Sorry! I just mean that Stillwater might have some non-romance requirements, but he doesn’t seem that hard to get to know.
I’ll have to actually replay your game when it is added, but I don’t think I will need to have to “cheat” the system to force it. It may be easier than it first seems.
It was more meant to instill confidence in your ability to write complex, and interesting characters. 
Ah, thanks for the explanation! 
Always nice to hear positive feedback like that. Of course, in this instance it’s less about my ability to write complex and interesting characters, and more about how I can transition that into a romantic context, which I’m not at all familiar with. (still, nice to have support for that too) 
Stillwater is certainly the easiest Designer Soldier to get to know, that’s true. Which is why he’s in the position he is, rather than acting as a “shock trooper” so to speak. Couldn’t be much of a “face” for the NTPD if he wasn’t social. 
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been a bit lazy with adding the pre-requisites(especially since they’re very important for other consequences in the finales!). I don’t think they’re common enough at present to give the player a fair chance to get them, at least from what I remember. (it’s a counter rather than a yes/no kind of thing, and there’s probably 10 instances in the entire game so far(often 2 in the same scene through different options, so something like 5 max for the entire game), which is a lot less than I envision).
I’d guess the counters won’t be in the shape I want them to be until the Major Update is done, so quite some while still. I strongly suggest everyone replay the game at that point, since the saves probably won’t be compatible anyway due to the added choices and consequences from the sub-plots, etc. 
As for how hard or easy it will be to catch those counters, well, that remains to be seen. I haven’t decided on the amount you need to get to “convince” him of the thing the counters represent.
(Also, even if they’re easy to get, you need to KNOW that you HAVE to get them, which is hard to communicate without it feeling really unimmersive. Maybe. I’m sure I’ll think of something eventually)
Anyway, back to writing. →
No update today.
Deadline for current update: Complete Stillwater one night stand: Soon(explicit stuff included)
Deadline for the rest in this segment: Mouse and Carrington early June.
Tolerable amount polished and done. Didn’t reach the worktime goal yet, no 30 mins increase per day. Well, it’s not that bad as I said earlier, as long as it increases each day(or so), it’s fine. Still, one wishes to do better since I finally have the free time I wanted which makes it annoying that I’m not taking full advantage of it(yet).
No update today.
Deadline for current update: Complete Stillwater one night stand: Soon(explicit stuff included)
Deadline for the rest in this segment: Mouse and Carrington early June.
Done with the newly added parts. Still polishing left, and testing of course. A few days I’d guess, depending on some things. Won’t have too much time tomorrow to work, but should be ample time after that.
Complex branching investigation story, in cyberpunk settings, active writer on the forum, memorable plots and characters, slow depiction and detailed of events and settings, promising ongoing progressive project.
Nothing bad i could say about this story.
Please keep writing what you want and not what the readers demands, you have amazing whole world inside the brain of yours dear writer.
I might just wish that cybernetics makes greater impact and broader body customization (tattoos, prosthetics, skin, scars, etc)
Anyway keep doing good work!
No update today.
Deadline for current update: Complete Stillwater one night stand: Soon(explicit stuff included)
Deadline for the rest in this segment: Mouse and Carrington early June.
Tiny amount done today.
Thank you!
I think it’s okay to balance what I want to write with what the readers want to read. One can’t exist without the other, in the end. The way I see it, both are bottlenecks of sorts. If I only focus on one, the project dries up. Still, I suppose my focus is 80% on what I want and 20% on what readers want.
I’m taking a look at the cybernetics relatively soon, since I’ll be rewriting the game from the start(not a 100% rewrite, more of a “re-edit”). I’ll take feedback into consideration at that point. It isn’t easy to come up with uses for all of the cybernetic parts, though. I’m more inclined to allow the player to take multiple parts to compensate, but we’ll see once I get there.
As for body customization options, I’d prefer each choice has a mention at one or two points in the game, so I’m not too fond of the idea of adding boatloads of them. Still, I’ll think about it since it might be simple enough and not TOO much work.
Why no one hanging out in this thread is mystery to me.
My mind is literally getting CP2077 biases where im wildly imagining wicked action scenes with cybernetics (jumping buildings, smashing things, mantis blade arms, etc). I understand that this is detective story and not an action one, and it’s totally understandable if you won’t explore the action scenes.
Absolutely love the interrogation scene where you need certain leverage and deals.
Also just finished reading the whole thing. The explicit scene is just *chefkiss. Im sure it’ll cause few uproar in the future, but fuck em, its gold, dont let your standards get any lower.
Can’t wait for the next update.
No update today.
Deadline for current update: Complete Stillwater one night stand: Soon(explicit stuff included)
Deadline for the rest in this segment: Mouse and Carrington early June.
Work routine still less than I’d like, but progress is okay I suppose.
Perhaps it’s because the game is more of a slow burn, with fewer amazing moments to discuss so far? (since a lot is setup rather than payoff)
Yup, not the focus on this one, plus it’s a huge headache from a setting point of view if the player could do such things, since it’d require a response from various organizations to be believable, etc.
But there may be a few scenes like that by the end, depending on your choices. (also, currently there are a few mandatory ones where people have expressed that they’d like a non-action variant, which I’ll try to provide eventually)
Great to hear! The problem with that scene is that it doesn’t work too well for certain playthroughs, but works really well for others. I’d like that it’d be at least decent for everyone, which will require more tinkering eventually.
Well, I would be a bit disappointed if it caused a negative uproar, since I put a lot of effort into it as to give loads of options for readers, as well as the censorship filters, to make sure no one runs into stuff they don’t want to see. It’s mostly worked, based on the poll in the Adult forum sub-thread(95% of people out of a hundred or so not seeing anything inappropriate).
I can imagine a negative uproar if the other explicit scenes aren’t up to the Mari Badr one’s standard, of course. We’ll see soon enough, I suppose.
(Fact is, the Stillwater version is more limited, but hopefully the quality is equal even if the variability and length aren’t. And if it seems too short or linear, I can always add more stuff based on the feedback(theoretically at least, I would still need to figure out more subject matter that would make sense. Which isn’t terribly easy, I have to say, since I’d like each of the one night stands to be unique, so I don’t really want to re-use the various parts in them if possible. I’ve been trying to tackle it while polishing the scene, as usual, but haven’t thought of any interesting additions)).
Neither can I.
Yesterday you had a cake in your profile, and now I realized it’s because you joined the Forum in May 22 in 2017. Soooo happy anniversary, 7 years here 
For me personally, it is the best wip I’ve read. The investigation as they have said is quite complex and doesn’t carry that speed I’ve read in other wips, the pace at which things are discovered seems natural to me. The characters react to our actions and behave very realistic too (One of the best, if not the best characters development I have read), my congratulations for managing to create such a believable world.
Can’t wait to get to know all the characters more in depth, especially the 4 main ones.
The sex scene with Mari was brilliant and exceeded my expectations, very good job! It’s still hard to tell if we’re talking to the “real” Mari or her facet, she’s quite a complex character but that makes her more interesting. The detail in the contract scene is 10/10, I play with a protagonist specialized in paperwork and it was very interesting to discuss with her the need to sign the contract (In the end my character managed to have sex without a contract, I wonder if we had signed there would be consequences in the future 
).
After getting to know Mari a little bit, I don’t know if the rest of the characters are soooo difficult to understand. It would be weird for me if they would surpass Mari’s level but there’s always time to be surprised.
It would be very interesting to do a popularity poll of the characters, especially a single one for Mari, Stillwater, Mouse and Carrington, to see which one is the most popular at the time. My vote at the moment goes with Mari, even if she is a walking red flag 
(Is my Mc in danger? 
)
When it comes to cybernetic parts, I always choose the eyes, I find it a rather unique (in only played with that improvement, from my perspective this one has been very well implemented). The rest of the options haven’t caught my attention although there might be some that would surprise me but I didn’t have time to repeat the story with another character.
It would be interesting to be able to choose two cybernetic parts to experiment with, although I understand that such a combination would be quite complex to implement. But first do what suits you best, you are the one who writes the story.
From the last thing I remember, you did very well as Mari comments on the physique and characteristics of the protagonist, such as his hair, physical complexion, height… (Very well the detail of Mari changing her comment on the subject of musculature depending on the gender of the protagonist) in a very subtle and realistic way.
I would recommend to keep mentioning the appearance of the character with these small comments, for me its enough and quite credible, we get to feel that our MC has presence in the story.
No update today.
Deadline for current update: Complete Stillwater one night stand: Soon(explicit stuff included)
Deadline for the rest in this segment: Mouse and Carrington early June.
Will probably take a few more days. Progress hasn’t been as fast as I’d have liked(still under 4 hours per day), plus, as always, polishing is hard to estimate, and tends to increase rather than decrease each day. (although this time it’s more the romantic rather than the explicit content that’s taking the greater part of the effort)
Thank you.
Half of that time has been spent on CyberPolice. Crazy to think.
And before that 2 other potential works that I never made a thread for. I’d really love to revisit one of them, but I consider it to be my “magnum opus” for interactive fiction, so it’ll probably never be feasible to make due to the scope. (the other being CyberMayor which is already integrated into CyberPolice in many ways 
)
Thank you again.
Perhaps it’ll be the best published piece of interactive fiction you’ve read, too, eventually.
Always nice to hear that the effort I’ve put in shows. I’ll have to keep it up until the end, though. Many things, whether movies or games or books, have endings that pretty much ruin everything that happened before it, especially for mystery-things(if the mystery was just some nonsense, for instance). I’ll do my best to avoid such a fate.
Thanks. As anyone who’s been following the development for the last half year knows, I certainly put a bunch of effort into all of the Mari Badr stuff, with all the delays and all that.
Wasn’t easy by any means, so it’s gratifying that it’s had such a positive reception.
As for any future repercussions, well, you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you? Maybe it’ll be totally fine. Maybe not. Maybe it’ll depend on your choices. After all, this is interactive fiction. 
She is the most ‘nuanced’ character for sure(not sure if that’s the right word, but the general idea is that she’s less ‘obvious’). The others are much more straightforward(but may still have some interesting details hiding underneath the surface too).
It would certainly be interesting to see a popularity poll, but generally speaking I’m not a fan of that in a small community like this, since it’ll just cause people to feel annoyed that their favorite isn’t appreciated, and cause arguments, and so on.
(Not to mention demotivating for me if any one of them is significantly less popular than the others since they’re all my beloved creations, after all. Still, I’d love to know, but curiosity can be dangerous at times)
Maybe after release.
Well, they’re a bit all over the place. They certainly don’t have equal use or value in the story. Some have far more common uses, while others can solve situations instantly, etc. And a few are very underutilized.
As I mentioned a while ago, I’ll be retooling the cybernetics system and add a minor skill system to compensate. You buy both with the same points, so you can get as many cybernetics as you can afford, or ignore them in favor of minor skills. A lot more work for me, but it also means I don’t need to balance anything in any real way, and can just toss stuff around randomly and hope for the best.
I really do need to decide on the specifics really soon, since I’ll be starting the rewrite after the one night stands are done. (I’ll rewrite a few scenes, then make new content, then rewrite, etc, to avoid it getting super boring for me. I might package them in the same update, or separately, not sure yet).
Anyway, I’ll test it out whether it’s feasible to add the minor skills or if it’s a much greater hassle than I think. (or if it’ll mislead players into thinking they have more function than they do, which is a potential problem)
Yeah, I’m an advocate of micro-variation like that, since they personalize the story for each reader in a way that makes it unique and more immersive to them.
It’s also a fair deal of work at times, especially if I want the descriptions to be interesting and not just generic “blah blah black hair blah blah”-type of stuff. Which I do. Frankly, I’ve probably given too many variables to take into account due to the various hairstyles and exotic eye-colors and so on, so it’s a very bloated list as is. Thankfully I don’t need to consider the player’s clothing style or anything as I can assume they’re wearing a uniform.
Oh my! 
I forgot about the fanwars, I’m always in my own world when reading wips and I never join the community of the if authors, so I wasn’t aware about that thing. Delete from your memory what I suggested, i will too, bad bad idea
No update today.
Deadline for current update: Complete Stillwater one night stand: Soon(explicit stuff included)
Deadline for the rest in this segment: Mouse and Carrington early June.
Unfortunately was quite lazy today, which is a bummer.
Well, I have no idea if that’s a thing that exists in this community since I mostly stay in my own isolated bubble, but it’s very common in fiction enjoyers in general. Read random youtube comments on any video about anything and chances are people will be arguing about their favorite characters in something.
@Tiavals Can you put a feature and ROs list at the top of the page? And I also got a question. Is it possible to get more than one augments/cybernetics in-game or is the one you pick at the character creation the only one you’ll be forced to stick with?
No update today.
Deadline for current update: Complete Stillwater one night stand: Soon(explicit stuff included)
Deadline for the rest in this segment: Mouse and Carrington early June.
Some work done. Still a fair amount left. At least I’m learning a lot, which will hopefully make the Mouse and Carrington segments much faster to make. (in practice half of the polishing process is researching on how to write certain romantic parts in an immersive/interesting way. Once I “get” how to do it, I should be able to do it effortlessly afterwards. Stuff like atmosphere, what details to include and why, etc. Pretty much each type of scene(investigation, action, romance, etc) has its own “rules”. By the time I’m done with CyberPolice I’ll have mastered all of them with how much time I spend with this stuff )
I suppose I can. What would a feature list entail, though(I’ve always been very bad at that sort of thing, so any advice would be nice)? I was thinking of putting a RO list in once I had implemented them properly, but I guess I can put it up sooner(like tomorrow?), since they’re not that far off anymore. Should I just check a few other WIPs to see how they list that stuff or what?
At present there’s a limit of just one and you’re stuck with it, but I’ll likely allow you to choose more than one eventually(though you’ll be stuck with those too).
However, the implementation of that is far in the future since I can’t really let the player take more than one until I rewrite most of the scenes in the game, since the logic that’s used in them expects only one cybernetic at max, and if the player has more than one it’ll cause lots of problems until I fix the underlying code.
For the feature list on your game based on what the players can expect, you can put stuff in it like this in order.
Gender
Customization
Background Info
Paths/Routes
Powers/Abilities
Augments/Cybernetics (and the possibility on getting more than one later)
Equipments
ROs (and whether there’s poly or not and if you can romance more than one (like cheating for example) and should probably include the one night stands in it)
And whatever else you can think of if you think it should be mentioned in the feature list.
Thats kinda too long i feel like.
More like who they are/short description or even background, gender , romanceable by xyz gender maybe
No update today.
Deadline for current update: Complete Stillwater one night stand: Soon(explicit stuff included)
Deadline for the rest in this segment: Mouse and Carrington early June.
Good progress today. I did realize that much of the content is too “similar” with itself, so I’ll need to add some variance to have more interesting stuff for the player to choose if they’re not into the “traditional” flow of romance(like if they don’t think ballroom dancing fits their idea of interesting content for the romance, they’ll have an alternative scene instead). Fortunately there’s only two places where I need to add things, I think, so it shouldn’t mean too much more work added.
I think it’s fine to say a relatively limited amount about the romanceable characters. I’ve laid out some examples below.
Right, thanks.
I’ve made a preliminary version below. If it looks good, I’ll edit it into the opening post.
I’m generally really terrible at making these sorts of things, so feedback is very welcome on both the feature list and the explanation of the romantic options.
(I don’t really “get” their point, I suppose, so I’m always at a loss as to what to write in them. There’s so much to say, but so little room, so I never know what to choose)
You can choose your gender(including pronouns and many other terms that are used in the game to refer to your character).
Customizeable weight, height, musculature, all of which have minor effects during the story, and are occasionally referred to by characters or descriptions. As a result, the game is personalized for your character and very immersive.
The player can choose from several background options, each of which gives a different context to the events of the game and can change dialogue scenes considerably.
Many long, and short, paths and routes to take through the game at certain points, each of which has unique content that can have choices and options that change the events of the story.
Sub-plots to discover that allow for more detailed exploration of specific parts of the story to reveal the truth of what really happened, as well as change many key events accordingly. (not yet done)
Major skills that change many scenes and allow for choices that can influence the outcomes of different situations.
Minor skills that have small effects on certain parts of the story, to spice things up. (not yet available)
Choose a cybernetic enhancement that will occasionally have a huge effect on how certain scenes unfold. (For now only one per playthrough. I will eventually add the option to choose more than one)
Four characters to choose from, all available to romance regardless of gender or other attributes of your character. (For the moment only one romance per playthrough. In the future it might be possible to romance both Carrington and Mouse at the same time)
Each has an extremely detailed one night stand scene. (currently in the process of making them, only Mari Badr’s is fully complete at the moment, others to come soon)
Lieutenant Stillwater:
Vat-grown soldier who never fought in a war, but instead was turned into a police officer. Dutiful to the extreme but curious about the outside world that he has had relatively little experience of.
Around 30 years of age. Medium height but very fit. Male.
Mari Badr:
Genetically engineered public relations expert and sales person of the biggest megacorporation of the world. She is very devious and always on the lookout to turn any situation into the advantage of her corporation. One of the main suspects of the case, yet also compelled to help the police to solve it.
Early 20s, short-to-average in size, female.
Laura Carrington:
Act first, think later kind of police officer. Prefers aggressive methods to methodical investigation. Having lived in the slums and through riots, has a very street-oriented view on life and lives in the moment.
Mid 20s, tall and buff, female.
Mouse:
Idealistic hacker who was caught by the police and pressed into service to avoid going to prison. He is forced to wear an ankle tag and often disagrees with how the police department does things, but can’t do much about it.
Early 20s, short and small, male.
When you plan to allow the reader to choose more cybernetics, I’m wondering if you’re planning to put a hard limit on how many cybernetic implantations the protagonist will be able to start with since the current canon has “heavily cyberized individual” as the max category for a non corporate/military/criminal cyborg in terms of cybernetic conversion?
There will be a hard limit, but I’m not totally sure how I’ll do it.
There’s a few options.
Either I’ll give each of them a different point cost, and depending on the total point cost you have, you’ll be categorized into Heavy, Medium, etc. So, for instance, you can’t go over 12 points, and Mega-strength costs 6 points, but the Gatling/rocket costs only 4 despite both being heavy(since it’s far less useful due to how rarely you can use it). (6-9 points being Medium, etc. Which means you could still remain a Medium cyborg despite having “current” heavy cyborg enhancements)
Or I’ll let the player choose only 1 heavy, but as many lower ones as they want(point cost still applies, but that means less Minor Skills).
Or maybe the first example, but if you have even a single heavy enhancement, you’re categorized as heavy regardless of your total point amount.
Or something else. Not entirely sure, but you won’t be able to take them completely as you like, partially due to the in-setting reason, partially due to balance reasons. I’ll give it more thought when I start the process of “rewriting” the game from the start. (rewrite isn’t quite the correct term, more like re-editing since I’ll leave most of the stuff as they are and just change the things that need improvement, or don’t make sense given the demands of the current version of the story)
I would probably prefer the first or second option.