r36 is now released to backers and includes Mermaid TF and Water, two new features needed for the upcoming Chapter 7. You can try both out in a small test area in the debug rooms.
Mermaids are another species with a bunch of one-off gameplay limitations and custom logic — other devs are smart enough to avoid these when possible, but I keep putting them in the game because I love TFs with inconvenient repercussions :3
Grab the Fish Pendant from the Debug Rooms to become transformed into a mermaid! The pendant is in curse room 3, in the far west of the curse rooms.
Mermaids are weighted down by their heavy tails, and will struggle to climb out of any water areas. Even if they do, they’ll be unable to drag that tail very far, and end up returning to the water sooner or later. If you get stuck out in the middle of land, a helpful aquarium worker will come by and dump you back into the water (currently in the debug rooms, but will eventually go into the Chapter 7 areas). Same with respawns: once you’re a mermaid, you’ll respawn back in the water as well.
This species is also particularly lusty, earning the nicknames of ‘merslut’ and ‘sea bimbo’ that other species sometimes playfully call them. Any successful lust attacks against mermaids hit for double damage, so watch out!
That’s not to say there aren’t any advantages to being a mermaid. r36 also adds support for rooms to be either covered in water or totally submerged. Humans will have to hold their breath underwater, and will eventually start taking health damage if they don’t return to the surface. Mermaids and sharks, however, can easily breathe underwater (something that will definitely come in handy once the Mulberry Aquarium is done).
All mermaids are female, so expect an appropriately buxom gender TF to be included if you’re male before putting on the pendant.
There’s not too much to do as a mermaid yet, however, you can play with the Octomaid, who is also hanging out in the water test area. All the octomaid’s teases are hooked up for mermaids, so she’ll tease you about being a merslut and such as she dominates you.
Currently, it’s very easy to get stuck as a mermaid, so you may not want to save after putting the pendant on. Unless you’re carrying some other items, you’re likely to end up fully transformed into a busty mermaid and trapped in the pool with the octomaid forever. Although maybe that isn’t such a bad fate… 😉
Misc tech stuff
- Some new parameters are available in the mod API for species who implement checkPlayerMobile
- The game now has the ability to have rooms that are loaded, but not yet discovered. This was useful for water checks, but will also be useful for having entities that are doing stuff in areas that you haven’t explored yet.
- These extensions to species have been added, but not yet exposed to the mod API. If you’re working on an species that needs it, let me know in #modding on discord and I’ll try to get it added to the API.
- Arms/Legs exist functions are now usable by all species.
- Support for species to have lust damage modifier and flavor text was added.
- Support for species that can breath underwater was added.