Thursday 30 March 2017

Newlife 0.4.6

Hello everyone!

Newlife 0.4.6 has been released. Early-access Patrons can find it in the creations section here. The changelog is below.

The previous version is now public. You can download it using the links on the right-hand side of the blog. The public version's 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 version reworks the stress system. I'm short of sleep this week and struggling with a headache as a consequence, so I won't write much for now. Hopefully the changelog will explain things. Otherwise I'll put up another post later with more information.

Major changes & additions:
  • Extensive rebalancing/rework of the stress game mechanic. The aim is that instead of gradually increasing or decreasing stress will now quickly increase but can be rapidly dropped down again through rest actions or having a good sex life. However, the relaxation actions have no other benefit so relaxing to control stress has the opportunity cost of using up one of the player's limited timeslots that could otherwise be spent improving skills or relationships. Details as follows:
  • New stat Anxiety which is gained if you spend a week at high stress levels. Anxiety cancels out skill gains on a 1-to-1 basis, so if you have an anxiety of 2 and gained 3 points of a skill your skill would actually increased by 1 and anxiety would drop to 0. Anxiety also has some other game effects such as influencing willpower tests and blocking certain actions. I expect most players will attempt to keep anxiety at or near to zero.
  • Anxiety is normally only reduced when cancelling skill improvements, but it can also be dealt with through some special means: currently through spa visits or when ambitious characters get promotions.
  • Significantly increased stress gain from most sources, in particular the weekly stress gain for the sales job is now 35/40/50 for relaxed/neither/ambitious.
  • Massively increased stress reduction from most sources. Relaxation now has a base reduction of 30, increased by 5 for each point of improvement through buyable Stuff (so a maximum of -55). This is halved on the date-night timeslot as an incentive for players to go out and party. Other sources of stress reduction have also been increased across the board.
Minor changes & bugfixes:
  • Fixes to text issues. Thanks to Saur and OrangeJuice for reporting problems they found.
  • Fixed a bug with skill gains that could lead to skills incorrectly dropping when they were supposed to increase.
  • Fixed a bug reported by Lilbobchicago where the pc wasn't getting dressed when the client's wife finds her undressed, even though the text says that she is.
  • Reduced some skill training activity effects as it's a bit too easy to max out skills. Ideally it shouldn't be possible to max out every skill over the 52-week duration of a normal game so players will have to choose their characters hobbies and interests. This will be helped by the addition of new skills later on as well, but that's out of scope for the 0.4.x updates.
  • Saint Destiny reported that the new proposal scenes in 0.4.5 weren't taking into account the possibility of the boyfriend being the (already married) boss from your sales job. New text has been added to all of these to cover this possibility.
  • Fixed a bug where shopping for clothes was increasing instead of decreasing stress. Also increased the values. It now increases the fashion skill by 1 point and reduces stress by 5 + (fashion skill)/5. This is still inferior to dedicated skill-training or relaxation actions but hopefully it isn't so much worse that players will feel compelled to minimise the number of timeslots they spend on shopping. Also added a stress reduction effect (20 points) to the “shop for your flat” action.
  • Background relationship improvements from the socialise action are now halved for non-outgoing characters with anxiety > 0.
  • Added some lines for certain player-characters when cheating, along with reduced enjoyment for those characters. These generally only apply if the pc is guilty about cheating, which is determined based on stats (specifically Nice, Bitchy, Romantic) and relationship levels.
  • Slightly reduced the willpower bonus when the player-character dislikes a man.
  • Following a suggestion from Saur, romantic characters will now get a willpower bonus if they're in a relationship with a man other than the one they're with, they have at least some love with their partner (anything about the minimum level) and they aren't completely head-over-heels in love with the other man.
  • Added the aromantic trait suggested by Patrick Daitya. This is equivalent to the NPC's cold-hearted trait in that it prevents you from gaining love points. It has the more neutral name 'aromantic' rather than 'cold-hearted' because while the latter is typically limited to NPCs with the Selfish personality the player-character trait can be taken by any PC who isn't romantic.
  • Added an alternative to the “tell him you're unprotected” action requested by Hashes. This one is available if you're on the pill and involves the pc lying about it.
  • When playing a secret-mod character, the endgame scenes will now give you the option of seeing your hidden stats before the game ends.


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


26 comments:

  1. what's a secret mod character?

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    1. secret mode either gives you "tweaked" traits from regular OR "chaos" traits from regular. AND you cannot check them.

      I.E. you design a male start, than choose "secret chaos" and your female physical/mental traits will be done as if CHAOS mode. AND you will be unable to view them in a list.

      You can figure out some traits pretty fast by options for interaction PC has.

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  3. Ahh nice, but I hope the new stress mechanic works fine. Spa treatments should do it well.

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    1. The spa drops stress and anxiety to zero. Along with ambitious characters getting promotions it's one of the only ways to reduce anxiety without losing skill points.

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  4. Now that the previous version is public, can someone tell me how to access the three new proposal scenes. I've seen the normal one and the cold-hearted one (I think it was, atleast. It was the one where he unemotionally and simply says in a matter of fact way that you should get married). What are the other two and how do you access them?

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    1. 1. impregnator (spelling?) is one.
      The other two are if the boyfriernd is treasure hunter character for the 2nd. Than the 3rd involves if you have found the treasure hunter rival.

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    2. What on earth is the treasure hunter character and rival and why have I never seen them?!

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    3. Hi Strat Man. The treasure hunter event can fire if you have a friend (not bf) with the Interesting trait. The rival is a character who can appear during that scene. Once you've had the treasure-hunter event once you can make the man your boyfriend and it'll still be able to appear: this lets you access his unique proposal scene.

      The final one that no-one's mentioned is the "duty" one where a man who doesn't love you but has a good personality (i.e. not jerk/selfish) can propose if he gets you pregnant.

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  5. What are the ways to break up with a man (fiance) that PC is totally in love with? I believe that the option to break up manually is gone in this case...

    So I think I'm looking for way to accomplish at least one of three options:

    1) reduce love level (is this even possible if the NPC is nice to the PC?), so that I can pick the option to break up using the "have a serious talk"
    2) force the man to break up himself - is there a way besides when a NPC doesn't want kids and PC gets pregnant with other man's child?
    3) receive a proposal to be a boyfriend from another man - what are the conditions for a man to offer a relationship when the PC is already in another one (engagement)?

    I would reeaaly appreciate it if anyone could help me in this matter.

    By the way, SO you are making this game to be even more amazing which each patch. I greatly enjoy your game. Cheers!

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    1. proposals are currently limited to your boyfriend.
      PC can fall in love with NPC and force player not be able to leave it. There is an "anti-romantic" (i think unromantic) trait in .4.6 which makes it so you can always break up.

      There are NPCs who will break up upon gettings kids if don't want. Generally it involves the NPC not having a high "love/like" level with PC.

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    2. I don't believe you can get out of an engagement in any of the upcoming releases. Maybe after marriage gets sorted we can have home-wreckers, but yeah, that's my best guess. It's a logical step to flesh out the whole marriage stuff first I guess.

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    3. Thanks NoName and sorry for the late reply... although there are certainly people who've been waiting longer for a reply - I have quite the backlog :(

      1) Reducing love can be difficult if the man is someone you fell for in the first place. I'll probably be adding more ways for this to happen with "bad boyfriend" content and the ability to get into fights with your husband. You can hope he does something that badly offends your character but this is usually quite trait-dependant. There are some special opportunities to dump a man if he does something very bad (e.g. if you catch him sabotaging your pills), but this is usually unavailable if you have the highest love level.

      2) The scene where you inform him you're pregnant has several paths that lead to one or another of you ending the relationship. However, if you're in a happily loving partnership then these aren't going to happen.
      Characters with the bitchy trait can try to blackmail someone if they find his lost phone. The chance of successfully finding blackmailable material depends on how many "vices" he has. If the PC successfully finds blackmailable material on her boyfriend and goes through with the attempt to blackmail him then he will always break up with her (unless they're married, which can't happen in the current version).

      3) Requests by the non-bf to get together with them can happen in 2 situations:
      First if you tell the other guy that you're pregnant by him. If he wants kids or has a good relationship with you and doesn't not want kids then he might as you to dump the bf and get together with him instead. Romantic NPCs will never do this (as it's an unromantic way to get together) and caring ones will only do it if your bf is a jerk.
      Second, it can happen if you ask to be his friend and he has the boastful trait and wants you as his gf.

      4) Characters with low-self-esteem get an option to dump a man they love when he proposes because they feel they aren't good enough for him.

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  6. My anti-virus program detected the game exe as a HEUR/APC (cloud) trojan. Not sure what to make of this.

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    1. Which game version is this, and which anti-virus are you using?

      I've downloaded the public version from Mega as the one you're most likely referring to and run a test on virustotal.com as well as scanning it with Malwarebytes which passes it as clean. On virustotal it gets flagged by 1 of 62 antivirus engines. Specifically TrendMicro-HouseCall which has a result of "Suspicious_GEN.F47V0331".
      The .jar version, which is the exact same game, comes up as 0/58.

      Considering the low detection ratio, I think I can confidently call it a false-positive. This sort of thing has happened in the past as well a few times - probably because it's an executable that can create files on your hard drive (such as the newlife.properties file which will be created if it doesn't exist).
      In those cases I've sometimes reported it as a false positive to the antivirus sites, so it'll be useful to know which one you're using.

      I assume you're getting the game directly from me: either using the Mega or Mediafire links from this page, the links to those same sites I added to the tfgamessite page, or the patron version from the appropriate post on my Patreon page.
      If you've got it from some other uploader then I can't know whether someone tampered with the file. My advice would be to only download it from links I've provided myself.

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  7. Hey love the game, just wanted to make a suggestion. At the moment i'm playing a shy character, and I really would like to have some female friends to give the chance to meet some guys in a classy bar rather than a sleazy nightclub, but from what i gather the only way to make female friends is to first to clubbing. I decided though that clubbing wouldnt be something my prudish character would do ever.

    So i'm asking if there could be other ways to meet women, like as an example after the dance class add the small chance to sit next to a woman who also happened to be at the class. Likewise in the gym changing rooms or while taking a rest after a workout have a woman approach you.

    Just something small to be introduced to the npc (im not totally sure how the female friendship system works but from experience it seems you just need high charm and to have met the npc at least once?).

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    1. You can meet a female friend at work

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    2. True but it's a pretty low chance event I've found, and also only happens after you've been promoted to a certain point I think, which for low charm pcs can take a while.

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    3. If you befriend a male character and hold a house party, female characters usually show up there. I could be wrong, but I think you can increase friendship by interacting with them there.

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  9. Sorry another suggestion I had was for more bum content with a "likes ass" trait. It could but doesn't necessarily need to oppose the "likes _ tits" traits, and could also possibly include 3 variations like the tits one for the 3 body types. Large ass would be womanly, small ass for cute and refined or athletic ass for athletic. As someone who leans slightly more towards being an ass man I'm always a bit disappointed with the current content around it.

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  10. Hi, I'm not a Patron but I thought you could add some suggestions for a Patreon vote so others could vote on them?

    How about an art class? With the art class you could add another contest like the dance competition and earn a little extra money that way. You could also have a chance to meet handsome men that come to pose nude, maybe even have an optional event where you could pose nude yourself. It could also add another home activity when you're on dates, drawing your date/drawing them nude depending on your relationship at the time. Assuming that NPCs also get traits that enable them to be good at the skill (like we have for all the other skills so far), they could draw you as well.
    A writing class or book club would also be nice. Writing books could also be a weekend activity once your skill is high enough. If your date/BF also likes books than you can discuss them at home.
    Fashion should be expanded upon. I assume it's going to be used in a modeling job later but so far, other than a few flavour dialogue if your BF also likes fashion, it's completely useless. Why not add a modeling competition and the option to discuss fashion at home with your BF or browse fashion blogs with him if you have a PC?
    Since NPCs already have traits that allow them to be good in all skills, why not add a few activities based on that? For fitness, you could take them for a jog, for fashion you could go to the fashion show you can visit during the weekends, for dancing you could dance in the park, maybe you could even coo over kids playing in the park for maternal characters. For the skills I suggested, for art you practice live sketching together, for writing/books, you could go to library together. Your date's reaction to these activities would be a nice way to know what traits they have, since so far some of them have so little importance that the only way to find them out is through the character relationship screen. Adding these activities on dates could help make the NPCs "pickier" simply by making their affection go up a lot if they're also good at the skill your activity relies on, or making it go down if they're bad at it. Would also help making break ups easier. Unless your BF is a really nice guy, someone who hates dancing would get sick of you always dragging him into doing it, or lazy fat guys would despise you taking them on jogs, etc.
    Having dates escalate as your relationship to the NPC deepens would be amazing. So far the dates are the same regardless if it's your first date or your 55th with your fiancé. If all one is after is sex, dating becomes pointless once you get a BF and the option to meet them at home anytime.
    So far, all the dates activities we have are fit for a "1st date" scenario, which becomes really old once you get a boyfriend. The skill based activities I suggested could become available once you get a BF. When you're engaged, perhaps you could go around shopping for your wedding together, getting a dress/suit, selecting a cake and checking out a wedding venue. For when marriage is eventually added, maybe family dates where you could take the kids to the park or have a picnic? For more adult activities, maybe going to a swinger's club with your husband if he has the right traits (AKA, isn't caring or romantic).
    Another skill nice to have would be cooking. Again, you could meet other people in a cooking class and participate in cooking contests during weekens. You could cook/bake together at home if you BF is also a good cook, or you could get a better relationship boost form the make dinner/breakfast options. Perhaps you could even make your own wedding cake. As for a date activity, maybe going to a cooking show or shopping for recipes together?

    It would be amazing to see stuff like this in Newlife. And also new neighbourhoods, but I assume it has been on a to-do list since you started developing the game.

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  11. Hi SO, just a little typo i found in game, v0.4.6.
    The line is "Brad reaches one of his hands down between your legs. His masculine fingers unerringly find their way to your clit. find their way to your clit. "
    Keep up the good work, and sorry if it was already mentionned/corrected. o/

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    1. Thanks! I've got that fixed for the next version.

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    2. You were indeed the first to report it, by the way - much appreciated.

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  12. Hi,
    I got a scene where a pervy friend asked me to help him have sex with one of my female friends. But I have never got it again after that does someone know what traits are required to get that scene again?

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