January Patreon Reward

Out now! New stuff in the Patreon version:

  • New Location: The Pit. Here you can meet the characters from the previous patreon releases, and also The Smuggler – an unscrupulous rogue who often moves contraband internally.
  • New alert level mechanic for all the inhabitants of The Pit.
  • Re-implemented the encounter meters to make them easier to mod and maintain.
  • Hover over a meter to see its numeric value.

Plan for the base game

For the last few months I’ve been focused on producing Patreon content: new tomes, new characters, and new plot arcs. These are the ingredients for a new location: The Pit, a dilapidated industrial zone where squatters, outlaws, and revolutionaries hang out.

But what about people not in the Patreon? I plan to ship all the new content to the base game with a delay, and for the last few months I’ve been giving the Patreon a head start. In February I want to update the base game with a chunk of the new location, with the rest to come later. Base game updates won’t happen as often as Patreon rewards – I’m shooting for quarterly – but rest assured, new content is on the way.

December Patreon Reward

The patreon content next month will kick off new storylines, told through a bunch of end-of-night text scenes:

  • Witness the Baron’s fall play out in the Underworld.
  • Find out what’s happening inside the Office of the Witchfinder General.
  • Get hints about the main character’s past.

I’m aiming to have this ready for you in the first week of December.

EDIT: Available now! 8 new plot scenes, on top of the content from previous patreon updates: 2 new tomes, 2 new characters, and 2 new trap types.

What’s new in August

How’s that code mod support coming along, you wonder? Well, it works, and I’ve been using it to make Patreon content, but it’s still completely undocumented, so there’s not much point in releasing it into the base game just yet. I’ll be looking to carve out a bit of time to do that next month.

On the Patreon side of things I’ve been making some new content! Initially I released a couple of non-Fleshcult Twine games: a CYOA called The Untold Holes of Mistress Sable, and an interactive JOI called the Trials of Verminus, but now I’m settling into a rhythm of making a new tome and character each month, and hopefully soon, some new storyline content. Yeah, I gave up on gating that stuff based on revenue goals. Seems like the better growth incentive is to actually have the goods. Who knew?

Code Modding Progress

While getting the Patreon rolling, I’ve also been planning out code mods. Specifically I’ve been reading up on Python’s import machinery and different approaches to monkey patching. Monkey patching is a much-derided programming technique where you rewrite or add to portions of the code while the program is running. If this sounds crazy, it sorta is, but it’d really give modders the run of the place. It’d be a good fall back for situations where more formal extension hooks don’t exist.

I’m looking to give modders @before, @after, and @instead decorators that would let them hook their own functions into existing methods, but reversibly and in the load order of the mod list. I’d publish a list of recommended places to override, of course.

I’ve also been preparing the data definitions (character types, transformations, all that stuff) to make it easier to turn them into data that I can load from files. This is going to benefit both modders and myself because it’ll give me a more convenient way to maintain both a patreon version and a non-patreon version.

Expanding Fleshcult

I’m restarting the Patreon! I’m aiming to make the game longer and continue the story after the Baron’s demise. If this sounds good, please consider contributing!

Here’s what’s different from the last Patreon launch:

  • It’s a plain regular-ass Patreon: you get charged monthly. You get rewards. No weird pledge threshold.
  • The port away from the server is done, so there’s gonna be results much sooner.
  • The rewards are different: rather than no-ads and cheats, special content instead.

You can find out more here:
https://www.patreon.com/fleshcult

Patreon Rewards

If I was gonna restart my Patreon, what would you like to see as a reward, and where would you want to see me spend time and resources?

Whatever happens I’ll continue to use Steam revenue to finish off mod support. But patreonbux would allow me to bring in artists and writers and commit to more content. If you’d like to be informed if/when this happens, follow Fleshcult on Steam or Itch.

Which Patreon rewards might tempt you to join? (Pick all that apply)

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A Fourth Location?

In this scenario I’d focus on making the game longer, with a new location after the suburbs and the old quarter. It would have new types of minions to recruit and a new plot arc that carries on after the Baron.

Side Projects

I regularly have ideas for erotic games that I make little prototypes of. They’re short and not illustrated, but I’d polish them up and add some juicy text descriptions. Not all of these would have selectable gender and sexuality like Fleshcult. For example, the most complete thing I have lying around is a Twine game where you’re a male sub lost in his mistresses’ maze of sinister glory holes.

Soundtrack

I’d also add the technical framework for background music to the game. I slapped together the Steam trailer music in Renoise and could make more tracks with a similar mood, but at lower tempo and with more ambience. Or hire an actual musician, if the community gently takes me aside to say, “Yes, but not like that”.

Lore Wiki

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was doing a bit of worldbuilding to give me more of a setting to work with. For example, I have a map of the underworld based on tectonic plate boundaries and large igneous provinces. Demonic factions, yadda yadda. Absolutely no promises this ever makes it into the game and it’s very unlikely to get you off. Might be interesting if you’re trying to do similar things on tabletop.

What else am I missing?

I’m open to suggestions.

Release v1.08: Steam Workshop support is out!

Fleshcult v1.08 is now available on Steam and Itch. It allows you to create and install mods that can:

  • Add graphics
  • Improve the UI
  • Add sounds

This is the first phase of mod support. I’ll be continuing to work on enabling mods for:

  • Adding characters, transformations, and locations
  • New mechanics and other code alterations

Modding Preview 3

This one’s just a wee bugfix release. Changes:

  • Altering the internal name of your mod from the upload form no longer errors out.
  • All of the CSS classes for minions have been added to the Lab screen and the minion pairing table. They work identically to the ones in the Visit Surface screen and encounters.

Modding Preview 2

On the Steam beta branch you can now download v1.08, which lets you upload and download mods from Steam Workshop. This is an opportunity for modders to test workshop integration before it goes live for players in general.

Known Issues:

  • If you’ve been using Modding Preview 1, you’ll initially see an error about not being able to read user settings, but it should behave correctly after that.
  • Secondly, if you’ve written metadata for your mod into an ini file, it will now need to be named ‘metadata.ini’.
  • The upload form can’t cope with unicode characters yet.

Please let me know if your mods behave any differently after a trip through workshop and I’ll look into it. And if you’d like to get into making mods, you can learn more on the wiki.