ALPHA 0.5: "Hell Unending"

This is the largest single update yet, and has been difficult to playtest thoroughly. It was both easier from a code perspective and more convenient for me personally to collapse what would have been several daily updates into a single large one. Depending on how this release goes, I may continue this approach. This update adds an intelligence stat to the game. It impacts almost everything in one way or another, so I will not exhaustively list everything it does. Generally, though, higher intelligence makes raising devotion harder, and virtually everything else easier. Education is the only way to raise intelligence. I do not intend education to become a big part of FC, so it's limited to a simple two-state stat: is this slave educated, or uneducated? For the PC's purposes, a month or two spent learning the culture and expectations of the arcology would be plenty to qualify for educated status. Education cannot improve already-high intelligence, so for slaves so blessed, the only purpose of educating is to increase price.

The overall balance effect of intelligence is going to take a lot of playtesting to establish. However, I do hope it will reward close attention while not irritating more relaxed players. It should further distinguish assignments like whoring and public service from milking and glory hole duty, since intelligence only matters for the former. Slaves for skill-based assignments will take more time and effort to perfect but be more valuable for the effort. Furthermore, intelligence reduces the interchangeability of slaves. Education can only improve intelligence one step, and it's currently a five-state stat, so the ideal slaves for leadership positions must start at at least above-average intelligence.

Balancing is tricky. I've been feeling some distant sympathy for David Kim (who's basically in charge of balancing Starcraft) over the feedback on the lactation nerfs. This update directly buffs milk production, though not back to where it was in 0.4.8, and adds another way to indirectly increase it.

If you enjoy FC, you should check out Jack o Nine Tails by OldHuntsman, which I consider the greatest slave management game yet made. It's the only h-game I know of that presents a genuinely satisfying gameplay challenge. When I first played it I enjoyed it so much that I wrote a story set in the JoNT world. It's novella-length, and by virtue of it having no competitors that I know of, I will claim to have written theEnglish-language novelization of JoNT. One of these days I'll bring a project in under 25,000 words. One of these days.

Download: Dropbox, Mega. Previous saves will not work. If you have not started a new game with a fresh 0.5 download, please do not report bugs.

Latest hotfix Monday, December 7, at 18:45 PST.

0.5 Changelog

Major additions:

• Intelligence, a new stat which is arguably the most important in the game because it impacts almost everything and is very difficult to raise. This feature is not really complete: for example, almost all hardcoded slaves remain at the default intelligence value.
• Education, which is handled as a modifier to intelligence; it is limited to a simple educated or uneducated status.
• New assignment that directs slaves to take slave classes under the supervision of the personal assistant. These increase devotion, teach basic skills, and increase effective intelligence through education, at a rate determined by the slave's preexisting intelligence and devotion.
• New facility, the schoolroom, associated with the class assignment. Includes a new leadership position, the schoolteacher.
• New psychosuppressant drugsthat increase obedience, reduce intelligence, suppress sexual and behavioral quirks, and can cause submissiveness.
• New facility, the arcade, associated with the glory hole assignment. Includes a powerful upgrade that greatly increases income at the cost of rapidly ruining slaves.
• A brothel upgrade which automatically doses all inhabitants with high doses of aphrodisiacs to improve revenue.
• A promenade upgrade which adds a small amount of progress to the recruiter for each slave working on the promenade.
• A servants' quarters upgrade which improves devotion gain and upkeep reduction.
• A dairy upgrade which improves health and breast growth.
• A collection facility upgrade which improves production.

Minor updates:

• Complete review of the 0.4.10 code based on a comprehensive proofread by a very dedicated anon (and /k/ommando). More than three hundred minor errors were corrected.*
• Added pre-enslavement career tracking to some randomly generated slaves; at present these are for flavor only and have no significant stat effects.
• Buffed basic milk production and bonus from induced lactation, though still not to 0.4.8 levels.
• Buffed cum production.
• Submissives now enjoy crawling.
• Some code refactoring to increase performance, which is still a long way from where it should be.
• Balance changes to the way beauty is calculated; the overall effect is a blanket reduction of both slave prices and prostitution income.
• Returned the dildo gag in the form of a restrictive leather collar that includes one; like its previous incarnation it is removable and will not prevent slaves from speaking or performing oral sex, and will confer basic oral skills.
• Added a rules assistant option to specify a standard of living for obedient and better slaves; fearful and worse slaves will still be set to spare.
• Several preexisting events now have unusually advantageous options that only appear if the arcology features a busy collection facility.
• The Slave School, St. Claver Prep, and the Gymnasium-Academy now educate their graduates; the Growth Research Institute and L'Ecole des Enculees do not.
• All sexual quirks can now be overridden by at least one fetish; the nymphomaniac fetish removes any sexual quirk.
• All behavioral quirks except quirky can now be overridden by at least one fetish.
• Being confined, working in a glory hole, or being in the new arcade will all prevent the formation of relationships and rivalries.
• The devotion bonus for being a head girl or a recruiter increased for intelligent slaves and decreased for stupid ones.
• The most minimal autosurgery assistant setting will no longer alter lips.
• New hardcoded slaves.
• Bugfixes.

* Anon's correction of 9mm Parabellum (a compact, effective and inexpensive pistol cartridge) to .45 ACP (a chubby, slow, and overrated relic) in one scene was not made, because Anon is wrong.