Last-Minute Update

That's the plan! the sex scene system I have planned will hopefully impress!

ThaumX

Good idea Aketemo ^-^

ThaumX

ThaumX, I'd probably suggest adding that bit of story to the Overview of the game. It's really interesting and I'm sure new people would love to read it. :)

Aketemo

Gosh, so many things to manage in this game. I don't know how these will inpact gameplay, but I hope that other features that matter in these types of games will be detailed enough too.

CeLezte

Love~

1

Well I know that depth in the mundane can be tedious for a lot of people, so i'm glad that you're going the extra mile to make it unobtrusive to people who might not like it.

Triangleman09

I like how you're taking things it adds depth, I've played plenty of 3d online adult games where its all about sex, that's great and all for a while, but you eventually get bored. I feel like you're setting up this game to have a lot of replayability which is great.

Doctor Fate

By far the majority of content will be erotic, don't worry ;) This is a life sim, so there are some elements of simulation present. However, all the simulation aspects are largely of the opt-in type, being mostly automatic unless you WANT to mess with them. The more detailed items are generally detailed for an erotic purpose. Clothing is detailed to support exhibitionism and lewd behavior in public. The items in the post above are only seen once a week, which is fairly infrequently in terms of gameplay time. They can also be clicked through without changing anything. The main purpose of these screens are to occupy a few seconds while a lot of processing is going on in the background to update all of the NPCs and generate new ones. The problem I've seen with many games is that there is a lack of mechanical detail, which isn't noticeable at first, but starts to become more obvious as play progresses, and eventually feels restricting and possibly repetitive. The goal with many of AW's mechanics is to support what the player wants to do, and otherwise stay out of the way.

ThaumX

Story is broken up into a few different sections. a) main story - essentially turning into a woman (or being chased to Appletree later on) and the progress the player makes or doesn't make towards resolving that. A fairly non-invasive storyline that comes into play in the prologue and to a variable extent towards the end of the game. b) NPC storylines split into two types. permanent NPC stories, such as with Lily, and the story thread system with generated NPCs. c) job storylines, based on your employment d) environment storylines, which are different arcs not focused on a specific NPC, such as joining a cult. e) random events f) most importantly, the story the players develop for themselves. As for gating, there will be three methodologies, though all are controlled by the player. The most noticeable are the content restrictions. These are things like "no violence" that will automatically limit what the player is able to see. These can be enabled/disabled at any time. The second are "soft gates" where certain kinks are limited by character creation. if you don't check "waterworks okay" for example, you'll avoid most of that content. The final are decision-based in story arcs, which are pretty much what you'd expect. If you choose to do X, Y gets closed off. Most arcs are independent of each other, with only some having a broader consequence for the game world. (you're playing a fairly normal non-epic person, so you wouldn't expect a whole town to react to your escapades with the book club.) Endings will be of the mix-and-match type. there will be several "Main endings" with details determined by different events in the game.

ThaumX

Starting to get a little worried. I feel like I'm going to play this game for the lewdness, and end up drudging through the micromanagement of clothes, outfits, mundane chores, and mundane inventory keeping.

dancecat

Are you planning to do an overarching story with side quests that are gated or is it mostly linear with a few branching paths? Will clothing and varied experiences of the character gate content?

IcingZero

I've done extensive planning on how the game will work, what kinds of content I'll be including, and how I'll build it. It's impossible to do a playthrough at this point, though I have time allotted for doing just that. I'll also be depending on player feedback. I have based most of the core elements of gameplay on other successful games, taking note about what I like and what I don't about various experiences. However, unlike more controlled game experiences, different people get different things out of these kinds of games. It's very similar to how people get different things out of books, visual novels, porn, and simulation games. My approach to design for AW is based around two elements: 1) creating an open experience that allows for a level of vicarious role playing in the style of traditional tabletop RPGs. (In comparison, most videogame RPGs are more focused on an overarching story and specific relationships, rather than PC development.) Obviously I can't reach the level of something like D&D, but I still think it's a solid aspiration. 2) providing rich and complex mechanics and story arcs in a reward-focused way. Some people will enjoy customizing clothing and hunting for clothes with better stats. Others won't. Spending a great deal of time on clothing isn't necessary at all, but doing so confers a reward based on structured diminishing returns. A player could spend 15 minutes of an entire playthrough on clothing, or they could spend hours. They can fine tune what their character wears from day to day or occasion to occassion, or set the automatic system once and forget about it. With fiction and story arcs, it's up to the player what they want to experience. They could mostly ignore all the story potential out there and focus on other things, or they could dig down into the pervertedly dark underbelly of the game world.

ThaumX

hehe, glad you like it!

ThaumX

Thats great)))

Your code work and organization skills are on point. As someone who has worked in game design - have you ironed out the design aspects ahead of time and done a playthrough to see what is fun and what isn't or are you using a previously tested model?

IcingZero

Best loading gif EVER.

Aftermath Team