Thank you all for the good reception that the release of the version 0.1 of Unholy Arts is having! It's going to take a long while until the project is completed, so any kind of support is welcomed. In today's post I bring you the changelog for a small patch with some bug fixes and lenghty discussion about the goals for the next versions.

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Changelog for version 0.1b

--- Bug Fixes ---
Fixed an error that appeared occasionally on social interactions.
A function that returns weighted random elements from a list was generating random int numbers with a floating limit, which could rarely cause the function to try and return a non-existing element located after the end of the list, if the randomly generated number had the exact value of the sum of all weights from the list.
This could have also been causing problems in sex scenes and AI behavior on the map, since they use this function all the time.

Fixed: When a training action didn't last for a whole hour, less than 20 points of the corresponding bar were substracted, but this wasn't properly displayed.

Fixed: If a training action was finished at the end of the training period, the experience returns would be disminished.

Fixed: The option for the player to take the lead during a scene wasn't getting checked at the start of the scene, which sometimes caused the player to be able to take the lead in situations where this shouldn't have been possible.

--- AI rebalancing ---
Tweaked some functions from the social AI. Angry characters should now be more likely to use hostile interactions, and characters angry enough now may decide to leave conversations early.

Reduced chance of AI to choose to attempt to talk to someone if it's training period.

--- Other ---
Changed the formatting of some info from the work period.

Added a readme.txt file to the game's folder with useful information for people who may not understand how to play Twine games.

--- Other bug reports ---
I have received messages reporting other errors that I haven't been able to replicate. If you have further information regarding them, please contact me. 

The errors were:
- Display of error messages after choosing actions during sex scenes (it's possible this had the same cause as the social interactions bug, in this is the case I can't replicate this one because it would be fixed in the patched version).
- Unable to play a specific sex scene from a story event.
- Unable to start social interactions with other characters when the game shows the "Join conversation" button.

I'm aware of a couple of extra bugs that weren't reported, but they weren't critical enough to make it into this patch.

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And now, regarding the future of the game's development.

A few important core features are already in place, and the map/events system was probably one of the densest ones to implement, because it requires coordination between currently ongoing events (characters moving, training, socializing, having sex), the UI, prompts sent to the Player, the addition of new events in the middle of the cycle, and having the AI understand all of this (and there's still at least one instance in which the AI may get stuck). The code was at some point a field of bugs and it was disgusting - and I'm afraid I still have to spend a couple of extra months in that particular hell, due to one of the new features to come next version. We'll be back to this in a short while.

I estimate that it's going to take at least until version 0.4 to get all the core features implemented. I made a post about them in the old blog ( https://deepinteractivity.blogspot.com/2020/04/planned-features.html ), let's review the most important ones.

Battles / Sex Battles: After some deliberation, these two will actually be the same. I will be re-using the vast majority of the Sex Scenes code, so it shouldn't take too much work to get it going.
You will get to play them on version 0.2.

Relationships between characters: "Beyond the parameters indicating the relationships between the protagonists, the Candidates may engage in specific relationship dynamics, such as love, protection or servitude." I expect this one to catch a lot of interest. In most games where top/bottom relationships between the PC and a NPC are a thing, the gameplay tends to feel very scripted: if the Player is the top, they may have some initial confrontation to impose their position - after that the Player is able to give some orders to the NPC, and there may be some progression in the process; if the Player is the bottom the gameplay is usually even much more linear.
In Unholy Arts, there may be evolving, shared and conflicting interests between characters, and each character has a list of goals that are chosen and prioritized by the AI: this combination of elements have the potential to create emergent gameplay that actually makes these relationships interesting to play in the long term.
But going back to my rant about implementing the map/events system: actually implementing this will require me to stick my head into that pit of mud again and break it, since events, NPCs' behavior, Player choices, UI and prompts to the Player will radically change when two or more characters' actions get tied together.
I have planned to get this done for version 0.2, with three initial types of temporary relationships: Mutual Protection Pact -two characters agree to defend each other should the need arise-, Mentor/Ward -the mentor agrees to provide some teaching, guidance and protection to the ward, but the ward is expected to repay this help-, and Servitude -a character turned into Servitude, by force or trickery, is expected to fulfill the Served character's demands-, the last of which may be turned off in the settings. All of these are temporary relationships. Of course, new types of relationships will be introduced in versions later than 0.2.

Sustained effects and equipment: these serve to make the gameplay more interesting as well as to provide some fetish fuel.
Will be implemented in version 0.3, which will be focused on adding flavor to early game content, implementing smaller QoL features and making the overall experience more consistent.

Adventures: These are sections of gameplay during which the protagonists leave the Temple and engage in different adventures, usually revolving around a specific conflict. The gameplay will be a mix of sandbox similar to the Temple Period Simulation, traditional Twine stories, and map sections where there's a limited amount of time to fulfill different goals. Once the first adventure starts getting implemented, I'll consider the vast majority of core features to have a decent initial implementation and my focus will turn from coding the engine to create lots of content.
The first adventure will be started on version 0.4.

Apart from the main goals for the next versions, there are some smaller things I also want to get done for v0.2 are:

- Settings menu that allows you to enable and disable certain kinds of content, as well as difficulty options.
- Search for scrolls in the library, which will be used to learn new moves and get some access to lore.
- Add new story events.
- Add new sex scene moves.
- Implement NPC drives. NPC drives are parameters that communicate the AI what are a given character's priorities. You may remember seeing messages in a story event with Claw and Padmiri explaining that they had grown more or less favorable to cooperation, domination and ambition.
- Create a system that maintains a log keeping track of everything that happens during simulation sections, which may be accordingly copypasted and sent to me when you encounter a bug.