*Journal

Hi, how’s it going? Long time no barks.

Been busy with personal-life stuff. Sorry for not checking in.

can now easily recognize when the next day starts

At Present

The current plan is implementing the chapter-specific game play details piece by piece for the first 4 chapters. 12 Chapters total. The first four encompass most every game element. Getting there.

Design Updates

Had to change a lot of the code foundation for House of Tail recently, namely for how it parses what to do when you click ‘start’. This is so we’ll have better control over timing and speed, but mainly for the code ‘hooks’. Hooks as in where skills are triggered, side quests checked, scenes that can happen on any day with given conditions.

Changes:

• 6 streamlined stats
• No more hustle or sex stats
• Skills: 1 active, 3 passive
• Characters can have different health point totals
• Icons display info when you hover over them
• Options menu getting populated with… options, to toggle
• other minor things, like updated menu graphics

Super excited about the game, but not so much about leaving everyone (outside of the development team) in the dark about it. It’s going to feel strange putting out the next update where a lot of elements are ‘in there’ but not quite. I’m trying to stay in a frame of mind where there has been no public release, meaning: it’s not a chapter-by-chapter installment or showing updates for attention kind of deal. It’s very OK and encouraged to ignore it all until the game’s finished. Might be interesting for those who like to compare builds. The whole thing has been such a learning experience.

About the Stats

Recover, Ability, Charm, Service, Smarts, Power

All jobs use 1 or 2 of the last four above. ‘Recover’ is how much health a character recovers when on the bench or elsewhere. ‘Ability’ is used for how powerful certain skills are. ‘Sex’ has been changed to ‘service’ to make it fit more with what job it ties to and because it overlaps too much with the idea of ‘charm’. ‘Toughness’ has been changed to POWER.

While I liked the idea of hustle influencing everything a little, it just needlessly complicates everything with the conceptual overlap. The idea of hustle as not being lazy and doing what you assign them to do is built into the idea of stats. Someone with a stat of 10 will have more hustle (get more done) at a task than someone with a stat of 1. The old idea in using a hustle stat was someone with a 1 in something could do better than someone with 10 if their hustle was high enough–think someone with a lot of drive but inexperience, most any main character at the start of a story. The reality is, it’s annoying to have to factor in a fraction of hustle into every job’s equation when deciding who to use for what. Now it’s never more complicated than adding two stats to see who’s more effective.

The big picture is you should be aware of the math the game uses. This has been a pretty big design goal. Like how Common Grounds will tell you what stats you’re missing to advance with a character. You’ll be able to click a job and see the math it uses. When you have to make choices during scenes, the game will tell you the result beforehand. It might seem counter-intuitive or easy-mode, but it should translate into being aware of what choices mean, giving them more weight, and having more control–not feeling like it’s hiding information from you or using cheap tricks to mess with you. It has to be this way to tie in with the story’s theme~

By the time you see this, a new version of House of Tail should be up.

To download the update, simply download it again from the BMT Micro email link and reinstall. If you can’t find it, we would be happy to resend it to you, just ask~

Update News

This update shows off the new structure and visuals, and is more or less a stable release.

The next set of updates will definitely be more prone to bugs and spoilers (if you play through the story mode), so you may want to avoid it if you want your first play-through to be when everything’s polished and ‘there’. Otherwise, there will be lots of placeholders and debug stuff, which can be cool to see.

If you find any bugs or issues, we’d love to hear them and add to our list. Please keep in mind we might not address them just yet in favor of getting more of the bulk of the game in place.

The big thing is we don’t want to take your support for granted. At the end of the day, we all want to play the finished game, we want it to be something special, and that’s what we’re aiming for. In the meantime, we can show you how silly and chaotic it will get in development, if you want to look. We’re not sure we want to handle pre-orders like this ever again, and are thinking of additional ways to thank those of you who have or are taking a chance on it before it’s finished.

Next Up

Will try and post more often, as we’re finally entering back into the fun parts.

Past week has been an intense search & destroy for bugs and issues, so you could have a stable update.

Next, I need to go over the game design document one last time and make sure everything checks out. Spent the past few weeks going through the story doc with Whry many, many times checking plot threads, resolutions, twists, and for holes. RPG sized story here. We feel the story’s great, just need to make sure the game play matches it. Making sure game elements are introduced at a good pace and varied, so it doesn’t turn into a chore or ‘waiting for the next scene’ kind of deal.

Am super excited about everything! This is going to get crazy.

Hi folks, Whry here, and I just wanted to take a moment to talk about what we’ve been doing with House of Tail.

Well, to understand what we have been doing, we need to explain some of where we were at a good while ago. The major thing there is- HoT sucked.

It was a neat idea when we started with it, and really, it was a test to see if we could do it. But- once we had played it some, and watched some of our friends play it, we could really see issues. This put us in a very odd situation. The original design was nothing more than a way to play with porn pinups. It was received fairly well, especially being an unfinished demo. We could slap some more characters in, finish out the story mode we were planning, and call it a day. We could have.

And- we could have shipped a game that none of us here were very happy with.

Read the rest of this entry →

Took a little longer than expected (had some issues with the display on mobile devices.)

• User registration seems to be working, emails should not appear in spam folders anymore
• Rewrote and updated a lot of the text in places like the about us and team pages
• Streamlined photo safari to a single page, given better context
• Made pretty all the forum layouts
• ‘Enter / exit’ warning only appears on the main index**

Probably more, but you get the idea. If you see anything off, please leave a comment.

—

** interesting obscure trivia / research:
US Senate document on porn front pages (google books link)

This is it legally, so far as I could find. A tiny paragraph at the bottom of the page. It’s entirely voluntary. Strictly the front page only, and more about not putting up material than warning anyone. Only specifies commercial adult entertainment. Also, the wording on the child stuff is really weird if you think about what it implies you can do otherwise. Not going any further than that. I know a pit trap when I see one.

Always researching`

…

Also took some time to catch up on the furry game development scene. Found out about some projects being either canceled or put on hiatus. It’s always sobering to see, regardless the details and drama. I can imagine what things might look like for us in particular. Sorry it’s taking so long. Wish everyone the best.

Warning: Updating the site, things might look weird.

In looking into the user registration issue, discovered a mess behind the scenes. Spent the past few days redoing everything.

The last time we updated the site like this was in 2011. Been putting it off and it sure caught up with us. Learned a lot since then.

This should fix everything. Will post again when finished~

*** REGISTRATION EMAILS NOT WORKING ***

Status: found core issue, working on it (will take a few days)… fixed, updating site… (will post when finished)

Emails: please give us a few days to catch up with responding 🙁

—

Holidays are kicking my ass.

We’ve been slow to respond to emails and such, and I apologize. Really, truly focusing on wrapping up House of Tail. So much so, that come the new year, I will most likely go into full hermit-mode, forsaking all worldly pleasures to crunch time! Forewarning: I might seem more crazy than usual. ha. ha. Will check emails and online stuff at least twice a week.

But where are we at? I hear the voices ask.

Right now:

– Re-coding the item and upgrade shop presently
– The equip, character, and level-up screens need to be fixed
– Some minor title menu adjustments
– release the next update

And so far as updates, I feel the need to stress that this isn’t meant to string people along or to make us go off track by having to service them. They will be extremely ‘work in progress’ feeling as the goal is a finished game. So large sections will be put in and will be smoothed-out once other sections are put in. A real behind-the-scenes of what a game looks like as it’s being worked on. For example, the next task is to put in all the story scenes, but without all the neat scripted effects. That gets added once the story and game aspects are OK’ed in their pacing and how they play, so we don’t waste time redoing things.

Basically, you don’t have to worry with or play through these upcoming updates at all. It’s a way for us to show at least some kind of thanks to all the early adopters and support. We will take note of bugs and suggestions, but don’t expect us to prioritize them until the game is on the verge of being finished as most of it should get worked out in finishing it.

Extremely excited about this project! Hell, furry game making in general. Is cool to see more people getting into it. Want to see more finished games, though. Doing our part~

(and a small, but big thank you)

oh no the titans have breached the wall and are terrorizing the city

Finally replaced those stick figure placeholders. Lots of different expressions and some different animations to spice it up. Also means there will be different customer types which should play into the new mechanics I’m working in right now.

The long-awaited update will arrive once that’s finished and some of the menus are fixed.

I want to temper expectations because I know it’s been a while. But we here at fupoco will just have to take it. Thinking I can write up a quick ‘lessons learned’ through the development so far, to give you an understanding of what’s been going on that you haven’t seen. Either way, just want to thank everyone who has supported us, especially those who have already bought a copy. We will not let you down!!

quick teaser: new vs old house graphics

RARE REAL LIFE UPDATE: been busy working on a roof. It’s really hot outside. Speaking of HOT…

Development Plan

The ultimate goal is for you to have a finished game. Playable, polished, the whole shebang. To that end, everything else has taken a backseat, such as releasing more unfinished versions.

Currently we are updating the graphics and code to support a high resolution. We’ll post a new version once that’s done and notify everyone who has bought a copy.

Next will be working in the main game, which is mostly story and has already been written: scenes, dialogue, and all. We’ll try to post new versions once we get chapters in place (no emails though, don’t want to spam). But, fair warning: there won’t be any polish or ‘finality’ to it. It’s a first pass; things will be adjusted, added, and removed.

Next will be a pass for balancing, polishing, all that extra jazz that makes a game feel complete and fully realized. Music and most of the sound will likely be added here, along with most of the fullscreen ‘intimate moments’.

Lastly one last pass to make sure everything is as it should be. Will finalize the title screen menus and casual mode. An email to everyone to let them know it’s more or less finished. Fix up the website (long overdue.) And maybe some ‘bonus’ stuff after that. maybe.

So don’t worry! Too deep to get out now~

The funny thing about this kind of talk is who cares once it’s finished. Really is the goal.

***About Forum Registration***
We’re aware of issues with registering and apologize about any inconvenience. We’ve been hit pretty hard by spammers and have had to put in some rough measures that seem to prevent real honest people from registering. Will let you know once we have a handle on it, but it’s taking a backseat to getting the next HoT update finished, sorry 🙁

Comparison of the New vs Old menu design and size in House of Tail

The game is in an unplayable state at present due to the change in base resolution. Once we get that fixed, we would like to get back on a regular series of updates like when it was first released, except here the updates will have new content instead of bug fixes only.

I think we are finally through the holiday season. It seemed like this year it was a time for family, friends, travel to see family, travel to funerals for family, travel to visit friends. Feels like we’ve all spent the past few months sitting in a car. It is nice to take time and visit those close to you, but it’s also nice to be back making ‘special games’ :3