The new system is online, and my biggest supporters can try it out right now! Other supporters will get access in a couple weeks, and about a month from now, this update will go public!
This one has been a beast, partly because I have completed one of the largest and most important chunks of work for the project: getting the first chunk of the new system for controlling NPCs built and working! I’ll be talking about that in just a second. This update did get delayed some at the very end just because my personal life went a little crazy at just the wrong time, but it sounds like there’s a lot of that going around these days. Hell, the last year has been a lot of crazy stuff, but you know what? I made my first build of PWO in a similarly miserable period of my life. I guess in a way, this game has been my escape and my avenue for expressing myself in a lot of difficult times. Let’s get into what I’ve accomplished.
The Interp-Theory Mind
In the past, I’ve called this system the AI Overhaul a lot, but I finally have a better name for it– something to make it a little less ambiguously reminiscent of all the other developments going on in the tech industry right now. This system is, I think, a personal triumph in design. I’ve developed it to be flexible, expandable, and powerful, while hopefully staying light on resource-usage. I want this system to go the distance. I know there’s still tons to build onto it before it’s really “complete,” but in many ways, the hard part is done: I have built the foundation that every other part will use as a launching point, and every dream I have for this game is more easily within reach, now.
There’s a lot I could say about this system, so much that I decided it might be better to put together its own whole page on the site. So:
To learn all about the Interp-Theory Mind, CLICK HERE!
The short version is, Interps and Theories are the two main pieces that make up this system, to allow each individual NPC to efficiently simulate a “Mind” with many different, simultaneous thought processes. Right now it’s only built to handle “understanding the world” and feeds what it “knows” into the old AI system, but I have a lot of lofty goals for the full version of this system that I think are now within reach, including a wide range of desires and needs, planning, and emotions. Also, this system is set up so that all the important data is stored in spreadsheets, meaning it’s very easy to expand any part of it without making a mess of the code, and even that someday, users might be able to add their own content to how NPCs think without having to know any programming.
I could talk about this system for ages. I’ve been refining the ideas for it in the back of my head basically since I started making this game, and it’s finally starting to come to fruition. The hardest part is, I think right now it only shows through a little bit just how much NPCs have changed. My Proofers have been testing it out and do seem to think NPCs are smarter now, though part of that might just be how much I’ve gutted and replaced the old AI system to make it take advantage of the new one. The important thing is, the Big One is done, and I think you’ll be gradually seeing more and more of just what this system can do with future updates.
Now, that was the bulk of my development time right there, but there have been several other changes since the last update.
Action Strength
One of the big reasons I’ve been dying to replace the AI system is that it added an extra work burden to any changes I wanted to make. I’ve had this change in mind for a long time, but I knew that making the old AI system actually understand the difference in actions taken against it, or which actions to take, would be a big damn mess (and that I’d have to throw all that extra work away before long anyway). Now, we’re finally able to start adding to the more important parts of the game without it generating so much throw-away busy work.
With this version, you will now be able to alter many of your common actions to be Strong or Gentle. You can spend extra Willpower to make your Attack Strong, for example, or you can be Gentle about penetrating an especially snug hole to reduce the damage they take, but make progress more slowly. This should give you a lot more fine control over your character, and allow both you and NPCs to show more nuance in your attitude toward each other. I’m still feeling out the balance with these alternate actions, so they might get a lot of adjustments in later versions. We’ll see!
Instinct and Repeat
You’ll have four new buttons available to you during play, and these are the other two: quality of life improvements for getting through the game a little faster. The Instinct button presents you with what your character would do in your situation if the Interp-Theory Mind were in control of it. You might find this convenient at many times for quickly taking actions you’d be inclined to take anyway, or it might give you more insight into how the NPCs think. It can also be a small boon for new players, suggesting courses of action they don’t yet realize have merit. And of course, if you’re ever feeling voyeuristic, you can simply mash Instinct and watch the game “play itself” until you feel like stepping in.
The Repeat button is a fairly simple convenience: whatever action you took last, this button lets you quickly take it again if possible, or the logical “next action” if not. So if you try to grab hold of someone to have sex a certain way but miss, Repeat will let you attempt it again in one click. If you succeed in starting, it will offer to Focus on that sex and continue Focusing on it later turns. I’ve tried to make it fairly helpful in letting you keep pushing on with a certain goal, when there’s no ambiguity about what the next step would be.
Pain Revamp
This is less directly related, but the way Pain works in the game has bothered me a little in the past. You can fairly easily jam a massive insertion into a tiny hole, or yank a very large knot out of a snug place, and all it costs is a brief burst of Willpower, which regenerates quickly. Pain isn’t really something to shrug off as easily as that– it is something everyone tries to avoid whenever possible, and it tends to linger. Also, there’s already a lot of things that drain your Willpower, so having both orgasms and pain just constantly draining your Willpower made it really easy to get locked down.
With that in mind, I’ve changed Pain to be sort of a new status: when something hurts, you get a Pain amount, and your maximum Willpower is reduced by that amount. That does mean if you were at max WP already, you’ll now be above max and the difference will drain away over time, but if you were already low, it won’t make a big difference immediately. Your altered max does mean you regenerate WP more slowly, however.
I think this helps make Pain feel more meaningful in the game, while not stacking directly with other WP drains during sex and such. My Proofers have said that sometimes this feels more punishing than Pain used to, but honestly, that is pretty much what I wanted. Now that everyone has access to Gentle actions, it is very possible to accomplish most sexual acts with minimal pain, even with significant size difference. You just need to take the time and care to avoid it. I believe this makes sex and size difference feel more meaningful, and the various traits that help with such things more valuable. On the face of things, I know this might sound “less fun,” but I think it’s important to put the “challenge” of the gameplay where you want players’ focus. There needs to be challenge in the sex to make it feel immersive and meaningful. Give it a shot. I think you’ll find it will grow on you.
Combat Rebalance
Not too big a change, but I’ve tweaked several values now that Strong Attacks open up the potential for more vicious combat. I’ve tuned down normal attack damage a little so it’s a touch harder to just erase creatures from existence before they can even respond with Strong Attacks. Crits especially can get a little out of hand when you’re grappling and Strong Attacking, so I’ve reduced them from 2x to 1.5x normal damage. I’ve also doubled the Defense bonus offered by the Tough trait chain, which will now reduce attack damage by 5 flat damage, then by 13%, at max level.
As a side note, I got some feedback from the Proofers that NPCs still aren’t super combat-oriented and don’t seem all that big on defending themselves. To some extent, right now, that’s intentional. In our world, any violence has to be taken very seriously: any wound lingers, and death is permanent. In this world, everyone recovers fairly quickly even from grievous wounds, and if you finish someone off, they reappear later, annoyed and drained but otherwise fine. In that context, violence becomes a much more nuanced part of life. You can choose to simply die rather than harm another, as a statement. You can weather someone’s outburst without concern, and see if they are willing to put it aside in favor of better things. Violence, and its absence, becomes a form of communication. Now, the NPCs aren’t yet smart enough to fully grasp these things, but I don’t want them to be overly keen on violence when that can be so disruptive to the more “fun” stuff, so for now I’m tuning them to err on the peaceful side. Down the road, I intend to make combat a more interesting and involved aspect of the game, but I still want this game to be more about sexual and emotional gratification than violence, whatever is added from here.
Other Changes
The work I’ve done on the game this update has been so wide-reaching, I’ve had to make alterations to almost every part of the game. Most of them are behind the scenes stuff, but I’ve accumulated a lot of little things you may notice that are worth mentioning.
- Changed Character Select menu to Delete slots rather than Overwrite them
- Improved tooltips to update from most button presses
- Fixed rare crash from complex vore situations
- Fixed a bug with Fluid Hoarder keeping “0ml” fluids forever
- Fixed various issues with Descriptions, Character Detail Panel, and Intents
What’s Next?
Honestly, I have a lot of mixed feelings about what I’ll be working on next. After how long this development cycle went, I’d really like to put out a smaller, faster update, maybe put out a lot of small changes and improvements taking advantage of everything in this update. I tried to pare this one down as much as I could to get it out quickly without it feeling like nothing changed, so there’s a lot I could do relatively easily from here to make a decent v0.09.
That said, the current Interp-Theory Mind is still desperately in need of big improvements! I don’t know how many different ideas and projects I’ve put on delay for “after the AI Overhaul is done” at this point. It is the big thing that I knew I wanted done before I upgraded so many other systems in PWO that would interact with it, and I consider it such an important central feature that I want it in place before I consider anything like taking a break from PWO development to look at some sort of import of MVOL to Unity or the like. I’d really love to get the AI to a semi-complete state… but there’s a lot of reasons to look elsewhere, too.
Obviously, I’ve been working on the Interp-Theory Mind a lot, and while I took a bit of a break at the end to focus on all the other little bits of this update, I was feeling pretty burnt out on it for a bit there, so it might be wise to give myself more time before diving back in. And while it’s true the foundation is complete and it should be much easier from here to make changes and additions in small steps it’s easier to put in a single update, it’s also true that we’re still kinda awkwardly straddling the line between the two AI systems right now. If I tried to just add one small piece to the system right now, that would mean still more throw-away work connecting it to the old system. It feels like the best next step for the ITM is to get it to the point it can make decisions for NPCs on its own, without having to use the old system for a crutch. That shouldn’t be near as big a process as this was, but I doubt it would go as quick as what I’m looking for right now.
So I guess I’m talking myself into a small sort of side update before going back into full ITM development. I can still work on some of the background stuff to get ready for it, but this should be a good break, and I’ve got piles of smaller additions in the back of my head to pick from that I think you guys will enjoy.
Wrapping Up
That’s about all I’ve got to say about the update and where things are going from here. If you’d like to know more about what’s going on or discuss the game, you should check out my Discord Server! It’s also just a nice place to find kindness and mutual respect on an internet that often seems uncaring and cruel. I’m pretty proud of the community we’ve built. And if you’re wishing you could help somehow with development, consider helping playtest new versions as a Proofer! We can always use more discerning eyes finding issues before it becomes everyone else’s problem!
Thank you for your patience with this update, everyone. It’s been one hell of a ride, but I think it’s going to be paying off for us for a long time. I hope you enjoy trying out all the new stuff and your first peek at the new Mind!
Can’t wait!
Me too