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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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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.