Once More, With Feeling

Nekochan: The new quest is broken. I can't get the key to work on the thing.

No Moshing: Oh, okay. I can check on that. Do you mind re-playing the quest again, or do you want me to skip you ahead to where you don't need the key anymore?

Nekochan: Is it okay to skip ahead?

No Moshing: It's 11PM on Christmas Eve. What could possibly go wrong with the one little room?

Version December_3:
 

http://www.4shared.com/file/pMW7eEOH/HaremCollector_December2013_3.html

http://www2.zippyshare.com/v/64662364/file.html

https://mega.co.nz/#!Gdh1iSwJ!MMaOCByhDH7oWFci1BxHrBbyJARhR66AoU47OKFXyp0

Harem Collector December 2013

4Shared Download

ZippyShare Download

MEGA Upload

List of Changes:

-"Harem" Menu option re-enabled, but is probably buggy somehow. You have been warned.

-Westcastle Outer District has been re-designed to be less total shit and have a bunch of semi-interesting stuff to see.

-There is a new Adventurer's Guild quest guest starring Gargan in Westcastle. Go check it out.

-Once you reach 15 Fame, you will now be invited to become a Journeyman of the Adventurer's Guild! You even get another little party and everything!

-There have been some small bug fixes, but not nearly as much as I'd like there to be.

-Merry Christmas and happy fapping from me and the entire Harem Collector team!

Edit: Fixed the most pressing bugs and uploaded a new version. The opening, the Christmas present code, and new quest should all work properly now. Also, I only uploaded it to Zippyshare because I don't have enough time to upload it three times.

Fixed

Character (and other stuff) Inspirations, Part II

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Article Share!

There is a really awesome article on the Escapist on why game developers should respect their fans. I really enjoyed it and felt pretty good because it vindicates my own philosophy, so I decided to share it with all you guys. Enjoy.

Player Design Rant: Stat Balance

I've repeatedly run into a problem with the RPG Maker engine that is causing me to rethink part of Harem Collector's design and balance. It might result in me changing the way that buffs work entirely.

RPG Maker uses eight basic parameters that you're probably all familiar with from HC's status and equip screens. They are:

Max HP (I've renamed to "Health" or "<3")
Max MP (I've renamed to "Mana" or "8)")
Attack
Defense
Magic Attack (I've renamed just "Magic")
Magic Defense (I've renamed to "Resist")
Agility
Luck

Most of these seem pretty self-explanatory, but in reality they are severely limited in how they function inside the engine. Attack, Defense, Magic and Resist only do anything because I edit the individual damage formulas of the various skills and attacks- they have no function outside those damage calculations. Which is fine, I have total control over what they do and can easily balance them with respect to one another. Max HP and MP are similar- they only count down how long it takes for a character to die or be unable to cast any spells so I have full control over how they're used.

The odd ones out are Luck and Agility, and it's these two stats that cause me no end of balance related grief. Agility determines initiative within combat rounds, the likelihood of escape in combat (which I don't use) and the likelihood of being surprised/having a preemptive attack (which are only calculated in random battles, which I also don't use). Not exactly the kind of thing battles are won on. Luck is even weaker, only being used to resist debuffs and added states. A high Luck can even be undesirable in this regard- it adds a resistance chance to all states, including Martyrdom, Stealth, the various Rages, Resistance Bonuses, and positive states from items such as Sugar Rush and the elemental weapon bonuses from things like Contact Poison and Alchemist's Fire.

This leaves me with something of a conundrum. For example, why would you ever cast a Cold spell if you had any other option, elemental weakness notwithstanding, if all the added Agility debuff does is make a given enemy act last in a round?

I've tried to address the weakness of Luck by adding a damage bonus equal to the attacker's luck to all attack damage formulas, but that doesn't seem quite enough. What I'd like to do is tie some of the game's ex- and sp- parameters into your Luck and Agility, specifically granting extra critical chance and critical evasion to Luck and extra hit rate and evasion rate to Agility, but I have no idea how to begin doing that. Help in this regard would be appreciated.

Anyway, just wanted to rant about a problem I have with the engine- and something you should be aware of if you're going to use RPG Maker yourself. 

Harem Collector: Fairy Side Explained

Hi everybody, first of all let me say thank you very much for last week's outpouring of support and general good feels. I am constantly shocked and amazed at how the h-game community defies pretty much everything anyone has ever said about the internet. You guys rock.

Secondly, you should know that the backers-only release for December will be on the 18^th, which means the public release will be Christmas Day*. If general holiday stuff conspires to keep me busy all day on the 25^th, then the public release will be on the night of the 24^th, and I'll keep you updated if that should come to pass.

Thirdly, there's going to be a bit of holiday present goodness in it for you all, because a long-requested character will finally get a sex scene with the Hero. Post your wild speculation below, so I can amuse myself at your expense.

Finally, I will now answer the burning question that some of you have: What, exactly, is Harem Collector: Fairy Side?

MagicWhiteLady has been a good friend of mine for a very long time, and has been very supportive of HC despite that the sex in HC is not generally the sort of thing she finds attractive. Not only is she lending her art and web design skills to Harem Collector and Bad Kitty Games respectively, she also proposed to me the idea of a spin-off game, set in the same universe as Harem Collector but more relevant to her interests. That's Harem Collector: Fairy Side.

Fairy Side will take place in the Harem Collector world, but in a different country with a different group of characters. As the title suggests, the protagonist is a changeling, a lesser kind of Fae creature with the ability to shapeshift. This ability of the protagonist's is what provides the main gameplay difference between the two games- the changeling can determine her own gender before any given sex scene, showing you something different depending on whether you choose to have her be male, female or a futa.

I'm collaborating with MWL on some of the writing and game design, so expect the same sense of humour and nifty mechanics that are Harem Collector's hallmark. You won't have to play both games to get the full experience of either one, but if you're the kind of person who loves game lore you'll definitely want to play both. Please direct all other questions to MWL herself, because as of right now the project is in a pre-production sort of mode and I don't know all the details.

Oh, and just in case you're worried, both games are going to developed side by side, so there will be no change to the amount of time and work I'm putting towards the original HC.

*If the timing of this offends you for whatever reason, look at a calendar doofus- I came by it naturally.