Newlife 0.4.22

Hello everyone!

Newlife 0.4.22 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 looks at improving Liking, which previously had the problem that an NPC could do something really awful and the PC would just shrug it off if he'd built up enough liking. Now you'll get a decision scene where you can condemn him as a bastard.
There's also improvements of Love handling and a bit of new content.

This ends my recent focus on game-mechanics and I'll be back to content-centered updates from next month. There's only a few elements of the 0.4.x releases left and it won't be long before we're deciding what'll be tackled next.




Changelog:

Major changes & additions:

• A new decision scene for men who do things that show them to be complete bastards. This won't trigger if a man is just a bit boring or whatever but only based on actions that a reasonable person might consider “dumpable offences”: directly insulting the PC, sabotaging her contraception, lying to he about pulling out etc. The player will get options based on the PC's traits about how she thinks of the man. This includes deciding that he's an awful person, which gives an enormous penalty to liking and permanently reduces future liking gains.
• One new crush dream (for romantic characters)
• Some new events to give the player more information and choices regarding the new love changes.

Minor changes:

• Following a request by Luna, the game will no longer assume a PC who started the game as a non-virgin has never had an orgasm from sex, just because she hasn't had one during gameplay.
• Friendship & partner status for low-self-esteem player-characters is now only based on the NPC's relationship levels, not the pc's. This is to reflect that the PC to some extent prefers being with someone she dislikes as she feels it's what she deserves.
• Adjusted starting ages a bit so late-teens is more common for chaos mode, as requested by Saur.
• Reduced the chances for some traits to be enabled by randomisation, as suggested by Saur. These are baby-crazy, cunning and likes-rough.
• Rewrote the severe cheating confession with a single man text paragraph following a suggestion by Saur.
• Based on an idea from FutureSight, Outgoing characters now benefit less from relaxing at home but get a compensating stress reduction from social activities like going clubbing.
• Added some baby-crazy actions to certain situations highlighted by Saur in the pregnancy-reveal scene.
• Added a help page explaining stress and anxiety – thanks to Morion over on tfgamessite for reminding me that this was needed.
• Following a suggestion by MadCat, added some alternative text for heavily-pregnant characters on some of the more intense gym actions.
• Added some more text in a few places for situations where the PC dislikes a man but is extremely attracted to him. Please let me know if you find a point in a scene that could use similar attention – I didn't have a detailed crawl through the whole source for this minor change so there's no doubt other places that could benefit from new text in this situation.

Changes for user-submitted content:

• Added the TALENTED_TONGUE trait to the enum reference. Thanks to Rigel for pointing out this omission.
• Added an AddBastard method to NPCs. See the documentation for advice on when this should be used.
• The hidden NON_VIRGIN_START trait can be checked in the (rare) case that your text needs to vary based on whether the PC started the game as a virgin or not.
• Added isBreastsSmallerThanPc and isBreastsLargerThanPc to female NPCs, as requested by Eulexia. These are convenience methods to save on checking directly with getBreasts. Both will return false if they're the same size as the PC's.
• Fixed a typo in the documentation that listed the NPC method as removeOnLegwear instead of removeLegwear. The latter is correct – apologies to anyone who got bugs using the documented method name. Also updated the PC method which in this case was removeOnLegwear in the code as well – that doesn't really make sense as a method name so it's now removeLegwear as well. Scenes using this method will need to change the name.

Bugfixes:

• Fixes to text issues. Thanks to Saur, Luna, Saint Destiny, MadCat and OrangeJuice for reporting some of these.
• A fiance who's asked you to have sex at the altar will no longer complain that a sheer dress is “too tacky”. Thanks to Madcat for reporting this inconsistency.
• Fixed a bug reported by Saint Destiny where the PC-as-monster dream wasn't correctly handling the end of the jerk-crush path.
• Fixed a bug reported by Saint Destiny where the game would treat making out as Horse with cheating even if your boyfriend was the man who encouraged you to do it.
• Fixed a bug with inaccurate tracking of the BROKEN_CONDOMS stat.
• Following a report by Luna, fixed the standing->lying makeout transition so it won't refresh your ability to ask for cunnilingus.
• Fixed an error with the 'Decline' action in shynessCure.
• Fixed an issue reported by Luna in the cunnilingus warm-up where the PC is wearing short non-skirt lower-body clothing.
• Fixed an issue reported by FutureSight where the always-allow-sex vow wasn't being checked thoroughly in the sex-shop.
• Fixed a bug where the dance competition wasn't passively increasing your skill properly (it should have a minor bonus just for attending).
• Fixed a bug reported by Futuresight where the game was incorrectly treating Flirty and Outgoing as opposites when generating a female character based on a gender-bent male one.
• Fixed a bug reported by Eulexia where the attemptRemoveFromWardrobe method on custom scenes was messing with stored outfits even when the attempt to remove clothing “failed”.

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

Newlife 0.4.21

Hello everyone!

Newlife 0.4.21 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 focuses on updating how Love works internally, along with new scenes to support the changes. 
This is the largest change to Newlife's internal relationship mechanics for a long time, perhaps ever. There'll certainly need to be balance tweaks over time, but I'm hopeful that it'll really improve how the relationship building is presented to the player. In fact, I'm tempted to go back in for more with the next release and give Liking some work as well.



Changelog:

Major changes & additions:

• A major overhaul of how Love is handled. The goal is to make love feel more special and give the player more feedback about it. No longer will it be something that just sort of happens in the background whenever the player spends long enough sleeping with someone.
  • The core functionality remains the same: love is tracked separately for pc and npc, and it's handled in 5 main categories (none, some, confused, crush, love). This means that volunteer & commissioned writers will not need to change how they work. Besides, I think this foundation is fine.
  • The PC can now only be in love with one person at once, and can only have 3 at crush or higher.
  • The PC's Love will start to dwindle over time if she spends enough weeks without gaining any at all.
  • The love-threshold system has been completely replaced. Previously a total love+liking threshold had to be met for love to increase. Now, there's a new 'compatibility' system that returns a maximum love-level. This is influenced by liking & attraction so compatibility can increase over time but it won't always go all the way to true-love for all men. This is to make it more meaningful to find a man who matches the PC's traits and also to lead to potential late-game decisions, such as having to decide if a boyfriend the PC has a crush on (but no more) is 'good enough'.
• Four new 'Crush Dream” scenes that can trigger when the PC develops a crush on a man.
• New decision scenes that trigger when the PC falls in or out-of love with a man. These give the player a bit more control over who their character loves as well as making it more obvious when it happens.

Minor changes:

• Camisoles can now be cropped.
• As requested by Vasmat99218, added makeout actions to expose or remove the PC's top.
• Added an ultimatum requested by Adrianna N. on Patreon where you can insist your partner go down on you even if he's refused. This must be taken the turn after the refusal and is not available for shy or low-self-esteem characters. If he doesn't comply the second time then your character will end the makeout as if the “leave me alone” action was chosen.
• Modified the relationship effects of enjoyable sex. This will now have a lower impact on liking.
• The week summary will now show some information about important love changes.
• Increased NPC liking gain from some non-sexual situations. It should now be more practical to get a man to like you without sleeping with him. Bear in mind though that liking gain from a single encounter is typically capped so you can't become best buds just from one fantastic date.
• Having a conversation with a boring man will now not drop the pc's liking all the way to DISLIKED – this should require him to actually annoy/anger/offend her, not just be a bit dull.
• Some tweaks to text & balance for conversations.
• Saur reported that the PC's reactions to a gloating impregnator NPC when she informs him that she's pregnant needed better handling for baby-crazy PCs. This has now been updated. I also restricted the choices for low-self-esteem PCs in that situation so they can no longer express their annoyance at the man.
• Made a change to cunnilingus orgasms suggested by Ammut. Instead of being capped at 2 the cap is now based on your fitness skill with +1 if you have the passionate_lover trait. At skill 95+ you can come 4 times (or 5 with the trait). Moderation? What's that?
• Baby-crazy and (to a lesser extent) maternal PCs get a bonus to love and love-compatibility the first time they discover a particular man has got them pregnant.

Changes for user-submitted content:

• Added getShortDesc methods to male NPCs. This is based on some content I wrote for the new top-removal makeout action that I felt might be useful in other scenes. It provides a short phrase describing the NPC, randomly selected from all applicable ones.
• Added a debugging section to the writing guide with a link to http://www.yamllint.com, an online yaml syntax checker that's useful in figuring out the dreaded “Error tokenizing YAML” issue.

Bugfixes:

• Fixes to text issues. Thanks to Saur, MadCat, Flanjygo, Saint Destiny, OrangeJuice and Kyle Quesom for reporting some of these.
• Added a missing line in the standing-position tickle action. Thanks to Saint Destiny for reporting this one.
• Increased the amount by which the shynessCure increaseArousalTo macro increases arousal on each recursion. This should hopefully stop MacroOverflowExceptions when the character's arousal is increased from a very low value to a high one.
• Fixed a bug reported by Eulexia where the cunnilingus “remove panties” action had badly messed up output if used early in the scene.

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

Newlife 0.4.20

Hello everyone!

Newlife 0.4.20 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.

The main new addition for this release is the often-requested cunnilingus scene which can be accessed from either makeout by the PC's request or at the man's initiation if he has the relevant trait.



Changelog:

Major changes & additions:

• Your lovers can now go down on you, either by your request or from their own volition.

Minor changes:

• Updated the conditions for NPCs wearing condoms following a report by Madcat so impregnators now won't wear (and attempt to sabotage) one if they've already told the PC she can't get pregnant from her first time.
• Added an extra line to the unhappy anniversary ending if you're cohabiting so it doesn't read strangely. Thanks to MadCat for suggesting this.
• As suggested by MadCat, added some text to the naked wedding 'getting ready' section if your bridesmaid previously tried to cure your shyness. Also added some text for innocent bridesmaids .
• New NPC traits: TALENTED_TONGUE, LIKES_GOING_DOWN.
• Changed the logic for pill sabotage following a report by MadCat so it now won't happen if you lied and told your partner that you weren't on the pill.
• New stat: CUNNILINGUS_ORGASMS
• Added a new male orgasm option to the standing-behind sex scene. Not because it's relevant to the cunnilingus content but just because I had an idea that I liked.
• Added some more names for male NPCs.
• As suggested by Saur, added some alternative lines to the NPC male-dominant sex talk action when the PC had asked him to come inside.
• As suggested by OrangeJuice, added some alternative content for baby-crazy characters to the scene where an impregnator friend is confronted by one of his conquests.
• Added a willpower boost for virgins who don't have the low-self-esteem trait, as suggested by KTDid.
• Updated the logic for the jerk friend conversation (again!), this time to remove redundant questions. Thanks to MadCat for reporting this.

Changes for user-submitted content:

• Added a removeCondom method to male NPCs.
• As requested by Secondarian, added MISSIONARY_SEX, DOGGY_SEX and COWGIRL_SEX as possible transitions from custom scenes. See the documentation for details.
• Added CUNNILINGUS as a scene transition.

Bugfixes:

• Fixes to text issues. Thanks to Atc, MadCat, OrangeJuice, Saint Destiny and Saur for reporting some of these.
• Fixed a bug reported by Saur where the GrabBreast action in shyness cure could error in one specific set of circumstances.
• Fixed a bug with the jerk-friend introduction event that's been in the last few versions where the conversation gets skipped. Thanks to everyone who reported this – most recently Atc and JulianR.Amazing but I know there had been more reports back in April so my apologies if I you told me about it and I haven't credited you.
• Fixed a bug reported by Patrick where the wedding scene would error if you flee the altar when there's no sister-in-law present.
• Fixed a bug with the custom-scene isNpcHidden method.

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

Names

Hi all,

Newlife currently has 100 male names - more than sufficient for the game but it'd add a bit of variety if there were more.

Obviously I can continue my previous strategy of finding online lists of popular names in the UK and just copying them in there en-masse, but I thought I'd check if there were any names players specifically wanted to be added to the game.

If there's one you want to see, just leave a comment and I'll consider adding it.