Release 69: Elementalism

This release marks a major milestone: with the addition of Elemental Chosen, all of the species planned for campaign mode have been added to the game!  I enjoy adding new species with all their various gameplay twists, but any new species added after this point will be firmly in the realm of optional, postgame content.  I'll only be considering that sort of thing after campaign mode is done.  We're getting close.

Elemental Chosen are the counterpart to Mechanical Chosen.  Where Mechanical Chosen had a bunch of different Operations to force you to plan and navigate your route for how you'd corrupt them, Elemental Chosen are built around huge amounts of brute-force damage resistance.  They're unique among the advanced species in that the brunt of their damage resistance is applied to trauma damage, rather than circumstance damage (although they reduce that by a fair amount too).  They still require some finesse, though, because fighting them without breaking any Vulnerabilities causes them to directly advance the day counter.  Finally, their T3 Break moves are also unique in that their use of the moves applies damage reduction which gradually become stronger and stronger over time, even if they get Surrounded or Captured later.  I hope that they'll bring back the feeling of facing Animalistic Chosen in early loops, but at a level of difficulty appropriate for later loops, and with a few unique twists of their own.

Alongside Elemental Chosen, Elemental Forsaken are also now fully implemented!  Their general theme is that they deal huge amounts of damage, supported by bonus effects which are powerful, but which also come with some drawbacks to their usability.  For example, Elemental Second-in-Command Forsaken spend their Stamina to deal even greater damage, but as long as they're deployable, they stop any other Forsaken from being deployed.  Overall, Elemental Forsaken provide a lot more up-front power compared to Mechanical Forsaken, so the choice of which ones to unlock first in campaign mode should be an interesting one.

As I said further up, we're approaching the conclusion of campaign mode.  The main challenge now is the addition of the boss fights for Mechanical Chosen and Elemental Chosen.  Both of them are going to introduce some pretty crazy mechanics to the game, so I want to get an early start on working on them.  Until then, I hope that players will enjoy having the full selection of species to play with!

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Added Elemental Chosen to campaign mode following Love's defeat.
• Content: Added the Elemental Clash scenario to single play mode.
• Content: Added 16 new faces to the default portrait pack.
• Bugfix: Mechanical Chosen will no longer skip Operation levels when starting new Operations.
• Bugfix: Reign's Contagious Angst Distortion trait will now properly not give any bonus damage reduction to Devils.
• Bugfix: Resolved a rare crash that could happen when bargaining with Splendor.

Release 69b

• Bugfix: Resolved some buggy behavior in the "Force Level 3 Operation after suffering two T3 Breaks" effect for Mechanical Chosen.
• Bugfix: Resolved a couple of cases where Chosen belonging to species with special transformation outfits would fail to use them.

Release 69c

• Bugfix: Resolved some issues (including at least one crash) when appointing your save file's Forsaken to positions in single play mode, then converting that save to a campaign one.
• Bugfix: Resolved some buggy interactions between the Angelic Chosen's Ego Murder ability and Capture mechanics.

Release 68: Differentiation

This is an update which takes care of a bunch of minor things that were slated to be done before the introduction of the final advanced species, Elemental Chosen.  It includes a few final bugfixes and tweaks to Mechanical Chosen along with some additions to custom sex scenes.

The tweaks to how Mechanical Chosen work could be pretty significant depending on your playstyle.  Previously, it was possible to "run out of Breaks" before the Mechanical Chosen had progressed all the way to one of the Level 4 Operations.  Once the Mechanical Chosen had suffered Total Break in all Vulnerabilities, it wouldn't be possible to progress her to another Operation, and the only way to win the loop would be to have the final battle before the Operation's deadline.

In order to fix this, there are now alternative conditions to make the Mechanical Chosen progress directly to a later Operation level.  Mechanical Chosen who have suffered at least two T3 Breaks will progress directly to a Level 3 Operation, and Mechanical Chosen who have suffered at least two Total Breaks will progress directly to a Level 4 Operation.  This makes them easier in some ways, but more difficult in others.  It's now harder to farm energy from Mechanical Chosen for an early Imago Quickening while keeping them stuck in the easier Level 1 or Level 2 Operations.  But at the same time, you don't need to worry about running out of Vulnerability Breaks, because every fully-corrupted Mechanical Chosen will progress directly to the much easier Level 4 Operations.

The custom sex scene additions are mostly focused around making the different species feel unique.  Most of the changes are just to the number balance, but there are also a couple of new actions.  The first action, "Hack," can only be targeted at Mechanical bodies, and only by other Mechanical bodies or by the Demon Lord.  Mechanical Chosen now innately feel much less pleasure during custom sex scenes, but the Hack action multiplies their bodies' sensitivity, and it can be stacked multiple times.  The other action, "Tentacle Bondage," allows non-player participants to tie each other up for the first time.  So, if you want one of your Forsaken to be able to tie the others up during custom sex scenes, just customize her body to give her tentacles and see what she does!

Next month will be the introduction of Elemental Chosen.  Their gameplay mechanics are actually quite simple, and their Forsaken counterparts don't have anything nearly as complicated as the Mechanical Forsaken basebuilding system, so I expect that there won't be any need to split them across two releases this time.  The bosses associated with Mechanical and Elemental Chosen, however, are another story.  They're going to push the gameplay system of Corrupted Saviors to its limits, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Custom Sex Scenes: Added body customization for number of arms.  Gallu Devil Chosen are now generated with 4 arms.
• Custom Sex Scenes: Added option to give bodies tentacles.  Added the "Tentacle Bondage" action, usable with tentacles.
• Custom Sex Scenes: Animalistic bodies now have greater endurance and sensitivity.
• Custom Sex Scenes: Undead bodies are now less sensitive, but have overwhelmingly greater endurance.
• Custom Sex Scenes: Angel bodies now gain greater pleasure from actions which give their partner pleasure.
• Custom Sex Scenes: Devil bodies are tougher and inherently sadistic (gaining pleasure from actions which cause trauma and hatred), but also gain HATE much more quickly.
• Custom Sex Scenes: Mechanical bodies now have much lower sensitivity, but greater endurance.
• Custom Sex Scenes: Added the "Hack" action usable on Mechanical bodies by other Mechanical bodies and by the Demon Lord, which multiplies the subject's sensitivity.
• Balance: Mechanical Chosen with at least two T3 Breaks will now always start a L3 Operation.  Mechanical Chosen with at least two Total Breaks will now always start a L4 Operation.
• Interface: Reign's display in the Bosses screen now summarizes the global bonuses granted by her corruption.
• Bugfix: Mechanical Operation: Excise Sinful Impulses will no longer prevent new T3 Break moves from being unlocked.
• Bugfix: Mechanical Chosen will properly report when the protection of Operation: Observe Demonic Battle Tactics expires.
• Bugfix: Save compatibility will now be checked for "Next City" options generated before switching to a new version.
• Bugfix: Mechanical Chosen will now be smarter about estimating future damage for T1 Break purposes.
• Bugfix: The pregnancy progress of spared Forsaken will no longer be frozen.
• Other: Campaign custom Chosen may now be set to adopt multiple species in order to fit themselves into a city.

Release 68b

• Bugfix: Resolved a custom sex scene crash involving regular human Chosen.
• Bugfix: Resolved a vignette crash with Minor Dignity Chosen.
• Bugfix: Corrected some damage overflow code which wasn't working properly.
• Bugfix: Abrogation Resonators will no longer trigger improperly when a multiple of 3 have been built.
• Bugfix: Some Level 4 Mechanical Operations with swapped in-battle text have been fixed.
• Bugfix: Megalomaniac Chosen killed by Megalomaniac Splendor will still be counted as "broken" for the purpose of their species-specific achievements.
• Bugfix: Megalomaniac Mechanical Chosen killed by Megalomaniac Splendor will still be counted as "broken" for the purpose of the Tandem Resonator.
• Bugfix: Non-Distorted Mechanical Forsaken spared via Splendor will properly grant their Corrupt Capacitors.
• Bugfix: The option to customize Boss Chosen before starting campaign mode will now be properly displayed again.

Release 67: Industrialization

This update integrates the newly-added Mechanical Chosen into campaign mode after Judgment has been defeated, adding their associated warp route and their functionality as Mechanical Forsaken once defeated!  In their initial state, Mechanical Forsaken are almost identical to the regular Forsaken you'd get from beating the Chosen of Loop 1.  They have the ability to Release targets before the natural end of the Capture, but they lack the damage buffs and other innate effects that usually make advanced species stronger.

However, Mechanical Forsaken have the ability to generate Mechanical Parts.  There are 7 types of Mechanical Part, corresponding to the 6 Distortions plus 1 type of part generated by Mechanical Forsaken who were defeated without a Distortion.  Once any Mechanical Parts have been generated, the "Other Minions" menu in Forsaken management will become the "Base" menu where you can combine any pair of Mechanical Parts to create Constructions.

The Constructions created from two of the same Mechanical Part grant small global buffs to all of your Forsaken.  However, the true power of the Construction system is unlocked by combining different kinds of Mechanical Part together.  Many Constructions grant buffs specifically to Mechanical Forasken, and these buffs all stack multiplicatively with each other, which means that heavy investment into the Construction system can let your Mechanical Forsaken reach damage values far beyond what's possible for other Forsaken.

In order to give players a chance to experiment with the system before trying to master it late in a campaign mode run, I've added a new "Parts" cheat for campaign and single play runs which gives you a bunch of Mechanical Parts to try building with.  If you want to see what they can do, I'd recommend also customizing one of your Forsaken in cheat mode in order to change her species to Mechanical so she can benefit from the buffs.

Aside from the usual bugfixes and tweaks, this update also adds some code contributed by Keldon which can load player-written mods from the options menu without needing to download an entirely separate version of the game.  Presently, it's not really practical to use since it doesn't have any supporting documentation or examples written, but I plan on fixing that soon.  Take this as a preview of what's to come.

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Added Mechanical Chosen to campaign mode following Judgment's defeat.
• Content: Added the Base menu and construction system after any Mechanical Forsaken parts have been generated.
• Balance: The Mechanical Clash scenario will now provide the player with slightly more items.
• Interface: The Chosen profile display now tracks how many times you've made a truce together while on the Negotiation Distortion path.
• Interface: Even when the Chosen are all Surrounded or Captured, the current extermination progress rate per free Chosen will still be shown.
• Bugfix: Resolved some cases where Mechanical Chosen would start the wrong operation after having Vulnerabilities broken.
• Bugfix: The Entice Thralls operation will no longer incorrectly allow some non-PLEA-inflicting surround actions.
• Other: Added the Parts cheat to the cheat menu for generating Mechanical Forsaken parts in campaign or single play mode.
• Other: Added the Loop 21 warp route to campaign mode.
• Other: Added bare-bones support for player-created mods, contributed by Keldon.

Release 67b:

• Bugfix: Added some missing code that was causing Corrupt Capacitors to not be generated.
• Bugfix: Resolved an issue that was causing only Forsaken to properly increment their orgasm counts during custom sex scenes.

Release 66: Mechanization

With this release, we're once again pushing deeper into the gameplay features which will be needed in order to finish campaign mode.  And as the first step on that push, Mechanical Chosen have now been added to the game!  Mechanical Chosen have a pretty diverse set of abilities, and Mechanical Forsaken will introduce several more, so I ended up opting to focus purely on the Chosen side of things for this update.  The Mechanical Clash scenario has been added to single play mode, but facing Mechanical Chosen in campaign mode (and making use of their Forsaken counterparts) will have to wait for next month.

The theme of the Mechanical Chosen is that they represent human ingenuity and proactivity.  As such, they don't need to wait until the final battle before trying to destroy the Demon Lord.  Mechanical Chosen conduct "Operations" which count down, day-by-day, to the destruction of the Demonic hive (which means game over).  Furthermore, each Operation grants powerful bonuses to the Mechanical Chosen or to her team as a whole.  Operations can be disrupted by breaking the Mechanical Chosen's Vulnerabilities, but if you aren't careful, you might end up in a situation where the buff granted by the current Operation prevents you from progressing her corruption in the way you had planned.  More than any other species up to this point, Mechanical Chosen require you to plan ahead, so you should read up on what their Operations do and decide which ones you want to trigger!

Because so many of the Mechanical Chosen species were explicitly designed to be indistinguishable from humans at a casual glance, the number of new faces added to the default portrait pack is a bit smaller than usual.  (That said, the "inhuman"ness of the remaining ones is pretty striking - I got a lot of questions about what Mechanical Chosen would look like in the leadup to this update, and I hope those who were interested in this sort of thing will be happy with the result.)  In any case, this freed me up to go back and add more portraits to Animalistic Chosen.  The "songbird" Animalistic subspecies no longer just uses regular human portraits, so this should help people imagine how they're meant to look different despite their lack of animal ears.

This release also has a decent chunk of content commissioned by Kalloi!  The orgasm denial fetish vignette now has a continuation, and that continuation unlocks a new Forsaken tool, the Maid's Cage, which the subject can use to subject other Chosen to more of the same.  Furthermore, the orgasm denial fetish itself has also gotten a bit of new functionality, so that Chosen who have it maxed out will take extra PLEA from related actions in custom sex scenes, and the edged orgasm can end up so intense that it actually knocks them out.

In the coming month, I'm going to be working on the "minigame" that Mechanical Chosen will introduce when converted to Forsaken in campaign mode.  It'll be possible to start doing some pretty crazy things once you have Mechanical Chosen improving your hive.  Once this has been fully implemented, players who are interested in playing beyond the end of campaign mode should have some options that let them do so.

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Added the Mechanical Clash scenario to single play mode.
• Content: Added 12 new faces to the default portrait pack (10 for Mechanical Chosen, 2 for Animalistic Chosen).
• Content: Added one new vignette.
• Content: Added one new Forsaken tool, the Maid's Cage, unlocked by that vignette.
• Content: Added the orgasm denial vulnerability effect to Chosen with a maxed-out edging fetish for custom sex scenes.
• Interface: Clarified the trait transfer display when using the Velvet Key.
• Bugfix: Spared Forsaken will now correctly have their deployment in battle immediately cancelled.
• Bugfix: The item selection for Loop 15 will no longer break the random seeding in campaign mode.
• Bugfix: Resolved some cases where swapping Forsaken positions around wouldn't immediately take effect.
• Bugfix: Species-determined outfits (previously just mummies always wearing the cloth strips outfit, but now also armor pilot and robot maid Chosen) are now consistently applied.
• Bugfix: Resolved some crashes that could be caused by missing Favorite Forsaken smalltalk.

Release 65: Favoritism

This month's release has a single focus: expanding the "Favorite" Forsaken position so that the one in that position can actually talk about more than just her assessment of whether the currently-selected Commander is strong enough.  Whenever you don't have a Commander selected, your Favorite Forsaken will now instead speak on one of many new potential subjects.

The number of topics is quite high, including subjects like how her Vulnerabilities were broken (or, if they were left intact, her opinions regarding breaking them on other Chosen), her feelings about other Forsaken, her thoughts about the other Chosen species, about the boss Chosen, her thoughts on her former partners, and more.  For each of those subjects, the number of variants depending on her personality, her corruption, and her experiences is also quite high.  My hope is that this will help each Forsaken feel more unique, since even two Forsaken with the same initial personality can turn out quite differently depending on how you corrupt them and how you treat them after they become Forsaken.  Forsaken who have any traits relevant to the attitude system (currently just futanari Forsaken and Forsaken who have developed a stance toward orgasm denial training) also have some unique lines appropriate to their attitude.

I normally don't like to focus an update on just one feature like this, but the number of variants that needed to be written was very high, and this is the kind of feature that needs to be implemented all at once, rather than across multiple updates.  I was still able to fit in a couple of bugfixes and minor improvements, and a decent chunk of the month also went into preparing for the introduction of the next species: Mechanical Chosen.

Mechanical Chosen are one of the two endgame Chosen species, encompassing everything from Chosen who wear power armor all the way to outright robotic Chosen.  Their powers will test the player's ability to respond to a wide variety of challenges, and their difficulty is (of course) yet another step above Devil and Angel Chosen.  Next month's update is going to be a big one, so I hope you all look forward to it!

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Implemented "smalltalk" system which allows Forsaken to talk about subjects depending on their personality, corruption, and history (currently only used by the Forsaken in the Favorite position between battles).
• Interface: The natural (most efficient) reputation strength for Rampant Forsaken will now be automatically calculated and displayed in the Forsaken summary screen.
• Bugfix: Fixed a case where loading a campaign save file would put the player directly into battle instead of the shop screen.
• Bugfix: Resolved a crash that could happen when using the Hot Tag with an Aversion Forsaken's unique Defiler ability.
• Bugfix: Resolved some other improper behavior when using the Velvet Key to put the Aversion Defiler on non-Aversion Forsaken.

Release 64: Ecstasy

The main focus of this month's update was to finish the commented replay system.  It should now be fully functional, allowing players to share the exact sequence of moves for their runs in all scenarios and campaign mode!  I also fixed some minor bugs with the system while doing my usual playtest.  For an example of how this system can be used, it might be illuminating to check out SuperSkippy's walkthrough, which has been linked in the resources.txt file.  Even experienced players might be able to learn a thing or two by following along and seeing how a Chosen team can be quickly dismantled.

Although sexual content wasn't the focus of this release, there are still a few new additions to custom sex scenes which might be fun to play around with.  The orgasm system has been completely overhauled so that rather than just being something that happens during the 'damage' phase of the subject's turn, it now has duration and persistent effects.  Characters will usually use alternative dialogue when cumming, and they'll also comment when experiencing a particularly intense continuous orgasm.  Likelihood of continuous orgasm depends on the subject's Deviancy, her PLEA level, and the number of orgasms already experienced in the current scene.  Ruined orgasms get their own dialogue too.

A minor but very entertaining component of this system is that custom sex scene participants will have their speech distorted depending on whether they're continuously orgasming and on the intensity of that orgasm.  Characters using a "speech" type action (like dirty talk) will still say what they meant to say instead of using the orgasm dialogue, but their speech will be a bit messed up by the pleasure.  At very high PLEA levels, they can get pretty incoherent.

Much of the month was spent working on the "smalltalk" system which is meant to let your Favorite Forsaken comment on her history and (depending on Obedience level) provide helpful advice or taunting provocations related to the other species, the bosses, and the general state of the world in your campaign run.  But trying to finish this up alongside all the other stuff this month ended up being a bit over-ambitious.  This feature should be the last one I want to tackle before moving forward to the introduction of Mechanical Chosen, so I'll be continuing to work on it in the coming month!

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Overhauled custom sex scene orgasm mechanics to allow for continuous climax.
• Content: Participants of custom sex scenes will react appropriately when orgasming.
• Content: The commented replay system will now function in all modes of play, including campaign mode!
• Bugfix: Resolved some cases where Chosen captured by humanoid Demon Commanders would use the wrong dialogue lines.
• Bugfix: Performing other actions in between buying a Commander and refunding it will no longer break commented playthroughs.
• Bugfix: There are no longer some sequences of actions for which a commented playthrough will expect a specific action but will not read the current instruction in order to inform the player what that is.
• Other: Improved some of the auto-generated commentary for commented playthroughs to be more clear.
• Other: Bosses who have appeared in story scenes may now be previewed in the Info menu.
• Other: Updated the resources.txt file to point to SuperSkippy's commented tutorial.

Release 64b

• Bugfix: Resolved an error which prevented the player from changing Commanders on a save file which isn't set to write commentary.

Release 63: Denial

This update includes advancements and additions to various subsystems, which were generally too large to fit into an update alongside a major feature, but too small to be the sole focus of an update.  I think that most players will find something to enjoy in this one.

First up, continuing from last month's work, the commented replay system has been expanded to account for item interactions, which means that scenarios involving items can now also be reliably replayed!  On top of that, exporting a .par file will also create a .txt file containing the entire set of instructions for easy review.  A bug which was causing instructions to be overwritten when rewatching the replay has also been fixed.

This release also includes some balance reworks which have been a long time coming.  Angel Chosen have had two of their T3 Adaptation moves completely reworked.  Ego Murder, rather than preventing the player from issuing new orders to Thralls, now ends all Surrounds early, sort of like a Surround-based team-wide Detonate.  And Twisted Reward, rather than providing a huge one-time trauma resolution, now provides very strong damage mitigation to Defiler+ and Orgy actions involving the user.  Lastly, the Aversion Distortion has been buffed so that Aversion Chosen fleeing the battle now enable Orgies (but not Defiler+ actions) as though they were Surrounded and being affected by the same Defiler as their partners.  This means that when two Chosen are suffering from Aversion and fleeing from the battle, the third can actually be put in an Orgy all by herself.

A significant new custom sex scene action commissioned by Kalloi has been added, the Demonic padlock, which deepens the existing orgasm denial content.  Only subjects wearing chastity belts can be targeted by the Demonic padlock, which means that it currently can only affect Forsaken (who can be given chastity in the Customize menu) as well as Chosen who naturally wear chastity belts (currently possible only for custom Chosen whose outfits have specifically been given "persistent" chastity belts, but more ways of applying chastity to the Chosen are coming soon).  When subjects are affected by the Demonic padlock, they lose the ability to orgasm entirely, and this persists even after the end of the custom sex scene.  The padlock will temporarily unlock for Chosen who are trying to commit lustful sins, but it will lock itself up again immediately afterward.  Subjects who have been denied orgasm for a long time will gradually grow more desperate and more submissive in custom sex scenes, as they hope for the Demon Lord to show mercy and allow them release.  A new type of custom sex scene action, "Response," has been added to let the player specifically decide how to handle it when a Demonic padlock subject asks to be let free.

Players who have made a wrong move before starting a battle only to realize that their last save was a few days back should be happy to hear that the game now also allows you to rewind to the start of the day, before doing any purchases or other pre-battle actions!  For save file size reasons, this feature is somewhat limited - it only allows you to return to the start of the day during the current play session, and loading a save will not allow you to revert any actions taken immediately before that save.  But even so, I hope this will be a nice quality of life improvement for players taking on the game's harder challenges.

This update also includes a new feature in the form of a code contribution by one Hoshikawa Emi: the "size limits" feature.  The options menu now includes a setting for applying a maximum and minimum for each body asset size, so that Chosen will never be randomly generated with a size outside the specified range.

Finally, there's also a new vignette commissioned by SuperSkippy, featuring a Core Morality Chosen experimenting with ways to cope with the stresses of battle.  This one was pretty fun to write, so I hope everyone enjoys it.  The details may be found in the vignette checklist.txt file.

As always, there are also a few miscellaneous bugfixes.  Next month, I hope to completely finish the commented replay system, allowing it to account for Forsaken training and the other campaign-specific mechanics.  There are a lot more player actions to account for, and the problem of how exactly to deal with indirect effects on the gameplay from content toggles hasn't yet been solved, so this is going to be a challenge.  We'll see how much side content can be fit in alongside it.

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Added the Demonic padlock effect to custom sex scenes (requires subject to be wearing a chastity belt).
• Content: Added one new vignette.
• Balance: Completely reworked the effects of Angels' Ego Murder and Twisted Reward actions.
• Balance: Aversion Chosen fleeing from battle now count toward Orgy (but not Defiler+) requirements.
• Bugfix: Love's free deployment from "Pillar of Mercy" will now properly be expended when used.
• Bugfix: Resolved a crash which could happen during clothing customization.
• Other: Added an option to rewind to the start of the day.
• Other: Added "Size limits" feature coded by Hoshikawa Emi.
• Other: The commented replay system is now functional in all scenarios which don't involve Forsaken.

Release 63b

• Bugfix: Angel Chosen trying to use the new version of Ego Murder will now correctly account for the surround durations of Chosen who would be surrounded later on the same turn.
• Bugfix: Resolved some possible crashes due to save compatibility code failing to execute on Day 1 saves which skip the shop screen and go directly into battle.