Inheritance Progress Report, Pregnancy, and other news!

Today's progress report:

-Spent about two hours writing and coding today.  Finished up a second significant interactive scene today and got all the code in place for it to work.  Once the current test build is released, it should only take me an hour or so to get all of the new content in place.  Expect that to happen some time over the weekend (Got the new build coming out tomorrow, I'll give 24 hours for bug reports and if everything looks good then I'll start dropping the new content into the game for the next test build.)

-Spent about six hours reading "Pregnancy for Dummies" *shudder* as I prepare to start writing pregnancy related content for Inheritance.  Any remaining work time I have this week around tomorrow's release will be spent working on early pregnancy related content (Will be working on this a bit at a time for a while.  Hopefully that way I can have a good chunk of it written by the time the coders finish with the mechanical end of things.

Pregnancy:

For those of you who are Patrons, this is mostly for you guys.  For the rest of you, read along and if this is something important to you, keep in mind that helping make decisions like this is one of the perks of being a Patron.

-From the start, we've planned to include pregnancy in Inheritance (And likely most, if not all, of our future projects).

-The goal is to present a detailed pregnancy from conception to birth involving scenes and interactions related to the pregnancy.

-We have always planned to make pregnancy an optional feature so it can be avoided by people who have no interest in the fetish.

-It has always been planned to explore pregnancy within the game seriously.  As such some pregnancies will be harder than other (One pregnancy may be a cake walk, another may be hard on the mother with her being sick and sore much of the time, most of them will be somewhere in between.)

Now, on to the meat of what I have to say on this subject:

-First, thank you to everyone who voted in yesterday's poll, and for the respectful and often insightful comments many of you made concerning the sensitive issues we were talking about.  I wasn't entirely sure how people would react to such sensitive and potentially heartbreaking subject matter, and it meant the world to me that we could (In spite of some differing views) have a surprisingly open and respectful conversation on the subject.  Thank you.

-In games, especially in those of an erotic nature, it is important that we create quality content and do out best to present well thought out & meaningful content.  You all should know by now that I approach all of my work from a story first perspective, with erotica/porn being important but of secondary concern.  After all, what's the point of the porn if we aren't enjoying the overall experience?  With all of that for context, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the pregnancy elements within the game and how far I want to take things.  A complete and meaningful pregnancy is set in stone, it IS going to happen.  However I started to think about the sensitive and emotional elements of the game and started to think about how the various characters may deal with a truly difficult pregnancy where something might go wrong, or even if heartwrenching tragedy might strike.  It didn't take much thinking before I decided that while such content may be a very special element within the game but also be a bit more than many people may want to see (I admit, I had some reservations about its inclusion on a couple of levels, but I wanted to hear the community response before I passed judgement on whether or not it would appear in the game.  Ultimately we have decided that we will not be exploring pregnancy complications or birth defects within the pregnancy system.

-Just because we won't be actively exploring these topics through the pregnancy system does not mean they will not appear within the game.  I actually have two disabled characters I would like to include in the game eventually (And possibly more if I think of anything more that can add something meaningful to the game) and I will not shy away from including them in the game because I think they will be meaningful and significant additions to the game.  The same stands for difficult pregnancies.  While I have nothing currently planned related to that topic, if there comes a time where I think an NPC will become a more meaningful character because of their experiences in something like that, then its possible that the topic will be explored in a limited manner that way.

-I won't shy away from sensitive issues in my games, but sensitive issues fall into two groups in my mind.  1. Important to the game.  These items include things like the emotional trauma Anna and Eve display within Inheritance.  I think they are necessary to tell the tale I have set out to tell and they WILL be in the game because of that. and 2. Supplemental to the game.  These items include things like birth defects and pregnancy complications like the ones I briefly mentioned above and covered in a little more detail in my post accompanying yesterday's post.  These are things I think have the potential to add something special to the game and I think can be handled in a respectful and meaningful way but do not define the setting or the game in the same way the Important elements might.  As such I will plan to approach the community to discuss the subject and put it to a vote as to whether or not the subject matter will be included in the game, or to what degree it will be represented.

-Any time a potentially sensitive subject comes up related to my projects, I encourage everyone to share their thoughts and opinions in a respectful manner.  We don't always have to agree on everything, but I do ask that we handle such things in a respectful and tolerant manner.  Sometimes we just have to agree to disagree.  After all, for every person who thinks someone is out of their mind for thinking something, there's someone on the flip side of that coin thinking the same of that first person.  Never be afraid to speak your mind with me either through posts or through private message.  I appreciate blunt honestly so long as its presented from the heart and not inflammatory in intent.

Everything else:

-Tomorrow is a date day with my wife.  I'll be out much of the day.  In other words if you send me a message or post a comment, I'm not ignoring you, I'll reply once I get home again.  ;)

-I've got a small mountain of art I'm sitting on right now.  A wallpaper as well as about 75 pieces related to the paper doll system.  I have every intention of getting them posted but I keep getting busy with other stuff and forgetting (Yeah, its my fault.  Can't blame anyone but me on this one.)  I'll be hoping to remedy that in the coming days.  Wallpapers will be released to all Patrons though higher levels will see them before others.  There are not currently any plans to release wallpapers publicly.  WIP art related to the Paper Doll system will be released in small themed posts (Breasts, faces, etc)

-Just commissioned four new pieces of art for Wanton Cove today.

-Inheritance A8 will be released tomorrow.

-Since I worked on Inheritance this week and the tail end of last week, we're in a unique situation where we'll be seeing a new Inheritance build two weeks in a row.  Because of potential problems between builds I am refraining from actually adding any of the A9 content to the game even in the background.  A8 will be given 24 hours for bug reports then I will put together a fix build for anything reported.  Assuming nothing significant comes up then I will start adding A9 content to the game as soon as any fix is released with the intent to have a TEST build for next week's release up by the end of the weekend.

-New "What do I work on this coming week" poll will be posted some time in the next two days.  Winner of the poll becomes my focal point next week.

I don't think that's everything for now.  Next post out of me  will likely either be art, or a new build of Inheritance!