My ill-fated attempts to become a successful novelist (both the site and the book are in italian only, but I wouldn't call it a blockbuster success :D) showed me I was very interested in telling stories to an audience. That's something that brought me where I am today in fact: I just figured out that the best way to tell stories for me was developing videogames, and feedback seem to appreciate my way of storytelling.
General Practitioner has been praised many times for its conversations, its characters who are natural and different and each of them pursuing their own interest and agenda, without adapting to the player's choices. I mean, Aaron has his own view about gay relationships, as most gay people do, because no one is alike one another, and that's not something revolutionary in telling a story, but it's definitely something that is appreciated.
While writing the stories for Vanessa and Aaron for 0.0.27 update I faced another challenge (this game posed me many of them): how to actually tell a story of homosexuality without sounding false and cliché, how to write an heterosexual storyline which intertwines with that one without sounding naive or offensive? And most important: do you need a gay writer to write gay stories? The answer is, in my case: no, you don't.
That's why I struggled for days to create something interesting in the game, something that would've been recognized as a real story for most homosexual players, something that I hope will entertain you and also make you smile a little. People who won't pursue a gay relationship in the game will still access this story, as it's part of the doctor's past where the player has no power upon, and helps to define the man he has become today.
Are we just the sum of our past deeds and experiences? What would've been different if we acted differently 15/20 years ago? Are we sure everything would've worked better for us?
Yes, it is a bold endeavour and maybe those are stories that people clicking on the "Play" button of General Practitioner are not interested in reading. But somehow I believe that's not true, as most people loved the relationships in game more than they love the nudity in it, and since I started making videogames to tell stories and not mainly to show pixel-art nudity, believe me when I say I'm very happy to know my stories are appreciated and read by thousands of people.
So maybe, just maybe, my attempts to become a novelist weren't so ill-fated eventually.
An update for General Practitioner is available for download!
Fixed a crash during Erika's conversations at home
Fixed a crash when visiting the clinic before Lacey's first exam
Fixed an uncommon issue causing the game not recognizing Erika living with the player if you made her your girlfriend during the "Our Clinic, My Legacy" chapter. Saved games affected by the issue are automatically fixed when loading a new game.
One of the most reported negative feedback about General Practitioner is its difficulty. Over time, I received reports of people who didn't enjoy the medical portion of the game (which is half the fun!) because of its inherent difficulty.
This is understandable and I always wanted to improve this aspect of the game without sacrificing its nature in doing it: General Practitioner is a Visual Novel unlike most others, as it involves a real medical simulation made with the help of real doctors and I never wanted players to just skip the medical part as it wasn't important for the game.
Of course, this makes GP sort of a "niche game", but so were the games from Legacy Games which I always took for inspiration for this project since its beginning.
In time, I added a setting "Medical Help" which, if the character has enough knowledge, gives hints about the findings. I recommend most players to play with the Medical Help ON, because some cases are very hard without it.
It was also suggested that every part of the game which is "normal" (in medicine nothing is "normal", it might be "unremarkable" at most), be labelled differently, so that people won't have to read through the same conversation and dialogues dozens of times.
With 0.0.27 every "normal" finding will have its text in blue and bold, so that you'll know those parts of dialogues mean the patient is ok with that part of his/her body. Of course now you will have to play an even closer attention to the black parts of the exam's text, because they will hint at real problems or will have remarks from the patients or other physicians present.
I could've colored the "remarkable" parts in red, but I didn't do it for a variety of reasons, the first one being that remarkable parts are the most common (because unlike real doctors you won't have to perform "healthy head to toe exams" at all in the game), and because part of General Practitioner's success is also its non-linear difficulty, facing the finding of something odd inside what has been quite normal until that very moment.
Starting with 0.0.27 I will also remove some very hard to read parts of the exam, because they weren't really adding something to the gameplay and were fun just to real doctors to read.
For example: "ECG shows no ST-segment elevations in leads V1 and V2" becomes: "There are no unusual synus patterns and no alterations in frequency of the hearbeat." which is far more readable.
Finally, we're going to introduce a new option to show the clinic's daily results or not when going through mornings and evenings.
I hope you'll like the new additions to the game, we're approaching Beta in six months and everything will need to be polished by then! Wish me a good luck! :D
An update for General Practitioner is available for download!
Claudia's call to talk "about Rita" won't repeat itself any longer
Removed the conversation option to undress Rita during her examination as it was replaced by undressing icons long ago
Erika's romance event won't repeat itself any longer
Fixed an issue preventing the staff work to correctly check their abilities during work. This caused a major drop of stats even with very expert staff members
Fixed a missing image for Elder Male Back Exam (archetype #3) with no clothes on
Nancy's exam will no longer repeat itself if you turned down her sexual proposal (Story mode only)
Random Female Patients won't get Andropause anymore as their illness
Fixed a rare issue which cause calendar date to skip days (i.e. telling it's tuesday while it's friday). Unfortunately this change required to reset a variable in the script, so it won't be possible to restore affected saved games. If your save was affected by the issue you'll have to either ignore it if you can OR start a new game. Sorry about the inconvenience this might cause to some of you.
Today I'm introducing you two new characters: Dr. Marcus, a renowned dentist and his assistant Amy. You will see those characters again in the future as well ;)
After Rita starts to feel a severe pain over her jaw, she asks you to bring her to the dentist, because she never needed one she doesn't know where to go.
You remember hearing of a very renowned clinic, named "The Gentle Bite". Dr. Marcus, the owner, is a young and talented dentist who accomplished many important results with his work, so you take your car and bring your girlfriend there.
Rita is therefore greeted by Dr. Marcus himself, which is quite unusual as you hear, and his assistant Amy, a gorgeous girl who's eager to start the examination of the 23-years-old patient.
Both Dr. Marcus and Amy are very kind and professional, but something doesn't seem to fit in in your mind, as they interview you about Rita's dental concerns.
You are then asked to wait outside while the examination is performed. You don't really understand why, but those are the rules, so... Rita joins you back in 30 minutes and tells you about her experience with Dr. Marcus' skills, which are renowned for a good reason.
She looks a little dazed, but you both blame the anesthesia for that, as she tells you she will see the Doctor again in two weeks.
You then return home, happy that everything's gone well!
As you might know, Rita's story revolves around the concept of cuckolding/netorare. It is not an unexpected turn of events, since when the player first meets her she is a patient and she has an older boyfriend who she's not very happy with, up to the point that he leaves him almost overnight to spend her days with the doctor.
Telling a story like this one easily falls down to cliches, as telling Claudia's story, and I wanted players to read something that wasn't too cliché, because I feel we already got plenty of them in most games nowadays, and I initially started this project to "deliver you the game I always dreamed to play."
When choosing to tell this story, in a very important chapter for the doctor's story with Rita, I also chose to have HER telling the story as she was writing out her memory or something, or even a letter to her lover (you).
You will be able to enjoy this story on June 6 on Patreon for our crowdfunders, but the retail release will come a month later as usual for everyone to play both on Steam, Itch.io etc.
And while I was reading through the final story myself... I found it erotic but also cute, even bitter-sweet to some extenct.
I think you'll be moved by what happens on screen between Rita and her unknown lover, who isn't given a name nor an image to better express his complete foreignness to the player. One way or another you will be asked to make a choice (more than one), and one of them will also unlock an animated sex scene added for this chapter.
Of course many of you will play the most kinky and erotic path, but I don't think it will be easy to choose that one, because if Rita's character grew some fondness in you, well...
No more spoilers, play 0.0.26 and enjoy Rita's story when it will be available :)
The Coroner Saga is now available for PC, Mac and Linux devices both on Steam and itch.io (as well as Android on itch.io and Google Play)!
This is our second videogame since we founded the studio in 2018 and the first one to be fully released (even though in an episode format), while General Practitioner is still in Early Access until December 2019.
This game is smaller in size and scope, but not in depth, as the wonderfully written story and its dialogues, made by the renowned writer J.D. Glass, will surely entertain you episode after episode.
While the release plan is still to be set, we aim to release an episode every 3-4 months. Available language at release will be english, while italian and japanese translations will be available in a few weeks after each release with an update to the game.
We had much fun developing this episode, we sincerely hope you'll have fun playing it as well!
It looks like the option to scroll back with the mouse was something VERY important for the players as I'm getting A LOT of requests to bring it back again, although an option in the settings screen should do the trick, I am re-enabling the scroll back ability with this very small update.
Please note that abusing this might lead to unexpected behavior in Random Exams and random events, as the "random dice" gets pulled every time you scroll back and this might cause the game to behave strangely.
While I will look into the issue, my recommendation is not to abuse the rollback option for the time being ;)
Thanks for your feedback, it's awesome how this community is helping me to develop an excellent game!
GENERAL PRACTITIONER 0.0.25 ALPHA RELEASE - "Colleagues. Lovers."
GENERAL:
WARNING: save games prior to 0.0.20 are no longer compatible. If you own a previously made save you will have to restart the game!
Save games from releases after 0.0.21 are compatible, however read the notice under "Gameplay" for further infos.
Bug fixing - Fixed an issue with missing images during the "Merry Christmas Chapter" - Fixed a crash when clicking on "Migraine" over the Codex - Fixed an issue with "Cradle Cap" missing options for treatment and dismissal in Random Exams - Fixed a crash when accessing Sam Neil's medical record during his exam - Fixed a very rare incoherent reply from Rita after you had dinner with her and she broke with Luke - Fixed an issue which caused fame drop to add to itself day after day without resetting properly. This caused the fame to decrease A LOT no matter what you did day after day and eventually broke the mechanic, even after sending people to lectures. - Female patients affected by altitude sickness won't have penises anymore - Fixed a very rare issue which prevented the Merry Christmas event to play at all if a long list of choices was made in an exact order. This was found out by mere chance as it was literally very rare! - Fixed an issue which prevented the "Merry Christmas" chapter to be played with your chosen romance option. In case you already played the event, chances are that you played the "Claudia" version, while there were 6 more different ones. I suggest you load a save before December 24th (in-game time) and play the event again, or start a new game. Older saved games are already fixed by applying the update and loading. - Fixed an uncommon issue which corrupted the game if you dated Rita by phone after you already had dinner with her. - Fixed an issue with the game not recognizing Aaron or Vanessa being your romance partner. The issue fixes the game after you load a savegame after "The higher, the Fewer" chapter has been completed. - Fixed a wrong sequence of save game numbers on the Save and Load screens
Added new pictures for actions throughout the game
Fixed an issue that prevented Mac users with certain hardware configurations to correctly display animations
Gallery option was temporarily removed from the game until it will be completed
Removed the ability to "mouse scroll" back to a previous line of dialogue. This was a temporary feature for development purposes only. You can still rollback to a previously made choice by enabling the "left/right side scroll back" when clicking the mouse in the Preferences screen, but it might not always be possible (by design choice, that's not a bug!). This of course adds to the overall difficulty of the game, so if you're really unsure about what to do... SAVE OFTEN!
Removed a "Work in progress" screen after "Merry Christmas", it was out of date
It is now easier to date Judith (Paul's mom) after his exam
GAMEPLAY:
New Achievements have been added: - A chance for Glory - Younger! Harder! - Lifeguard - Fertility Issues - Part 1
The "Home activities" are now involving Erika if she's living with you. - Play a musical instrument
- Spend some time cooking
- Spend some time with Erika
- Masturbate (if vanilla mode is OFF)
- Have a shower
- Watch TV
- Watch porn (if vanilla mode is OFF)
- Play a videogame
Relationship markers with Elisa have been redesigned. The game automatically updates itself to the new marker when loading a game or starting a new game.
After January 2nd, if you have more than one romance in place, the game will ask you which is the "Main Romance" you want to pursue. While it's possible to date more than one girl at any given time, for shared events (events which take place in the very same day for each character involved) it's necessary to choose who to give priority to for narration purposes.
In-game year now shows 202x instead of 2017-2018
"Quests" have been removed from the game. See Devlog #16 for further infos about why.
Some in-game events' activation triggers have been moved or redesigned. While the method used should not corrupt save games it is recommended you start a new game OR load a game before September (in-game time)
You can now tell staff members to undergo training classes to improve their skills. See this link for further infos about this feature.
EXAMINATIONS:
New exam available: Gloria (#66): you can start her exam in story mode after you completed the "Erika's Legacy" third part in February or type in her ID (4333268165)
New exam available: Lacey (#67): you can start her exam after February 4th or type in her ID to play it (8277861067)
New hospital exam available: Rajesh (#68): you can start his exam after February 10th or type in his ID to play it (1997240868)
STORY:
All of "Erika-related" content will play regardless if chose her as a "Main Romance", however some situations and conversations might change accordingly.
Added event "Erika's relationship" which will start on January
Added event "Erika's Legacy" which will start in September, December and February (if you're already over those dates the event will start regardless)
Added event "High School Lecture" which will start in November after you discussed about it with Rita, Claudia or Erika at home
Added event "Physician, heal thyself Erika Path)" which will start on March 31st and continue up to April 21st. This will only play if Erika is your "Main Romance". Please note that during this event the energy amount of the doctor is forced to be very low. This is working as intended as it reflects the doctor's current health and it's NOT a bug which doesn't replenish the health bar.
OTHER:
The game will end on April 30th, which marks the end of the full game. Of course only Claudia-related events are available after December, while more will be added in future updates!
Update 0.0.26, which will be released on Patreon this month and on retail stores (including both Steam and Itch.io) on July, focuses on Rita, as many of you already know.
One of the main events featured in the update is the "Shooting". You might remember that the cute, shy Rita went down a path of transgression and lust when she discovered a sexual world that was always behind her grasp. Until she met you, of course!
Rita started to wonder if there was something different in having sex with people that weren't her ex-boyfriend Luke or the Doctor himself, so she began to move into "the life", getting more and more interested about cuckoldry and her role as a "sweet girl".
Everything started with José, but now she's moving forward to other partners as well, and the Doctor seems to be ok in making her explore this side of herself, but is he?
This time Rita met a famous photographer at her icecream shop and when he asked her to be his model for a shooting she immediately accepted, bringing you with her. Watch and choose how events will play in this situation and watch her being pleased in front of you by a stranger, or leave them be and argue with her later to try and bring her back to a safer relationship.
As with every other part of the game, your choice will matter AND determine the outcome of your relationship with Rita in 0.0.26.
I hope you'll enjoy 0.0.26 update, "A song of Icecream and Fire" when it's released!
In the meantime grab the game if you haven't, a huge discount is still available on Steam until tomorrow!