Saturday 28 February 2015

February vote results

Hello everyone!

I've tallied up the votes for this month and the winner is Friendship. 

Daily life, storyline and work & career were the three closest to matching friendship, but the difference was quite large - in fact, friendship nearly had a majority just from first choice votes alone.

I'll start on the 0.4 update once 0.3 is finished, which I expect will be in March. I won't predict how long 0.4 will take, but when that's done there'll be another vote to decide what to work on next.

Thanks to all the voters for taking the time to tell me their preferences, and I hope I can come up with an implementation that you all enjoy :)

Thursday 26 February 2015

Dance and talking

Hello everyone!

The dance scene in 0.2.8 has some actions where either you or your partner say things to each other. With actions like these I like to have a list of possibilities, each with their own conditions.

For example, there might be a line for when he's your boyfriend, a line for when you find him incredibly handsome, and if both of those hold true then either could get chosen.

At the moment these actions have a handful of possible lines each. I think that's okay for a first release, but it's much lower than some other scenes - the porn movie scene has something like 50 possible lines for sexual comments.

The actions I want to add more options to are:
- Romantic comment from your partner e.g. "he wishes the two of you could dance together forever."
- Sexual comment from your partner (requires sleazy trait). e.g. "getting his hands on you for a dance reminds him of when you opened your legs for him. "
- Flirtatious compliment from the player e.g. "it's such fun to dance with a handsome man like him. "
- Directly sexual comment from the player e.g. "you hope he's as skilled in bed as he is on the dancefloor. "

If you have an idea for a new line that you want to see added to one of these, then let me know either by posting in the comments or on one of the forums I visit. Obviously comments that at least vaguely reference the fact that you're dancing together are best.

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Newlife 0.2.8 released to patrons, and 0.2.7 publicly

Hello everyone!

From now on I'm going to be putting new releases on Patreon before they're made available publicly. That's because I want to reward my patrons who make it possible for me to spend so much time on the game. If it wasn't for them then Newlife wouldn't be even close to 0.2.7 at this point, let alone 0.2.8.

Early-access patrons will always be one version ahead. Newlife 0.2.8 is ready, I've put the changelog below, and I've posted the jar Patreon already. If you're a patron then head on over there and enjoy! 

Because 0.2.8 is available to patrons, I'm also putting 0.2.7 out for a public release for everyone else. You can see the changelog at http://splendidostrich.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/version-027-changelog.html

0.2.7 can be downloaded using the links to your right. You only need either the jar or the exe - not both. I recommend trying the jar first.
For either version you'll need to have Java installed. A lot of programs use Java so you might well already have it. If the jar shows up as an unrecognised file type, then you probably don't. In that case you can get it from http://www.java.com/.

As an aside, quite a bit of my time today has been taken up in stressing about Blogger's plan to prohibit adult content, starting in late March! In fact, that's why I'm posting this now and not about four hours ago. It's not yet clear if text content will be covered, but if  you suddenly see this blog disappear then it probably means that I've been forced to move to another platform. 
If that happens then I'll post links to the new site on all the Newlife forum threads I know of and also on Patreon. So, if my blog suddenly vanishes and you don't know where to go for game updates, head over to the Patreon page which is linked when you open Newlife and see if I've put a link there.

0.2.8 is perhaps the biggest update yet with 4 new scenes. Even so, there is more dance content to come! In particular, the nightclub scene hasn't been updated yet and you can't dance with dates after bringing them home. Both those things will be added soon. Without further ado, here's the changelog:
  • Fixes for text issues. Thanks to death25, Lawhorn, curious & cubano for reporting problems they found.
  • Fixed a problem reported by cubano where the outfit details pane showed negative values for naughty & casual outfits instead of absolute ones.
  • Slightly increased the effect of taking high willpower.
  • Reduced the effect of alcohol on willpower.
  • Slightly reduced a few common modifiers on willpower checks
  • Added some more restrictions to offering a guy your number in a few scenes
  • Replaced one possible pornstar name which could be the same as your date's! Thanks to Cubano for reporting this one.
  • Added alternative text for clear-headed girls when describing how drunk you are.
  • The description of the player from the Describe Characters button now has a line for how drunk you are, as suggested by cubano.
  • If your lover refuses to wear a condom you now get a willpower bonus to the normal “end the makeout” action as well as the stronger rejections.
  • Fixed a bug reported by brodur where you could remove your underwear even while wearing hotpants.
  • Characters with the ambitious trait now start with more money, to reflect that they were probably more financially successful before the start of the game.
  • Added the dance skill
  • New scene for dancing together with a man. This covers proper dancing as in a dance class. Nightclub dancing will be updated in a future release (probably the next one).
  • New dance class activity with several associated scenes. You'll always get a scene for your first class. The other scene will show up somewhere between half and a third of the time – sometimes you just have an uneventful dance class where nothing interesting happens.
  • When your dance skill is high enough (specifically, 30), there's a chance each week that you'll hear of a dance tournament on weekends. You'll be informed of this in the week planner the same way as you're told about dates, and you can attend by choosing it as a weekend activity. Dress code for dance classes is casual, for the tournament you wear going out clothing. I may change this to formal eventually, but of course formal clothes haven't been added yet.
  • Dropped the number of random men down to 12 again, because there are new ones added for the dance class.


Have fun, enjoy the new version, and please report any bugs!



Monday 23 February 2015

Next release coming tomorrow

Hello everyone. I've nearly finished the dance competition scene, which is the last big piece of work before the next release will be ready.
It's 3am over here though, and I'm not really focused enough to do the final testing & build without making any big mistakes. I think it's best if I put off the release for tonight and wait until my head's a bit clearer. Unless I get hit by a bus or my computer explodes the next version of Newlife will definitely be out tomorrow though - that's Monday 23rd.

Friday 20 February 2015

Shall we dance?

Hello everyone! It took a few tries to start up this morning, but my computer seems to be working fine.
There's a few small changes I still want to make, but the first three dance scenes are finished. I'm going to add a 4th, do a bit of testing, and then then I'll put out 0.2.8, so I think it's more or less on target for this weekend.

Here are some screenshots from a test game, along with my commentary. As usual for blogger you can click the screenshots to make them larger:


Our hero - I used Chaos generation to create a random character

The dance class has a special scene for the first time you go. Here we see that one of the other students, Max, is a dick.

Just... such a dick. One day I will get my revenge

And that day is today! The scene where you dance together lasts for ten actions and I can spend them all stamping on his feet :D


Yup, unlike most other special NPCs the dancers can appear in clubs, although you'll always have your first meeting with them at the class. Dance students and the instructor are always good dancers, but random NPCs have a change of being particularly good or bad too. Now that Max has decided to chat me up, I can figure out a way to make him suffer even more. He'll regret angering a girl with the bitchy trait!

Damn it Max, you aren't suffering enough! Suffer more damn you!

WHAT THE FUCK MAX WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ENEMIES!!!!

Fine. Consider this my revenge. I mean, having a pregnant bitchy girlfriend is kind of a punishment, right?

Wednesday 18 February 2015

Computer problems :(

Hi all, I've been having some hardware trouble today. I think I've got it fixed for now, but I'm a bit concerned that the old desktop I work on might be on the verge of giving up the ghost.

I'm not going to complain about the manufacturer or anything - it's already lasted longer then the computer I had before. If it keeps running, then I'll make another post today or tomorrow with some screenshots of what I'm working on. If I suddenly go silent though, then it's probably just that my PC's bust. In that case, don't worry - if it breaks I'll be back as soon as I get a new one.

Saturday 14 February 2015

Happy Valentine's day!

Happy Valentine's day everyone! I hope you have a great day with your special someone.
If you don't have a special someone just yet, then remember that you're special too. Go ahead and treat yourself to something that will make you happy!


Newlife's a bit too early in development to have any special valentine's content - although next year might be a different story. If you're starting a game today though, go ahead and click that checkbox for the romantic trait, and let's hope you can find a bloke who'll treat you like the lovely flower that you are.

Sunday 8 February 2015

Version 0.2.7 changelog

Hello everyone.
This is the changelog for version 0.2.7. This isn't publicly available yet, but an initial version has been made available to early-access patrons. I'll be doing a bit more testing on this before moving onto the next version, so there may be a few more bugfixes when this goes out onto the blog.
  • Fixes for text issues. Thanks to deathevn, middling emu, souldead341, josey14, cubano & mke for reporting problems they found.
  • Fixed a bug where you couldn't ask a man to stay the night if you finished having sex exactly at the end of your date. Thanks to middling emu for reporting this.
  • Fixed a bug where men sometimes weren't sobering up properly after sleeping.
  • Updated the description for averagely-built men as suggested by middling emu.
  • Fixed a bug where the descriptions for getting drunk weren't being shown. Thanks to grommile, neomagick & hi34E8fd for reporting this one.
  • The stats page now tracks how many times you've rewarded someone for coming to your aid, as suggested by Cubano.
  • Fixed a bug where the chance of the client asking you to get him off wasn't based on his arousal level. It's now less likely than before at low values, and more likely at high ones.
  • Added a new action while you're making out – you can now take off your partner's shirt completely. This was suggested by Rfpnj.
  • New clothing - jeans, yoga pants, pajamas, babydolls and more. This includes a few things that need high fashion skill before you'll be able to find them in the shops.
  • Some new content for trousers. Also, having your trousers pulled around your thighs restricts you from taking some actions.
  • You now go clothes shopping immediately at the end of the intro, although money will be very tight that early in the game.
  • Renamed camis to camisoles in the shop window, to make them more obviously different from the cami-top.
  • Increased the number of “ordinary” men from 10 to 15. This means you'll see more variety in each game; but also that you're less likely to meet any particular man on a visit to a nightclub.
  • Fixed a bug where the “Stop having sex” command wasn't blocking some sexual content the same turn, notably men having an orgasm. Thanks to cubano for reporting this one.
  • Added some text for pregnant virgins in the character screen.
  • There was some blank space in the shop/wardrobe tab of the clothing screen, so I added a simple text area with some help for new players. I guess eventually I should have a proper help system, but this will hopefully make it a bit easier to get started for now.
  • The text in the main menu is now a bit different for Patrons. Separating patron vs public versions will also be useful in the future when/if I hit patron-only milestones like adding cheat codes & customisation options.
  • Clothes will no longer appear in the shop if they're duplicates of ones you already own, and you also shouldn't see duplicates of other clothes for sale appearing either.
  • Added a small panel to the outfit screen that shows the stats for created outfits.
  • Added high-low skirts, as suggested back in December by tffan123.
  • Increased the stress reduction ambitious girls get from being promoted.
  • Fixed a bug with the “suggestively butter him up” action not encouraging the pervy client to start stripping you.
  • Fixed a bug where the Thick Cock trait wasn't being adding in character creation for men. Must have been one introduced in a recent update, because it definitely used to be. Anyway, it's back in now. Thanks to Solforward for reporting this problem.
  • Fixed another bug with checkboxes not being enabled during character creation. Thanks to Cubano for reporting this one.
Edit: I've put an improved version on patreon with some further bugfixes and additions. As well as some fixes that don't deserve their own line in the changelog, I've made the following additions:
  • Added a few new stats, as suggested by Cubano
  • Made girls with low self esteem get a bit more turned on at the start of the dirty client scenes, and added a small amount of arousal to the two suggestive actions you can take to persuade him. Hopefully this will make it a little more realistic to have an orgasm there, although the changes might not be quite enough.
  • Updated some post-sex text to consider different clothing possibilities based on a suggestion from indusfre.
  • Added a new random event. This one happens on weekends.