DD#150 The Freedom by Choices news - [Neolithic]To the End

The 148th Week and the 2nd Steam Anniversary

Hi, everyone! Welcome to another week's developer's diary!
Today is our 2nd Steam Release Anniversary and the birthday of a special someone.
So, we got something quite interesting this week.
Such as:

It's thanks to Gabe that we have Steam to have all the fun. :)
Thus, there is a new mod that can add this new faith in our Steam Workshop free for everyone to download. We also have another mod this week, thanks to Una. But, we will talk about that later.

Now, let's start with some game content updates first.
The Freedom of Gender
One major change in the game's code is we now have 4 genders from the previous 2.

Some Details:
You can now play as a female in a masculine body or a male in a feminine body.
You can use those new gender types on your main character and your customized teammates.
Most of the NPCs will pronounce you based on the gender you chose instead of the appearance you chose.
For romance calculation, most of the NPCs' sexual orientation calculation is also based on your chosen gender instead of your appearance. (For example, Kristin.)
The gender you chose will now appear on your passport and the character menu, overriding your appearance.
So, you may be wondering why I made this change this week. Here is the background.
This is not a politically correct game. But, recently, Russia's Supreme Court ruled that LGBT people are extremists. I consider this ridiculous, it shall be everyone's own choice to decide which gender they want to be. So, I guess I shall do something to stand with who they call "extremists." Just as I am standing with who they call "Nazis." Such a change to an extremely old game engine is not that easy as it was not planned to have more than 2 genders previously. Yet, I do not develop this gigantic open-world game with tons of freedom because it's easy. I am developing it because it's fun and it's an indie game with a lot of freedom on what I can create, unlike all those commercial projects I worked on before. Thus, this week, we shall have more freedom of gender.

The Freedom of Movement

Thank Wulan for streaming this game on my birthday this week. I hope everyone had quite a lot of fun that day. But, one thing she pointed out is that we lack the option to change our moving speed freely as previously, we needed to rely on the consumable item known as "the Scroll of Speed" to change the character's moving speed. That's not the best experience as if someone is in a hurry, they will have to use a scroll every 5 minutes. So, in this week's changes, I made the player character's moving speed a game option you can change at will. In the prologue, when the first time you can move your character, you now also get an option to set your desired default moving speed.
Such change certainly makes the Scroll of Speed dramatically less useful. Thus, to compensate for this, it now also provides a combat buff. It also can still change your movement speed just like it previously did. It's just a bit redundant. Anyway, you now have the freedom of movement.

The Freedom of Religion (By Modding)
Even though our faith system already has a lot of different and weird religions and tenets you can use to customize your own faith. There are some things that I cannot add to this game because technically they are copyrighted or have other reasons. The good news is we have a very powerful modding system, providing a level of freedom that can almost match Skyrims. I even wrote a paper about that about 10 years ago. This was also the first game in China that had the DLC system back then.
The game is designed to be like this. It allows everyone to add their own creations to it like a platform. However, after more than 19 years. Few people remain. Even fewer would bother to make mods for this game. Yet, Una is still here. And today is also her birthday! Happy Birthday! (You know the reason I released this game on Steam two years ago on this very special day.) :D
Technically, making DLCs and modding are the same. We will have free DLCs later to demonstrate this. But, for now, have fun with all those crazy mods in our workshop.
Now, let's see what has been added to the Steam Workshop this week:
We already see the Gabe Faith mod:

The mod provides both a faith core and a tenet so that you can combine either one of them into your customized faith. Both of them have the same functionality. You get a huge discount when you use GPA currency to purchase items from GPA agents. It's especially powerful if you enjoy the mini-games in the game as you can now easily build an army of robots equipped with all the GPA gears under this faith. Yet, because of the reason we know, you cannot count to three. Thus, you cannot use triple-attack skills. Is this a parody or something very realistic? I don't know. But, we know we love Gabe very much. All of us are very happy to hand him our money. :)
The next is a Warhammer 40K Faith mod:
Well, many of our players are also Warhammer fans. Some asked me to add similar content to our game. I can't. Because it's copyrighted by Game Workshop. It's their business model to license out the right to use. I don't have such a license, unlike some Owlcat people who recently released their Buggy Trader, or was that Rogue Trader? I don't know, I think I will likely buy that anyway if I find it's at least less buggy than their Pathfinder releases.
But, in mods, I think you can.

You can now use Una's Slaanesh mod to worship the dark prince of pleasure. It's pretty much a much more powerful version of the "Carnal Exaltation" tenet in our game. They share a lot of similarities. But, this one comes with some Warhammer 40k flavors. So, depending on your needs. You can decide how to enjoy the game best.
It likely can fall into the fair use category as it's made for fun for free. It's also unlikely that our little cult can damage Game Workshop's profit by any means. Plus, this is the first faith mod of the game that exists in the Steam Workshop. It may even have some educational purpose. Mods like this are quite common on Steam. So far, even some of the most popular games such as Civilization, Hearts of Iron, and Stellaris have Warhammer 40k mods. Thus, it's very likely safe to do so. But, I only have a lawyer license in China not in the US. Thus, if you want to make sure it's 100% OK. Please check with a US law professional just for sure.

Now, let me do a bit of reverse engineering here. (Of course, Una granted me permission to do so :P)
As previously, we already have tutorials about how to add your own localization and graphics/audio assets to the game, this may be a perfect example of how you can modify the code of the game.
All the magics are in the override folder.

Here is the code where the Slaanesh Faith Mod added the Slaanesh faith to the game.
It's all in Ruby Script.
First, check if the Slaanesh faith already exists or not. If it does not exist, then define it by overriding the game's faith_reload_faithDB function. You can use the alias trick here to keep expanding this built-in function. It has some levels of similarity to inheriting a function in other languages. But, it's more localized. You don't need to make a new class to override. There are certainly other ways to do it as well. But in this example, it's far more than enough to add a new faith in just a few lines of code.
Thus, if you want, you can add more faith you want to this game even the ones I cannot add to the game as the developer. You have the freedom of religion.

That's quite a lot of cool stuff already. What's more?
We get additional content in Hottle.
As you sneak into the backroom of the Hottle Equipment Store to discover its secrets. You may now face those Howard Houseguards:

You can use their appearance on your main character or customize teammates as you see fit. They are using wind-based katanas. The good news is, that you may be able to loot those katanas from them. You can find some Golden Stone of Xuanhuang here as well. You can use them for alchemy. The potion made with those stones can enhance your magic power of wind. As the story continues, you may find even more usage of such stones.

To the south, we now have the entire Katan Desert to explore. Of course, it will not be a safe place. Because the hyenas may hunt for weak prey together.

The good news is, you can turn them into your pets as well.

Some other changes include new wind animations and pistol attachments. For all the detailed updates please find the completed update logs below.

Meanwhile, in the sewer of Liu:

Did you find another secret area? :D

That's for this week. I hope everyone can find it comfortable as the game moved to Steam 2 years ago. I consider it a good decision as I can focus more on the game development itself instead of wasting time on the censorship systems of China. Maybe, we can never go back to how the internet was in 2004 anymore. This is an indie game, and I will always choose freedom over profits.
Thus, our journey shall continue under the blessing of Gabe. :P

Completed Update Log of This Week:

20231202
English
############Content################
[The Sewer of Liu]Added a valve switch. It allows you to turn off water in a part of the sewer, thus revealing a new area in this location.
[The Sewer of Liu]Added some junk piles that you can dig in this new area.
[The Sewer of Liu]The area will also have random slime enemies and chests.
[Character]When a character is using a ladder, they shall always face the direction of the ladder.

20231203
English
############Content################
[Character Customization]Increased the gender types from 2 to 4. You can now play as a female in a masculine body or a male in a feminine body.
[Character Customization]You can use those new gender types on your main character and your customized teammates.
[Character Customization]Most of the NPCs will pronounce you based on the gender you chose instead of the appearance you chose.
[Character Customization]For romance calculation, most of the NPCs' sexual orientation calculation is also based on your chosen gender instead of your appearance. (For example, Kristin.)
[Character Customization]The gender you chose will now appear on your passport and the character menu, overriding your appearance.
[Weapon]New Weapon Type: Fluorescent Lamp Saber (Requested by 吉尔伽美什.)
[Bazaar]The Weapon Merchant now sells those Fluorescent Lamp Sabers. (No prefixes)
[Bazaar]Removed some less useful weapons from the Weapon Merchant's inventory.
[Loot]The following enemies may now have a small chance to drop Fluorescent Lamp Sabers: Businessmen, Mercenaries, The Possessed, Hentai Exhibitionists, Crazed Survivors, and Vampiric Researchers. (Their shaded versions drop the shaded version of sabers.)
[Loot]Those Fluorescent Lamp Sabers from enemy drops may have prefixes.
#############System################
Updated all code to allow the use of new gender types.
Optimized a gender check in the Window_EquipItem class to directly call the function on the characters themselves.

20231204
English
############Content################
[Liu]Added clear indications pointing to the entrance and exit of the sewer. (After the prologue）
[Character Customization]Added 1 new male character variation.
[Character Customization]When you equip a firearm on a certain type of cat, their portraits will now change.
[Janitor's Room]Increased the map height.
#############System################
The check of whether a character is equipped with firearms is now moved from the battle class to the actor class.
Added function to modify a character's portrait based on different conditions.

20231204B
English
############Content################
[Food]New Food: Pan-fried Dumplings
[Food]Food vendors now sell Pan-fried Dumplings

20231205
English
############Content################
[Game Setting]Added an option to change your character's default moving speed. (Thanks for Wulan's streaming. :D)
[Prologue]In both of the prologues, right after you can move your character, you can now decide your default moving speed.
[Prologue]If you skip the prologue, you can decide your default moving speed once you can control your character.
[Scroll of Speed]Value reduced. (From 3000 to 1600)
[Effect]New Status Effect: Speed+
[Scroll of Speed]It now also applies "Speed+" to your entire group for 3 turns.
[Scroll of Speed]Changed the item description accordingly.
[Dialog Window]Added a hotkey to hide/show the hotkey window. (Thanks for Wulan's streaming. :D)
[Hotkey]Added additional check on the point allocation hotkey, which is the same key to hide/show the dialog hotkey window, to avoid input conflicts.
[Sins of the Father]Reduced the difficulty of convincing Deputy Judy to become the seal.
#######Debug##################
Fixed a crash bug when defeating Exhibitionist Hentai Male enemies. (Thanks for 渺兔's streaming. :D)

20231206
English
############Content################
[Pet]A tigerbunny, from the pet fusion feature, is now considered both a cat and a bunny for certain religious tenet calculations. You can gain devotion twice from petting them if you have both "Cat Worship" and "Bunny Worship" tenets.
[Pet]New Pets/Hostile Animals: Hyena
[Sayinas Island] Hyenas may now appear in the desert areas south of Hottle.
[Sayinas Island]When you enter the desert areas south of Hottle, the battlefield background shall change. When you return from there, it shall change back again.
[Sayinas Island]Hyenas will no longer chase you if you escape from the desert area.
[Egypt]Hyenas will appear in some areas.
[Equipment]Slightly changed how Guardian Rings and Mirrors of Neolithic grant skills.
[Weapon Module]Weapon Modules shall be able to grant skills
[Weapon Module]New Pistol Module: Pistol Wind Generator
[Hottle Equipment Store]The Weapon Merchant now sells Pistol Wind Generators
[Hottle Equipment Store]The Weapon Merchant provides gun modification services.
[Pet]Camels are now immune to cold environments.
[The Infinite Machine]The Machine will no longer try to stop a player from escaping. After all, it only wants to be left alone. (Thanks for 粟可's streaming. :D)
#######Debug#####################
Fixed a bug that Tombstone's description file is in Simplified Chinese even when the language is set to Traditional Chinese. (Thanks for 粟可's streaming. :D)


20231207
English
############Content################
[3D Printing Store]The option to hack the printer now uses the mini-game.
[Speical Attribution]Added a new special attribution that can add discounts to special currency stores. (No auto-tooltips, need to add customized tooltips on the help windows.)
[Speical Attribution]Added a new special attribution that disables skills. (With auto-tooltips. This is a negative special attribution.)
[Enemy]New Enemy: Howard Housguard.
[Hottle Equipment Store]The backroom is now guarded by Howard Houseguards.
[Loot]Added a drop list for Howard Housguards. They may drop wind-based weapons.
[Weapon]Updated Katanas to use the latest OIG format.
[Dragon's Treasure]The Katanas you use Dragon's Marks to exchange here always have +2 prefixes.
[Bazaar]The weapon merchant now sells katanas with no prefixes.
[Weapon]Updated the icon of Katanas.
[Steam]New Steam Achievement: Let's Build Our Dreams Together! (Unlocked by using a mod.)

20231208
English
############Content################
[Animation]Added a new casting animation for wind skills.
[Effect]New Effect: Wind Enhance. (+40% Wind Power)
[Alchemy]Golden Stone of Xuanhuang can now be used for alchemy.
[Hottle Equipment Store]Added 4 chests with Golden Stone of Xuanhuang in the backroom.
[Desert]Changed the default battlefield background for desert areas.
[Enemy]Reduced the chasing speed of Hyena.
[Sayinas Island]New Location: Katan Desert (With new BGM, weather effects, and butterfly settings.)
[Hottle Suburbs]Fixed some shadow problems.