Newlife 0.3.19

Hello everyone!

Version 0.3.19 of Newlife is finished and I've released it on Patreon. Early-access Patrons can find it in the creations section here. The changelog is below.

Version of 0.3.18 is now public. You can download it using the links on the right-hand side of the blog. The 0.3.18 changelog is here.

As usual, saved files & templates from older versions probably won't work with newer ones. 

For new players - just use one of the links to the right to get a zipfile containing Newlife. Once unzipped, you'll see a folder containing .jar and .exe files. Either one of these will run the game. 
For either version you'll need to have Java installed. A lot of programs use Java so you might well already have it. If the jar shows up as an unrecognised file type, then you probably don't. In that case you can get it from http://www.java.com/. 
The exe should tell you if you don't have the right version on your computer, but you'll still need to install java to run the game.
There's a guide for new players here which includes some troubleshooting tips for installation & downloading.

This update finally has female NPCs appearing in the game. Right now they don't appear in many scenes, but there's a big new befriending scene with individual paths for the different character types.

Here's the full changelog:

Major changes & additions:

• Yet more internal changes for female NPCs. It turns out there was more still to do here than I'd expected.
• Female NPCs will now appear in the npc browser
• Female NPCs can be befriended and will appear on the friends screen.
• Added one female NPC to the nightclub scene, with a minimal “chat” action. While there isn't much interaction here, it lets you see the npc character description.
• Added a befriending scene for female NPCs with different paths based on their character type. To get your relationship up to befriending levels, go to the nightclub and choose the new “Chat with another girl” action. You can do this once per visit, and it has a large impact on relationships – I'll be reducing this later but for now this action is the only way to improve your relationship so it needs to be powerful.

Minor changes & bugfixes:

• Fixes to text issues. Thanks to Ted, Kayla, Pintapau and several patrons over PM for reporting problems they found.
• Added the pc's breast size to the character screen, as suggested by NotYou on Patreon.
• Added a new trait (“LOWLIFE”) that's available with custom characters.

Enjoy the new version, and let me know if you find any bugs! 

Patreon charging

Hi all!

Patreon are trying out a new feature called "charge upfront", and I'm in the first set of creators to use it. 

The basic idea is that when a new patron signs up, they now get charged straight away instead of waiting until the next month. This should help sort ut a bunch of issues with the Patreon system.

It'll be especially useful for new voter patrons. In the past, to vote you had to sign up the month before the vote actually happened - this was really annoying but necessary to avoid possible issues with vote-fixing.
Charge-upfront solves this problem, and means that new patrons can now vote straight away. I imagine it must have been very frustrating for patrons who'd signed up just before an important vote and not been able to participate. Now, there are no such constraints.

What this means for you is:
- If you're already a patron, then nothing changes. You'll be charged at the start of each month, as normal.
- Check out Patreon's help page to see how it's handled if you're an existing patron and decide to change your pledge amount.
- If you decide to become a patron, then you'll be charged for the current month when you sign up. Feel free to immediately participate in votes or bring up topics for minor changes in the Inner Circle thread. After that, your pledge will get processed at the start of each new month, just like existing patrons.

To celebrate this change, I'm going to run a new mini-vote which will end about a week after the release of the next version. I expect that'll be out tomorrow, but if there are problems in testing then it could take an extra day.

Here are the mini-vote details. It involves added content that'll build on the new stuff that's being added in 0.3.19 but that I wasn't able to fit into the list of changes for the release. 

I don't expect anyone to vote just yet as I'm sure you'll want to actually play the new befriending scene first, so I'll post the details here now, but hold fire on a Patreon post about how to vote until after the release is out.



Upcoming vote:


I have some ideas for extending the friendship paths in the female npc befriend scene. These would be done as either short extensions or small mini-scenes, not large new scenes with lots of choices. Even so, there probably won't be time to do more than one in 0.3.20 because it's going to have a large "going out with a friend" activity.

So, the vote is to choose which extension gets added:

SOPHISTICATED:
After successfully seducing her handsome young target, your new friend has an opportunity to sneak into the back room with him while his boss is away. There's one drawback... if the boss comes back to find a queue of angry customers then there'll be hell to pay. Can you cover his position and warn the lovers if they need to get dressed in a hurry?
This would be a short addition to the scene handled similarly to the girl-with-torn-clothes-has-sex content in the dance contest scene. The player would have a few actions where she peeks in on her friend to check she's ok, and gets to see what she's doing. Like all these additions, this section would be quite linear - the boss wouldn't actually show up and catch them.

PARTY-GIRL:
A helpful man assists in getting your drunk friend into a taxi, but that isn't quite the end of the night. With all three of you going in the same direction, you decide to share the vehicle. You're expecting a straightforward ride home, but to your surprise your drunken friend decides to unfasten her seatbelt and climb atop the helpful bloke next to her.
This would be an addition to the clear-headed party-girl path. It'd also be fairly voyeuristic, similar to the sophisticated one. There'd probably be two mini-paths depending on whether your friend goes down on him or if they have sex. I'm not sure if the taxi driver gets to say anything. What does a driver even say when their passengers start getting it on in the back seat? Maybe you can talk to him about the weather. Although if your friend is a screamer then you might have to speak quite loudly.

INNOCENT:
As a follow-on to some of the paths that have the gang enjoying the player's company, she'd be given an invite to return down to the canal with them. This would unlock an activity "Walk by the canal" which would let the pc return for further shenanigans with these scummy criminals.
Although this would be a separate scene, the actual sex/make-out content would be handled by the existing sex/makeout/oral scenes and new content for this would be slight - essentially just a lead-in the the bigger scenes and a short conclusion afterwards.


The vote will ask you to pick one of these three, but don't go ahead and start voting yet - I'll post on Patreon with the details once 0.3.19 is out.

Custom NPC character creators

Hello everyone!

Just a quick post for anyone who's frustrated with editing files in a text editor. Newlife's Custom NPC functionality is and will remain based on creating .yml files, but a couple of players have made tools to create NPCs. I know that a lot of people prefer using these to editing the files directly.

In particular, FreshSalad has recently set up a blog to host their tool. That means that there's one place you can check instead of relying on me updating a link to Mega. You can check out their blog at https://freshestofsalads.blogspot.co.uk/ . This is completely up-to-date, and supports the new trait added in 0.3.17.
The other tool for NPCs is made by Axeon, the all-powerful Ruler of the Newlife Wiki. That's at  https://newlifecc.codeplex.com/.

The next Newlife release is coming along moderately. Lots more internal changes than I'd anticipated, but it should be ready soon(ish) - in the next handful of days I expect.

Newlife 0.3.18

Hello everyone!

Version 0.3.18 of Newlife is finished and I've released it on Patreon. Early-access Patrons can find it in the creations section here. The changelog is below.

Version of 0.3.17 is now public. You can download it using the links on the right-hand side of the blog. The 0.3.17 changelog is here. From 0.3.17 Newlife is distributed as a zip file - see the changelog for details

As usual, saved files & templates from older versions probably won't work with newer ones. 

For new players - just use one of the links to the right to get a zipfile containing Newlife. Once unzipped, you'll see a folder containing .jar and .exe files. Either one of these will run the game. 
For either version you'll need to have Java installed. A lot of programs use Java so you might well already have it. If the jar shows up as an unrecognised file type, then you probably don't. In that case you can get it from http://www.java.com/. 
The exe should tell you if you don't have the right version on your computer, but you'll still need to install java to run the game.
There's a guide for new players here which includes some troubleshooting tips for installation & downloading.

This update is mostly internal changes to support female NPCs. They don't appear in the game yet so it isn't especially content-heavy, but you'll see the benefits next version once female NPCs are added to scenes.
However, there are some changes that I hope you'll enjoy. In particular, the game can now auto-create outfits for you - something which has been requested a lot and will make it much easier to have a large wardrobe.

Here's the full changelog:

Major changes & additions:

• Lots of internal changes to support female NPCs, although there's still more work to be done before they'll be ready to appear in the game.
• Extensive rework of how clothes are generated, although this is another internal change with few obvious effects for now – the main purpose is to allow NPC outfits to be created based on their preferred style.
• Added a button on the Wardrobe screen that has the game automatically create outfits for you using the clothes in your wardrobe. See the in-game help for more details.
• Rebalanced stat modifiers for clothing.

Minor changes & bugfixes:

• Fixes to text and UI issues. Thanks to Cubano, Delargante and OrangeJuice for reporting problems they found.
• Added tooltips to the Options screen, as suggested by Mugunghwa. These explain what the different options do. Hover the mouse over an option's name to see its tooltip.

• As requested by Triangleman09, added an action to pull your underwear aside to the makeout scenes – this is largely the same as the one in the oral sex scene.
• Fixed an issue reported by Aethar where pregnancy wasn't being checked when determining if the pc was thin enough to slip through a tiny hole in the wall.
• Following a suggestion by Delargante, Horse's friend now has alternative dialogue if you're his girlfriend when he introduces you.
• Added a new small npc action to the doggystyle scene.
• Added a possibility where behaviour-based rejection of npcs trying to undress you can fail if you're drunk. This won't currently affect many scenes though as rejection responses don't appear very often.
• Your starting casual clothes on the non-transformed female start will now be based more on your traits
• Although yoga pants have base stats that lean towards casualness, this only applies for casual outfits - when worn in an athletic outfit their casualness/elegance is now 0.
• Added short work skirts.
• Added sports skirts.
• Added a plain nightgown, for characters who prefer an understated traditional style.
• Added slips as a more elegant option for sexy nightwear.
• A couple of people on Patreon had reported that the default text was too large in the clothing description boxes. I've added a separate option to handle text for them.

Enjoy the new version, and let me know if you find any bugs!