It's been a minute since the last update on Chained Ether, so I thought it was time to share some news on the project. The biggest news, of course, is that the project is back on track after our little hiatus. We've got a new engine, a new developer on the team, and unlike last time--I'm directly working on the code.

What's All This With A Second Game?

For everyone unfamiliar with the project, Chained Ether is a new adult game we're developing alongside Accidental Woman. It's not a successor or replacement for AW, rather it's a totally new experience with different gameplay, setting, and characters. Of course, we've taken a lot of what we learned from AW to make CE a better experience, but it's not a sequel or anything like that. We'll still be working on AW as usual; you can think of this as us bringing you even more pervy goodness.

Most importantly, it lets us dive deeper into things that many of you enjoy about AW but that just isn't possible in a life sim style game. In particular, CE will have much stronger focus on characters and overarching storylines. For example, many of you like AW's Lily (or any of a number of different characters), but AW simply isn't about those characters. CE will let us focus more on specific characters, and also on exploring the rich world they live in... rather than just being the backdrop of the game.

I think it's worth reiterating that even though we're super excited about it, CE isn't taking away from AW. The reason for hiring writers and developers for the Arcanist team was to let us work on multiple projects at once, instead of taking away from AW to make CE. That's also the reason for our long hiatus on CE--I wanted to make sure that we had everything in place to keep AW development going full steam ahead.

As for myself, I'll still be the lead on AW as I take on that director role for CE as well. I'll be writing and coding for both as needed, and guiding the rest of the team. I'll be focusing a bit more on "passion content" like the Sacred Knowledge series in AW, and doing primary writing for CE. Our long-time code-cat Besty will be the primary developer for AW, where he's been working for many years now. Our lovely writer Ren will be writing primarily for AW, while our part-time writer Angelie will be continuing with AW as well. They're the reason we've had such a huge flow of content in AW recently. Eventually, if CE gets enough support, we'll be able to take Angelie on full time as well, and start having them write for both games. Iggy is our newest developer, and he's working on CE full time.

What Is Chained Ether?

Chained Ether is a rather unique game set in a post-apocalyptic steampunk world. At it's base, it's a trade and exploration game, where you take on the role of an enterprising young captain sailing his airship between various cities. The world is blossoming in a new era of trade, but each city is an outpost of humanity in a world devastated by the great calamity that occurred over a century ago. Instead of your typical cargo, however, you'll be dealing in a far more valuable commodity: nubile women.

While there will be plenty of opportunities to interact with your cargo--in fact it can be a good way to increase its value--the story will focus far more on the officers you recruit to serve aboard your ship and the relationships you build with them. Each officer will have their own unique personality, backstory, and motivations, and as you progress through the game you'll have the chance to build deeper relationships with them, unlocking new storylines and intimate encounters along the way.

I believe in letting a character's past shape who they are, fully fleshing them out so that they can react to the player's choices in a natural way. Each officer you have the chance to recruit comes from a city with it's own unique culture and history, and she will bring that with her aboard your ship. As you get to know her, you'll learn about her past, her dreams, and her desires--and you'll have the chance to help her achieve them... or spurn them. You will help shape who she becomes, as your influence inevitably comes at an important turning point in her life.

Of course, you'll also be exploring the world. The cities you visit will each have their own unique culture, which naturally leads to a variety of sexual proclivities. Decades of isolation in initially harsh survival conditions, combined with the libidinous and mutating influence of the Blight, have led to a wide world of possibilities. From bunny girls to succubi, and from domineering amazons to caring voluptuous mommies, the ether is limitless. In each city you'll meet characters, explore and discover a variety of erotic events, get drawn into local intrigues, and perhaps even find yourself embroiled in larger conflicts that shape the fate of this world. Focus on the cities and eroticism you prefer, or sail the whole world and experience everything it has to offer--the choice is yours.

Connecting all of this together is the core gameplay loop of trading and exploration. Inspired by classic games like Sid Meyer's Pirates and more modern titles like the Sunless series, you'll be discovering new cities in a map that is different each time you play. You'll interact with the world's economy to buy and sell goods and hopefully make a profit while doing it. Cities each have their own unique economies of supply and demand, and prices will fluctuate with time and world events; it'll be up to you to figure out the best trade routes to maximize your profits.

You'll be able to select from a variety of different ships, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some ships will be faster, allowing you to outrun danger and range farther, while others will be more heavily armed and armored, letting you take on more dangerous routes. Others will have larger cargo holds, letting you transport more goods at once for greater profit. As you progress and succeed, you'll be able to afford larger and better ships, each opening up new opportunities for trade and exploration.

In addition to your basic selection of ship, you'll also be able to customize it with ship modules. Do you want a sensitizing suite or perhaps an industrial milking rig for your cargo hold? Maybe a more efficient engine or reinforced hull plating? Do you favor weapons with long range, more firepower, a higher rate of fire, or perhaps a mix? The choice is yours, and your ship's configuration will impact on your strategy in both combat and trade.

The skies are dangerous, and you'll need to defend your ship and crew from a variety of threats, from sky pirates to monstrous creatures born of the Blight. Combat will be slower and more strategic than your typical action game, focusing on positioning to maintain the upper hand. Lining up for a broadside rocket volley while avoiding a broadside from your opponent, staying at range or getting close. Perhaps your strategy will be to avoid combat altogether by focusing on speed and avoiding the most dangerous--but profitable--routes; it costs money to repair your ship and replace lost crew after all.

Our staff artist is still working on art for the game, and we've built up a nice library of assets already. The game's story content will be experienced in a hybrid visual novel format that focuses on ease and speed of reading rather than clicking through each and every line of dialog. Our goal is intensely erotic writing with art as a compliment--rather than dialog existing mostly as an excuse to showcase art. Certainly not lines and lines of moaning! If you aren't usually a fan of visual novels, you'll find this format a lot more appealing--while VN fans should find it a refreshing departure from the norm.

Progress Update

So where are we at with development? Well we officially got started again in January. Of course, this isn't a start from scratch; a lot of the design work, story outlines, world building, and scene writing were already done. Likewise, we have a lot of art assets already created--particularly for characters--so we aren't starting from zero.

We're expecting to have our initial release, fully playable with a chunk of content to start, ready to go before the start of summer. See the section below for more details on what'll be in the initial release. I'm hesitant to give an exact date, but progress is already going faster than expected. We've already got our build pipeline set up, and we're able to produce playable builds of the game now. We're just now getting started though, so this is more of an announcement that the hiatus is over, than a ton of progress to show off.

Initially, we'll be releasing only a Windows build, though we're already able to produce Linux and Mac native builds as well. It's more difficult to QA and support the extra platforms--especially initially--which is why we'll be doing Windows only at first. We're also technically able to produce an Android build too, but that'll take more work to optimize the UI and create touch controls, so that'll be further down the road. Our developer Iggy and I will be working on core mechanics.

So far, we've got the basic sailing mechanics implemented, along with some UI elements in the hud and elsewhere, and a good chunk of the framework we're building everything else upon. Here's a screenshot of the current build:

As you can see, it's still very much a work in progress. It's not bad for about two weeks of work though! We'll be focusing on getting the core mechanics implemented first, before we go back and start adding effects and improving the appearance of the sailing gameplay. We're building things to be highly extensible and easy to modify, so that we can rapidly iterate on gameplay as we go forward to add new features and depth to the mechanics and appearance.

One thing I've always said about game development is that it's critical for new content to be easy to add. When you're adding hundreds of thousands of words to a game, inefficiencies really add up. We're creating our own script system, making it very easy to write new content. In fact, it'll be even easier than writing the average AW scene! The first steps on that are already done, but of course there's still plenty to do. Most exciting, our setup is looking to be so easy that just about anyone with the ability to write could create content for the game. Though not in the immediate future, we'll probably add in modding support to take advantage of that.

Speaking of writing, I'd like to take a moment to point out that writing a fully fleshed-out character takes time. We want interaction with our NPCs to be as meaningful as possible, and that means writing a lot of content for each character. Choices mean more branches, and more branches means more writing. We don't want the typical scenario where most things stay the same until the very end. Our intent is to have choices matter throughout, and be reflected in a sort of living-epilogue, where you continue to interact with the character and do things together even after the main storyline is over. Pop out a few kids, go on dates, consult them about whether to side with the Reich or the Kingdom. This means that each character will need a lot of content, and that takes time to write.

What To Expect On Release

Obviously, we're not going to have a complete game for the initial release--not even close. The simple fact is that creating a quality adult game takes a lot of time and effort. The kind of game that Arcanist (and plenty of other creators) focus on just doesn't work with the single-purchase model. Unlike many adult games you might find on Steam or the Japanese adult VN market, it's not something a few people can whip up in two or three months. Instead we'll be using a model similar to Accidental Woman, where we continue to develop and expand the game over time into something that just wouldn't be possible otherwise.

From the start, we're planning on a long-term commitment to develop Chained Ether. The initial release will have all the basic mechanics in place. Sailing your airship. Combat with different models of weapons and details like crew loss and armor facings. Trading with a basic economy model. Recruiting officers and interacting with them. Interacting with your cargo. Basically broad to try and show what we envision, but without a lot of depth yet... because depth takes time.

The idea is to have a solidly playable game that demonstrates the core game, but with a necessarily-limited amount of content. The initial release will have the fifteen planned cities to visit, though all but a few will be primarily placeholders. There will be a few officers to recruit, and a few storylines to explore. There will definitely be some erotic content and story, but it'll be a far cry from the full experience we envision for the game. Visuals will likewise be limited and a bit rough, though all our content in the release will have complete art thanks to the lovely Eva.

Support

I want to show you the potential of the game, and hopefully gain the support and community of players we need to continue developing it. I believe that we have a pretty solid track record with Accidental Woman. Not just with the game itself, but with our record of delivering solid updates every month for years now. I know in the world of adult games, it's practically a trope at this point for a promising game to quickly fizzle out--whether through decreasing development speed, rushed and slapped-together final products, or outright abandonment. I'm proud that Arcanist and Accidental Woman isn't like that. Hopefully that'll help convince new players to join our community and support us in making Chained Ether a reality.

Support is really important, just because the cost of hiring more people for the team (currently 3 full time and 2 part time!) has meant that I've basically been spending any money I might have earned from AW into CE development (and a little extra, here and there). That's totally fine, I'm a pervert passionate about making adult games after all! But after doing that for so long, my wife is increasingly grumpy about it. So... the initial release is never going to be as complete as I'd like it to be, but hopefully it'll be something you all enjoy.

More than just money matters though, I think it's also important to have a community of players for the game. Getting feedback, ideas, and encouragement from players is a huge help in keeping motivation up and making sure we're making a game that people actually want to play. Seriously, feedback from all of you has made a huge difference in making AW better, and I'm sure it'll do the same with CE. If you haven't already, please consider joining our Discord server!

More Info!

Wow this has been a huge update... I tend to go on and on about things I'm passionate about it seems...

You can find more information about Chained Ether on it's website. There you'll find more info about the game, and ALSO a look at some content that'll be in the in-game encyclopedia. The encyclopedia has info about the setting, different cities, and detailed description of different races in the game. You can also ask questions on our Discord server, and we'll do our best to answer them!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you're as excited about Chained Ether as we are!

ThaumX ~ Your friendly steampunk erolich