0.1.6 - Bad Endings and Good Rewards

And this one took - well, a long time. About as long as I thought. This is one of the more significant updates. I think it’s free of major bugs, but there’s some new systems in place that I’m sure will cause issues. Also, this doesn’t advance the story. I won’t start that until after 0.1.8 (see below). Two things I’m increasingly of: 

1. There’s a lot of emphasis on this one on the relationships, corruption and sexism. Sometimes releases just skewer towards certain content, but I’m conscious of this. I want to make sure there’s lighter content to balance the sexism and also there’s more transformation content (although this probably won’t be until Act 2 - there’s a lot already in Act 1 on this). 
2. The game as it stands need a balance pass. It’s set up this way to account for Act 2 and new content. For this, I’m looking to move into Act 2 sooner rather than later.

Content

• Emily grades - Emily’s grades increasing or decreasing will now trigger scenes and content.
• Emily drops out of school - let Emily’s grades drop too much and you’ll get the first bad ending.
• Work Performance - New content and scenes triggered as your work performance increases or decreases.
• Fired - The PC can now get fired, causing a new Cash Flow mechanic. They’ll have to use the jobs around town to support Emily and themselves
• New Andrea maid content - To support the cash flow mechanic, rewritten all the scenes when you work as Andrea
• New Florence content - Also to support the cash flow mechanic, rewritten all the scenes when you work as Florence
• Emily Maid Job - Now available. This will contribute towards Cash Flow. Alternatively, you can send Emily to work in the hotel for tips
• Cash Flow events - Content and scenes triggered as this goes up or down
• Bankrupt - Second bad ending. If you run out of money, you’ll get the second bad ending.

Features

• Casual mode toggle at beginning for those who don’t want to play with bad endings possible
• Compulsions now have an impact. Mostly on new content, but work performance can now be impacted by (one of) them
• Four new NSFW scenes. Not the focus of the game again, but make sense in the context (or at least in a game like this).

Known issues

• Still events can stack on top of each other (so multiple in one period). I know how to code around this now, but I have to investigate how much of the events it breaks.
• Annie still talks about you working at Thompson’s on the evening date. It’s a complex array that I’m going to revise in the next update, so leaving in until the next release.
• There’s a bug somewhere with flirt somehow going negative. Haven’t managed to replicate it, so it’s in here for the time being.
• There’s a potential bug on the Quest for Identity, where the quest state is ahead of events. I can’t replicate it, so will try and find it in future releases
• The game needs a pass at balancing. The default is that the stats stay at middle of the road, which doesn’t trigger content. That said, as this is the first act of the game, some of these systems are designed for the long-term. So hence I’ll leave it for now.
• The stats are still not quite right - the states modifiers are causing some irregular issues. I’ll tidy this up in future releases.

Amended roadmap

After some consideration, I’ve amended the roadmap to the following:

• 0.1.7 - Annie and Jennifer - Revamp of content for both of them, making them better characters and maybe building on why they don’t get along
• 0.1.8 - Quests and actions - Tying up loose ends for Act 1, including the “Different for Girls” quest, UI overhaul in some areas (like the Quest log) and generally tidying things up.
• 0.2.0 - Act 2

You’ll notice that I’ve decided to remove the secret 0.1.9 for now. This is mainly because I want to get into Act 2 as soon I can, opening up new transformations and locations and characters. That’s not to say that 0.1.9 isn’t coming, but if it does it will be released closer to 0.2.0 so I can assess the impact it will have on the next chapter of Charlton.

Hope you enjoy this content - there’s a lot there and I’m quite happy with a lot of how it turned out.