The Event Lottery

Hi all, with the first month of Patreon pledges being processed I figured I'd post about the $20 Event Lottery reward.


How it works:

• Every month I'll pick one $20+ patron at random.
  
• This will happen after the pledges have been processed for that month and only successfully-processed pledges will be eligible. This means that to be in the Event Lottery for February you need to sign up as a Patron In January.
  
• The selection will be completely random: I'll assign each patron a number and then use a random number generator.
  
• The winning patron will be contacted privately via Patreon message. In case they want to be anonymous, I won't identify them publicly but I will make a blog post telling people that a winner has been chosen.
  
• I'll expect the winner to get back to me within a week or so. If they don't then I'll make another random selection and choose a different patron instead.
  
• If there are no patrons at the appropriate level then there won't be an event lottery that month.
  

What the winner gets

• The winner gets to choose one medium-sized event that I consider appropriate for the game: definitions below. This will then be added to Newlife in one of the updates that month.
  
• If the winner's requested event isn't one I consider appropriate then they'll get to pick another, as long as they're able to come up with one I do think is suitable within a few weeks of being notified that they won.
  
• It's up to the winner whether they want me to mention that the event's an Event Lottery one in the changelog. I'd like to do this (so people can see I'm fulfilling my Patreon obligations) but it's ultimately their choice.
  
• If the event is listed as an Event Lottery one then the winner may choose to be credited in the changelog as having requested it. I won't do this unless they specifically request me to. In this case I'd need them to give me the name or username that they want listed – I'm not going to assume that they'd want their Patreon id used.
  

How much can the winner participate?
While I get the final say if there's a disagreement about how best to implement the new event, the winner can choose to have either just a small amount or a large degree of input. For example, if you win:

• You could just send a short description for an event (e.g. “The PC is seduced by a circus clown who impresses her with sexy balloon shapes”) and just let me handle implementation completely.
  
• You could alternatively send me a long description detailing what you want to happen – anything from a paragraph up to pages of text. This doesn't need to cover all possibilities: if you want you can just script your preferred path through the event and then let me tie up the loose ends myself.
  
• Or, you can ask to be fully involved in scripting the event, in which case I'll correspond with you to decide the best text descriptions, different paths through the event, and actions available for PC & NPCs.
  

If you send me a proper written work such as a short story then you need to be the writer as it would otherwise be a violation of someone's copyright if I used their text in the game. You also need to give me permission to use your content of course.


What counts as a medium-sized event?
A medium-sized event is one that takes me no more than a few days to write. These will always be less than 1000 lines of code – usually around 800.
It also can't require extensive future maintenance work. If your event would need heavy re-writes or additions when other planned changes come in then it's probably too big.
Big events include sex and makeout scenes as well as some of the more complex other ones such as nightclubs and dates in town.
I'm not willing to write “cut-down” versions of a big scene because that's sure to be annoying for players who'll see it as excessively limited compared to other scenes of the same type. There are some milestone Patreon goals that'll involve adding big scenes though and if there's demand for it I might add a “big event lottery” reward tier – that would be very expensive though because a big scene is a lot of work.


Examples of medium-sized events currently in the game include:

• Next Morning scene
  
• Your boyfriend visits when you're stressed
  
• Your boss is upset in the canteen at work
  
• Persuade your boss to give you a promotion
  
• The final introduction scene (where you can touch yourself)
  

What events can't be added?
I reserve the right to refuse any event. If you're not sure, then just ask me. If you have a bunch of ideas you think will be rejected then you can put them all together in one message and I'll let you know which (if any) I think are okay.


You can also ask me about your event idea without having won the lottery first. Just send me a Patreon message, comment on the blog, or post it on one of the forums I reply to.


Here are a list of topics that I won't add to Newlife. Most of this should be common sense I think, but I'm going to list it anyway in the hope that this will reduce the risk of hurt feelings if a winner finds their favourite idea is rejected.
First, the general categories:

• Any illegal content. This is especially content that's illegal in the UK, but I don't want to get my players in trouble so I also won't add anything that's legal in the UK but illegal in a country I have a decent number of players in.
  
• Any borderline or gray-area content that's maybe not illegal but getting close to it. This is important because I don't want to risk misinterpreting the law and getting in trouble, and I don't want to get in trouble if the law changes to be stricter in the future.
  
• Any content I find morally offensive.
  
• Any controversial content such as real-world politics or religion. I include racial stereotypes here even if they aren't offensive ones.
  
• Any content I find physically disgusting, even if it's something that I consider morally fine. Just because I support the right of two consenting adults to do some things that turn my stomach doesn't mean I want to spend days writing details descriptions of it.
  
• Any content I think will be unpleasant for players in general.
  
• Anything that violates copyright or that includes real-life people. A scene where your character meets a randomly-generated celebrity would be fine, a scene where they meet a specific named real-world one would not.
  
• Any content that can't be properly implemented using the current code. For example, you can't request events with female NPCs until I've actually finished the code for them.
  
• Any content that can't be done properly without code or content changes that would take more than the allotted time to complete. This includes events that imply such content will be added. For example, you can't have an event where the PC is promised a job in the circus unless I've definitely decided to add such a career and also set aside time to add it in the near future.
  
• Any content I think will make the game outright worse for players in general.
  
• Any content that is seriously inappropriate for the setting. For example, I'm not writing a dungeon-crawl event where the PC takes an afternoon off to slay orcs and find treasure.
  

Some specific examples of things that won't be added. This is most definitely an incomplete list:

• Underage adult content (that's under 18. I know the age of consent is 16 in the UK, but it's still 18 for adult games).
  
• Bestiality.
  
• Sickness, injury or death in an erotic context. In fact, I'll usually only include very minor injuries even in a non-erotic context. See the scene where the PC can thump the perv client who gropes her as an example.
  
• Sexual violence or domestic abuse. Having the player beat up a random perv who touches her up is ok, especially if I write it in a comedic way, but you can't hit your bf and he won't hit you.
  
• Rape. This is actually the main reason I wrote this list – I think this is the only one that gets requested a lot.
  
• Blood in any sexual context – this includes the unrealistic and IMO rather icky porn cliché of “virgins bleed the first time”.
  
• Any of the more icky bodily excretions.
  

Well, that was a long list and I hope I'm not seeming too negative. I think it's all pretty much common sense though. Just wanted to be clear that I'm not promising that I'll add literally anything!


Event pre-requisites and conditions
Well, I'm glad I forgot to add this section earlier, because it means I can end the post on a bit more of a positive note!

There's several ways your event can be added to the game:

• Tied to an activity. You can see this with the Nightclub event. If you want I can add an activity for the player to do (possibly with some conditions) and your event will then trigger anything they do it.
  
• Random for an activity : each activity can only trigger one event. If an activity doesn't have an event that always fires for it then you can add a random event that'll appear sometimes. For example, you might want something special to happen occasionally when the player goes to a fashion show.
  
• Random for a time-slot : this is the most common situation for random events. Maybe your event would just happen sometimes while the PC is at work, or maybe in the evening regardless of what they were doing with their time.
  

Every random event in Newlife also has a set of pre-reqs which can be almost anything in the game – traits, relationships, skill levels, clothes worn, obscure combinations of things etc etc.
This is one way of keeping your event limited if it would otherwise be too big. For example, you can have an event that only happens if the PC has large breasts and is wearing a low-cut top. In that case we wouldn't need to worry about writing content for smaller-chested women.
Events that fire for activities don't have pre-reqs as such, but the activity itself can.



I'll contact the winner for the January lottery soon. If you're a $20 Patron then start thinking about events you want to add, and you can contact me if you have any questions. Thanks again for your support and I hope we can make an awesome event :)