stationmaster

Quid Pro Quo - Progress Update

I decided to move Quid Pro Quo a couple more decades into the future (and into a bigger city). I think it makes for a more interesting universe overall, and opens up more opportunities to play the malevolent god-capitalist that you all came to know and love in Stationmaster.

The majority of the corporations advertised on the billboards outside the office will be purchasable, in addition to a bunch of others, ranging from tiny local pizza places to the privatized police force. I also pla...

Quid Pro Quo - Progress Update

Hey all,

It's been a bit busy with two game projects running, but I have some updates on Quid Pro Quo that I wanted to share.

First off, you might notice that characters look a bit different. Quid Pro Quo will be using an entirely new character engine that I'm building from scratch around Daz assets. It's a bit more cartoony, and not so deep in the uncanny valley. I'm still retooling shaders (especially around the eyes), but I feel like this is already an improvem...

Stationmaster 28a Now Available for Brothel Owners: De-Cronenberging the Animation Engine

Hey all,

You all know the drill. This patch has major improvements to the sex animation engine, including fixes for your favorite bugs like "penises don't bend that way" and "Why do furanari characters make everything explode?"

I've also added some new environment content (for example, visited asteroids and stations are now modeled out, and you can see some of the upgrades in the flesh). Finally, there's a bunch of little quality-of-life stuff from the famous list, including toolt...

Final Voting Options

Hey all,

There are a few patches left, but only one more that's going to have a vote: the Final Stretch Goal. This is the last one, so, I'm going to leave this vote up for a bit to give people time to think it over.

Because we're relatively close to release, I've eliminated the ones that are likely to cause serious bugs. There's limited time left to polish, and some things (like Walkabout and threesomes) would require a lot of tweaking after the initial release. L...

Announcement: What Comes Next

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what comes after Stationmaster. 

After a gauntlet of ideas, a couple design documents, and one abandoned prototype, I've finally settled on the game that will actually get developed. I've made some good progress already, and hope to have the first public release done at the same time as Stationmaster 1.0.

So, without further ado:

Quid Pro Quo

Overview

In Quid Pro Quo, you play as the ruthless incomin...

Sneak Peek: New Environments

Most of this patch is focused on fixing bugs in the... ahem... animation engine, but I'm also doing some new environments for existing events.

The goal is for most events that take place outside your suite to show something else in the background. I don't know how achievable that will be (as you can probably tell, it's pretty time-consuming), but there are five new ones so far, and I hope to get another few done before releasing next weekend.

Finally, I think I've come to a decisi...

Version 0.27 Now Available for Brothel Owners: This is Fine

I feel weird calling this a part of the "All Tied Up" 0.27a update because bondage gear is barely changed (I guess it was mostly stable). Instead, I worked on fixes for everything else (along with adding a new fetish interview for the start of the game). So, without further ado:

Downloads

Windows 

2020-02-02 00:55:04 +0000 UTC View Post

0.28 Draft Design & The Future of Stationmaster

0.27 is currently building. It would normally be time to put the direction of 0.28 to a vote, but there's only one content update left in the plan. Before I get into the design, I want to touch on what that means for the future.

As strange as it is to write this, after two years of development (and despite all of my efforts to introduce bugs), Stationmaster is rapidly approaching version 1.0. 

On the one hand, it's a bit of a relief. This project has consumed...

Sneak Peek: Rules Assistant Changelog

There's nothing really graphically interesting about this patch, but here's the part of the changelog I'm most excited about: The Rules Assistant works again, after a long time spent fixing bugs that should never have made it into the build.

I hope to God I was drunk when I wrote it, because there is no other excuse. Thanks all for your patience, and I hope it works better going forward.

• You can now automatically apply degrading ("Worthless Idiot"), dehumanizing ("Fighter #3...
  2020-01-28 01:02:04 +0000 UTC View Post

Version 0.27a Released! All Tied Up - Now Available for Brothel Owners

This one is a doozy. In addition to the new clothing, I ended up running through about 60% of the bugs and community improvements on my list. The rules assistant got the most love, with some long-overdue new features and stability improvements, but there are a ton of little improvements (like the ability to rename planets) scattered across the game.

Windows 

2020-01-14 01:16:27 +0000 UTC View Post

Version 0.27 Preliminary Design: In Bondage

Holidays or no, a patch went out yesterday, so it's time to post the new design. I'm pretty excited about this one, since it closes a pretty big hole in the content: Bondage Clothing.

I'd also like to extend a special thanks to the incomparable ZaZ, who is doing the 3D artwork for this patch.

Preliminary Design

Several new clothing options for new bondage gear. This will include different gags, cuffs, and collars (for both male and female characters).

...

Stationmaster 0.26: Interior Decorator - Now Available for Brothel Owners

Happy holidays! I took a bit of a light patch due to other obligations, but filled out the promised 16 furniture items per category and fixed the highest-priority bugs. Without further ado:
Windows 
Mac OS (Still unsupported)
2019-12-23 20:15:03 +0000 UTC View Post

0.26a (Interior Decorator) Available for Brothel Owners

This patch went pretty smoothly, so I ended up combining it with a bunch of polish features and bug fixes that had been stuck on my list for a while. I also switched file hosts, so please let me know in the comments how the download goes. Enjoy!

Update: I switched back to MEGA because this file host has a pretty punishing bandwidth cap.

Windows 

Sneak Peek: Upgrading the Club

The club is getting some love this patch as well. This version will add a DJ assignment, as well as dance floors for both your residents and your slaves. It also adds slot machines and keeps the old bar furniture, so you can control exactly what kinds of entertainment are available.                                    &nb...

Sneak Peek: Decorations

These pictures show off some of the things you can do with the new decoration system. It's designed to let you customize your station for whatever mood you want to set, wherever you want to set it.

You can now cover your station in billboards, build gardens, or just make the entrance to your suite that much grander. All decorations can also be placed in all rooms, so you can fill your public areas with charming sculptures and keep the torture devices safely hidden in the slave quarters....

Stationmaster 0.25: Animation Overhaul - Now available for Brothel Owners

That was a bit of a marathon, but I'm glad it's dealt with now. I'm sure there will be more tweaks to the animation engine in the future, but this will be the last major rewrite (and if it never happens again, it will be too soon).

This patch takes the animation work from the last patch and takes it a bit further. It adds several new positions, and is now set up so that all genders of players can be with all genders of slaves. I've also done some other minor enhancements, including some...

0.26 Draft Design: Interior Decorator

0.25 is uploading as I write this, so it's time to start work on 0.26 (after a day or two of some wholesome wall-staring). 

The idea for this patch is to give you more customization options for your station. It will add a new category of furniture called Decorations. You will be able to place decorations anywhere on your station, and they will range from basic improvements like plant pots and statues to bondage furniture that will have to be staffed by slaves.

It will also ad...

Voting Options for 0.26

I'm planning to publish 0.25 in the next week or two, which means that it's time to vote on 0.26! 0.25 is a huge pain, so the options for the next patch are a little restricted to give me time to breathe.

On the plus side, this poll is open to everyone.

Support for MacOS

As of Catalina, Apple requires that all applications (and all new versions of applications) be sent to them for approval. The process requires Apple hardware, a developer subscription, and, most importantly, a bunch of annoying bureaucracy.

I'm not doing that.

MacOS builds will continue to be available for those of you who are savvy and determined enough to circumvent their walled garden, but you're on your own as far as support goes (I don't know enough to be useful anyway). For ...

Stationmaster 0.25a Now Available for Brothel Owners! New animation engine

This has been the longest patch to work on so far, but I think it's worth it. The new animation engine adds a lot of realism to sex scenes, and that was one of the biggest issues before now.

Downloads:

Windows 

Mac OS (I hear the def...

Another Prototype (Patrons only because extremely NSFW)

It's taken a couple trips back to the drawing board, but I managed to get this thing working more generally. Thanks to a new dynamic raycasting system, it no longer fails with certain character sliders. I've also got the player loaded in properly now, so he no longer looks like a bacon beast. Finally, I'm cleaning up the motion captured animations (and have to re-record some), but I think I can at least get cowgirl and the new blowjobs working before the alpha.

This thing has thrown so ...

Animation News

I bit the bullet and bought a motion capture setup! Calibrating the new IK system for each pose is insanely tedious, and I'd rather not repeat the work after the inevitable animation overhaul.

That means that, if all goes according to plan, I'll be adding several new positions in this patch (as well as replacing the animations for the old ones). Some (particularly the ones that require acrobatics and rigs) will be hand-animated by ZaZ, and others will be motion captured by me and my inc...

A Delay

I underestimated the amount of fine-tuning needed to make this system work smoothly. This patch is going to take another couple weeks. Procedural animations are a lot more fiddly than I expected, and the closer I look, the more stuff shows up. 

On the plus side, these issues are all side effects of what will be a much more natural-looking cutscene system. I'll also be revamping the expressions, since the new first-person really brings them into the light.

Qualified Success (Patrons only because extremely NSFW)

It doesn't look like a win on the surface, but the math is working! There's quite a bit left to do (including replacing the strange meat suit with the player's actual skin), but the "top" animation now plays correctly, and lines up with the bottom with the full range of character sizes.

That means that, as of now, the research phase is over. The rest is just fine-tuning. If everything goes well, the alpha should be out in a week or two, which is sooner than expected.

0.25 Preliminary Design: Player Character in Sex Scenes

This is pretty much what it says on the tin. It's a full patch because the variation in player/slave height means that the animations have to be proceduralized, and I don't know how to do that yet.

Preliminary Design:

Player character will show in sex scenes

• Adding some new animations to make that look good
• Probably some kind of button to toggle head/body/junk visible, IDK
• So much math
• Why did I agree to this? I hate math.<...
  2019-08-26 16:02:38 +0000 UTC View Post

Voting Options for 0.25

I'm trying this new thing where I forget to launch the vote before publishing the patch, then start it late and pretend it was on purpose. Probably shouldn't have said that out loud.

At any rate, here are the options for 0.25. I'm running low on important patch ideas, and am not sure if that means that final release is approaching, or I haven't feature creeped hard enough. You'll be the second to know once I figure that out.

Station Decor

This update would a...

Version 0.24 Now Available for Brothel Owners: Betray ALL the Factions!

This patch is almost entirely tweaks and bugfixes over 0.24a, but does add the ability to purchase planets.

Downloads:

Windows 
Mac OS 
2019-08-24 15:26:44 +0000 UTC View Post

Stationmaster 0.24a Released: Betray All the Factions!

This update adds the new factions with event chains, expands the main quest, fixes a problem that was hiding most of the events for the old factions, and makes some improvements to slave graphics. I also fixed a ton of bugs, as usual.

Windows 

Mac OS  2019-08-09 15:46:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Sneak Peek: It's getting awfully crowded in my sky.

I'm done with the new "outside" ships, so here's a little beauty shot. Harmony (the golden temple on the left), Flotsam (the trading ship on the right), and Brimstone (the red station in the center) will periodically dock around your station if you allow it. Each will provide a unique bonus while docked, ranging from Brimstone's tourism bonus to Flotsam's unique artifacts. In addition, each one has an event chain, which might destroy them, keep them around forever, or just get you the gratitu...

0.23 Released: For Science! - Now available for Brothel Owners

This patch fixes a ton of bugs and adds a ton of smallish features, like influence minimums to access higher-tier slave markets and optimization for higher zoom levels.

Downloads:

Windows 

Mac OS 

2019-07-20 05:54:12 +0000 UTC View Post