The Proteus Effect 10.0 is Released!

Greetings! It’s taken a long, long time, but The Proteus Effect 10.0 is finally done. I won’t say it’s been worth the wait, but it’s done, and I like it. First, the link, and then a few words about the release:

Mega

In contrast to previous releases, this time I’m giving you a link to a folder. This way, if there’s bugfix updates, you’ll be able to get those, too, even if you don’t remain a supporter.

Changelog

• 3 (technically 4) new quests
• New puzzle levels
• New sneaking mission
• New dungeon, boss fight and miniboss fight
• New H-scene (25 images)
• New outfit (pajamas) and character view renders
• Added the West Wind (for staff quest)
• New gear
• New special currencies/rewards (that don’t do anything yet)
• Approximate playtime of new content: 6-8 hours

Content

This release only has 3 quests - maybe 4-5 technically, depending on how you count - but it’s still very, very long. My final testing playthrough took 7.5 hours… which is a fair bit longer than I was expecting. You may not talk to everyone that can be talked with at every point of the story like I did (which added a lot of time) but you’ll likely spend longer than I did on the Oracle’s last puzzle.

Quests

1. The second Oracle quest: get this by talking to Shiri after completing 0.9’s recruitment quest.
2. The Hell’s quest: get this by visiting their guild hall after completing the second Oracle quest.
3. Side quest: get this by talking to the shady orc in the nightclub after completing 0.9’s recruitment quest.

A note about The Oracle’s quest: her final puzzle is pretty hard. It’ll take you 3-5 minutes if you know what you’re doing already, but if you don’t, it could take much, much longer. I spent a half hour figuring it out after not looking at it for several months. Because of this, I added an easy mode that will let you bypass it entirely, but in doing so you’ll miss out on a couple of rewards and a little bit of conversation, so I’d recommend giving it a shot on normal mode first.

H-Scene

Only one. Get this by talking to Val during the day after you’ve:

1. Cleared her in Court of Last Resort, Val’s quest from 0.8 (don’t have to get the true end, but you must have at least cleared her.)
2. Completed the threesome scene with her and Ana
3. Completed 0.9’s recruitment quest

The H-scene is probably the longest I’ve done, and it’s also one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy it, too :)

Other Content and Features

Alex now has pajamas. You’ll receive them the first time you enter the Bunnies guild hall nighttime scene, and Alex will automatically equip them at night if possible (and will automatically re-equip your original armor when you go back to bed.)

This release also introduces some new rewards: gems, enchanter’s powder, and shinestones. None of them currently do anything, but I plan to implement gems and enchantments in 10.1. These will be fairly straightforward: gems will provide stat boosts to gear, and enchantments will provide stat boosts and probably new combat effects.

Shinestones will require a bit more thought and work - the basic idea is that they’re used to buy joke items from Boss Kobold that do funny or interesting things. I don’t know when these will be implemented, but you’ll likely see them in a 10.x release.

Known Issues

The new lighting plugin was causing/contributing to serious issues with text rendering, so I disabled it for this release. This was a great disappointment, since a couple of scenes looked much better with it on. Lighting also makes Tal’thelas' minion maze way back at the start of the game easier (since it warns you they’re coming) so expect that part to suck if you’re starting a new game. I’ll try to get it fixed in a bugfix update to 10.0. It’ll probably be tricky to sort out, and I didn’t want to delay the release for it.

Development Changes

Starting now, I’ll be moving to iterative releases. By that, I mean that I’ll be putting out much smaller - and hopefully much more frequent - releases, each of which will contain one or a few finalized bits of content. A quest, or an H-scene, or what have you. I’ll have more to say about this in a subsequent post, but I’ve also changed the version numbering to reflect this new way of working. 10.0 - this release - is technically 10.0.0. The first digit can be thought of as a chapter number, the second as which minor content update you’re on, and the third is reserved for bugfix releases. All bugfixes to 10.0 (for example, 10.0.1) will be uploaded to the folder linked above. New content releases and their bugfixes (for example, 10.1 or 10.1.2) will be uploaded to a different folder, which you’ll have access to if you’re a supporter when it’s released. Hopefully this makes sense.

Conclusion

I don’t think it’s been worth the wait, but I like it, and hopefully you will too. Please let me know if you find any bugs! I hope you enjoy it, and thank you for your support!