0.0.27
A new Harbor location has been added to Downtown, and from it a Pier where the cruise ship “Sirena” is moored. In the evenings a recruiter appears at the pier, and through him the player can sign up for a ten-day cruise.There is no leaving the ship before the voyage is over. Aboard, the player competes against NPCs in games of chance: on boarding, the player’s city money is locked in escrow and a chip loan is handed over in its place, and the main task of the voyage is to win enough chips to clear the debt by the tenth day.
Separate NPC-control systems were built for this content. An NPC on the ship does not simply move to a random location – it makes decisions based on its personality, its state and its goals: whom to sit down and play against, whom to pick as a target, whom to ally with, whom to rob at night and whom to approach. Every NPC was given a personality, a motive for being aboard and a set of wants, and all of it shapes its dialogue and actions. NPCs remember each other and the events between them, build up bonds and grudges, form alliances and run schemes without the player’s involvement. The ship lives its own life around the clock: NPCs play against each other, quarrel, scheme and pair off at night, and every morning the player gets a report of what happened while they slept.
The player’s relationships became a living system too. NPCs react to the player’s state and to what is known about the player aboard, and the player has a reputation that affects how the deck treats them. The player can build relationships with NPCs through conversation and gradually uncover their stories, form alliances with them, influence the relationships between the NPCs themselves, stand up for some and set others against each other. An ally can help at the games, but may also betray the player in the night. Individual NPCs are carried through the whole voyage with their own story arcs – a meeting, a development and a resolution that depends on how the player treated them.
The key mechanic of the voyage is a mutual transformation. By losing or selling themselves, the player gradually feminizes and grows corrupted, and these body changes stay with the character even after returning to the city. But the system works both ways: the player can seduce NPCs, feminizing them at their expense and reclaiming their own masculinity. Rivals visibly change from voyage to voyage as a result.
Beyond the main competition, the ship has many minigames the player can play against NPCs. A whole set of its own systems and activities was also added: a crafting system, in which the player makes useful items out of scavenged materials, and the ability to search for and find items across the ship’s locations. On top of that there are plenty of the ship’s own events and places, and the voyage ends in a settlement: if the player has cleared the debt, they step ashore with a profit; if not, they stay behind to work the debt off on the ship, which is also playable rather than a game over.
