more people
    • Another feature that was intended for the first alpha, but pushed back due to changes and for generally being incomplete
  • Perk upgrades, allowing you to spend a perk to improve the effects of certain perks
    • This will not apply to all perks
  • A journal that keeps track of the total amount of actions you've performed
    • Once this one is done, I'll go over the current endings with a bit more polish, and add more planned endings
  • Negative effects resulting in the continued use of certain types of items
  • Settlements having predominant races
    • This feature was pulled from the initial release because it was breaking encounters, but it'll be back soon
  • Unique game over scenes depending on how the game over occurs, including the various bounty hunters, during prostitution, during travel, or during location events
    • Until I get around to this, game overs are going to be fairly generic, and that's boring
This isn't the extend of my plans for Bounty, but just an idea of what I'm working on in the near future. I'm trying to sort out things so that my immediate efforts are the most framework-expanding changes. 

Anyway, I hope everything turned out fairly playable and with few bugs. The next day or two, I'm going to spend more time talking and fixing any bugs that get reported. Sort of a short break before diving back in to finish the partially completed features for the next update. I occasionally feel stressed that something will break when I add new features, but I'm handling it fairly well. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go bake a 20 inch pizza and eat it in the bath tub.

Friday, February 12, 2016

Soon

I've been working pretty hard on getting everything assembled for tomorrow's release. At this point, I'm feeling good enough to say that the most important things I wanted to add are in. The biggest thing I've been working on the past few weeks is getting everything ready for a browser release. Going forward, none of the releases will have to be downloaded, and you can always play the latest version by clicking on the Play tab at the top of this blog (will be added when released). The way everything is set up, this means that I'll be able to fix things faster, and apply content much easier, and anyone playing will only have to tap F5 in order to receive the latest update.

With everything else that is ready for this update, I highly recommend starting a new game, as old saved games may have unintended interactions with the timeline system.

Timelines are available, although only one will be complete for tomorrow. It's the standard game, or "easy mode" as I'll probably end up calling it. With that, the game now progresses through stages, where the game becomes more difficult every so often. Instead of passing through the early towns to build up distance between you and the hunters, it'll be more attractive to try to squeeze every bit of juice out of a settlement before you move on.

I've also implemented endings, and there are currently 7 different endings for the first timeline. One ending is reserved for virgin characters, four for non-virgins, and two for characters that get a little too involved with sex.

Another feature that's in the game now are travel encounters. I originally intended to put this in the first alpha, but it's been more work than I expected. Travel encounters use a new system that has a gray area for when you've neither won nor lost a combat. You won't get raped, but you definitely didn't walk away unharmed. I intend to update all events and encounters throughout the game using this concept, including bounty hunters. But for now, it's only available in travel encounters.

On the topic of travel encounters, a new settlement type has been added to the game. It's impossible to willingly travel here. You'll be forcibly brought to this settlement if you completely lose a travel encounter to slavers (I'm sure you can guess at what it is!) It's not a positive settlement, being something you want to leave as soon as possible.

Traits for towns are also available. Towns can have traits assigned to them that modify how things work there.

One of the cooler features complete is the inventory system combined with the now-finished academy locations. I won't explain this one in complete detail right now, but the concept is that you can gain an apprentice's degree at the academy if you repeatedly visit. This degree will open up more options at the magic shop, allowing you to buy a few magic scrolls. Scrolls can be activated to cast the spell within for bonuses. More scrolls to come in the future, although only a few exist at the moment.

All of the perks posted in the last update have been added to the game. The perks that did not function correctly now work as intended, although a couple perks aren't ready to be used. This is because the content that the perks are going to apply to isn't ready yet, so I'm considering locking those perks until the next update, so that useless perks aren't chosen.

There are more smaller changes that should improve the way the game is played, as well. I'll have a complete change log ready tomorrow.

With that being said, there are some things I wanted to fit into this release that I'm going to have to hold on to for a few days. The biggest reason for the things I'm holding for a few days is that I need time to finish them up. I need to complete features and content faster than I'm adding unfinished features. By not adding the features described below in this release, I'll have more time to make sure what's already in is polished and complete.

The biggest thing that's being delayed are bonus settlements. I've designed 6 new settlement types that are only available from certain cities. These settlements have their own locations and events available. This was the biggest piece of content I've been working on. I pushed what I've written through a word counter, and I've learned two things:

  1. These new settlements currently include roughly an hours worth of text if you were to sit down and read it all
  2. My most used word is cock (whoops)

These settlements tend to offer better locations and events than other settlements, so if you want to find a specific type of town, you definitely have something to search for. Here's a few clues to what you can expect when the new settlements land:

  1. Ports have the distinct advantage of taking you to places that you can't walk.
  2. Farms tend to have a lot of caravans heading towards places that consume a lot of food.
  3. Trade cities have to be getting those elven goods from somewhere.
  4. Temples are just one side of the religion coin when it comes to the republic.
  5. Academies have lots of people who would like to explore the more exotic corners of the world.
  6. Citadels have to be moving those soldiers somewhere.

The second critical thing I want to hold has to do with illnesses, diseases, and afflictions. Every bit of text I have ready is placeholder, and I'm not confident that it's going to work as intended with tomorrow's release. This also has to do with the fact that the additional settlements are not ready.

A few things that I want to release as soon as possible are additional perks and sub-races. These definitely need a little more work before they go live, and are guaranteed to be in the next update. If I finish things early enough tomorrow, I might be able to fit these in this update, but I can't promise anything at the moment.

I've had a lot of fun writing some of the upcoming content. I'm actually surprised at how much writing I've gotten done over the past two weeks. The game is starting to feel much more complete, both in features and in content. This update is more about making the game more polished and feature complete. The next update that I push out will be more about filling out content. The really good news about the way things are going,

Expect this update around midnight -6:00 CST tomorrow. I may even technically be a few minutes late, since I have a lot of polishing to finish before releasing, but I promise not to hold it back more than an hour.

I have more to post tomorrow in regards to what's coming in the next update now that I can focus entirely on content for a good solid month or two. I just want to get everything here complete before I start listing everything that's almost complete for the next update.

I'm fairly excited about getting this update ready!

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Weekend Progress Update and Status Upgrade

I'm pleased to say that progress on the engine has reached a point that I'm really happy with. Going forward, everything is going to be about designing and writing, adding new features and content, and polishing things up. In terms of content, I've seen a lot of things that I'd like to explore, and I have plenty of plans myself. There should be very little in terms of technical progress over the next month, as almost everything will involve writing or gameplay additions.

During the next week, I'll be finalizing a lot of writing and importing everything that I've been working on. The progress report I'm posting doesn't have everything that I've done, because I'm not including things I've written but haven't actually fully implemented yet. Those things will be included in the final progress update before the next release. With that said, timelines should be complete within the next few days as well, as I've made a lot of progress on that, as well. That means the next release will have an actual goal, and a world that becomes more difficult.

Pictured below is the current status screen. It's definitely starting to get more packed with data, but I still have more to go. There's a lot going on in the game sometimes, and more and more of it needs to be exposed in a way that makes sense, but doesn't bog down the game. It also now displays descriptions of whatever items or perks you hover over.


Thanks to everyone who has reported any bugs they've experienced so far. I've been squashing them as fast as I come across them.

This Week's Progress:

- Standardized the way stats are modified for faster writing
- Food selection now displays cost next to button. Food prices currently remain the same:
- Scarce: 5
- Reasonable: 10
- Abundant: 30
- Selecting a type of food higher than what you can afford will cause you to downsize your diet
- "Expanded Stats" block added to status screen to display level, experience, experience until next level, fame, combat bonus, and virginity status
- Status screen now has a reader that will describe items or perks you have as you mouse over them
- Combat score stat added to make total combat modifier visible
- Additional UI polishing
- Finished delivery system: going forward, new content and hot fixes should be available sooner
- This also means that users don't have to download a new copy every other day
- Configuration menu added to the title screen to hold a few options to customize the user interface
- Configuration can also be accessed from the options menu mid-game
- Your configuration will be remembered and loaded every time the game starts
- Various new items added to different locations
- Perks in the previous release that weren't functional now work as intended
- Implemented all of the perks listed in the last post
- Fixed: Stats locking at 100
- Fixed: Missing "Feisty" description
- Fixed: Drinking at the tavern now provides the (small amount of) mood increase intended
- Fixed: "Healthy" not being selectable as a base perk at start
- Fixed: Perks becoming locked for no actual reason
- Fixed: Negotiation text sometimes cutting off and displaying random numbers
- Fixed: Saving in a data slot deleting the other data slots

Friday, February 5, 2016

Perk Tree In-Progress

This is just a current work-in-progress for the perk tree. While all of the perks listed are included in the next release, it is still being expanded upon. Some perks that have existed since the first alpha have been tweaked, while others have been made functional with new features.

White boxes are base perks, which can be selected during character creation, or selected without any pre-requisites.
Yellow boxes are advanced perks, which can be selected at any time by anyone, provided they have the pre-requisites.
Orange boxes are racial perks, and can only be selected by the race described by the perk. Versatility line is for humans. Half-elves are both humans and elves.
Black boxes are special perks, which can never be manually selected. Special perks are either built into your race (i.e. small halflings/goblins) or given through special events.


Thursday, February 4, 2016

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Bounty Alpha 2

Greetings, everybody!

I'm releasing a new build with the changes from yesterday's post, along with a few additional changes in this post. The biggest reason I want to do this is that the first alpha is functionally unplayable, with an 8% chance for the game to crash each encounter (11% if safety is low, 6% if safety is high). This does not include any new features that are planned for the Feb 13 build. Due to the changes I'm going to be making in the next two weeks, this will be the last release until the planned date.

Edit - The alpha has been updated to 2.1 in order to fix two more crashes.


If you discover any other inconsistencies or crashes, please report them, and I'll fix them as soon as I can. I also feel like it's worth mentioning that I haven't gone over and attempted to balance skills, stats, or perks. 

Additional Changes

  • Perks that grant sex skill increases no longer increase the base skill, as this increases the experience required to level those skills. It is now calculated seperately
  • The icon used for the executable has been updated, along with the executable renamed.
  • Location events now display changes made to your life, hygiene, mood, and experience. Warnings/restrictions for locations that would have your character do something that opposes the rules you've set in your options are not yet implemented.

Alpha 2.1 Change

  • Soap no longer crashes the game when you try to save, nor does it cause bounty hunters to crash the game if you defeat them. Thanks for reporting this bug!

"FantasyH"

If you were wondering why the original executable was named FantasyH, it is because the project had flipflopped quite a bit before I settled on what's now known as Bounty. I hadn't shared a playable build with anyone, so I had forgotten to rename it.

The initial plan for the game was to be a similar concept in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, but without any sort of goal or threat. It was purely a sandbox. I didn't feel like it was very fun, or offered any sort of unique aspect that would bring anyone to enjoy it more than any other h-game, so the concept was hammered into what's now known as Bounty.

Another fun fact: this is what originally inspired the concept of timelines. For example, if there is a demand, the original game concept could easily be implemented using the timeline system, modifying locations, events, and races, and goals.

Anyhow, there's no hiding what my biggest plan for the Feb 13th release is - I want the timeline system to be functional, including the first (default) timeline. This means the game will actually progress, and there will be an end-game. I still have a good chunk of writing to progress through, but it should be easily completed at this stage. 

There's a lot of other improvements in the works for that release, as well. There are a lot of features that I really want to get implemented, but I'll have to tackle them one-at-a-time. After seeing what people have to say about the project, I think a lot of you are going to be really pleased as updates churn out (or at least I hope you are!)

Yesterday's Poll

According to the poll yesterday, there's a close split between scrolling up and down passages of text, and progressing text with the next button. I'm glad no one is in favor of cutting text. The temporary solution I added yesterday is a simple scroll bar that allows the user to view all of the text at once. I'll have a new solution sometime in the future, although it's not the highest priority at the moment. Thanks to everyone who took the poll!

Posts on Patreon

This blog has been used as a tool by me to communicate with everybody, along with spewing any updates and changes as I complete them. I talk about a lot of upcoming things, along with what I'm doing right now. If you're following or supporting my Patreon, I'm not going to spam you with the same updates. 

For right now, the only posts I'll be making on the Patreon page will be new releases. This blog will remain the best place to keep up to date on everything related to the project, while Patreon posts will only include a simplified list of releases.






Monday, February 1, 2016

Additional Progress and Poll

This has been a pretty busy day for me. I don't normally get anything done on weekdays, but I've been pretty energetic. I squeezed in a bit of time this morning, and did some work this evening. This is sort of a freak accident, because I rarely have free time unless it's a weekend. I'll be squeezing more time into this project over the next few weeks, though.

I've been kicking a few ideas about for handing large screens of text. If you played the alpha, you've noticed that text just runs off of the screen when too much appears. I've currently fixed this by adding a scroll bar, but I wanted to get some feedback from the community on what people find more "comfortable". If you have ten seconds, let me know which you prefer in this poll.

Today's Progress


  • Title screen officially added.
  • Shops visited in locations are populated with a few items. More to come.
    • Added soap, luxurious soap, silver combs, and buckler to various location merchants
  • One unit of soap or luxurious soap is now consumed each morning to increase the amount of hygiene you recover. Luxurious soap can increase hygiene as high as 130.
  • The highest qualities of foods can now increase your health as high as 130.
  • Negotiate text has been modified to show what the original request was.
  • Text that is too large for the screen can now be viewed with a scroll bar.
  • Fixed: Many instances of stats dropping into the negative, or exceeding the cap.
  • Fixed: Game crash upon rough intercourse or generally being handled too roughly. Thanks everyone who reported this in the comments, it really helped me hunt down the problem!
  • Fixed: Negotiating causing text to become misaligned or improperly spaced.
  • Fixed: Random encounter text using hands sometimes pulling text from oral.
  • Fixed: Experience and leveling now properly functions. Experience for sex acts grants experience to both the skill and as generic character experience.
    • Once a skill gains enough experience (listed on the statistics screen in gray) that skill increases.
    • When your character gains enough generic experience, you gain an additional perk.

Patreon

As of a few minutes ago, I officially have a Patreon for anyone interested in supporting the project. The picture for my Patreon account was assembled as the new icon for the executable going forward. I'm not the best artist.

I want to thank the community for their involvement thus far. I'm still set for a new release on February 13th.

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Bounty Alpha

I've just released the Bounty alpha in the previous post. I ended up waiting until the very last minute of January, because there was a lot I needed to work on. There still is, which is why it's labeled as an alpha. It's not feature complete, and I have a lot more content in the works for the upcoming weeks. If anything, I really wanted to get this out there for everybody to throw some feedback around, and just get it in the hands of the community in general.

This game is not in it's final fun, feature-complete stage. Many features do not work as intended. No play style is viable, as many features are missing, and the game is currently unbeatable. It is a very bare-bones engine. Download at your own peril.

In all honesty, I'm ashamed at how incomplete Bounty feels right now. A lot of it is still in the pipelines. I've already fixed a few of the issues in the alpha I've released. I'm going to dedicate the next two weeks to releasing a significantly more stable version with a few additional features. My plan is to release the game on February 13th - if anyone wants to hold off on the alpha download, come back on Valentine's day for a much-enhanced version!

Known Issues

  • Random encounter text is very patchy, and the vast majority of the time, encounters using your hands will read text as if it's oral.
  • Universities in academy settlements have the option to take classes, but it is currently disabled due to last minute changes in the way it's handled.
  • For a similar reason, weapon training in fortress settlements (at the barracks) is disabled, and will do absolutely nothing.
  • This is a test build - you're only supposed to be able to visit one location per day, but the game will currently allow you to visit as many as you want in succession.
  • Location events do not display text detailing what your experience and stat changes are, and sometimes run off of the screen.
  • The world does not progress - it's effectively an endless mode stuck at difficulty 1, and doesn't provide much challenge
  • Settlement races have been disabled due to some wonky behavior, and will be reactivated in the next version.
  • Some perks do not function as intended.
  • It is impossible to lose your virginity in location-based events, no matter how often you have sex. 
  • I didn't notice this one until the alpha went live, but none of the shops are loading as intended. If you visit the shops located in the docks, the armory, the shady shop, or the magic shop, you won't see any options.
  • Another edit to this post - apparently experience gains aren't granting levels as intended, either. I sure dropped the ball on this one.

The Future

  • I have a lot of content in the works for this game, and a lot of features planned out or half-complete.
  • Timelines will be implemented sooner than most other features, as it's really going to open up the difficulty and options before the game starts.
  • A lot of polish is necessary, as right now, things can seem obtuse or buggy.
  • Encounter text needs to be overhauled, with more smooth transitions and additional flavor text.
  • As of the alpha build, races do not function as fully as intended. Humans receive two perks, and some other races have attribute tweaks, but do not otherwise have an effect. Races are going to be expanded upon by giving unique text and events to every race.
  • Many perks still need to be added. Small trees exist right now, but they still need to be fleshed out.
  • Currently, the only version available for download is a Windows executable. Future versions will run on additional platforms, but given the current release being in such an unstable state, I decided it'd be best to hold off on porting until more work is done.
  • Travel encounters have been cut from the current release, due to something I can only describe as "unexpected interactions". These will be added in a future release.
  • Additional settlements, locations, and events are coming, although these aren't the biggest priority at the moment.
  • Diseases and illness - Having low hygiene will increase the chances of contracting something you'd rather not deal with. Any and all afflictions can be cured using items, shops, and locations.

Option Menu Explained

Random encounters are controlled by setting rules in the options menu. The common settings are:
  • Resist - You'll always decline this action, and if you're forced, you'll physically fight back.
  • Decline - You'll always decline this action, but you won't risk fighting back, and will submit.
  • Accept - You'll always accept this action, but you'll refuse internal cumshots.
  • Inside - You'll always accept this action, no matter the circumstance.
Price modifies how much you earn from random encounters. "Cheap" grants you a bonus to negotiation, while "Expensive" grants you a penalty.

Safety modifies the amount of clients you can encounter. High safety reduces the amount of encounters you can have, but reduces the likelihood of any form of danger. Low safety has the inverse effect.

None of this is properly explained in the game at the moment, so I figured I'd explain it here. The next release will have proper explanations.

Supporting Bounty

Right now, I don't have any place to accept donations, nor do I have a Patreon. It is something I might add over the next few days. To me, the most important thing right now is to put the game out there and work hard on both completing it and fixing it's flaws, regardless of whether or not it's profitable. This is a project I've wanted to work on myself, and I'm going to, no matter what happens.

That being said, having a Patreon or other places where I could accept donations would really help me push things along. Honestly, my dream goal here would be to bring enough donations in so that I could quit my day job, and just work on Bounty and other projects full-time. Over the next few days, I'll post some way to provide support.

Supporting this project will always be optional, as Bounty will always remain free for public consumption.

I'm also going to spend more time checking this blog, and interacting with people in general. I've seen that ULMF has a thread on Bounty, and sometime in the next few days, I'll register there so that people can throw whatever they want at me. I'll also be opening up an e-mail account dedicated to my work, so that anybody will be able to privately send requests, reports, or general discussions.

I'm fairly exhausted after pounding out today's work. I'll be increasing my activity over the next few days, and I hope it pays off. I have even more to work out in the days ahead, but it's something I'm looking forward to.


One final word - the biggest thing delaying things up 'til this point was a chain of crashes that took more time than I anticipated to hunt down. If you do play the alpha and experience any crashes, contact me with any information you may have about it. Most of the crashing should be solved.

It is 11:59PM on January 31st

And I'm keeping my word:

Bounty (Alpha) Download

I'll be posting a more lengthy post immediately after this, I just wanted to get this out there first.

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Danger and the Road to Release

I've been working on what I'm going to generically refer to as "danger". Danger is the chance of something happening that you didn't want to happen. A lot of the difficulty in Bounty will come from danger. A fairly-clean character who rarely (if ever) sells themselves for coin will take significantly fewer risks than a character who accepts everyone in the street. Shady people might solicit you for something simple, before leading you somewhere isolated and attacking you. Other people might attempt to rape you, and you'll have to decide whether to attempt to escape, or to accept what's coming in an attempt to minimize harm. There is also always the possibility of a partner being much more rough or violent with your body during intercourse. Finally, the least damaging but still unwelcome danger is when someone unexpectedly cums inside your character against your will. These are all things that can make an encounter quite sour, especially considering that attackers certainly don't pay you.

There are a few options to defend against these situations. The first (and best) defense is to minimize the chance of danger by increasing the safety option in the rules menu. This will have a direct impact on the amount of encounters per night. A common method of defense is to arm yourself with easily concealed (yet expensive) blades, which will help you in fending off would-be attackers. However, don't forget that you're not a skilled heroine armed with a magic sword - you're an untrained, desperate fugitive who has a sharp object. Orc women begin the game armed with a small axe and a little bit of axe skill. Another alternative is to raise the body attribute, which will aid in fighting and escaping. Finally, certain perks modify dangerous situations. For example, the Nympho perk, which is unlocked after taking the Party Girl perk, negates the mood penalty and reduces damage taken from rape/rough encounters that you 100% submit to, resulting in a character who would often benefit from being submissive and not defending themselves. Be careful with some perks, as some perks that augment vaginal sex (Tight Pussy and Naturally Wet) also increase the chances of taking an unwanted internal cumshot.

Now that I've talked about the now-completed danger mechanic, I want to talk about the upcoming release of Bounty.

As of right now, Bounty is playable. You can lose, you can progress from settlement to settlement, and the main management aspects are complete. Encounters for selling yourself are fully functional. Bounty is not, however, ready for release, as a lot of content is missing. I've been working on the framework and the encounter system for the past few weeks, as the rest of the game needs to be built upon it. As such, most of the remaining work involves writing and completing existing features.

Despite only having time to work on this during the weekends, I feel like progress is still happening fast enough. Instead of posting an update every time I complete some major work, I'm posting a checklist of what needs to be completed before I release the game. Whenever I complete something on this list, I'll come back and cross it off. This is to streamline the process of recording my progress, and to keep all of you updated on what needs to be completed before release. This list doesn't include everything being worked on, but the major updates that need to be completed. I estimate that I'll be able to finish everything below before the end of January.

Things to complete before release:
  • Write and implement group encounters
  • Complete all bounty hunter encounters (most resulting in game over)
  • Polish existing encounter text and rewrite placeholder text
  • Implement all endings
  • Write the intro
  • Complete travel encounters
  • Complete settlement traits
  • General polishing for public consumption
I've already decided that I'll be supporting Bounty after launch, and will be adding new features and content not present in the base game. I already have a list of a few things I want to work on, but don't want to delay the game for. I'll reveal those at a later date. Bounty will always remain a free game. It is currently intended for a "successful" ending to take a little over an hour to achieve, ignoring any and all dead characters and failed attempts. I assume that most players will play the game in what they feel is the most appealing way, but I hope that people will also try other character types out. If you played this game to make a human who sells anal in an alleyway in every city, I hope you enjoyed it enough to make a halfling that's been gangbanged in every tavern, or a mostly-pure high elf that gets people off with her feet when short on money.

If you ever want to leave questions, feedback, or requests, leave a comment on one of the posts on this blog. I will definitely read all of the comments, and I will answer them whenever I get a chance.