Time to Play the Game (State of the Union- March)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_JF8oSxXtM

So, I’ll be making a game now.

A Thrallworks game.

I've been thinking for a while now about making a proper ero-game and how to go about doing it; it's what these CYOA's and all thus worldbuilding was testing in a way, seeing how much writing felt appropriate to how much art, how much choice should play a factor and how drastically should it alter events, etc.

And so we get to this point, where I feel comfortable to sit down and, at the very least, produce some kind of demo or Minimum Viable Product. It was a toss-up between making something in the Movementverse and something about Thrallworks, but in the end Thrallworks made a little more sense for a first product from a financial perspective due to familiarity with whatever characters are in it.

Ideally I'd want to make one large Thrallworks game and while expanding on it, I'd make small 'blocks' of Movement content consisting of self-contained scenarios like the ones I'm doing now: like, imagine if you could explore every option in An Ambassador's Dilemma, that sort of thing.

So what about the stuff you're putting out now?

For the time being what I'll be doing over the next while is finishing off/winding down on the other smut projects in order to focus on making content for the demo of this game. What this means in terms of current output is that- beyond requested sketches- all sketchwork provided will be DIY of the game as I work on it, and if I stream anything on picarto it'll likely be for that game. The current CYOA Scenario will carry on as-is until it finishes, after which I'm going to put them on hold until we see how this demo goes and what the time-dedication-equation looks like.

Finance-wise, I'm debating whether to keep this as per-creation or per-month, but ideally I'd like to keep it as per creation, with one publishable update a month or something similar to act as the 'creation'....otherwise, some weekly/monthly something-or-other to act as the creation separate from the design of the game.

Fair enough...but uh, if you could just remind me what Thrallworks is again?

Thrallworks is my sci-fi smutverse, the name of a company that produces thralls- a kind of high-grade servant- for other companies and for private use. The bulk of what they produce is home-grown, but they also have a dvision dedicated to capturing and converting choice characters from other universes to either put them up for sale or use their abilities. They also have an R&D department that produces, tests and sells enthralling equipment to other, registered, universes.

Alright so what kind of game is it going to be?

It'll be running on the tried-and-true Ren'Py engine as a multi-choice hub-based adventure. The art, writing and coding will all be done by myself for the time being; I'm kinda aware that for me to be doing all of them is a tremendous strain and means less content per month than other providers in this genre can give, but that's why I'm sliding down on some of my other responsibilities to give this time. Ideally I'd earn enough to be able to devote all my time to the production of this game, and other games into the future.

I don't foresee it being a typical training game. There's certainly going to be a psychological element of bending a character into a particular role, but I think for a lot of the content there's not going to be much of the old-fashioned 'pick from this list of sexual fetishes and unlock them as you go along'.

More likely, there will be opportunities for dating about the thrallworks complex and some larger narrative going on, in which the girls you eventually enthrall will take a part, and for a lot of the more explicitly sexual stuff to happen here, with a majority of the rest of the game and the work done being more fetish-orientated; you know, latex, collars, that sort of guff.

And the premise?

You’ll be a person in charge of processing the ‘celebrity’ division of thralls, which has a less efficient process in order to sell the content of their conversion to K-Class universes (such as our own!) who have access to these other universes through 'mediums' (read:other artists, storytellers, writers etc.) but can never physically journey to them or acquire physical objects from them.

As the game progresses, depending on the time of the week and certain other stipulations, such as what you research in R&D, you will be able to send teams to these other universes and acquire a character from them to enthrall.

Periodically, you'll be up for a performance review, which will increase/decrease your budget going ahead and could cause stumbling blocks in progress if you're converting thralls too slowly or they aren't proving enough of an asset. We'll see about this aspect of the game going ahead though.

So, hundreds of girls but simple outcomes, a handful but strongly narratized?

I was thinking of a middle-road actually, of maybe a list of a dozen/two dozen or so girls, each of which able to be developed in different ways- there are around 12 different types of Thrall and 3/4 different kinds of Drone in total, and each character will be suitable for the basic 'Drone' model, and up to 3 others, based on the character.

Each character's interactions will be unique with activity overlap only happening when it makes sense, such as certain training exercises or the like. Each character will also have particular traits that will give them certain boons and penalties to approaching their enthrallment in certain ways.

Can we choose between a male and female protag?

In my ideal world, yes, but that's something that would drastically effect the writing- and the progress- of each and every acquisition, so....not currently. Though I haven't decided on whether you will play as a male or a female. Leaning towards male, but there's an argument to be made for female. And if I could think of a good way or reason to be able to choose between both then I will go for that option.

And the girl for the demo?

I've thought a lot about it. It's going to be Ty Lee.

It's worth mentioning that all I'm commiting to at the moment is a demo- if it turns out there's interest for it and that I'm satisfied with the output, then I'll keep on adding content and fatten it up. We'll see.