In a truly shocking development, the new content is ready, just like I
promised at the start of June. This version includes the first day
of content for episode 4. Get it at the Downloads section!

I’ve made a *lot* of changes to other things since the end
of episode 3, both in the UI and in gameplay. Some of these changes
were introduced in later version of the day 3 content, but if you’ve
been holding off on downloading until you get new content, here’s
the tl;dr:

1. Keyboard commands haven’t changed, but everything’s been given a mouse
clickable button, and moved to other screens to keep the UI from being
overcrowded.

2. Easier to look at the powers for each character.

3. Your bum status is shown via emojii rather than sentences.

4. Spankings disrupt the spankee’s best buff.

5. Each point in speed grants .5 damage, and .5 defense.

6. Buzzsaw and Succubus can now inflict Grabbed, which reduces your speed to 0.

7. For Windtunnel, you now select the character whose next attack you’d like to
redirect, and the character who should be the new target rather than the
*target* of an attack you’d like to redirect.

The more long-winded version:

* UI
– The various utility commands (i.e. (T)itle Screen, (O)ptions) have been
moved behind a mouse-clickable button, and been given mouse-clickable
buttons as well. Same for the more dynamic combat commands (like (a) attack,
or (b) power), and story choices (like 1. Punch her in the face!).
*None* of the keyboard commands have changed. I’ve simply moved a few things
around to make the main story and combat screen less crowded.

– The UI is now fully navigatable with the mouse. It’s a bit awkward. You
typically need two mouse clicks for one keyboard command, but it’s doable,
and looks pretty okay on smaller computer screens.

– It’s now *much* easier to look at character powers, because you don’t have
to go back to the main screen to look at a different power. For example, if on the combat
screen you press (F1) to look at Scarlet Moon’s powers, then press
(a), then (b), it’ll show you the information for s-armor, and then s-beam.
You can then press (1) to look at the powers for the villain you’re fighting,
without having to go back. Furthermore, if you’re inspecting
the powers for the currently active character, you can press (Enter) to use
it.

– The game no longer prints the power descriptions in the main
combat feed when you select one through (p)ower. I found that to be painfully
noisy while I was testing. However, I also have every power baked into my bones,
so if you liked the old behavior, raise a stink, and I’ll either revert the
behavior, or (more likely) add an option that allows you to toggle it.

– Rather than displaying rather long winded sentences describing your character’s
bum status, the game now uses emojis. They’re much more concise, and I find them
amusing. The emojis are, in order from least sore to most sore:

1. (^_^)

2. (-_-)

3. (o_o)

4. (>_<)

5. (x_x)

6. (;_;)

7. (T_T)

I still write sentences behind the scene (the game just counts up how many
sentences Scarlet Moon has), so if people prefer the descriptions, raise a stink.
I can either revert the change or (more likely) add yet another option.

* Gameplay

– The formula for damage from basic attacks (and shoots) has been changed.
Before, it was max(1, attacker.strength – max(0, target.speed –
attacker.speed)). However, this made speed a rather baroque, and powerful stat.
Basically what this means is that if your character is slower than your
opponent, increasing speed increases the damage you do by 1. If your character
is faster, increasing speed decreases the damage you take by 1. I
felt like there was never any reason to take a strength point if you
understood speed, which was hard to understand. After all, speed basically
gives you the same thing, or increases your defense if you’re already fast.

The new formula is: max(1, attacker.strength + floor(attacker.speed / 2) – floor(target.speed / 2)).
In other words, every even point of speed grants you one additional damage and one additional
defense. This is much easier to understand, and makes both strength and speed viable.
Increase strength and you’re all but guaranteed to do an extra point of damage. Increasing
speed may or may not give you anything just yet, but when it does, it’s a pretty big payoff.

This also means that characters are doing much more damage than they were before.

– Spankings no longer increase the spankee’s strength, while reducing their speed and power.
Instead, spanking does two things:
a. Inflict the spanked status. Spanked doesn’t actually do anything on its own, but is
looked for in other parts of the game. For example, Succubus’ AI won’t use her OTK power
(where she tries to get the player to bend over her knee) if she’s been spanked.
b. Reduce the duration of the target’s best buff by max(1, spanker.strength – spankee.strength)

– Buzzsaw’s chainwhip power inflicts the new status Grabbed. Similarly,
Succubus’ OTK power inflicts OTK and Grabbed. Grabbed is a nasty status that
drops the target’s speed to 0. That doesn’t stop you from
increasing your speed after you’ve been grabbed though.

– Tempestas’ Windtunnel has been tweaked a bit. First, it’s much cheaper now (10 energy
rather than 20). Second, instead of selecting an ally who could be targeted, you now
select the enemy (or ally, whatever) whose attack you’d like to redirect, followed by
the target you’d like to redirect the attack to. Windtunnel was intended as a way of
turning Prometheus and Poseidon against each other. Fling some of Prometheus’ fireballs
at Poseidon, and laugh as some of his buffs get disrupted. However, I found it nigh
impossible to use effectively the old way because you had to predict who Prometheus
would attack first, and hope Poseidon didn’t get to them before her (or vice versa).
Now, you can guarantee that
Prometheus’ powerful fireball is going to be redirected, rather than Poseidon’s
weak(er) Attack.

Hopefully these are all for the better, but if anything rubs you the wrong way,
or feels unbalanced please let me know.

Finally, I would greatly appreciate it if you all posted your stats at
the end of the new content, and let me know which powers you rely on, which ones you
ignore, and which ones you use situationally. This will help me determine if some
powers/stats are over or underpowered. Could also help players who are struggling with the
combat.

It will also help me make sure the stat checks are as hard/easy as I intend them to be.

Here’s my character’s stats:

strength: 10
speed: 9
power: 9
spanker: 5
spankee: 19
victory: 0
defeat: 6

She tries, bless her heart, but Scarlet Moon just can’t seem to catch a break. Every
villain’s spanked her at least once at this point, and it seems like she can’t go
ten minutes in her normal life without being upended. That being
said, she always manages to come through in the clutch.

She relies heavily on Scarlet Focus to get buffed quickly. Generally, she’ll
use scarlet-fists, scarlet-feet, or scarlet-eyes before using a power that
relies on those stats to get the most out of them. Scarlet-armor and Scarlet
Cords are her bread and butter, and make her very resilient. She’s been relying
heavily on scarlet-staff lately because of all the multi-target battles she’s
been in. Scarlet-spring and scarlet-paddle are a bit more situational,
depending on how nasty her opponent’s regular attack or buff is. She doesn’t
use scarlet-beam much, though she will pull it out for a bit of extra damage
once she’s otherwise buffed.

Despite my character’s *dismal* record, I do try to make sure every battle
is winnable. I just get a kick out of watching Scarlet Moon get her righteous
ass smacked all over Generica, so I’ll generally let myself lose once I’ve figured
out how to win.

Spankers, Spankees and Switches,

I’m cranking away at the first day of the next episode. I’ve finished writing all the content, and I’m currently working on implementing the powers for the new villain. Then I’ll need to do a pass of editing the story content, followed by debugging the new content, followed by balancing the new villain. I’m also making a few tweaks to some of the combat that will be included with episode 4 day 1:

1. Speed will just straight up reduce the amount of damage you take. Currently, most damage is calculated by computing max(1, attacker.strength – max(0, (target.speed – attacker.speed))). This had the effect of making Speed a bit too weird. If you had a low speed (relative to your opponent), increasing it by 1 increased your damage by one. If you had a high speed, increasing it by 1 reduced the damage you took by 1. This meant that some powers (like Scarlet Fists) weren’t as useful as they appeared. Sure your strength goes up, but your damage output doesn’t go up as much as your strength does, unless you already have a very high speed. The new formula is max(1, attacker.strength – target.speed). So the trade off is much more straightforward.

2. All the spanking powers (so Scarlet Paddle, and Succuspank) now also reduce the duration of the spankee’s “best” buff. If the duration gets reduced to zero or one, the buff gets removed. I’ve hardly ever used Scarlet Paddle in my play testing, because while Humiliated is nice, I’ve never really found it worth the turn to setup, except against Succubus. Granted that will probably change as more heroes show up who can take on the damage dealing role that Scarlet Moon currently fills, but even so I want all the powers to be useful now. Anyway, once the new version comes out, you’ll be able to use Scarlet Paddle as a means of controlling enemy buffs (might be very useful against Prometheus and Poseidon, whose buffs are needed to use their powers). Important thing to note: spankings reduce the target’s best buff *even if the target is already Humiliated*. In other words, buff reduction stacks. This should hopefully make Scarlet Paddle a much more interesting power, and perhaps worth losing a bit of damage per round.

3. Buzzsaw’s chain pull method will be inflicting a new, more dangerous status called “Grabbed.” Grabbed reduces your character’s speed to zero, and makes you immune to Away. The second effect isn’t a big deal yet, but the first basically strips you of your defense. However, Grabbed doesn’t *keep* your speed at zero. So you if you use a speed increasing buff after Grabbed, you can regain at least some defense. Just be careful, because speed buffs don’t stack (stacking just increases the duration)!

I’m hoping to have the new content out by the end of the month. The changes above will be backwards compatible.

AKA