Project Wild One v0.03: Special Touches

If you’re a mid-tier supporter, you can play the new version now! This version will also open up to lower-tier supporters in a couple week, and in about a month it will go public for everyone!

The big question is, what’s new? I’ll have to tackle that in parts, as I’ve changed a lot of little things all over Project Wild One with this release. To me, the biggest change with v0.03 is that we’ve switched to a Dynamic Text System! There are a few layers to that, both in how I mean dynamic and what it means for you.

First off, any action you see or take in the game can have much more varied and specific descriptions, now. For example, along with the original descriptors for when you try to start having sex with another character (all of which were about whether you miss, graze, hit or crit) there are another ten possible variants for the nature of your relationship with the character– if they’ve given you reason to be afraid, or to lust after them, you’ll get different descriptions for each. If you choose to focus on a certain ongoing sexual penetration, you can get eight different descriptions for when you’ve reached max depth that reflect the details of your anatomy (oral, vaginal, etc.) and whether the giver or receiver is pushing for more. I’m experimenting with a lot of different sets of variants for different actions in this starting version of the system, to see what feels most rewarding and varied as you play.

And every one of these variants has three different versions inside it for different perspectives (if you’re the one doing it, having it done to you, or seeing others do it), so it adds up to a lot of text very quickly. Handling it all in a system that chooses the best variant for each moment and handles it consistently, without repeating things too often, all took a lot of work and made up the bulk of the time I put into this update. Now that this system is in place, there should be room for a stupendous amount of content that unfolds in reaction to how your game is going, and I’ve tried to write out a decent sampler for that to get us started. I wasn’t able to get it into this version, but at this point I’m fairly confident we’ll open the door to user-generated content in the future using this system– meaning if you want to see the game acknowledge X more, you can write it in yourself… or maybe find a pack available from another enthusiast for you to apply to your game on startup. I’m excited to see where that goes!

Descriptions that intelligently match to the situation was the big goal for Dynamic Text, but the big switch behind the scenes has also enabled a lot of possibilities and a lot of little quality of life improvements. The text you saw on screen used to be mostly a static block behind the scenes, but now it’s all tracked as separate objects and it can change and react as you play. When you target a character, any text that mentions that character will be highlighted. Down the line, when it’s possible to change which character you’re controlling, all of the events will “change perspective” in the text to reflect your new point of view. I’ve got a few tricks hidden in there to keep things lively and flowing smoothly, and hopefully the new system has finally put an end to that old issue with the screen locking for filling with too much text.

Now, all of that is just focused on the interface, but we’ve got some big changes to the gameplay landing with this update as well! First thing: you now have many more options for sexual stimulation! I saw a lot of complaints about not being able to do any foreplay-type things, supplement penetration with side actions, or even have sex at all if nobody has a penis. I knew I’d be implementing those eventually, but everyone’s feedback moved that up in the queue and you now have the ability to pleasure others and yourself in a myriad of ways! These don’t require full-on penetration, so they’re not a whole big deal with all the mechanics penetration has, they’re just single actions you can perform with another person.

But fingering each other while standing at arm’s length from each other sounds weird. So along with the standard options to get close and get some penetration going, you now have a more general Grapple available! Grappling is basically what you’re already doing each time you start a penetration (sexual or vore) where you’re continuously locked together until one of you breaks it apart, but it’s more stimulating to be close together while exchanging sexual favors. Plus, being able to Grapple on its own lets you take advantage of a change: anyone that’s being grappled has a harder time dodging. So if you want to land your Stimulate on someone that’s reluctant, it’s much easier if you’re up close and personal. Or if you’re in a fight but they keep dodging you, a Grapple also works as a combat choice to strike them more reliably, as long as they don’t wriggle free.

And for that matter, the Grapple works as a helpful extra to another big, related change: anytime you could completely end a Grapple (including penetration) you can switch to a different Grapple with the same character instead! So if you’re “in position” but haven’t actually penetrated, you can just go straight to a different sort of penetration, or even just a normal Grapple, without splitting away from them, then grabbing hold of them again. This should help take out some of the frustration when you’re tangled with others and can’t quite get things going how you want them.

Partly to help make the above mechanics clearer, and part just because it should help you understand what’s happening in the game, command buttons have extra info now to clarify when your starting something new will end something already going, and when you see a locked action, it will tell you what exactly is preventing you from doing that right now. Also, any submenus you’d open that just have no eligible options (like trying to get penetrated by someone with no penis) will be locked to save you annoying clicks into nothing and back again.

What else… Oh! We had a weird issue where fluids would just never “leak out” from the womb, and that’s finally fixed. Along with that, you now have the ability to “gush out” excessive amounts of fluid from any orifice! Any character that’s way too full will gush out anything that doesn’t fit, slower or faster depending on how tight they are and how full they are. And as a bonus, fluids in the stomach or bowels can transfer to each other! So now, technically, you might be able to, say, stuff someone’s butt so full of cum that it gushes out of their mouth. Enjoy!

On the nommy side of things, I’ve fixed the big vore bug that was stopping most cases of vore from going past halfway! Along with that, I’ve loosened up the rules a little for what a character can do or have done to them while partly vored, but AI should be less likely to try for things that would interrupt vore, and will try to avoid getting locked in a situation where vore can’t complete for too long. Also, I fixed a bug that somehow simultaneously allowed one character to be vored by many different people at the same time. Phew!

And in general, I’ve tweaked the AI a lot to balance out the different actions available to them and make sure they don’t ignore anything available to them or spam one thing too much more than the rest. I’ve developed a new system for seeing how the AI plays out and it’s helped me fine-tune things some! Also, by popular demand, you can no longer penetrate each other anally/vaginally at the same time! I plan to develop a more detailed system for dictating what is and isn’t possible at once that should allow for a lot of “flexibility” but hopefully nothing too absurd for most’s tastes.

Past that… well, there’s still a bunch of stuff! But it all pretty much falls under the umbrella of improving the UI, so let’s just make it a quick list:

• Overhauled character detail panel to only use “you” to refer to the reader. Should be much less confusing!
• Slight delays now let you “feel” the time passing between actions! Should also help significantly with performance.
• “Change Stance” is now called “Set Intent” to hopefully be more intuitive and clearly important!
• Fixed AI characters showing up sometimes being “hidden” inside other text sections.
• Tweaked characters’ full detail overlay font size settings to show more/all info available.
• When paging through target plates, targeting your character won’t reset page anymore.
• Multiple instances of penetration with the same person will not be described as having sex with two people in summaries anymore.

That should cover everything worth noting, though I feel like I’ve made small adjustments to just about every part of the game at this point. There’s still lots to do that’s been pushed off as well, and I’m trying to strike a balance between fleshing out what’s available now (this Dynamic Text System may be the first major feature in the game that’s not a placeholder at this point!) and doing the prep work for the next big goal: the revamped AI system. I know that’s going to be a lot of work, and I want to get all the supporting pieces in place for it to make it as simple a step as possible. Keep an eye out for the next Dev Journal for more info on what’s coming up next!

For now, the new version is finally out there, and I’m looking forward to hearing how folks like the new text system. Some reminders, in case anyone missed it: you can join us on Discord to discuss the game and generally take part in a surprisingly friendly community! I also have a Twitter where I’ll mention what I’ve got going on and occasionally drop some awful ideas I find funny. If you want access to cheats, early access to new builds, previews for new stuff, the chance to influence future builds, and/or generally like my work and want me to keep making it, check out my Patreon! Or if that’s not your bag, all the rewards are also mirrored on SubscribeStar.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you dig the update!