Release 52: Association

The focus for this month's update was features which required code reworks that were too extensive to fit into prior updates.  Each individual addition is minor, but I'm pretty sure that most players will find something to be happy about in this changelog.

This first added feature is a refactor to the clothing customization system which now allows Forsaken outfits to be edited as well.  As part of this refactor, clothing sets can now also be saved, loaded, and exported and imported as separate files.  So, if you want your servants to all wear matching uniforms, you can do it easily now.  The resulting "closet" files will also make it convenient to keep your clothing sets even if you like to start a fresh save file with each release.

A very minor feature attached to the clothing system is that I've reworked the custom clothing menu to pad itself with dummy buttons so that the buttons keep their position even while scrolling between pages.  I'd appreciate feedback on how this feels - if people don't hate it, then I might do something similar for other paging menus just to make them a bit easier to navigate.  Players who play at unusual resolutions might also now notice that the game will now organize the buttons into a second row when necessary, so let me know if this breaks anything for anybody.

The other main customization feature is that it's now possible to designate groups of campaign custom Chosen as always appearing alongside each other in the same team.  Chosen who have been assigned to a group like this should never appear alone under any circumstances.  This is a powerful tool if you want to guarantee that two of your custom Chosen interact, but it shouldn't be used lightly.  When two Chosen who couldn't otherwise appear together are set as part of the same group, relationship scenes will be disabled for that loop because the game won't be able to find the usual Core/Minor Vulnerability interactions.  And if the player never enters a loop where the custom Chosen's species are grouped together, then the custom Chosen won't be able to appear.  There might be room to add more flexible options here, but I want to make sure that the base system is working without bugs first.

When it comes to new content, this release just adds two new vignettes, but they're pretty special ones.  This is a continuation of the Negotiation vignette chain commissioned by Kalloi for Core Morality Chosen, which now extends into their time as Forsaken.  The two vignettes fire on the same day, and they can trigger when a Forsaken who experienced the Descent of Guilt vignette as Chosen is set as your Favorite.  The vignettes can fire every loop, and they have a large number of variants (based both on the Favorite Forsaken and on the Chosen of the current loop) so that they don't get boring.  They also introduce an experimental system where the player can make a choice during the first vignette, changing some of the flavor text of the second vignette.  I'm curious to see whether players enjoy this as a way to get a bit more immersed in vignette scenes.

Next month will be the long-awaited introduction of the fifth Distortion path, Megalomania.  Because of the species and bosses that have been added to the game, there's a lot more work to add a new Distortion than there was when the first four were added.  But I've spent the last few days of this month doing some preliminary work, so I'm confident that it should all be ready for Release 53.

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Added a large compound vignette to the Negotiation vignette chain.
• Content: Added customization for Forsaken outfits.
• Interface: Chosen customization options can now be accessed even before buying Psychic Reading.
• Interface: Clothing sets may now be saved and exported.
• Interface: Window resizing is now more flexible.
• Bugfix: Resolved some issues with boss loops having incorrect species or showing up when not picked.
• Bugfix: Changing the species of a customized campaign Chosen will no longer crash the game.
• Bugfix: Fixed some bugs that could happen when the game gets confused about two Forsaken sharing the same ID.
• Other: Groups of campaign custom Chosen can now be designated as guaranteed to appear in a team together.
• Other: Chosen text colors may now be changed during play from the Information menu.
• Other: In single play mode, Forsaken now have some special interactions with their Chosen selves from other save files.

Release 52b

• Bugfix: The game will no longer crash when trying to start a campaign loop with non-custom Chosen.

Release 51: Benediction

This update is the completion of the latest stage of campaign mode, as the sixth Chosen species, the Angels, have been added to the game!  Angels are the ones in charge of rewarding and protecting virtuous humans, both in this world and in the next.  Their duties don't usually involve battle, and indeed, even the more warlike ones are quite weak in a straight fight.  But their unearthly beauty drives your Thralls mad with desire, and their ability to soothe and comfort their teammates is quite powerful.  For Demons, which rely on trauma and despair in order to induce humans to sin, Angels can be considered their natural enemy.

In campaign mode, Angels will show up after Victory has been defeated, which means that they can appear in Loop 11 at the earliest.  If the player beats Victory in Loop 10 and Splendor in Loop 15 (or vice versa), then Angels and Devils will potentially be appearing together in the Chosen teams you face from Loop 16 onward.  This will only be relevant to players who play deep into campaign mode, but in order to make it a bit easier to do just that, another long warp route has been added which leads from Loop 16 all the way to Loop 20.  Experienced players should note that the Loop 11 warp and the Loop 16 warp both have the same set of conditions - the warp requirement depends only on which boss was defeated in the prior loop.  See the campaign map.txt file for more details.

For players who prefer single play mode or who want to practice before facing them in a campaign, the Angelic Clash scenario has been added, which pits the player against a team of 1 Angel Chosen and 2 regular ones.  At first, the Angel might appear quite harmless in comparison to the Devil, but it should become clear pretty quickly that they're formidable in their own way.

Aside from some balance tweaks, the other major improvement for this release is a one-click option to clean your old campaign saves.  The way this currently works is that it looks for a series of saves which are all from the same loop, then tries to keep just the first save of the loop and the most recent save before the final battle of that loop.  There's room for more options here (like changing which saves you want to keep, or cleaning saves from single play mode as well), but I want to collect feedback about this basic implementation first.

Looking forward, the next major features in the development plan are the next 3 boss fights (the Angel boss, the Devil boss, and a recurring midboss) and the last 2 Distortion paths (Morality/Innocence and Confidence/Dignity).  Before jumping into them, it might be a good idea to do one or two customization- and flavor-focused updates, but overall I expect the pace of development to accelerate from this point forward.  We're getting close to the home stretch.

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Added Angel Chosen to campaign mode following Victory's defeat.
• Content: Added the Angelic Clash scenario for single play mode.
• Content: Added 16 new faces for Angel Chosen to the default portrait pack.
• Balance: Loops 3 and 4 will now feature at least one Superior Chosen in each city.
• Balance: Lower-tier species won't stop appearing so quickly in later loops.
• Interface: Added "Clean Saves" feature to delete unneeded save files.
• Bugfix: Resolved a crash that could happen after backing out of the pick next city menu in campaign mode.
• Other: Added a new warp route to Loop 16 (and allowed the Loop 11 warp to function even after facing Victory in Loop 10).

Release 51b

• Bugfix: The Loop 15 boss fight will no longer be able to have its members replaced by the species unlocked in the Loop 10 boss fight.
• Bugfix: Custom Angels and Devils created for single play mode will now correctly respect their pre-broken Vulnerability settings.

Release 51c

• Bugfix: Forsaken will no longer benefit from the Personal Paradise trait even when they have no Tempted Angel former partners.
• Bugfix: Corrected the display of the Personal Paradise trait bonus on the affected ally's profile.
• Bugfix: The Forsaken Tempt action will no longer put invalid Tempt targets into a bugged Tempt state.
• Bugfix: The game will no longer allow Forsaken to be spared outside of campaign mode.

Release 50: Grace

This update features three major additions to the game.  The first is gameplay related: a new "Bargain" system that activates after defeating Splendor.  This is the realization of a concept that was originally proposed by f95 user SuperSkippy.  Previously, after Splendor joined the Forsaken, she would pretty much constantly ruin your other Forsaken's ability to function, and there wasn't much you could do about it.  This wasn't much fun, and it affected the game balance a bit too strongly, too.  Therefore, this new gameplay system has been introduced to give the player some counterplay.  Bargaining with Splendor will give you a grace period where one of the following debuffs is suspended (listed in decrasing order of priority - none of them will be offered during boss fight loops):

• Undead and Devils will stop taking reduced damage. (Offered here if Devils are present.)
• Splendor will stop draining your Forsaken's motivation.
• Splendor will allow you to deploy her and manually select which combat style she should use.
• Undead will stop taking reduced damage. (Offered here if only Undead are present.)
• Splendor won't increase the difficulty of the next loop.
• Splendor will allow you to train her.

Of course, it's called a bargain because she asks for something in exchange.  However, the things she asks for are also double-edged in that they can be used to the player's benefit as well.  Each day, she'll ask for something different, cycling through the valid options.

• Empower a relatively-uncorrupted regular human Chosen, causing her to become Superior (which also allows her to become a Superior Forsaken).
• Return one of your Forsaken to being a normal human (which doesn't anger their loved ones, and the spared Forsaken will also provide some small benefits).
• Destroy one of your items (which refunds the item's Influence, allowing stronger items to show up in the future).
• Make the next loop more difficult (which also means that you're likely to see more advanced species Chosen).

The system for spared Forsaken is the second major addition for this update.  Depending on their highest corruption value and their Obedience, Forsaken can join one of five different contingents within the Demonic hive.  Each one provides a small bonus: increased Evacuation requirement, increased Extermination requirement, passive Forsaken Motivation restoration, increased damage from Threaten/Slime/Attack/Taunt, or increased damage to Surrounded Chosen.  The bonuses really are small, but the achievement bonus from the coming Angel Chosen species will make them more significant.  Currently, Forsaken can only be spared when Splendor demands it, but being able to spare them more freely will also be coming with Angel Chosen.

The third addition is flavor-related.  A new vignette has been added which completes the chain commissioned by Kalloi which was started last update.  Normally, a vignette would not be considered a major addition, but this one adds a new Forsaken tool which comes with lots of possibilities: a lewd crest, the "Mark of the Succubus."  I might've gone a bit overboard here with adding interactions for this tool, but I think it provides an excellent example of how flavor and gameplay elements can interact with each other.

The Mark of the Succubus is a permanent clothing item which is engraved on the Chosen's bodies after experiencing the new Lilith's Awakening vignette.  In custom sex scenes, it can be "activated," forcing the subject to submit and causing her to gain arousal and lose tiredness when consuming semen.  On its own, this wouldn't mean much, because Chosen who experience Lilith's Awakening will be heavily corrupted already.  However, the Mark of the Succubus is also somewhat contagious - when enabled in the Forsaken's tool menu, a lesser version can also be engraved upon less corrupted Chosen during the Forsaken's Force Orgasm action.  Forsaken with the full-fledged Mark of the Succubus can also "activate" other marks when meeting with the Chosen as your ambassador.  The activated mark won't singlehandedly force the Chosen to let down their Sexual Barriers for you, but it will make it much easier to reach that point, and in the process you're likely to see a lot more low-Obedience flavor text for actions which normally aren't picked at low Obedience.

With this update, the "facing Splendor first" route is now finished up to Loop 14.  For next update, I intend to do the same for the "facing Victory first" route by adding the Angel Chosen that will be unlocked once you beat her.  And after that, it will finally be time to start work on the next round of boss enemies!

Click here to download.  Mirror.

• Content: Added a new "Bargain" system for trading favors with Splendor.
• Content: Forsaken can be spared from service but kept around for interaction and minor buffs (currently only through the Splendor Bargain system).
• Content: Added one new vignette.
• Content: Added the Mark of the Succubus tool, unlocked by Forsaken who have experienced the above vignette.
• Content: Added the Activate Mark action to custom sex scenes which uses the lewd crest gained in the above vignette.
• Balance: While Splendor's "Social Saboteur" ability is active, her own Motivation will refill every day.
• Bugfix: Resolved a crash that could happen when displaying an alternative city route in campaign mode.
• Bugfix: Refactored downtime action system in order to fix an overflow error that was causing some strange "Greater Sins Imminent"-related Chosen downtime decisions.
• Bugfix: Generated Chosen family members will no longer sometimes be generated with inconsistent gender-related behavior.
• Bugfix: Altering the bodies of high-corruption Forsaken will no longer sometimes cause their attitudes toward their penises to improperly change.

Release 50b

• Bugfix: Resolved a crash when penis-having Chosen in custom sex scenes experienced an orgasm (or ruined orgasm) without having their penises occupied by a sex act.
• Bugfix: The achievement for defeated Undead Chosen will no longer cause some trauma counts to be treated as much higher than they actually are during downtime selection.
• Bugfix: Resolved a crash that could happen when trying to observe Chosen-with-Chosen custom sex scenes.