Still Around

Real Life has been kicking my ass, we'll have a new update soon, including a working Rasna and a fleshed out supermarket. Sorry for the delays!

Welp

Bug fix and minor new content update tonight hopefully, guys. Hopefully getting my mojo back. Also, realised I mistyped in the last update - there's no bad end for the spider goth, just a defeat scene, sorry about that.

Other, shittier, news - PieWifes new job fell through at the last minute, so we're still in the hole. Seriously sucks. Hopefully something else will come up, and there is more irons in the fire, but right now it's back to this game helping us pad our meagre and dwindling savings and paying our bills. I hate to be all e-beggy, but this really is all we have to go on right now. I'm going to update as much as I can in between school commitments. If you enjoy the game and can help, by throwing us a crust or just spreading the word, please do, it's all a huge help and is sincerely appreciated. Thanks guys.

Wiki Grows, so does Workload

 The wiki is getting some awesome work done on it, thanks to everyone who's been chipping in! I'm going to be seriously horrendously busy with school commitments in the next few weeks, I'm coming up to the end of the run with it, but I'm going to try to get another build out too, as soon as I can. A couple of real nice dudes paid to have stuff in the game, and I feel pretty shitty about having kept them waiting so long to see it in game. And there's been some great donated scenes that I'm itching to let you guys see too.

 Thanks for the patience, looking forward to being able to give the game a lot more focus. I really think there's potential for this game to reach a much larger fan base than it has - you guys are great, of course, but more is merrier - and I think with more free time to push at it, it could really get good and get some notice.

Gameplay questions - I've been fooling with combat - Do you ever actually use the bombs? If they were more likely to work, would you? What if they did more damage? If you had a companion moving around with you, would it bug you more if they ran off at the start of every combat, or if just threw a few half assed punches now and again?

Thanks for the patience, guys.

Working on stuff, also Wiki!

 Busy working on things, right now going through and giving every enemy their own speed score, to calculate first strikes and stuff. Up till now, the player was the only one who had a speed score, and I checked that against the enemies skill to calculate escapes and stuff. Why did I not give the enemies their own speed scores form the start? I DO NOT KNOW.

 "Mutant Minx Meltdown Wiki" seems to be a pretty common search, and I guess it's getting to the point where one could be useful. So I set one up here. I put a page on with info about the player character - mostly just starting stats and things - but that's all fort now. I'll add things when I can - it'll let me feel like I'm workin gon the game when I don't actually feel up to writing scenes or coding - but I really know very little about how the set up of wiki's works. Please dive in and add stuff yourself if you are interested and have the knowhow.

 Also, sad to hear that Pornarium is ceasing production, at least for now. Let's hope it comes back some day!

 Update soon, hopefully!

Sorry for delays...

Life's been kind of crazy busy, and also generally kind of crazy. Hope to have an update for you soon. Thanks for all the support you've shown the project. ^_^

Background Information

 Working on the game, hopefully have a new update soon. Trying to get a commission finished for the next release, and it kind of got more involved and complicated than I was expecting while writing it. But that's part of the fun of writing stuff for this, and I think it's some pretty great stuff.

 We've been getting some great discussion and dialogues going in the comments threads of the last few posts - this kind of feedback is both really helpful and encouraging, so thanks a lot guys. Hearing people ideas and theories about the mutants and the outbreak is great fun. It also made me realize that I haven't really said anywhere what the "true" situation on the island is. Originally, I was going to have several different possible causes for the outbreak, and have one chosen randomly at the start of each new game. This proved to be overcomplicated, and also made it difficult to have any kind of real cohesion behind the game world logic, so there's now a definite cause to it all. I know not everyone will want to know, and will rather wait till it comes up in the game, but I'll explain a bit more about the gameworld situation after the cut. (That is, cluck on the message title to see the extra info, if you're not too familiar with blogger)

  We're still struggling financially until the PieWife starts her new gig. If you can throw a little cash towards the game, please do - it's your support that helps it grow, by keeping us fed and housed as we work on it. If there's anything special you'd like to see in the game, shoot me an email, and either me or the PieWife (author of Darlene) will be happy to write it in for reasonable rates, so long as it fits the game rules.

 I hate to be all e-beggy the way I have been recently, but we really are in a tight spot right now, and this is the only income we got coming in. Okay, begging over. Game info after the cut!

Map Time

  Still working on stuff for the next update, to tide you over, here's a map, since "Mutant Minx Meltdown Map" seems to be one of the most common searches. It's possible I forgot or messed something, is so, let me know. This just shows the way the areas connect, and the sub-locations in each, not necessarily the geographic layout of areas. If you want to see how the town is physically laid out, check TDM's map in the "errata" link on the side bar. There's a few things that I might change in that, but it's pretty solid, and is what I used for reference when I was mapping out the sewers.

 The other thing people seem to search for a lot is "Mutant Minx Meltdown Wiki". We're probably at the point where one might be useful, but I really have no idea about how they work. I take it if I just set one up on wikia or somewhere, everyone can dive in and add stuff? 'Cause most of you probably know how they work better than I do. 

  A few gameplay balance questions, if you'll indulge me - not relevant if you play as the Test Character -
*Are you maxing out your stats? If so, about when?
*Any character seem under/over powered?
*Are you finding enough money to pay for injection and stuff, or too much?
*About what day can you enter the library?

  Working on the next build, keep bug reports and things coming. Thanks to Fenoxo for the link (Hi Fenoxities!) Donation drive still in effect. Thanks for all the support and feedback, it's real encouraging, and we're really happy you're all enjoying the game. ^_^

V0088 - Who Wants To Live Forever? Edition

So, you hate your head being blown up in an AWESOME "Scanners" reference? FINE. No more of that.

 Head explosion as a result of infection overdose is now a thing of the past, and I even put a thing in to keep you from being able to starve to death, too. Head explosions is probably th most complained about thing, so hopefully this makes a lot of you happy! ^_^

 Sorry this update took so long - I've been sick, depressions been playing up, I got a 10,000 word essay I'm working on, and I managed to wrack my knee somehow, which is making it pretty uncomfortable to sit at the computer for long.

 Some awesome fan work up there of a SnapJack by QR. This is for sure going to end up in the game, but Sophie there is a special snapjack, so I want to write a character just for her, rather than just use it for one of the ones that's already in there. Sophie is utterly terrifying. I like her a lot.

Okay, downloads! Remember as always, you must start a new game - using old saves will mess things up. Okay? okay.

Joint Windows/Mac/Linux download
http://www.mediafire.com/?cr4jpgfthoxvbg8

Just Windows 7-zip zip download
http://www.mediafire.com/?wwwdo0n9yolfqcy


New bits -

* No more head exploding! - there's a generic infection overdose ending that could use some expansion, and two unique enemy ones, one for the Little Women and one for the Chavs. You'll need to have lost combats to them in order to get their ends when your infection maxes out, within the last few days in the case of the chavs. I got a couple more endings half written, more girls will have them as time goes by, and areas like the library will have their own. If there's an enemy you'd particularly like to see get an ending, let me know.


* No more starving! - If you run out of food now, a mutant will show up and take care of that. It'll give you a infection boost though. Two variations so far, one up to day 18 or so, another one after that.

* More Darlene! - The girl you meet in the library, written by the Pie Wife, is back and expanded. You can meet her around town once you've had the initial library encounter, and she could be of use to characters with lower INT score after the pharmacy is closed.

* New enemies! - A saucy waitress you can meet down by the sea front, written by NC, and a new goo girl in the sewers, written by me. The new goo girl has no defeat scene yet, sorry guys. I'll get that in soon.

* One bit of treasure int he library - a different armour item, one that doesn't slow you down. Library still needs more goodies in it, but it's a start!

* Lots of minor bug fixes in the library and sewers, also fixed the manticora not appearing - thanks TDM!

Not Fixed -

 Haven't cleared my typo fix list, sorry.


 Okay, so, yeah. Adding the different ends meant messing with a bit of the code I haven't touched since I started this project, so it might mess things up. Let me know all the bugs here! Major things I'll be working on this week are - Stretchy Girl (a commision, so NEEDS to get done!) and more sewer maze/goo girl stuff (likewise) and hopefully a few more endings, and adding scenes for the girls who are missing them.

We're still 30 British Pounds short of the rent. If you enjoy playing the game, and can afford to throw us some change, please do! In good news, the Pie Wife now has a job! In bad news, she does not start for three weeks. So things will be okay, but we're relying on freelancing and game support to get us through til then. Thanks for all the support you've shown so far, you guys are all the awesomest.

Anyone have any issues with the inventory screen form the last build? It still keeps glitching out for me, but I've had no complaints about it.

New Build Tommorow, Inventory Issues

Been writing and working on the set ups for the bad ends - I will miss the head explosion :( - and writing a commission for a stretchy-girl. I wanted to get the new build with the endings in out tonight, but I'm too tired - I'm trying to work out the coding and just keep making dumb mistakes and messing it up. Sorry guys, I will have head explosions banished from your lives tomorrow, with any luck.

When testing I've found a weird issue with the inventory screen that seems to occur randomly - it'll suddenly re-appear after you've closed it, with the options menu from the screen you were at before you called it up at the bottom of it. Now, renpy has a roll back feature that means when you spin your mouse wheel, you can "undo" your previous actions. I'll probably take this out when the games finished, but it's useful for testing right now.

The point is though, my mouse has a unusually loose mouse wheel, and I catch it by accident sometimes, so I'm not sure if I'm maybe giving it a slight re-wind and fast-forward that's causing this glitch, or if it has another cause altogether. Has it happened to anyone else?

Also, someone said the sewer wasn't appearing for them, but it seems to work fine for me. Everyone else got it?

 Okay, hopefully new build tomorrow, donation drive still on, will write mutants for money, please help us keep our landlord from hating us, yada-yada.

New Build - V0.087 - What Have I Got In My Pocket? Edition

Okay, new build uploading as I type this. And I just realised, I forgot to fix the Research Librarian or the library typos. Shit. Oh well, they'll get fixed tomorrow.

 Spent an absurd amount of the day messing round trying to get health bars and an inventory screen to work. The inventory screen is GO, the health bars not so. If you want to have an on screen health bar though, you can turn it on through the Test Characters base menu. No bars for in combat or for lust yet, though.

 Stuff that IS in there -

* Open Anywhere (except in combat) stat screen! You will now find a little brown button in the bottom left corner of the screen. Click on it to open your stat/inventory screen! Tells you all your stats, and some other useful stuff, and will let you meditate outside of combat if you have that skill, and...

* Energy drinks! You start with one in your backpack, because I am kind, and can find some more by scavenging on Westside and the SeaFront. They act as health boosts, and can be consumed from the stat screen. I had lots of silly fun setting up the random names and tastes for them.

* Base Fortifying! While there's no actual *need* to yet, as I've yet to implement any night time attacks, you can now fortify your base once you've found the right tools and equipment.. You can do it at night instead of training, and find the equipment to do so by scavenging on Westside.

* New one-time enemy in the library, written by the Pie Wife. You can find her in the Erotic Geography section.

* In case you didn't see the test build yesterday, you can now get into the sewers from the sea front. Only one new enemy to meet down there so far.

 No new enemies today, sorry. I've got some stuff written up, but need to get some sleep. Todays been a game-design kind of day, so I'll make tomorrow a game-content day.

Okay, Uploads!

http://www.mediafire.com/?o5t4zur5th0leca - Windows/Mac/Linux combined

http://www.mediafire.com/?48n22bp8h41edrz - Windows only z7ip for those who have problems with winrar (Is this still an issue?)


What with the inventory screen being new to me and all, there's a pretty good chance it could bug out. Let me know about any weirdness.


 Rent-Paying-Donation-Drive is still in effect - if you can afford to help us out a little, please do. The link is in the side bar. Thanks for all the support, good words and feedback. You all continue to rock.

The State of Play

Okay, so TheDarkMaster has graciously and awesomely offered to take over Rasna coding, to save my sanity. Thanks guy. He's doing this out of the goodness of his heart though, so there's no time frame on it getting done. Until it is, I guess I'm going to close the Corner Shop in future builds until it's all ready.

Been working mostly on putting health bars into the game today, and I sort of have them working except for the fact that they want to appear on top of each other. Still, they'll be nice when they are done. I've also been messing around with some new enemies, and a system to fortify your base.

So, a question - what work would you most like to see done on the game? I'm tending to flit around from bit to bit randomly at the moment, which I guess is not efficient. Would you rather I worked on the front end stuff like the health bars and generally making the UI more attractive and nice, or is the look of the thing less important than the actual content of the game, and you'd rather I just added more mutants/areas/etc?

New build later with any luck.

Test Build - Sewer Maze

Got a lot less put into the game today than I'd hoped, for a few reasons, a stinking headache that didn't shift til the afternoon being one of them. Still, got a fair bit written that's just not worked into the game yet, so don't feel too bad. Kind of a test build here - not an official build because Rasna is totally broke, I ripped out all her stuff and I'm still in the process of rebuilding her. It's taking a while because I have come to hate her, her and her stupid overcomplicated variables. Once I have her working, I never want to see, think or hear about her again. I'm half tempted to put a word limit on any future submissions to keep from getting into a situation like this again. I don't want to sound ungrateful, and I love getting submissions for the game, but man, these scenes are a pain to get working.

So yeah, stay out of Rasna's shop in this build. What SHOULD be working, at least hopefully, is the first rush of the sewer maze. There's only one new enemy in there, an ordinary girl who changes into a red goo girl after about day 20. You should be able to meet her just running through the corridors next to the first "chamber" in the sewers, the one marked with an S.

Oh, also, the sewers are only accessible after enough rain has fallen - the test character starts with a "rain boost" if you want to get straight in. If you could have a poke around and tell me if they are too annoying or actively broke anywhere, that'd be a help, but if you want to wait until they are properly populated, that's cool. Really wasn't expecting the sewers to take so long to set up, I thought I'd have the "knack" for dungeon building after doing the library. Gimme a other two or three dungeons, and I've be shitting them out.


http://www.mediafire.com/?wqv8dwrq9nga2pi


That's the combo build for everything, mac, windows and linux,  not linking this on the download page as it's just really a test for the sewers. The fingers in the spooky house should be working in this too, but I don't think I've fixed any of the other issues - research librarian will still blank on defeat, for instance. Hopefully tomorrow I can focus a bit more and get some of the stuff I've written actually into a build.

Oh, spruced up the blog a bit too. Is everything readable?

Donation drive is still on, please support us if you can, another "proper" build release tomorrow.

"You should see it down there - hundreds of miles of drains.."

I've got a plaaaan!

Okay, ended up spending pretty much the entire day building the sewer maze, took way longer than I expected and it is now three AM. Guess that's a lesson to me. It's pretty much done now though, and adds a substantial chunk to the game, which is nice. The town's really growing.

It was going to be smaller than the library, but it's pretty much comparable in size, I think, and has room for more expansion - eventually, it'll probably be useful as a "rat run" to get around town quicker and (maybe) safer - like the other dungeons time doesn't pass in the sewers as it does in the overworld.

There's absolutely nothing to do down there until I write some goo-girls though, so I haven't uploaded a new version. Tomorrow I will iron any ongoing problems from the last build like the enemies not triggering, get Rasna working (I hope - TheDarkMaster has been kind enough to make me a framework that should make her work right, so she'll be Finally Sorted for Good and All) and add a goo girl or two the the sewers so I can sort out how we'll handle escaping and enemies and all down there. I hope to have a build up for early evening.

Current game stats -

The game contains 716 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 44,147 words,
for an average of 61.7 words per screen.
The game contains 125 menus.


Thanks for all the support, feedback, suggestions etc. You guys rock.

Weekend of Work

Okay, so I'm free of ultra-tight-deadline obligations, and free till Monday. So we have four days for MMM work, because it is fun. Primary obligations are to get Rasna working and to get a sewer system and some goo girls going, but I'll probably be pecking at other bits too.

Something I was wondering - when I make up and write characters for the game, a whole lot of the time they're based, or at least inspired by, celebrities I have or have had crushes on (note to the Pie Wife - none were ever as sexy as you, natch.). The bossy redhead was Karen Gillan, the blue goo girl is Sophie Dahl, the angry librarian is Shirley Henderson.. stuff like that.

So, point is, any celebrities you would like to see be incorporated - after a fashion - into the game? Suggesting a person isn't a definite of getting them into the game, and bear in mind I switched off from pop culture in about 2005. But, you know, inspiration is inspiration.

Update soon, thanks to fen for the link, thanks to everyone who donated for their support - we're still short of rent, but if things keep going as they are, we won't be.

Thanks guys.

New Build, V0085 - Ex Libris. Also, Help.

Spider goth, spider goth, does whatever rhymes with goth. Coughs, I guess.

Okay, new build at last. Sorry for the delays, life got kind of awful.

Windows, Linux and Mac combined
http://www.mediafire.com/?jrf6kz6z32y7h5d

Windows 7zip version
http://www.mediafire.com/?yliio40w76tiibo


New stuff in this version -

* The library! Should be fully explorable, and lets you complete the first art of Selenas quest. NOTE - this won't stop Selena "turning". Yet. There's be more steps to that. The library is pretty tough, so there's a beefgate to pass before you get in - you'll need int, strength or skill up to 12. The libraries pretty huge, probably about as big as the rest of the game world put together. I think I might have gone a little overboard, but I wanted a good "dungeon".

* New mobs - four librarians, two (I think) new enemies on the streets, and one new encounter in the spooky house. The Pie Wife helped me write some of them, which is pretty ace.

* New NPC - a character written by MetalMouth can be met on the Westside estate. It's a pretty sweet encounter, and has lots of potential for expansion.

* New graphics - A few more by Shaona - the spider goth here, a slew of stuff for Rasna, and the swollen nerd. Also the first one by Alder, who has drawn the scorpion girl for us. Hooray for our awesome artists.


* Usual minor bug fixes and stuff.

As usual, it's pretty possible that some stuff will be ropey or borked, so hit me with your bug reports.

Things that aren't working yet -

* Rasna. Rasna is my albatross. Tried for hours to get her to work, and just ended up messing the code even worse and getting even more confused and at one memorable point, breaking the entire program without understanding why at all. I'm going to rip out all the code to do with her and re do it from scratch, like I should have done to start with.

* I started setting up another NPC, a female journalist who is immune to the outbreak, but didn't get much apart for the initial encounter done, so she's deactivated for now. You could look her up in the code if you really want to see her, I guess.

* Still no "bad" endings, too much infection still just results in head explosion. I'll have to get on those as a priority.

So yeah, let me know what you think and what works and does not. And one more thing.

I'm currently in my last year of schoolin', and the Pie Wife is currently out of work and due to circumstances, can't get unemployment monies. If you enjoy playing the game, and you can afford it, we'd appreciate it a lot if you could throw us a crust for it. The game is always going to be free to download, so think of it as a kind of honour system - if you play it a lot, it'd be nice to show your support. And if you could do that right now, maybe we will actually be able to pay our rent this month. Which would be a load off our minds, and a less stressed Pie means more work on the game. If you can't afford it, that's cool, believe me I understand. If you know a friend or online community who might like it though, you could let them know, 'cause that'd be an ace way of helping too.

Thanks a lot guys. Hope you enjoy the library.

Technohorrors

Technology causes delays, sorry guys. New version is good to go, and will be up as soon as I actually get the damn thing to upload.

Stuff to look forward to for when it does - apart from the library and librarians, a couple new arts, there's a couple other new enemies, one for the spooky house and one out-and-about one, an ace new npc contributed by MetalMouth and the beginnings of another new one by me.

Need to go sleep now and I'm tired of trying to make the upload work - keeps doing the same thing of almost getting there and stopping. I'll get it up by the end of tomorrow, even if it means finding a new place or way to host it.

Library almost done, update soon

Okay, *finally* seem to have got all the mis-links and things ironed out of the library, and added enough little bits of description that it feels at least a little like an actual place. Now I just need to add a few librarians and nerds, stick Selenas books in the appropriate place, and we're good to go. Hopefully I'll have the new build with the library ready and uploaded by the end of Sunday, Europe time.

Looking forward to seeing what you all make of it, it's definitely the most  in depth addition to the game so far.

Still Alive

Been busy as all heck, but managed to snag little bits of time to work on the game. I've been working on the library, and I might have gone a bit overboard - it's going to serve as one of the games major "dungeons", containing the Helping Selena quest and probably a couple more mini quests, so I wanted it to be a biggie, but I've ended up with a 25 room monster. That's more "rooms" than the entire rest of the town so far.

Unlike the Spooky House, the Library is totally (and hopefully easily) mappable once you've worked out it's structure, and there's plenty of hints. I'm just wondering if I needed it to be so big - do you guys really care much about gameplay and puzzles, or are you just here for the monster girls?

Anyway, it should hopefully be done soon, and I'll have a new build up with the library and at least the first step of Selenas quest in in a day or so with any luck. I've worked out a way I'm comfy with to take donations, but wanted to wait until I had new content for you guys before I put that up. Just felt less beggarly that way.

So yeah, that's the state of things. Now I'm going to go back to checking all my library rooms are linked up right.