Let's talk about the future of The Fixer

First of all, I couldn't title this post in a way that didn't sound ominous. There is no bad news in this post. I want to talk about where The Fixer is heading and put in brief the results of the votes over the past two months.

TL;DR, more boobs, 3 new flatmates and new world events will be worked on.

First of all, development will be slightly different than it has been over the past year. Previously I focused entirely on one specific area, first the Haven storyline and then the school. I did this because I needed to use these areas as a testbed and close to final example of how the future of the game will play and how I will work on it. The most obvious examples are the random events at school and how they trigger as well as the events involving characters. In the school you have 3 different character examples. The bully events are run purely by the random event's picker, the soccer boys are more of a dating sim style "grind love to unlock more" while the dance troupe pushes a more linear, story based event chain. I needed to learn from developing this content so I could push forward on events for the rest of the game.

With all that said, work in future will no longer be focused in one location but spread out much more across the entire game. Initially I will prioritise events that have a much more wide ranging impact such as street prostitution, the gloryhole event chain, city random events and other event's that are possible to trigger all over Blaston. 

So, onto the conclusion of the votes.

Breast size customisation. In short, adding new breast sizes while keeping breasts getting larger the more heavily pregnant you are is too much work. So the vote was keep the current system of one size that gets larger the more pregnant you are or 3 choosable sizes that stay the same size throughout pregnancy. The crutch of the vote was that it would take time to transition over to the new system. The result was about 20% in favour of adding new breasts. A victory for more breasts, but not a decisive one. So with that in mind, new breast sizes will be added, but at a slower pace so events and other parts of the game can still be worked on.

Breast sizes are not decided on yet and this image is for illustration purposes only.

Story and event focus. The choice was given on what players would prefer to see more of in the world. The options were main storyline, character events/storylines or world events/storylines. The results were heavily in favour of world events. This will include things such as street prostitution, gloryhole event chain, expanded pub job, random street events and places/events to improve your stats. 

Flatmates. 6 possible flatmate options were given and there could be 3 winners (plus Emile for a total of 4 flatmates). The Diva and the Nerd struggled to pick up votes while the Chad came in a close 4th. The winners were the Trap in 3rd, the Outcast in 2nd with the Tomboy taking the top spot. With the issue of flatmates decided, work can progress on Sammy's home life.

Game navigation. I asked for feedback on peoples experiences navigating the town and offered an alternative, much more simplified layout and way for getting around.

Current layout

Proposed layout

 The responses were fairly consistent. Current layout is fine, but work needs to be done to improve it all and make everything more understandable. Plus add a map. 

And that brings us to the now. Work on the school is close to being done and and we will see beta builds being pushed soon in preparation for a public release. While there are still plenty of stories that can be added to the school, it can wait a bit for now and let other areas see some love. 

Once the update is released, work will begin on what you just read about above. There are some other aspects I will be working on that I haven't talked about yet, but I will leave that for another post.