With as crazy as last month was, it seems I overcompensated by going wild on AW this month. Seriously, some kind of record for the sheer volume of changes.

Most of this stuff is more mechanical than content, all focused on improving the game experience. Things like major changes to the game's UI, a new resource system, and a new game saves feature. Things that might seem minor, but that actually take a ton of work.

I actually managed the resource system improvement thanks to working on Chained Ether earlier, and seeing how Phaser handles resource pre-loading. I was able to adapt that to local resources (because CORS prevents standard behavior) and now we have a game that's more stable, uses less memory, and loads so much faster.

That of course required a bunch of big changes to the build process, and of course more modification of our AW-SugarCube story format. Likewise, the UI changes seem simple, but required some significant overhaul to map navigation, and even how the Twine passages work. In fact, a lot of things just aren't mentioned in the change log because there were just so many changes all over the place.

I'm really happy with the results of all the work, and I hope you enjoy the improvements. I paid a lot more attention to variable aspect ratios this time around, so hopefully you'll find that the game is more playable in non-standard resolutions.

It's worth noting that while I did a lot of testing, AW is a huge game... so if you spot any weird display issues, please let us know so we can fix them. You can also feel free to just give us your feedback on the new UI. As an initial effort I think it's pretty good, but there's always room for improvement.

Thanks so much for reading and supporting AW. I hope you enjoy the new release!

ThaumX ~ Your css'd-out erolich

Words:  4,466,829 (30,189,834 characters)

Code:  214,878 lines of TypeScript (plus plenty of other stuff, of course)

New Game Saves Feature

• There is now an option to export all local cache game saves as a single file, and import saves from those files.
  • Bulk exports do not save the game, only export, so make sure to save first if you want to have your current game progress included in the export.
  • Importing will overwrite any local saves! Make sure that you've individually exported any saves you want to keep before importing bulk saves.
• Does not break any existing saves!

QoL Improvements

• The restart feature has been re-added to the game and works, allowing you to restart without having to reload the resources.
  • The restart doesn't re-load the base code, so in the very unlikely event that has become corrupted somehow, restarting won't help. I wouldn't worry about it unless you're experiencing a strange bug, in which case closing and reloading the game may help.
• The NPC generator settings page now lists the currently set values for each item, though in some cases the controls themselves will remain indicating the defaults.
• The settings menu girl has been improved.
• The "Texting" UI has been changed to be more reading-friendly rather than realistic.
  • Text is now displayed immediately instead of shown bit by bit as in a normal sms conversation.
  • The player is no longer required to click anything to advance (send their own text replies).
• The browser warning for not using a chromium browser has been changed, thanks to changes elsewhere. Now recommends chromium-based browser, rather than telling the player to change browsers.
  • Firefox quantum javascript engine does run the game slower, but this isn't game breaking.
  • Minor style defects when using a non-chromium browser, also not game breaking.

New Resource System!

• The way resources are packaged and loaded has been completely redone. No more AWR files, just some fancy code.
• Loading the game is now dramatically faster; about 3 times faster depending on your hardware.
• The game should be more stable now with tab switching and browser memory-saving behavior.
  • This hasn't been extensively tested to find the limits with various browsers and systems, so it's still a good idea to follow some common-sense tips to prevent instability/corruption:
    • Give the game a few seconds after switching back to it to make sure data has been loaded back into memory.
    • Avoid leaving the game hanging around in the background for long periods of time. It's best to close the game in between periods of actively playing--like most other PC games out there.
  • The "Welcome back" message for the game leaving focus has been removed.
• The game's images can now be directly edited and modified without using mod tools.
  • Until we update our webp conversion process, the images are dumped into a couple folders without organization, so you'll still have to actually find them.
  • Adding new images to the game (instead of replacing existing images) will still require using the mod tools.
• Further reduced size of the game's resources download

Major UI Overhaul

• This is very much a "see for yourself" sort of thing, but I'll try to explain.
• The main UI in standard locations has been changed significantly.
  • The "Phone" UI has been completely removed.
  • The corner UI with progress bars and context actions has been removed.
  • The map and navigation have been relocated.
  • General change in theme and style for the main UI elements.
  • Regular display of character head portraits in the main UI has been removed.
    • These portraits are visible elsewhere in the game.
• Click & Info Consolidation:
  • All the elements that require clicks have been consolidated into the bottom left portion of the screen, with location-dependant action buttons remaining at the bottom.
  • This should require much less mouse movement to operate instead of having menu buttons in one place, action buttons in another, and context actions in yet another.
  • Information items have been streamlined to be more useful and less cluttered.
• The UI is much more friendly to a variety of different screen sizes and aspect ratios, including the kind of aspect ratios found on cellphones.
  • Several menus have been made more responsive to various screen sizes and aspect ratios.
  • Some other UI elements will still need to be improved and made more friendly, but it's a good start.
• Navigation is now much less dependent on hover, making it more usable for touch screens.
  • Note: there is a setting that enables hover expansion (rather than click) for the navigation map, so that it behaves more like it did previously.
  • Default behavior is to click to pop out a larger-than-before map.
• Location action buttons are now more friendly for touch screens, though still use hover text to display details about the action.
• Menu and context action buttons have been unified in style.
• Everything is overall less a smorgasbord of random colors.
• Status information, Schedule, and music is now contained in simple toggle panes that can show more information w/o taking up permanent screen space.
  • can be left open, or open and closed as needed.
  • Status information in particular has been improved, with some additional useful info.
    • Body part exposure. Currently genitals and breasts - expect some cock-specific stuff with clothing system refactor
    • Body part access. Access to nipples, vulva, cock, and asshole without removing clothing items.
    • Current semen reserves for futa characters.
    • General fatique/vigor level with parsed words like "alert" and "sleepy".
    • etc.
• New grooming menu tied into grooming system rework mentioned below.
• Numerous tweaks and improvements all over the place.
  • Main menus organization improved, and appearance of some menus improved.
  • Status display tweaked to have status change record be more prominent, and data format improved.
  • some new information is contained in the main UI status popup, such as body part access/visibility, available cum volume, etc.
  • Character actions organization improved.
    • Sex toys equipping/removing has been moved to the new body menu.
  • Colors unified across several menus to use the same general palette.
  • New body menu in addition to grooming that controls jewelry, tattoos, and sex toys.
• New skills menu display
  • More modern and compact look.
  • Now shows effects on skills from boosts/penalties in addition to the base value.
  • Now gives numerical values and a description of the skill level rather than a simple progress bar.

Improvement to the character description page.

• Extraneous items added by a certain cat have been removed and placed in an appropriate place.
• New better skin description added, covering more elements than just skin color.
  • Hints about health, pregnancy, age, and mentions of things like tattoos.
• New current appearance section that covers several grooming elements.
  • Could use a little more work to improve text and expand what is covered, but it's functional.
• Temporary controls to change special body part colors (like the tentacle tail) have been moved to cheats.

Grooming System Rework

• Improvements to the grooming system, and unification of multiple aspects into a single system (such as body condition).
• Improved fluid behavior. For example, "fluids" in hair or pubic hair dry more slowly, and trap more (gravity pulls less downward).
• Better mechanics with cleaning and whatnot.
• Nail care added. Now you can have nail polish and whatnot... it's still relatively simple.
• Still needs better integration with clothing, but clothing needs an even bigger rework first.
• UI and controls improved.
• Better unification of PC and NPC grooming. NPCs still won't have the sorts of detail like hair growing because it just isn't necessary
• New multiple phases of hair styles and makeup being messed up instead of normal -> messy/smeared.
  • descriptive level where style is maintained, indicating that style is getting messed up.
    • tousled or smudged for hair or makeup.
• NOTE: We want to improve how hair styles and makeup are learned, and expand some of the options.

New Stripper Job Opening Content.

• First-day content with the player's manager Ann.
• Part of a general rework of the job's content to be more accurate to the lore.
• Pretty good stuff, but more content is planned to occur over the first several days of work so I would recommend either waiting to play through it all at once, or just pop in real quick to check it out and then load a save.

General Fixery and Tweaks

• Several unreported bugs fixed, particularly with the UI.
• Maxine's semen (and thus children) will now properly be attributed to her.
• Odds of Maeve appearing at the club on a week night increased to 1 in 4 on a given day.
• Bug with bodywriting location fixed.
• New bugs introduced, but they're the perverted Japanese species.
• creampies no longer instantly spread semen from out of the pussy/anus to get onto the body. This is now handled entirely by existing time effects.
• Bug with PC cum vials and little monster fixed.
• Lily Text Bug Fixed! This turned out to be a devilish little bug caused by an overlap with a certain other cheat. If that cheat was enabled (disable breast and ball size bad ends), story skip mode would be active. This is why we had such a hard time replicating the issue, because loading a save on a different machine doesn't auto-re-enable cheat modes, so the evidence was hidden.

Avatar Changes

• Vulva and one pubic hair style redone to be more anatomically correct.
• Displayed breast size tweaked to be more accurate to the PCs breast size, previously it tended towards being too large for moderate sizes.

More Hucow leftovers — still adding them gradually.

• Sunshine scenes - two scenes giving a glimplse into the oldest COOP's hucow life and struggles. Also can get feely-touchy with her. 15 000 chars of content.
  • One happens randomly after some playtime in the COOP, the other can be accessed in the dorms pool area (also around 2-3 week into the game).
• Raven + Tank scene - Encounter her having fun with a bull. And have some options on how you would react to that. Would you try to give the privacy or watch? Or maybe try to join? It's up to you but 7 000 chars of content are there either way.

Whoring massive expansion!

• We continue to add new content into the whoring system overhaul.
  • I have lost count somewhere on the way but the total amount of text is 180 000 chars now, which is a massive amount of smut.
  • There are whooping 189 text elements divided between 5 different parts of the scene combining into the full scene each time. Each element has its own elements it can lead to forming a tree of decision so the client's character and scene tone stays consistent.
  • Basic option to use the condoms was added too. Be sure to have some in your inventory to be able to use them.
  • The scenes (including ones added last month) were refined and filled with mechanical calls to the various systems so they affect your character as any good AW scene should do.
  • A new option in case you got busted by the cops while "working". A rather grim one with possible heavy consequences but you do you.

New icons for the UI facelift

• I am sure Thaum already told about it fully in the text above.

Other small things

• Breasts parser calls now take into account the character piercings and note it in the text.
• Unit conversion system was updated to (hopefully) behave properly now and stop converting inches to inches.

Bugs

• Mostly added, but some were fixed too.