Debug flags, start screen, head shaving, and icons updates

Debug mode was split into flags to ease testing of the changes. Before that, the debug mode would open all content, allow usage of all items, etc. together.

A simple start screen was added. I am not sure if it is needed really, but, well, let it be for now. The nice part is that it is adaptive and look fine on different screen resolutions, unlike game as a whole which is kind of hardcoded to 1080p screen resolution.

Head shaving mechanics was implemented. The idea is that at some level Ryo will be able to start shaving head in order to use all possible wigs.

Other than that, most of time I was working on internal entities restructuring, icons updates and optimization.

Icons now look more clean

Also, most icons now are compositions of basic icon and modifiers, and thus it is easier to re-use assets.

 =  &  & 

All game icons where added to the game, and also added to the respective shops.

Item / activity being purchased is now displayed in the confirmation dialog. Looks a bit weird, so it is a subject to possible changes in future.

Lastly, I outlined most of items needed to complete the game. I use Trello too, but somehow a plain multi-level list gives a better perspective.

List items completed: 24 / 87 (28%)

Room progress, 'liked by' statuses, actions availability, and clothes icons

The ladder now shows room progress - that is, how much more the room should be successfully completed to unlock the next room.

Conflicting desires will now not appear - meaning, the viewers will not desire 'look' and 'action' that conflict (e.g. see having sex and shorts put on at the same time)

New statuses will let know when Ryo is liked by someone. Being liked is needed to perform some actions, as well as to unlock some of game endings.

An action tooltip will now display why it cannot be performed.

All cloth icons are now displayed in-game.

Gameplay preview

Here is a preview of what gameplay will be. (Imagine Ryo shown on the left, having clothes changed while respective icons are clicked)

Success

Failure (too much dissatisfied feelings).

Balancing economics

Rough balancing of in-game economics seems to be done as well.

Purchase of all (for now) in game items and services should take about 2 to 3 game completion for each of 6 'story lines' (12-18 game completions in total).

Given that each story line has 2 endings, this looks fine.

Most likely all items and services will need to be purchased only once, and when the game is started over, all of those previously purchased will be available, as well as all currencyleft from the previous game completion.

This way it will be possible to unlock all available game content without the need to purchases same thing over and over again, and well, will hopefully make the game less boring to re-play.

Here are some calculations and observations:

Figure 1 - the bold green numbers at the end of each story line show how much currency will be accumulated if the player would purchase bare minimum during game completion.

Stay assured that this wealth will easily find its use if as there plenty of nice-to-have items waiting in the shops.

The total numbers at the bottom show approximate currency accumulation, items cost and services cost  respectively.

Figure 2 - the bold green numbers at the end of each story line show how much currency will be accumulated if the player would purchase most of items and services relevant to the corresponding story line.

Note that almost all numbers a negative, meaning the during a single game completion it will not be easy to purchase everything the player likes.

The first two story lines are male-oriented, and have the least deficit (with the second one having positive balance).

And, well, this is not surprising, given that that game is about feminization ;)

Gameplay updates

Gameplay redesign

Before verifying that in-game experience and money numbers are fine, I decided to revisit main gameplay and ended up making few changes to it.

Both UI and gameplay mechanics were improved (I think).

Previous UI:

Current UI (yet to complete):

As a part of UI redesign, icon for all available actions were added. Another subject for later improvement.

Experience balancing

Experience gain by level was calculated. The first attempt revealed some discrepancy with lower levels requiring more experience than higher ones; however after two more attempts the numbers become much better (one of rooms was assigned a higher level),

Icons for wardrobe items

Icons were created to all (for now) items Ryo can wear. These icons too are a subject for later improvements; the point now is to see them all in-game and learn if  UI needs any adjustments.

Next I plan to complete redesign I started and start verifying in-game economics.

The ladder complete

Rooms revision is also complete now - all rooms (where Ryo should perform to progress) have their attributes defined after quiet a few sessions of calculations and data management (composing and filling the papers, yeah).

The Club Rooms now look like this (each color defines one development line). Somewhere along the way (later than sooner) one may unlock an ending and finish the game.

There will be 12 endings total, 2 for each line.

Next, I will be doing some sanity checks of these rooms - where their attributes are ok or not.

The big picture complete

The big picture is done (give or take), showing all available dialogs, actions, etc though the road, along with respective interconnections.

Some items were simplified as it felt too much to work out all mechanics in this endeavour.

With this picture, it is now clear which pieces (mechanics, items, dialogs) are missing and overall it now looks feasible to complete it all.

Next I'll get to the 'ladder' which Ryo would climb during his wandering.

Here is a sneak peek of it (sploiler-free due to low resolution):