Spankers, Spankees and Switches,
Just uploaded Scarlet Moon 7.1.0, and Scarlet Moon is officially complete! At last, the team comes face to face with Roots, the mysterious crime boss who has watched Scarlet Moon’s career unfold from the shadows. What dastardly plans does Roots have in store? Play and find out!
The last episode is fairly short, but there is a scene at the beginning that has several different paths, and two major paths through the episode (plus a third fairly large one for people dating Midnight), so hopefully it won’t feel too phoned-in. It’s also (I think) fairly climactic, so I hope it proves satisfying despite its brevity.
You can get the now full(!) game over at the Downloads section! Unfortunately, the code for generating the HTML transcript has decided to stop working, on old content no less -_-. So I don’t have a transcript available, sorry. I mighty try to find some time at some point to figure out what’s wrong, but right now, I’m pretty done and just can’t bring myself to dig through years-old code.
Naturally, I expect a week or two of bug fixing as people find bugs that I missed. Once it’s stabilized, I’ll probably take a break from game development for a few months. To set expectations, I probably don’t expect to do any serious heads-down writing for about six months. Could be shorter, who knows. Won’t be any longer than that though.
In the meantime, I’m going to ruminate some more on Mischievous Misfortune and Spacewoman Spice, and I’ll probably be playing a bit with Twine. Since my future games won’t include any real combat mechanics, there really isn’t any reason *not* to use Twine. It’s much more portable than my own engine, and will require much less programming on my end (a big deal now that I’m so much busier). I’ve already played with it a little bit and verified that I should be able to do everything I want to do fairly easily, but there’s definitely more I can learn about how to do things.
I doubt I’ll be silent over the next few months. I’ll probably periodically post my evolving thoughts on Mischievous Misfortune and Spacewoman Spice. None of this is set in stone, it’s all pure brainstorming at this point. Still, it will be nice to see people’s reactions and suggestions over the next few months. These are going to be multi-year commitments, so I want to make sure the premise is fun for everyone (especially me!).
Take Mischievous Misfortune. One idea that occurred to me is to set it about ten years after Scarlet Moon. Then, make Juliana, now in her late twenties to early thirties, the player’s employer. Basically, instead of the PC being a secretary at some biggish company or other, they are hired as a lab assistant by Juliana as she attempts to establish her own company based on her own inventions. Juliana is a fun character to write, and it would be interesting to see what she’s like ten years down the road. We could also introduce her as a (much!) Lighter and Softer Batman-esque superhero: one without physical superpowers, but lots of gadgets and really good hand-to-hand combat techniques. I was already imagining Moonlight as this sort of Superman-esque hero, so you could have some fun tension and rivalry between this highly experienced hero (Juliana) and this new up-and-comer, with the PC caught in the middle and just trying to make off with the shinies. And the shenanigans in Juliana’s laboratory would write themselves.
Spankers, Spankees and Switches of All Adult Ages,
Sorry, I’ve been so silent. Real life has been insane, above and beyond the usual holiday craziness. Illnesses flying all over the place.
It hasn’t helped either that even before the holiday cheer hit the holiday fan, I’ve been struggling a lot with this episode. I think I’ve written and thrown out like three different openings, each like 500+ lines. I think I’ve finally settled on something that I’m happy enough to run with.
Basically, my plan is to accelerate my time table, and make this the last episode for Scarlet Moon. We will be resolving the myth arc involving the Mysterious Crime Boss of great Mysteriousness. This does mean that the pacing is a bit off, but the last thing I want is to just peter out because I burn myself out trying to make it perfect. Better to have a game with a bit of a rushed ending, than one with no ending at all.
Anyway, I’ve been working on Scarlet Moon for years now, since around October 2015 according to the tags on this site. That’s 6.5 years! I’m ready for some new mechanics, new characters, new situations.
I’m still very much in the idle musing phase of what I want to do next (I’m mostly focused on getting Scarlet Moon done in a reasonably satisfactory manner). I do think that the next game will use some variation of the mechanics I talked about a few posts ago (October: https://www.spankingrpgs.com/october-update-2/), because I think that will be fun, well integrated to the narrative stuff and even help me come up with ideas (always the hard part!). The question is just what story do I want to explore.
Here are a few possibilities I’ve been kicking around. These would use the same basic engine as Scarlet Moon, so you will still be able to pick your character’s gender, bodyshape, clothing etc. I’m using the feminine pronoun for expediency.
1. The Mischievous Misfortune: A game that takes place in a different city in a Scarlet Moon universe where Scarlet Moon never met Midnight. It would follow the misadventures of a part time cat burglar. Basically his/her powers function on stored “Luck.” When bad things happen to her, he/she stores the bad luck and can later use it to get really good luck. By day she is a rather hapless-with-flashes-of-extreme-competence secretary at the local Silver Ant office, working directly for one Tania Peters, who has recently arrived from Generica to take over management of the place. By night, she is Misfortune (or Luck?) a cat burglar who steals little bits and bobs to help keep herself and her aunt afloat. All going fine, except she’s got some *new* burglar named Midnight pushing in on her territory, and don’t even get her started on that obnoxious wanna-be hero Moonlight… And the universe keeps throwing annoying moral quandaries at her, when all she wants is to break into places, make off with some sweet loot, and help her aunt a little.
2. Spacewoman Spice. A lot of my inspiration here comes from Spaceman Spiff. She is a brave, intrepid explorer of the universe, who constantly seems to find herself stranded, hunted, and captured by such vicious enemies of Humanity as the Space Amazon Matriarchy, the Many-Armed Giantesses of Alpha Giganta, the Discipline Droids of the Delta Quadrant, the…well, you get the idea. Sort of an over-the-top swords-and-lasers space opera. Except the lasers are always either set to stun, or miss, and the swords are energy swords that mostly just kinda cause pain and numbness when you get whacked by one. And don’t even get me started on the lightpaddles…
I kind of like both premises, so one thing I might try is sort of interleaving them. Basically, write an episode for one, then an episode for the other. While both games will probably have a strong continuity, I would likely eschew any major myth arc and keep them very episodic. That way, once I’ve played out one or the other setting, I can just slap a Done! sticker on the game and call it done without having to force myself to resolve any loose ends or whatever.
I am of course open to other ideas to explore. Also, if anyone knows of any fun, over-the-top swords-and-laser space opera romps, I would love to read them! I have to admit that most of the science fiction I’ve read in my life has been painfully serious, and it would be fun to read some space operas where you could totally slot in a spanking, and it would work.
Once I finish Scarlet Moon, I’ll probably write a story in each setting to try to get a feel for them, and see if I have enough fun to commit to them. I’ve had other ideas that sounded fun, but once I sat down and started writing, they just sort of dudded out.
Not a whole lot to say. Real life has been keeping me busy, so this hasn’t been a very productive month. Still, I’ve worked on it when I’ve gotten the opportunity, and I’m making progress. Slow progress, but progress. No idea when the next set of content will be available.
Spankers, Spankees, and Switches,
Haven’t been super productive this month, real life has been keeping me busy. But I’ve been chipping away at the next episode when I’ve got the time. Blubb2 over at AnimeOTK has been kindly helping me with some editing and feedback. Their suggestions have been very good, and very helpful, thanks Blubb2!
I’ve also been starting to give some thought to what comes after Scarlet Moon. I’ve been tight lipped about my longterm plans, mostly because they tend to change and I don’t want to set up false expectations. My current plan is to complete the first big myth arc (the “mysterious evil person”) in episode 10. So we’re getting pretty close. While I’ve been laying the foundation for some additional arcs, I think once I complete this arc I’ll slap a “Done!” sticker on it and call Scarlet Moon complete.
The question will be what comes after. Most likely, I’ll start up a Scarlet Moon 2. I still have plenty of story ideas, and I’m having lots of fun writing these characters. The advantage of starting a new game is that will give me the freedom to futz with things a little. In particular, I’m thinking that for a second game, I’ll move away from the current Wizardry-style RPG combat and to something more narrative. So “combat” will just be a sequence of narrative then skill check then more narrative then skill check. The player passes enough skill checks, they win. They fail enough checks, they lose.
This is mostly a time saving thing. As I get older, I have fewer large blocks of time. I can write prose a little bit here, and a little bit there. But writing and debugging code…for that I need a big chunk of time where I can’t be interrupted. So if I want to keep developing games (and I do!) I need to find a mechanically satisfying way of having less coding.
Fortunately, I think I have an idea! My inspiration is the Fate Roleplaying System. I think this is a *great* system for a spanking game for one very simple reason: It rewards the player for letting their character get in trouble! Basically, the only resource you have are “Fate Points” and you use fate points to help you pass skill checks. You get more fate points by taking “compels” which are basically “If you let this bad thing happen to your PC, you’ll get a Fate point that lets you be awesome later.”
This is actually really great, because I’ve struggled really hard to figure out how to incorporate PC spankings into the mechanics of a spanking game. The obvious thing to do is make the PC get spanked for failure, or doing something dumb, since spankings are punishments. This is more or less what happens in Pierce’s books (though you also get spanked for just existing). The problem is that this introduces clashing incentives: the player wants to do well at the game, but many also want to role play a brat whose constantly getting her ass smacked. That’s not satisfying. My approach for Scarlet Moon was to punt. Spankings have no mechanical impact, so you don’t have to play poorly to get your character spanked. However, that’s not satisfying either.
But if the player gets *rewarded* for letting the *PC* get punished…Hmm. Now your incentives align. You want to do well at the game, you’re gonna need Fate points. You want to get Fate points, gotta let your PC fail (or do something stupid) and get their ass smacked.
Furthermore, your character would also have “Aspects” that represent facets of your character, for example “Absent Minded Genius.” You need Aspects, because you can’t just spend and gain Fate points willy-nilly. There needs be an Aspect that justifies spending (or receiving) the Fate point. So for example, if you’re taking a test, you could spend a Fate point to “invoke” “Absent Minded Genius” to get a bonus on your roll to pass the test. If on the other hand, you’re in class, you can gain a Fate point by being “compelled” on “Absent Minded Genius” so that you’re not paying attention. These are really nice, because I’ve found that these aspects really get my creative juices flowing. If a possible aspect the player can have is “Absent Minded Genius” I find myself constantly asking the question “What kinds of challenges might the player encounter that an ‘Absent Minded Genius’ would excel at? What kind of situations would get such a person in trouble?”
To play around with the idea a bit, I started a side game that does what I have in mind. It’s nowhere near completion, but it should do a good job of giving people a taste: Samantha Stone. This is just a straight HTML file, so you’d have to track the state yourself. Obviously, for a Scarlet Moon sequel, I’d tweak the engine a bit (which won’t be hard) to track your Spankens and what not for you.
What are people’s thoughts? Does this seem like a fun idea? Any problems with it?
I know some people really like the combat, but my hope is that this system will allow me to give people a game that is both mechanically satisfying, and doesn’t require a ton of constant coding work on my end.
Spankers, Spankees and Switches,
Plugging away at the first part of Episode 7. Been working on the new content, and I’ve implemented a few features that I think will make the game much more enjoyable. The new features you can look forward to when the new episode is released.
1. Several players like to play cross-dressing males. However, currently if you select male, the game will occasionally force you to wear (American) culturally male clothing (in particular, your costume and your work uniform). Naturally, this is unsatisfying for these players. Therefore, I’ve added a new option that allows players to specify what gender of clothing they want to wear independently of their actual gender. So you’ll be able to be a male character, whom the game puts in female clothing, or a female whom the game puts in male clothing. Yes, this does mean that if you’re a girl, and you select male clothing that your costume will be a thong and some boots and nothing else. No, nobody will comment on your tits hanging out. Sorry.
2. I’ve added a new template that allows me to write different text depending on which choice (first, second or third) you selected in the previous event. This will allow me to make the game much more reactive to the many roleplaying (aka pointless) choices I throw at you. Most exciting, it will allow you to have much more control over how your character reacts to a spanking. Do you take your spankings stoically? Turn into a giant crybaby as soon as you’re upended? Something in between? Do you start stoic, but quickly start blubbering? It’ll be up to you!
I’ve also added a new panel above: Spanking Adventure Gamebooks
This includes links to both the Master of the Manor and Dianne’s Promotion books written several years ago by Robin Pierce. They’ve disappeared off the internet. This filled me with incredible sadness, because they were incredible spanking games that inspired me to start creating my own games. So I decided to make them available on my website. Both books are very well written, and quite challenging. I don’t like the cane, and Pierce loves the cane, most of the spankers are much nastier than I prefer, and I don’t like how you have to choose between winning and being a total brat. However, they’re still incredibly sexy, and engaging and I’d highly recommend everyone who enjoys my game to go and try them out.
New version up with some fixes to bugs pointed out by Wildfire over at animeotk:
1. Some event names were malformed, leading to loading errors if you saved and then reloaded in the middle of the episode. I’ve fixed those event names, and also added a bit of logic to repair bad saves at load time, so you should be able to just load your game and keep playing. If that doesn’t work, starting from the beginning/the start of episode 6/the end of episode 6 day 1 should all work.
2. Fixed a couple of typos.
3. Fixed a bug where Scarlet Moon wasn’t properly gaining Power when choosing the Power option during the episode’s climax.
Enjoy!
Scarlet Moon Episode 6 is Complete!
You can now go ahead and get it in the downloads section. It has a fair bit of Natalie-romance-only content, and two stat checks, though other than that it is alas fairly streamlined alas. Still, I hope people enjoy it.
Just finished fixing the *many*, *many* typos and other mistakes (mostly pronoun related) errors that VikingSpanko so diligently recorded and sent to me. Many thanks VikingSpanko!
Working on debugging the new content right now. Hopefully that will be ready for release soonish.
AKA
Not a whole lot to add. Chipping away at the second day of content. The second day has a fair number of paths, so it’s taking a bit, but we’re getting there.
Haven’t worked much on the next episode the past month (been pretty busy with IRL, plus taking a break after the latest release). However, I have done some work, so progress is being made. No timeline on when new content will be available.
AKA