v0.15 is Live!

Finally! I honestly can't believe it's been so long since the last update. But I feel like this version has enough new stuff packed into it that it's almost worth the wait! Head on over to Play the Game to try it out, or if you want to play the cheat-enabled version, including access to the incomplete full-female Lith content, a donation of any amount via the link to the right will get you a copy of MVOL+ right in your inbox. And if you donate $25 or more, you'll go on the list to get v0.16+ ahead of everyone else!

Now, with that out of the way, let's talk about what's new in MVOL v0.15!
-New face for Lith! In the very first version I released to the public, all I had in that box was a few numbers. It was certainly informative, but I considered the switch to a derpy little cartoon face a serious upgrade, both for the quality of gameplay and for making it feel like you were actively interacting with a person. Now, I've finally switched out that derpy little face for... a less derpy little cartoon face! I spent a lot of time studying art that I liked and had similarities to what I was going for, and I actually started by tracing a few of these sources, but I've modified it so heavily trying to make it just right for Lith that I doubt anyone could spot my sources. I experimented with more expressive eyes and a pretty anime-style scale of blushes, though I'm still not sure I made the right choices with those. I'm certainly hoping they're clear enough to be useful in gameplay, and I'm looking forward to getting some feedback from you all on them.

-Loading screen. It may not have come up for most of you, but some players, especially on mobile devices, didn't always load the game instantly. This lead to a rather disturbing glimpse of the game's developer screen in which Lith is a monstrosity and the text is, I'm told, a satanic ritual invoked to hold all my wonky coding together. So now there's a pretty little screen to shield your eyes from the horrors of the abyss! Also, rather more significantly, the game now requires a few moments to establish a connection with my server at startup, as I expound upon below!

-Wooden Door added. The big new chunk of the story is to finally see just what's going on behind the wooden door! This is something of a jump in a new direction for me (again) so I'm a little nervous about how you all will receive it, but I think it will serve as something of an enriching "side plot" for the game. In the future, the wooden door will become a second place you can go to to play and enjoy yourself in a less linear fashion, but this update largely sets up the wooden door, introducing you to what's going on and giving you a little taste of what's to come. There is one major sex scene, with two rather distinctive versions available-- and a third for those with certain settings going on MVOL+! Sadly, the actual "full" content of the wooden door isn't yet ready, but I hope that what I've added so far will both intrigue and satisfy you!

-Adjusted difficulty. I've gotten a lot of feedback on the game's difficulty and the "grindiness" of some portions, and after going through the game some myself, I have to agree that some portions have been unnecessarily time consuming. I try to encourage players to try each scene multiple times, but it shouldn't be necessary to mash a single scene a dozen times to unlock the next portion of the game. With that in mind, I've made actions across the board more potent, and Lith's dominance especially is now easier to maintain. Specifically, it no longer acts exactly the same as other stats, but will fall more slowly when it nears the point of regressing to a lower stage, and the highest stage of dominance especially is now slightly easier to reach and maintain.

-Play data collection. This feedback pressed an issue that has been bothering me for some time. I want My Very Own Lith to be a good game by every measure, including by conventional gameplay, such as it is. But the truth is, it's difficult for me to judge the gameplay myself since I know it from the other side. Many game developers solve this problem by bringing people in and simply watching them play the game, so they can understand where the players might get stuck, or bored, or what have you. Now, with MVOL being the kind of game it is, that's probably not a good idea to do directly. Creepy. But with a little (well, a lot of) help from my code-savvy friend Kylor, we've been able to institute a system that's almost as good. Now, any copy of the game played on a device with an internet connection will patch in to my server and send me basic, anonymous data on how the game is played. This means I can follow how the game is played on an individual level or sift through massive amounts of data to learn what scenes are accessed most and least, and in general just get all sorts of interesting information about how the game is played. It's my hope that, armed with this data, I'll be able to refine the game to play better and more closely to my original intentions, and without too many hiccups or problems at any point in the story. I'm really excited to see how this turns out and what it will mean for future versions of the game, and I hope you are too! Of course, if you don't want to send this data in for whatever reason, there is an option in the Options menu to turn off this connection.

I believe that just about covers it! As I've mentioned, I already have some content for v0.16 written up, and I've started going through it again to see about getting back to work, but I may tackle my first TagIt Story first, I'm not sure. Either way, I sincerely hope that I'll have a good chunk of story and some gameplay adjustments based on the data I've gotten ready in the near future, and that should be enough to get v0.16 up and out the door much sooner than v0.15 was! I've just recently finished my very last commission, and while it was a great experience, it's great to finally have all that unfinished work off my shoulders, and I've got big hopes for getting more into the game and my own writing in the future! To everyone that's stuck around all this time, and to those that have come to check out the game more recently, as ever: thank you all for your patience, and thank you for playing! I hope you find it was worth the wait!

Somebody's Playing...

Yesterday evening, in a small frenzy of activity, v0.15 was rendered complete and ready to play. For my most generous donators, those who contributed $25 or more to v0.14, I sent out the new version to be played immediately (along with an update briefly afterward when we finally got the Android version working xP).

If you didn't get a copy but believe you should have been on that list, shoot me an email at lithiers@gmail.com and we'll get it straightened out.

If you didn't get a copy but you really want to, you can either wait until next Friday, the day after Christmas, when the new version goes fully public, or you can donate any amount any time this week to get v0.15+ for yourself. Donations over $25 will, as always, get you put on the list to get a copy of v0.16+ as soon as it's ready as well :3

It feels great to finally have a new version ready to go, and I'm looking forward to seeing how you all like it, and how the new play feedback system works ^.^ My thanks to everyone that's stuck around, and I hope you'll find it was worth the wait!

Getting Close...

We hit a rough patch in the home stretch, but things are picking up again, and I'm getting excited! The server is alllmost all set up, and I've finished making alternates for Lith's face. That means I just need to import all of them to the game and get them integrated into the code. Further, the loading screen is working well, I just need a placeholder logo to slap on it and it should be good to go. I've refined Lith's face some, thanks everyone for your feedback! Here's a new preview of more of a mid to late game Lith.

It's been a strong reminder working on this that no, I'm still not a graphic artist :P But I consider it a much better placeholder than the derpy thing we started with! Plus this is still three times the size it'll actually be in the game, so hopefully it'll be fairly acceptable for gameplay xP Anyway, with everything entering the final stages, I'm hoping to start sending out advance copies to the $25+ donators sometime next week! The game's progress is in the final stage:

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Woo! I can't believe it's taken this long @_@; but on the bright side, I've already got some of the content written up for the version after, so hopefully once I've finished my last commission I can jump on that, and combined with the feedback I get from people playing this upcoming version, I should have no problem making a meaty (and hopefully speedy) v0.16!

Speaking of my stories, if you haven't seen it, I've released a new story that's a little more in my old style, a "for me" kinda story about what happens when you hold a goddess of fertility captive. It was great stretching my legs and pushing some boundaries again, and I hope it's the first of many to come in my return to more sincere, risky but fun stories! Take a look and leave a comment on SoFurry and FurAffinity!

Thanks for your patience, everyone, and I hope I'll have more for you real soon!

A Story and a Poll!

Hello hello! A little more like my last blog post today. I've got a new story posted on SoFurry and FurAffinity, the conclusion to a big, messy series of commissions about Ardanis the feline and his encounters with some peculiar and well-endowed women. If you like women putting it to men and making them love it, I'd recommend you give it a read!

Besides that, I've also posted the poll for my experimental "Tag It" Story 1! I got a fair variety of tags, though not quite enough for the seconding system to have proven very helpful. If you're interested in seeing what I can do with a story based on your favorite kinks, take a look and vote for what you want to see me write about!

As for MVOL, things are puttering along a bit. I've started work on the loading screen, and my coding friend has been helping on and off with the feedback section. I've got my fingers crossed for a burst of productivity sometime soon. I'll keep you guys posted! Thanks for checking in!

Lith has a new story, and Lithier has a new trick!

Hey hey, happy Friday! Today I've got a few not-quite-MVOL things to tell you all about. For one, after a long time I've posted up Part 6 of an old story series of mine featuring Lith, called Climbing Corporate. If you've been wanting to know more about Lith, I have three big series featuring him in my archives on FurAffinity and SoFurry, including some of the background he talks about in the game. If you're curious, today's addition is actually the latest point we've seen so far in Lith's timeline.

Beyond that, I'm kicking off something new today: "Tag It" Stories! They're kind of an experimental new approach to commissions, but for the very first one I'm taking votes from the community at large on what to write about, so hop on over to one of my journals on SoFurry or FurAffinity to try and get your interests added to my next story!

For those wondering about MVOL, I'm still working on modifying Lith's appearance while waiting on my coding friend. I've hit a dry spell recently, but hopefully between this new story style and something else I've got brewing up, I'll be getting back into writing at full tilt soon! Fingers crossed, everyone! :3

New Lith Face Preview!

Hey, folks! I've been holding out for good news along the "hey, it's coming out" lines, but we've hit delays with the data reporting system as my coding-savvy friend has been swamped with academic obligations. In the meantime I've been taking a stab at the new art for Lith, and I think I've reached a point at which I'm not completely ashamed to show what I have!

A little bit of tracing and a lot of fidgeting around has gotten me to this point. Not leagues beyond the current placeholder, but I think it'll be an improvement. I'm hoping to experiment with highlights and crazy nonsense like that too! Of course, this image is going to usually be much smaller when you're playing, so I'm trying not to worry too much about every tiny detail, but one of my goals here is to more or less define Lith's "official" look at long last @.@;

It's been an interesting process trying to emulate what I see in other artwork to make the best picture of Lith that I can. If any of you have suggestions on how to improve this or what leaps out at you as glaringly ugly, shoot me a comment! It still feels awfully off, but it's hard putting my finger on what x3 Also, with this development, I think we can bump things up to 80%!

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I have a fair deal of the writing for v0.16 done, though my awesome new writing schedule fell through for a few weeks when I decided it was time to hate myself and everything I've ever done for a while again. Trying to get back on the horse! But right now I'm trying to push this graphical improvement into the game and prod my friend into finishing his portion so we can finally get v0.15 out to all of you. Hope I have more for you soon!

It Feels Good! It Feels Write!

Hey, folks! In case you haven't seen, I've published another story! You can find A Learning Experience Pt. 5 on SoFurry and FurAffinity. It's a commissioned series about a young man with a suspiciously similar species to Lith's but not much else in common learning that he does, in fact, totally like getting dicked by hot women. So maybe he has a few things in common, actually.

I'm pretty excited to keep up this trend of actually getting writing done. I've been powering through my commissions and I've even dabbled with getting some writing in for v0.16 while we finalize all the non-writing stuff finished up for v0.15.

Speaking of, things have been coming along with the coming update, and I've sent out a partially complete version to my proofers to see about getting the written portion polished up while we work on the rest. If you count yourself among my proofers, make sure to check your email!

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We're 70% of the way there now. The automatic feedback system seems to be working well so far, we just need to get a few more tweaks in on that. After that is the new art and some kind of loading screen, and I'm hoping to tackle those in the next few days.

Also, puns? Gods help me, I'm becoming everything I hate :p

I Crave Data!

Alright! Perhaps a bit predictably, I'm posting on Saturday, but I've succeeded in forcing my own hand. Now, for the news on what I'm working on right now, let me start by explaining one of the curious aspects of writing, and how designing a game builds on top of it.

I've written a lot of stories on SoFurry and FurAffinity with the same goals I keep in mind while writing for MVOL: provide an experience that is engaging, enjoyable, and stimulates the reader both in the higher and lower brain while challenging them in some way. This means taking a very artistic approach at times, and doing things with my writing that may not be immediately apparent, or may not immediately make sense. Part of challenging readers is forcing them out of their comfort zones, and I think that's important to making a story that's enriching, that leaves the reader just a little better than when they started.

(Not all of my stories do this, and if you check through my gallery you'll find most of my commissions mainly focus on the stimulation :p But such is "the biz!")

Now, it's common for any writer to have readers that experience the story differently than they intended, but when you're trying to make every story a unique experience that does all these silly things, there's a lot more opportunity for people to interpret things in surprising ways! Many of my stories have garnered some shocking responses, be they positive or negative, and while this sometimes means I've failed to present the story as it was laid out in my head, I still find their responses immensely valuable-- it's only through this kind of feedback that I can truly improve as a writer and learn to fine tune my craft!

Now, I receive a fair deal of feedback on MVOL, but besides the diligent work from my proofers, I don't usually get anything more specific than "I really liked this scene" or "girl lith plz!" And while I appreciate praise and suggestions, it just doesn't help me make sure each scene is having the specific impact I want it to. I don't really know of a good way to make this happen, especially since each scene can play out differently depending on the player's previous choices, so I often feel like the bulk of the game I've already written is kind of a great, solid mass that I can't make meaningful changes to. But! I've come up with a way that, while I can't get direct feedback on a particular scene, I can get feedback of a much broader, measurable variety for the game as a whole.

In My Very Own Lith v0.15, I plan to add features that automatically collect data on how the game is played and send this information anonymously to my server. I'll be able to see what choices people make, what scenes they revisit often, what parts of the game they seem to try for often without getting anywhere, and what parts just don't see very much love. With this improvement, I'll effectively be able to watch the game being played, which is an important part of developing a game for any designer (without actually standing over your shoulder, as that would be even creepier than normal with this game)! I'm very excited for the chance to see for myself how my game is living out in the wild, so that I can finally go back and start making meaningful improvements instead of just kind of listening and hoping any issues will come up in peoples' feedback.

Now, I know this may raise some concerns. Absolutely no personal data will be recorded by the game. The server only tracks you by your save file. If you're still concerned, I will also be adding the choice in the options menu to turn off the data collection at any time. If you play on Android, it looks like it should still work, and we're working hard on keeping the data sent and received to an absolute minimum to avoid racking up anyone's data charges. From what I understand, it should use less data than your typical IM conversation.

I'm very excited for the possibilities this will open up for the game. With automatic feedback from all of my players, I'll be able to learn about everyone's experience, not just those of the kind few that take the time to leave their praise or criticisms on various message boards. I'll be able to refine the game's difficulty, add clarification where players might seem to get lost, and maybe even remove or replace underused features to make sure the game is getting the maximum benefit from all the hoops I jump through writing variations for scenes! I don't even know what all I might learn from this data as it starts to come in, but I'm sure it's going to be fascinating, and I'm all the more excited to get v0.15 into your hands once these features are online. I hope that you're all as hopeful as I am that this will spell massive improvements for the game in the months to come! As ever, if you have any comments or concerns, there's a comment section right on this post!

And, lastly, while it's been a bigger process than expected, we're chugging along on the implementation and I think enough has been added to the game that I can add a little to the progress meter.

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60% of the way to the next version. I'm hoping to have something ready to show my proofers soon, so things may start gathering momentum from here! Thanks for checking in, kind readers, and I hope I'll have still more news for you soon!

Hey, Look at the Size of That--

Hello, folks! I went and let things slip again, blog-wise. I'm working on it! The good news is that my "steady productivity" scheme has been working pretty well so far, to my immense relief. The bulk of written material for the next update was already complete when last I checked in, though-- I've been spending the intervening time working through my immense and shameful stack of overdue story commissions. At the moment, I've completed two that have been sitting on my plate a very long time-- and as a matter of fact, I'm releasing one today!

If you're burning to read some of my writing, I'd invite you to take a gander at Project Tooth and Claw Pt. 4 over on SoFurry or FurAffinity. It's the closing of an arc in the commissioned series for the infamous Myrilla, featuring said well-endowed blue pup transforming into demi-dragons and wildly fucking any creature at hand. Crazy large insertions abound, so it's a bit more radical than my usual fare with Lith, but it's been nice to stretch and try some new things! This Part also features a little much-needed emotional relief after a very tense stretch over the introduction of the series. If you like shemales, transformation, and impossibly large phalli imposing themselves on the average furry figure, I encourage you to give it a read!

Now, this is where I'd go on to talk about the progress with MVOL, but it occurs to me that this post has already gotten to a pretty good length. So! In an effort to keep the blog updating more often and make each post a little more digestible, I'm chopping the second half off this post! You all can look forward to learning more about what else is going into v0.15... nnnext week! Promise!

Halfway to the Wooden Door!

Alright! I've been developing a new writing schedule, in which I get in just a little bit of writing almost every day at times that I can be alone and comfortable, and so far it's been working pretty well getting content moving again. Part of me is saddened just to look at what I just said and realize that "making progress at all" is a big improvement right now, but if this can get me consistently moving in the long term, I certainly won't be complaining. The "bigger sex scene" I was referring to last time was actually an alternate version to the one that I finished before, and that in turn has split into two alternates-- a lot of the time, I try to write a single sex scene in such a way that parts can be swapped out to handle most issues of anatomy, but in this case, I decided it needed to go ahead and be written out almost fully as three different scenes. On the one hand, that means more fresh content if and when folks do a second or third playthrough with different anatomy, but on the other, it will feed more into the same problem I'm already concerned about with this update x3

Last update, I was worried the whole deal with the stone door would be too weird for folks. Happily, this doesn't seem to have been the case! This update, things are going weird again, but I'm not so worried about it. What I am worried about is that it doesn't feel to me like it will have as much content as the last update, and that will be partly because there's only one sex scene, even though it's technically three sex scenes folded into one spot (one of which will, for now, only be accessible to donators). This feeling will be amplified by where I'm putting the cutoff for this update-- basically, everything I've been writing has been "set up" for what's going on behind the Wooden Door. And once I'm done setting it all up very dramatically and getting the player excited to try out their choices for what's "actually" going on behind the wooden door... well, that's where v0.15 will stop for now. Worse, I plan to go back to the stone door for v0.16, so I'm already bracing myself for a lot of questions about why people can't "do" any of the stuff they're expecting to do through the wooden door xP I may have to include some very blatant placeholders, I suppose, as I did with the wooden door itself in v0.14 :p We shall see!

Now, with all that hassle, why am I cutting off v0.15 there? A couple different reasons. The first is that, a long time ago, I decided I needed to start forcing myself to make the updates smaller, so that hopefully I could push them out faster and keep a good cycle going between myself and the players. It feels great when the new update goes out and folks are excited, but when I'm looking at alll the things I want to do for the next version, I end up kind of... resting on my laurels for a while ^.^; So I'm hoping setting smaller goals will keep me working more often, keep people more interested, and get a good flow going all around. The problem with v0.14 was that the stone door didn't feel like something I could do as a small update... Every collar had a huge chunk to write out, so if I didn't write all of them, some people effectively wouldn't get something new that update, and if I only wrote half, it wouldn't have even had a sex scene. And I think it's a fair assumption that a new update without any sex at all wouldn't get people very excited :p Besides the most devout blue-collar players, perhaps.

The other main reason was mentioned briefly before-- I have several smaller things to add to the game along with the new content, and it's high time I get that stuff polished and out to you guys. I'm looking at ways to make dominant Lith and the pink collar easier to get, and I may adjust the game's overall difficulty some while I'm at it. Further, without the promise of an actual artist, I'm taking a hard look at redoing Lith's art myself-- replacing one placeholder with a marginally better one, at the very least. Also, I'm considering including a way to get feedback about how players are playing the game-- right now, I'm just kind of releasing it into the wild and hoping for the best, but with information on how it's played, I may be able to better refine its difficulty and flow. I'll get more into this later.

Anyway, all of this means that I've set my milestone for v0.15 a little closer than I might have once thought I would, and I've got the big sex scene past two-thirds written up, so I'm feeling much more confident when I add another notch to the game's progress bar today!

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We're halfway to the next update, and most of what's left isn't writing but game design, so it may well go a deal faster just for not having to depend on my fickle artistic moods. Thanks for sticking with me, folks! :3 I welcome comments and questions, do let me know if I'm being unclear about anything (besides the parts where I'm deliberately avoiding spoilers :p).

Stirrings in the Deep

Hey, folks! I've got some good news and some bad news today. The good news is that, after about a week of especially intense hatred of everything I've ever attempted to write, I've started feeling better, and I'm finally getting some more writing in on the game. Better than that, I've rediscovered some of my zeal for the sexual and managed to bust out a sex scene that I think came out pretty decent, and I believe its content will make some particular crowds around here pretty happy. I still need to complete at least one more, larger sex scene before I could even consider the game complete enough to release, and even in that state I think the new content would feel disappointingly short. So I'm conflicted on how much further to go before calling it v0.15, but at the very least, I think this counts as a not insignificant chunk of progress.

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40% is a rough estimate-- if I want to push the update out sooner, it may be more like 50 or 60, but if I want to make it a worthwhile update that at least gives a good idea of what the new content is about, it may actually be more like 30% of the work that needs to go into it. I may go for sooner, though, as I do want to ship out a few small improvements on the side as soon as possible and see how they work out!

Now, for the bad news. I do have a tendency to be pessimistic about things, especially when they seem to be too good to be true. That's a part of the reason I kept a pretty tight lid on the fact that I was working closely with an artist on refining Lith's appearance, with the goal of creating a new, vastly superior mood picture for Lith in game in the short term, and potentially adding a good deal of art to enrich the experience in the long term. I was honestly very excited for the opportunity, as the artist was talented and their style, I felt, worked very well for Lith. Unfortunately, real life has swooped in and turned the artist's life upside down, and the project has been aborted for the time being. I'm sorry to say my pessimism has turned out to be a wise measure in this case, as I would have hated to get all of you as excited as I was for this development, only to experience the same crushing disappointment.

So, I'm still looking for an artist to supplement the game and replace my crappy little Lith face in there. Hopefully at some point another opportunity will come along, but at this point, I'm not sure what I can do to seek it out aggressively. Most artists of the skill level I'm seeking are often both quite booked, quite expensive, and jaded and wearied by the strange and unclear demands of their clients, and I can't say that I would be any less particular or demanding-- my overly strict standards for the portrayal of Lith do not extend only to text, after all. But I shall maintain hope. Perhaps over the next few weeks I'll share what work and sketches we had created in the process of trying to make the project happen, if you all would be interested, and would not feel it to be too much like salt in the wound.

So, that's the news with My Very Own Lith. Progress is beginning again, the game advancing in one area while it founders in another. I thank you all for your patience, and I hope I'll have more good news for you soon :3

Games That Could Be: Virus - The Opponent

Hey folks, I'm gonna be talking more about my game concept nicknamed "Virus" today! As I've explained in previous posts, it's about playing a sex god/virus that slowly infects some kind of remote outpost over the course of an isolated winter. It's going to be kind of a strategic roguelike where you have to use the qualities of each character you infect to your advantage to infect still more and rebuild your powers.

Today, we're gonna be taking a closer look at your opponent, or nemesis. This is a powerful figure that can travel freely to the outpost-- because it suspects you may have woken up after all this time. Depending on how you look at your own character, the nemesis could be a holy guardian trying to hunt down a rogue demon, or a rival god looking to stop its ancient adversary from returning to power, or simply a powerful safeguard figure trying to prevent the spread of a known, excessively infectious virus. Your nemesis takes the form of a human, probably a foreign authority figure that the workers of the outpost are obligated to respect and obey.

That doesn't mean that they will cooperate with him, of course. The people of the outpost are suspicious of people that might try to shut down or disrupt their operations, and it doesn't help that he won't come out and explain what he's here for-- at first. And when he does explain, he risks outright ridicule, if he cannot offer proof. This is your only advantage: your own existence is so unlikely in the eyes of these people, that they will not readily turn themselves in for examination.

If your nemesis can find one of your followers, he can easily purify them, and you will lose control of that person. Worse, you must mark your followers to upgrade your powers, and if he can find and reveal this mark to the town, he will have visible proof of your presence, and everyone will grow more suspicious. Strange markings aren't definitive proof to the people of the town since they know little about you, but it will certainly make things more difficult. Further, if any of your followers are caught doing something outrageous or highly suspicious, the people will start to believe your nemesis more and more, growing more worried that there really is something trying to infect and take control of them. If the people grow too worried, they will all start to submit to cleansing, and your days will be numbered. If your last follower is cleansed, the game will end with your slipping into the void, your grasp on this world lost forever.

You have many tools at your disposal, however. Your nemesis can be fooled, for example-- he will assess each villager he meets and decide how trustworthy they are, and if you can convince him to trust one of your followers, you can feed him false information. Similarly, you can unlock ways to make other people seem more worthy of suspicion. If he accuses the wrong person and cannot show any change after a cleansing, his credibility with the town will fall. If the town grows too distrusting of him, he will be barred from homes and establishments, and eventually driven from the town altogether.

Alternative ways of dealing with the nemesis can vary. I'm considering having him arrive with one or two bodyguards, beings of power but weaker will. If you can manage to separate them from their charge and lure them into sexual congress, it's possible to infect the both of them-- and together, they can overpower your nemesis. Forcing your nemesis to orgasm and convert under your power would be a massive achievement, maybe even an instant victory!

Short of that, you will find yourself in a delicate game of cat and mouse with your nemesis. You must infect as many as you can while conserving your power and avoiding notice from the people and especially the nemesis. If your touch is subtle enough, you may even fool him into thinking it's a false alarm, and he may leave of his own will. This will buy you extra time, but of course, if you slip up or get too aggressive, he may well return again.

Your final success depends on how many people you have infected when spring finally comes, and the people of the outpost go out into the world again. Technically, you win the game so long as you survive the entire winter with at least one follower. But the proportion of people you've infected, the methods you've used, and the powers you've unlocked determine your "ending"--  perhaps you will simply spread to a few small communities and be forced to conserve your energy in a world of battling powers larger than yourself; perhaps you will claim vast swaths of the population and new, peaceful, orgiastic cultures will erupt gleefully across nations; or perhaps you will spread in a global apocalypse of senseless rape, until only small, heavily fortified clusters of survivors clutch still at their sanity, falling under the lusty hordes one by one. It is all within your power.

This just about covers the last of the main concepts I've developed in my head for this potential game. There are plenty of little details I've glazed over, but even the things I've described so far could change radically before this game reaches any state of playability, if it ever sees even a single line of code. With that in mind, next time on GTCB I'll summarize the whole thing and go over the main pro's and con's of the game concept, both for the players and for the developers. This should give us an easy way to compare game ideas once I've gone on to explain the other concepts. I hope the others pique you guys' interest as much as this one seems to have! :3 Thanks for reading!

A Story and a Clarification

Hey, folks! I've been trying to keep myself writing every opportunity I get, even if I can't bring myself to work on the game. A lot of it is complete garbage or just me talking to myself, but it's important to keep in the habit of sitting down and trying. On the bright side, this has yielded at least some small fruit in the form of a peculiar story about a man and a creature that he is trying to figure out. It's pretty light on the sex, for reasons I mentioned in the last blog post, but if you guys are interested in seeing what's coming out of my head lately, I'd welcome you to have a look!

SoFurry
FurAffinity

With that said, I'd like to take a moment to respond at large to a common sentiment my last blog post prompted. I've received several suggestions and even offers for taking on hands as writers for MVOL, and it's great to see support from my fans. But the fact remains that I hold this game to certain standards even stricter than those of my normal work.

It's not just a matter of quality. There are many writers out there that have more skill and talent than I, but in my estimation, nobody understands Lith as thoroughly as I do, largely because he is, in a way, a small part of me. You can read more about a lot of this in the FAQ section, by the way. My Very Own Lith is a game about Lith as a person, and every scene is an expression of some part of him, a derivation of his personality, his flaws, and his conflicts. Just writing a sex scene isn't enough-- it has to have some significance, it has to "mean something," and of course, it's essential that it portrays Lith accurately in his actions and reactions every step of the way.

What this means is that I could never put a scene in this game that isn't set in the foundation of Lith's character from the very start, and to my knowledge, nobody could write such a scene but myself. It's a pretty stupid place to put myself in knowing how inconsistent I can be, but I hope dearly that the end result will be worth all the punishment on my end and the endless waiting on yours.

Actually, thinking about this has brought me to realize what part of my trouble with the new content may be-- in an attempt to generate content to answer many of my fans' requests, I've wandered further than ever from the "main goal" of the story, in a way. So I've been working over how to thread it back into Lith's identity, and I think I have a glimmer of how it might work. As ever, I'll keep working at it, and I hope you will all enjoy the final result enough for the wait to be worth it.

My thanks to everyone for your patience, and for taking the time to catch up with the project. I hope I'll have more news for you soon!

A Word on the Game's Progress

I was going to post another Games That Could Be post today, but I've put that off because I feel I should talk a little bit about the Game That Is. I've been avoiding talking about it because I've been hoping to have better news, but things haven't been improving so far.

I've written up a fair bit of content for v0.15, probably something like 20-25% of what I'd consider a full update's worth, along with a few adjustments I'm still ironing out to hopefully address the difficulty concerns we explored in a poll a while ago.

I think that once this update is actually ready, a lot of people will be happy to see the new content-- I'm introducing a way to address a lot of more niche interests without making the game as a whole overly complicated. It will also introduce a sort of sub-plot, to give you something to think on besides just Lith's developing issues, which I've mentioned previously as the main conflict for the story we're going to see unfold.

The problem is that I've hit a certain wall-- and I've been scraping at it for about a month now. It's brought my commissions grinding to a halt as well, and I've been doing some personal exploration to try and find the way to put the passion back into my work. The problem, to put it briefly, is that I can't write a good sex scene right now.

I like to think that detailed, evocative sex scenes are a specialty of mine, and I've always enjoyed a wild variety of themes, especially many of those around which MVOL is centered. I can't say I expected this sort of problem to come up, but honestly, any time I sit down to write new sensual material, it just feels cookie cutter and uninteresting. I could never publish an update with any of the sex I'm trying to write in it right now. So the game has come to a standstill.

This doesn't mean the game is stopping entirely. I'm working with the artist I mentioned previously, and while I don't want to jinx anything, it's looking like a strong possibility the game will be getting a much-needed influx of actual artistic talent to round out its sexy new look. I'm very excited to see how this goes!

And in the meantime, I'm still working on myself, and through this personal conflict, the game. I'm not going to let the quality of this game founder, so the sexual content isn't going to advance until I can find the drive in myself again to write something I think is worthwhile. I know this will be a disappointment for many of you, and I'm sorry, but I hope sincerely that I can overcome this soon. I appreciate everyone's support, and I'll be sure to keep everyone updated.

Until I have better news, I guess you can enjoy more of my pipe dream ideas for future games! It's been great putting this stuff down and getting some feedback on it. Oh, and since I gave a rough estimate, I guess I'll include an official progress bar:

(+++=======)

30% of the way to an update-worthy amount of content. I've been playing with the idea of including enough non-sexual content to make it a worthwhile whole, but seeing as this is largely a sexual game, and this particular update's purpose is almost entirely focused on sexual goals, it seems like very much a last resort. We'll see how it goes from here! Thanks again, folks!

Chibi Lith!

Sadly, the forums haven't been seeing very much activity in recent days, but every once in a while, a gem pops up and I'm glad I started the place up. If you haven't seen, a certain fan of the game saw fit to draw some terribly adorable figures of Lith!

Click us!

And if that wasn't enough, they then went on to draw up a whole bunch of expressions for the feline!

Suffice it to say, I thought it was all very well done, so much so I just couldn't resist showing it to everyone that might be remotely interested :3 And ah, don't tell anybody, but I'm keeping in close contact with the artist in question. You may be hearing more about this later...

Games That Could Be: Virus - Gameplay

Hey, I've been seeing a lot of positive feedback on Virus so far, and that's great ^_^ I don't know if and when I'll actually be able to make this game, but it would probably have to be either after MVOL is finished or as a side project if I could get a few people's help with it. First, though, I have several other game ideas to talk over after this one! I'm interested to see if folks are as interested in the others, or if I've already started out with my strongest :p Let's get to it!

Last time we talked about the concept for the game idea of mine called "Virus." You play a sex god that acts like a virus, infecting people to try and take over a mining outpost one fuck at a time. Now, let's talk a bit about how this game would actually play!

My current concept is that the game would play as something of a roguelike simulation strategy game, with lots of smut written in as rewards for taking another step toward victory. The game would be on a clock and calendar, and the outpost/village/town it's set in would be designed so that it actually "lives" a little. Each person would have their own routines for where they are and what they do at a given time of day, with various little events sprinkled in for variety.

One of the main challenges would be to infect as many people as you can without arousing suspicion. If one of your followers goes to the bar every single day after work, but he's suddenly going straight home to masturbate for three hours straight and fuel your powers, his friends might start thinking there's something wrong with him. Being caught forcing yourself on someone would be a disaster, so you have to be careful to find ways to get your follower alone with the unbeliever. And worse, if your follower can't bring the victim to orgasm, you can't infect them, and probably won't be able to wipe their memory-- meaning you'll probably get busted pretty quickly.

Gameplay would be broken down into hour-long chunks. You can check what each of your followers is doing, maybe pick up a few snippets of conversation (which can include useful hints for future events), then choose one to guide more personally. Depending on how much of your abilities you've re-awakened, you may be able to set a few followers to masturbating while focusing on another, and further depending on your abilities and how much of your power you're willing to spend, you might simply watch what they do and influence it a little this way or that, put forceful suggestions in their mind, or right out take over and make them do something they'd never do otherwise. Of course, you may want to save some power for wiping their memories afterward, as even a follower can turn themselves in if they realize they're surely being possessed.

Each person in the outpost would have a wide variety of features: suspicion scores for everyone else in the outpost, which behave differently depending on relation; a unique occupation and personal traits that may bring opportunities for manipulating others into sex, gathering information, or preventing your discovery; suspicion of themselves, as well as of your opponent; and sexual factors that can influence their interest in sex, their stamina, and their abilities to force, coerce, or seduce others. Your own abilities could be developed to influence many of these to your advantage.

My main idea for the game right now is to make it a roguelike in the sense that you play off of a single save file --meaning your every decision matters, and you'd do well to play cautiously-- and every time you start a new game, the world undergoes a degree of random generation. The characters would be the same, but they might have different sexual stats, be more or less attached to various friends and family, and even be more likely to cheat if their sexual stats differ too greatly from their mates'. The random events that come up throughout the game would be drawn fresh from many possibilities each playthrough, and the length of the winter can give you a longer or shorter deadline than you might expect, though the forecast at least gives you a rough idea of how long you have. And perhaps most importantly, the arrival of your opponent is partly random and partly based on your actions. If you arouse little suspicion, your opponent might not even arrive until you're ready to defeat him on the spot, but if you scare everyone into praying and screaming about demons early on, you likely won't live to see the spring.

That should cover the basics of the gameplay as I'm imagining it right now. Next time, I'll talk more about the opponent, who embodies your main lose condition in the game. Thanks for reading!

My First eBook!

Hello, everyone! I've been keeping this fairly quiet, but you may have heard I'm taking a crack at publishing my erotic stories on the Kindle Marketplace. I'm planning on selling a mixture of my old stories, polished and sometimes expanded, and new stories as I manage to put them together. Today, I just published my very first! And I'm exceedingly nervous.

For my first story, I've gone with a very short but intense story of mine that I've always been rather proud of, titled Night Visitor. I've deleted the original from my archive, and the edited version is now proudly on sale for 2.99 USD! I would be immensely flattered if any of you were interested enough to purchase a copy, but I'm also offering, for all my existing fans, a one-day extension, so to speak: you can download the Kindle version, which should be easy to read on any mobile device, right here for the next 24 hours. Sadly, formatting doesn't seem to be retained very well in some cases, but the content, sans cover, should be intact.

If you have any problems, criticisms, or suggestions upon looking over the eBook, they would be of penultimate interest to me and you can feel free to comment here, note me, email me at Lithiers@gmail.com, or huck words at me any other way you see fit. Should you find this little story enjoyable and well made, however, I would be absolutely delighted if you deigned to leave a review on the Amazon page for my book.

Which isn't to say I only want positive things said about my book! A stack of overly positive reviews can do more harm than good at times, so I would beg you to be nothing but honest if you did find the time to review my eBook. Did I mention I'm a bit nervous?

Too Long, Didn't Read!: Free eBook! 24 Hours! Buy and/or review honestly here! Thank you all so much!

Actually, I don't think that was in the Sufficiently Short, Read Successfully, so let me say: thank you, everyone, for taking the time to read my work, and putting up with my constant delays, and in advance should you choose to peruse my new eBook and/or act upon your perusal! Some vague, vain vision of someday sustaining myself on the proceeds from such written works and actually becoming a full, proper "writer" hangs before me, a strange and ephemeral concept that I dare not reach out for lest it evaporate in an instant. But here I am, reaching, ever so tentatively.

Been reading some Asimov. I think it's showing.

Also! Speaking of commenting, I've relaxed the requirements to comment on the blog. I'd been hearing a few people say they would have commented but for the restrictions on accounts and such, so you should now be able to comment anonymously. I'm hoping this doesn't bring a plague of spammers down on our heads, or I may be forced to find some way to restrict them again.

Also also: QR Codes! Because I guess that's popular.

Night Visitor on Dropbox!

Night Visitor on Amazon!

Games That Could Be: Virus - Concept

Out of the three game concepts I've played with most, this one has stolen the most hours from me when I should be sleeping. I don't have any real title for it, so for now, let's call it Virus.

The concept is that you are --in your own opinion-- an ancient, freshly awakening god. Your dominion is centered on sexual pleasure. Your opponent, however, sees you as a long-buried demon, an embodiment of sins of the flesh, that has been foolishly released from its prison. In practice, over the course of this game, you act as something closer to a psychic venereal disease.

The game begins with your waking, bodiless, to find a small team of miners that have broken into your sanctum. You choose one of them to possess-- not assuming direct control, but simply pouring your existence into his or her body. When they return to their secluded mining outpost, it becomes your goal to claim every last one of the miners, workers, and overseers as your worshipers. When the spring comes and the workers are free to leave, you will spread throughout the world once more, and all life shall be reunited in a glorious, everlasting orgy.

But first, you must find ways to spread your influence. You are very weak as you are at the beginning, but every follower you claim will be your eyes into the world, and by inflaming their lust and forcing them to pleasure themselves in worship to you, you will gain power to better influence your followers and awaken your many ancient and fearsome abilities. To spread your influence, though, one of your followers must join a non-believer in the holy ritual: shared orgasms, of course.

So depending on who you first infect, your follower might go home to his wife, and give you a second follower within a few days. From there, perhaps you could turn her temptation to cheat with the neighbor into a lustful passion, and you can spread to a third. Or if you first infect a great thug of a man, you might try going to the bar and scoring, or taking a rather more forceful approach. You must be careful, though-- if you're spotted acting strangely, others may grow suspicious. And when your opponent comes to hunt you down, suspicions will quickly become deadly. If all of your followers are cleansed, you will lose grasp on this world altogether and fall into oblivion.

Obviously, this theme would offer a lot of room for interpretation-- you could see yourself as a holy being, spreading enlightenment to a world that has become too stiff and distant from its own desires, or as a devil hungry to corrupt as many as possible, or simply as a creature trying to survive the only way it knows how. The people you manipulate would all have individual personalities, quirks, secret desires, and various relationships with those around them. How you interact with this social ecosystem could destroy lives or bring everyone together in a way they may never have thought possible. It's my hope that I could infuse these people with enough life that many of you would earnestly want to make their lives better, in a similar fashion to your affection for Lith.

That roughly covers the high concept of the game as a story. Next time, I'll talk about the gameplay that you'd be working with, exactly what sort of game you'd be playing. Hope this intrigues folks!

Games That Could Be

One of the funny parts of being a writer is that you get a lot of people offering you ideas. At least, it's funny to me-- I know some writers can have trouble coming up with something to write about, but for me, it's never been a problem. If anything, I often feel like I've become a writer primarily to express the endless series of ideas that swirl endlessly in my head-- to try to render them in perfect clarity such that others might enjoy them as much I have, and so that I can finally put that great mess of thoughts to rest, satisfied.

For every story I write, there are probably five waiting to be written. Similarly, as I've worked on My Very Own Lith, a broad array of ideas for other games have come to me, some of which I have, in my spare time, refined into full-fleshed concepts. Sometimes I find myself working out endless details against my own will, especially when I should be sleeping.

So I thought to myself, perhaps I should put some of these ideas "to paper," both to ease my mind and to see what others think of them. And as luck would have it, my poor blog is in need of content when I find myself falling into the miserable silence of the creator struggling with his work and his own self. This seems a natural place to share my concepts for games that I might make someday, perhaps after MVOL is complete, or perhaps as a side project, if others were interested in helping out. So keep an eye out, keen readers, for posts in the future discussing my ideas for Games that Could Be!

And we have our answer!

After almost two weeks and 364 votes, the players have offered a pretty resounding answer to my question! Thank you all for taking the time to offer your feedback!

I'm pretty happy with how it came out, honestly-- this is a very clear response, and it doesn't look like, besides these two sore spots, things are necessarily too frustrating in the game. I've also gotten a lot of interesting feedback, I'm very happy to see people taking advantage of the comments section on the survey and here on the blog.

One of the trickier parts of designing the game for me is that it's pretty hard for me to "see it as it is." When I open MVOL, I hardly see what it says, how it presents itself, for everything that I intend for it-- I know the intention behind every design choice, which is a crucial piece of information anybody else playing won't have, so I see the entire thing in a different context. I barely have to read any of the screens when playing to just kind of speed down the trees and get to this or that scene I want to check. I doubt I'll ever be able to really enjoy the game like others do ^.^;

So outside feedback and impressions can really be invaluable here. I get folks telling me they really like this or that aspect of the game, and I definitely appreciate that, but surprisingly enough, I don't get much hate mail. Not that that would be very helpful-- it's hard to nail exactly what aspects I need to hear most about. I try to encourage open and frank discussion of my game, but the forums don't see much activity these days, sadly. So at this point, the responses I've been seeing have certainly helped me get a bit of a better picture of how the game "works" for people! So, all that said, thanks for your feedback, guys!

As far as the results themselves: I'm actually a little surprised the pink collar got a much stronger response than either of the others. I'd guess that the blue collar would have outstripped it entirely before [Hug] was added, however. I'll definitely be looking into making the pink collar more accessible. I've been considering ways to make the collars more naturally attainable so that people don't have to go looking for guides to get at them, while still making them a fairly noteworthy achievement.

As for dominance, this is a bit trickier. On one hand, Lith as a character is slow to take an assertive role, and really won't try to retain dominance if challenged. On the other, I don't want to make it too hard to get into that side of things, especially if you're committed to that style of gameplay. And the more I've thought about it, the less it seems like a very problematic system to abuse-- I worry about folks being able to "max out" this or that too easily or too quickly, but that's not as much of an issue here, with how Dom Lith has unfolded. So I expect I'll be fiddling with both these systems-- I have a peculiar idea in my pocket that may just do the trick for making Dom Lith stick around a bit better.

So, overall I'd say this poll worked out well! Now, if I could just kick the habit of delaying and overinflating my blog posts, we'd be set :p More later, folks. Thanks for reading!

Difficulty

The challenge in My Very Own Lith is in your patience, your creativity, and your intuition. The idea is supposed to be that the more you understand Lith, the easier it will be to figure out what you should do to unlock whatever you're trying for. The game is designed to challenge you to think about what you would "actually do" in these situations, how you'd try to get closer to Lith as a friend, or a lover, or a master. And the more it forces you to think of Lith as a person, the more invested you are in the game and in Lith, and the more you're immersed in his strange world. This is one of the main reasons to make things challenging.

But at the same time, now that the game is expanding into the later stages, players will need to be able to consistently collar Lith-- it's a requirement for accessing the bulk of content we're starting to see now. It's my sincere hope that everyone that takes the time to play this game and read the prodigious amounts of text packed away in here will be able to play through almost all of the content with a reasonable amount of patience and thoughtful interaction. But this means that I have to offer up challenges in moderation.

One of the challenges of game design that a lot of big-name publishers are struggling with right now is exactly this: game difficulty. Make the game too easy, and it's not a satisfying experience, especially for the core players, the hardcore fans, those who know exactly what they're doing. But make it too hard, and new players, casual players, will get frustrated early on and quite possibly stop playing. I want to give a satisfying experience with Lith for as many people as possible, so this is the balancing act I have to work at.

With all that said, I want to get some feedback from all of you. Listed on the poll to the right are all the main "milestones" in the game as it stands. Each of them are a challenge to acquire, taking some mixture of patience and creativity to unlock. My question for you is, which of these do you feel gave you an unnecessary amount of trouble? At what point, if any, did the game cross the line from engaging puzzle to brick wall, taking too long, or requiring a guide to overcome?

If I get a pretty even spread of results from this, I suppose that would be a good thing, but if one or two results spike higher, that would be a strong sign that I need to work on making those parts a little easier, smoothing the process with hints or tweaked values in the backside code to allow people to work their way through with less trouble. The goal is to let people get to the stone door and beyond without stopping and thinking "well, I'm never going to get past ____, I guess this is the whole game!" Or some such.

So let me know, folks! And hopefully by the time this survey closes, I'll have a progress update for you all. I've gotten a chunk of work in on the next update, but I'm still solidifying how much I'm going to try to pack into v0.15 before I estimate my percentage of progress to that point. Thanks for reading!

A Story to be Told

If somehow you haven't noticed, v0.14 is live! Go play it!

That said, when I announced the new version two weeks ago, I mentioned the overarching structure for the game as being a mix between two parts and four parts. I said I'd get more into it later, and I believe now is a good time to explain things a little more in-depth.

My original, barebones concept for MVOL when I conceived it was complete a few versions ago. You play with Lith, you talk to him, you collar him. A very simple game. Early in the design process, though, I started thinking about the issues involved-- Lith has a very large, unresolved problem at the core of his being. I've worked with Lith as a character for many years, and sometimes I find him charming, sometimes I find him grating, but I believe it's high time he gets a little resolution for his age old problem.

As I thought over what could be done with the game beyond the simple simulation of Lith, I realized that this could finally be a chance to explore that resolution fully. If you play on the right path in the current game you can learn a fair deal about this conflict, but it's the content to come that will really explore the depths of the issue and allow you to act as the scale-tipper and ultimately choose how Lith resolves the problem.

So when I say that the game has two main Parts, I mean it in two ways. In one way, the most flexible and open-ended portion of the game is finished. You'll still have access to it throughout the new content, and it will serve as the foundation for everything to come, but it is, more or less, finished. It also represents, to my mind, half of the content in the game, quantitatively. Whether the second Part will actually be longer or shorter remains to be seen --the piece we've seen so far has certainly come out a bit longer than I expected-- but the intention is that they'll be roughly equal.

The other way that the game is split in half is in its role as a decision maker. The defining element of any story, in the long run, is how things change. A story in which everything is the same at the end as at the beginning is unfulfilling-- a story that didn't really need to be told. MVOL is the story of Lith's meeting with a strange person in a strange place, and how his outlook, his self-image, and his life in its entirety is changed forever through this meeting.

So this change will take place in two Parts. In the first, you will decide, through your actions, what general attitude you will use to approach Lith. As you become the most important person in Lith's life, you will influence his thought processes every step of the way until he ultimately becomes a new person, shedding his conflict in favor of something new. So when you collar Lith, though you may not realize it, you are making a profound decision for Lith that he has been unable to make on his own for all his adult life.

The second Part unfolds and explores this choice, and your further choices refine this answer to something more specific. The questions of life are never simple, after all, and there are many interpretations for any grand philosophy of life. As is often the case in life, the simple decisions we make from one moment to the next, seemingly completely unrelated decisions, can ultimately have profound effects on how we see ourselves and those around us. This story has many endings, and your actions will determine when, and how, it ends.

The other way to interpret the story is as a story in four Acts. In the first Act, we meet our two protagonists, and they get to know each other and develop a bond. In the second Act, as we have seen, Antagonists begin to appear and things get very strange. Two more Acts follow: large, separate chunks of content with a different feel to them, to be played through sequentially. Again, the story can "end" at any time-- the first "ending" is now in the game, though I intend to replace it with a more in-depth ending at some point, hopefully soon.

Beyond that, there will be endings in each Act. They will not necessarily be bad endings or good endings, but simply a branch that takes you out of the story as it unfolds, either to a conclusion or a new, more stable state of existence. I do enjoy "playable" endings, and I think you'll find some of these endings pretty interesting, and some will likely leave you frustrated and wanting to know more. I think it's good to have both :3 Although I may draft some kind of epilogue on the far end of all this, to give just a little more information about what happens after some of these endings.

I've used a lot of vague terms here, and I apologize if it's been a little hard to follow. It's hard to talk about these things without spoiling a lot of the peculiarities that are to come-- just imagine how hard it was to talk about the future without hinting at the existence of the doors :p It's my hope that the moment where the world bent in half and opened up into something new and bizarre was a great, topsy turvy moment for a lot of my players-- in the future, a lot of people will probably have that aspect spoiled for them before they play for the first time, but at least for some of you, I like to think it was an intense and memorable experience.

And I hope to offer a fair few more of those before this story reaches its completion, too :3 Thanks for reading, and keep an ear out for more!

---

Oh, and I believe the survey has pretty much settled to its conclusion, so I've closed it down. The results:

Came out roughly how I expected, though a fair number more Apple users popped up as the survey was slowing down in the end. Assuming that the survey is an accurate representation of my players (which is patently false, as the survey had a much higher incentive toward Apple users) about 14%
of my players have or are interested in getting a jailbroken Apple device and would like to play MVOL on it. This isn't an insignificant portion, and as the game expands in player base and budget down the line, it might become practical to expand into Apple devices, but at the moment, it doesn't look like it would be worth the extra work and overcoming the paywall for development.

If you find this a gross injustice and are insulted to think we should add Android functionality but not Apple, to be honest, the main obstacle is said paywall of $99. If you are both an avid Apple user and a person of means, you can, if you like, make a donation and add a note along the lines of "For Apple Paywall" and I'll note it. If we get enough support to negate or significantly pay off that paywall, then we'll do our best to make an Apple version happen. Otherwise, donations will continue to go to designer sanity maintenance and other investments in the game's future that can be shared equally among all the players. I hope this is a satisfactory compromise for any of you that are frustrated with the current mobile situation :3

Once again, thanks for reading! I hope to have another poll and blog post up soon, perhaps in a week.

v0.14 is Live!

And as a surprise bonus, there are two downloads available under Play the Game: the Flash version and a fully Android-compatible version! This was something of a last-minute development, and I'm thrilled to finally be able to fulfill this request :3 Thanks go to TechnoDragon for helping me set up the conversion process!

With that said, let me talk about this update. v0.14 marks the game's passing a huge milestone in development, and the new content is radically different. In one way, half the game is complete, and we're now starting on the second half. In another, we've effectively finished Act I, and the curtain is opening on Act II, with two more to follow. I'll get into all of this more later, though. For now, go play the game! The rest of this post is going to get into spoilers.

---v0.14 SPOILERS beyond this point---

This update introduces a lot of things that are new to the game: other characters, new locations, darker themes, non-consensual sex, and a different choice dynamic. I'm pretty nervous about how all of this will be received, honestly, but this is the vision I had for this game long ago, slowly refined and brought to reality.

As it stands now, you effectively get a brief glimpse of the world beyond the stone door. This isn't the only destination on the horizon, but it's our first stop, and we'll be seeing more of it. Before we leave, there will be more choices, and there will be the potential to close your story for good. One ending is in the game now, though it's probably the simplest and one of the most disappointing endings you can get. As you progress through the full tale of My Very Own Lith, there will be many chances to reach a conclusion.

Some of these endings might be labeled Bad Endings or Good Endings, but I enjoy making it a little more complex than that. Similarly, I tried not to present my choices as a simple binary between good and evil, but as simply the moments that define things. In life, we often look back and realize that we could have made a different decision at this particular point, and everything would have been radically different. Maybe we should have paid a little more attention, or thought a little longer, or maybe it was just dumb luck that made things pan out the way they did, but we have to see where these actions lead us. It's with that mentality that I craft these decisions, and the innate capabilities of the save file system let you see how this works out from both sides-- an enviable quality for those living out these decisions, certainly.

I might go more into all of this later --have to find something for those awkward blog posts between updates!-- but for now, I hope you find what I've written so far enjoyable, and that I've hooked your interest to see where I'm going from here :3 I don't think it will be easily predicted on the large scale, though the small may be easier to reckon. And no, MVOL is not turning into CoC :p Fenoxo was an inspiration, a foundation, and an advisor to me at various points in the game's development, but this change of scenery has come about for entirely its own, and my own reasons.

And on a final note, I'd like to offer my condolences to users of Apple devices. We looked into it, and it seems that the iPhone is, by design, a great deal less... friendly to unofficial software ^.^;; It may become possible at some point in the future if there's a good deal of interest in it, and I've added a survey on the right so folks can declare their interests in where they want to play the game. I should note that the only Apple devices it will ever be able to work on are the ones that have been "jailbroken," so if you don't intend to own such a device, I'm afraid voting for Apple would do you little good ^.^;; In the meantime, I hope you can find other ways to enjoy Lith's company!

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I dearly hope you enjoy the update! :3

Can You Taste It?

Things are coming along smoothly, and the cracks are filling in. I'm sure there are half a dozen things I've forgotten about, but hopefully I'll manage to remember most of them in the days to come. The prototype has just gone out to my proofers!

(+++++++++=)

We're at 90%! Short of a miracle, I'm probably going to be releasing the game officially on the weekend of the 17th, so my proofers have time to look everything over and I have time for last-minute additions and finishing touches. If you're on my list of premium donators who have been so generous as to donate $25 or more for v0.13+, however, you'll be getting a copy of v0.14+ the very instant it's ready, regardless of the day of the week, so you keep an eye on your inbox! :3

With all that said, I've one more teaser for you all. I'm still exceedingly nervous about the pretty dramatic changes in tone and direction this update is introducing-- I've had all of this in mind for over a year now, but you all will finally be seeing the very first part of the strange ride I'm taking you all on soon x3 Hope you all enjoy!

A form emerges into the pale light, hulking but humanoid-- at least seven feet tall and filling the doorway completely. Its thundering snarls choke back in strange, hollow little giggles as its eyes glimmer ferally in the light.

Summon the Honor Guard!

The game is still crawling toward completion, especially now that I (seem to) have broken my addiction to FFXIV, huzzah! The text portions are nearly completed, and I'm now primarily crawling around in the guts and gears of this strange cyborg of mine trying to get things together and working properly. It's approaching completion!

(++++++++==)

And you know what that means? It's time to rouse the proofers! I'll have a semi-working prototype hopefully lurching around in the days to come, and I've sent an email to check in on my first and last line of defense against glitches, typos, and inexplicable catastrophic failure! If you're on my list, check your email! If you're not on my list, as ever, I encourage you to consider taking up a position in their brave ranks. You should have just a few days now to complete the initiation if you want to be sifting through the test version of v0.14 for me!

And if you're uncertain of your interest in the coming release, I've another little snippet of a preview ready...

A strange crackling behind you encourages you to throw your face to the dusty stones, craning your head around to spot the feline, his staff raised high and glowing-- no, not glowing, the tip is radiating a fearsome, blinding energy. He raises his spare paw, and the energy arcs suddenly to his open palm, creating-- lightning!