Hello friends! The December update is here.
In a recent poll, expanding the existing sports content came up as priority number one, and though everything I want to do will have to happen over more than one update, the work began this month.
We've started by enabling the cheerleaders to compete in their own right, rather than just being attached to the football team. Cheerleaders can learn and practice routines, then they'll perform them at competitions and be scored.
A similar system has been applied to learning football plays and later attempting to execute them during games. (In future updates, this system will also be applied to the remaining sports.)
Though you'll keep up with your team just by attending your two weekly practices, you can also practice on your own or with one other team member, boosting your skills independently. Independent practice is a great way to help your team and have some more control over the outcome of games and competitions.
This update also adds noonycurt's petition framework, with fhish assisting with the storyline. The first petition can be introduced starting in week two, and they provide a chance to alter some of the rules around campus.
We've also added a new sports management major contributed by Rfpnj, and various new clothes and other bits of content from Hee Ho.
Finally, if you have a high-quality X-rated video go viral (yes, that's something that can happen now), you may be contacted by an actual professional porn studio! This represents an expansion of the porn side career, which was priority #2 on the recent poll. So far only the introduction is in place, but we'll be expanding this event set in future updates.
If you're not aware, we're maintaining two parallel development cycles:
The monthly update might contain new event sets, new locations, or new mechanics, but usually focuses on extending existing content or polishing existing systems. It comes out once a month with whatever we got done in that time period... hence the name!
The roadmap update checks off one or more items on the roadmap, adding extensive new mechanics and a bunch of related new events in one go, often fundamentally changing how the game can be played. It usually takes multiple months.
As always, my gratitude to the volunteer contributors who added to this update, and to the supporters who make this project possible.
Thank you and I hope you enjoy!
Release notes
- Extended sports mechanics with a routine and practice mechanic (currently only implemented for cheerleading and football)
- Routines are made up of segments, which must be practiced by the team before the routine is likely to be successful
- By individually tracking segment progress, they enable subskills of sorts within sports
- You can practice your sports skills on your own as well, though this tires you out and you can only do it once per day. Currently, the University Mall and inside Blodgett Gym are appropriate locations for this
- You may also sometimes see a teammate practicing at these locations, giving you an opportunity to ask to join them. Practicing with a teammate may build your friendship with them, and also enables you to practice skills that you can’t practice on your own
- You can view your progress on the possible segments within your sport by clicking the College button and choosing View Practice Progress under your sport
- The school’s cheerleading squad now competes in their own right, and four times a season, they will compete with the other schools in their division, having their routines scored
- Added plays to football. Each play is made up of various phases, which are each their own specific subskill. The team will focus on practicing a different play each week
- These specific plays will then be deployed during a game, offering an opportunity to increase the team’s chances of winning, but they can backfire if misplayed. Once your character is playing in games and being involved in plays, practicing your skills on your own will be a good way to directly affect your team’s chances of winning
- Added periodic reminders to export your save, which accompany a handy link to do so instantly
- Added options to change the frequency of export reminders or turn them off entirely
- Added a petition framework to allow the player to gradually alter some of the rules on campus (contributed by fhish and noonycurt)
- Current petitions include: make the gym lockers unisex, allow swimwear to be considered proper dress for classes etc., allow everybody to be topless wherever men are currently allowed to be topless, disallow anybody from going topless (contributed by fhish and noonycurt)
- Petitions unlock partway into the second week by running into a new storyline NPC, The Activist, outside Blodgett Gym (contributed by noonycurt)
- Added storyline hints to help players find their way through the possible petitions (contributed by noonycurt)
- Character costumes (ones made up of everyday clothing that a specific character wears) are now handled better, and it should be better at correctly detecting you’re wearing a costume while also not counting outfits as costumes when it shouldn’t
- Fixed an NPC skill inconsistency that could result in an NPC sometimes having no skill when they should have at least some skill, depending on how it was looked up
- Content Options now includes a Boost option, which will disable all warnings and make events related to that content more frequent (the actual efficacy of this depends on the event set, but generally events will be twice as frequent)
- You can now quit your Greek house by talking to the president or rush chair. Note that the members of your house really don’t like this and you won’t be able to rejoin!
- Added some hats and hair accessories to various stores (contributed by Hee Ho)
- Added some jewelry to various stores (contributed by Hee Ho)
- Added some new hair colors (contributed by Hee Ho)
- Added a couple new shoes to various stores (contributed by Hee Ho)
- Added some new costume parts and costume sets to the costume shop (contributed by Hee Ho)
- Added a Hidden Treasures section to Dr. Cuttlefish that requires Photography or Troublemaking skill to find (contributed by Hee Ho)
- Added new distinguishing features for player characters (contributed by Hee Ho)
- Videos on both the PG and X-rated platforms now have a chance of going viral, a sort of “critical hit” of video posting that results in drastically more views, income, and platform popularity
- Getting a high-quality X-rated video to go viral will result in a new contact: a professional porn studio that’s willing to travel just to film you! (This is a last-minute addition that introduces the company and leads to one “audition” shoot — however, this will be an ongoing priority development focus)
- Added a new Sports Management major (only available in new games) (contributed by Rfpnj)
- Adding a new major has the side effect of expanding the size of the student body by about thirty NPCs in new games
- Many fixes and tweaks
A reminder that if you participated in early access, that version will no longer be updated until the next early access period — it's time to move to the public version!