Quality Dreams, Reasonably Priced News

Hello all of you people looking to sell body mods,

We just released a small update with some new art and some heavily requested features!

ART CHANGES

• Finished background for Winnie's shop!
  
• New background for the clinic's lobby! (No, I will not willingly say the clinic's name haha)
  
• A bunch of small sprite changes and a few other small background tweaks. (Let us know if you spot any for the chance to win a small prize!)
  

NEW FEATURES
We asked for your feedback and we have heeded it!

• We moved up the timeline on save slots to now bring you four whole new slots in addition to the quicksave and checkpoint we had before.
  
• We worked to get the keyboard controls a lot more functional. Please let us know how they feel!
  
• We added some new hotkeys as well as rebinding options.
  

MISC

• Typo fixes. There’re always typos to fix. (Please keep sending them when you find them!!)
  

Thank you so much for following along on our dev journey. Our next major update will be for June Next Fest! Please stay tuned :)

Bonjour body mod purveyors!

We have a fun little announcement! A podcast episode featuring one half of zorkie studios (me!) recently dropped. The podcast is called True Avatars, and you can listen to the episode here.

If you’re interested in...

- the worldbuilding of Quality Dreams, Reasonably Priced
- information on new characters to be met in the full release
- where to find bonus scenes and early game prototypes
- stories of how we came up with the game’s ideas and themes
- a reminder to join our mailing list for behind-the-scenes content and invitations to private playtests (which we’ll hopefully start rolling out towards the end of this month!)

then please take a listen!


And if you're interested in queer video games (which you hopefully are if you’re reading this!), then please consider subscribing to True Avatars. The podcast’s host, Zoey, does an incredible job highlighting queer game devs and queer games, and looking at game industry news from a queer perspective.

Greetings psychlines!

This week, we’ve got something special from behind the scenes to share with you: a flash fic we wrote when we first started solidifying Jin’s character. It’s set about two weeks before the game starts.

We thought it might be fun to see where the character started and how their voice has changed. The story also gives a sneak peek at some details from Jin’s life that aren’t in the demo as well as some more of what’s going on in their head.

Enjoy and let us know what you think! 💛
And if you want more behind the scenes content, follow us on Steam or social media, or join our newsletter on Substack.

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I started my new job last week and it’s… Well, it’s fine. It pays the bills and that’s the important part. And sometimes it can be nice. When I look past all the selling and upselling and cross-selling, and just focus on the people. It’s been nice to learn about clients and be in a position to offer helping advice.

For example, this older lady came in with her grandkid to get matching nanobot-animated tattoos. That was so sweet! They were happy and it was harmless and fun. (And I got paid a ton for bringing in two customers.)

Right, trying to focus on the human aspect.

It’s hard to ignore the money. Especially when I’m barely scraping by. I’m hardly doing better than paycheck-to-paycheck at this point. I’ve been pushed out of the apartment I can no longer afford into one a few floors down that I can barely afford. It’s hard not to think about money when my budget passed tight a month ago and is well on its way to suffocating.

I’ve thought about giving up Nibbles to a friend. I’ve thought about it a lot. But I’m worried that faced with this wall of problems on my own, I’ll never make it to the other side. I need a bit of love, compassion, and companionship, and Nibbles has always been there for me. Giving her up would be worse than deprival, it would be tearing out a piece of my heart.

I’m trying to stay positive. Really, I swear. Things are slowly starting to look better, especially with this new job. It pays better, the hours aren’t bad, and my boss is only 70% the worst. I get to talk to people, get to know them. In not too long, I’ll hopefully have saved enough to move someplace better.

I’m trying to fill myself with hope and tie it into a raft to carry me onwards. Maybe it won’t be today or tomorrow, but one day soon, I think I’ll wake up and know deep in my heart that things will get better. That they are getting better. That I am pulling myself back together one day at a time.

Salutations body mod sellers!

We’re so excited to announce that we were selected for the Storyteller Festival, hosted by Two and a Half Studios. To celebrate our inclusion, we’re releasing some updates to our demo!

Here’s a rundown of the updates:

We’ve added a ton of new art, including a new background, an updated background, and an all new character! This means we have three new scenes in the demo (one featuring the new character). We’ve also added two new musical tracks for your ears to enjoy.

In response to feedback, we’ve added loading options for checkpoints and manual saves (as opposed to only manual saves) and an “exit to main menu” option (from which you can start a new game if you’d like).

And, of course, we've fixed a swathe of bugs and typos… There’s a lot that’s hard to notice until you’ve got so many more eyes on a game!

Thank you so much for your support so far. We hope you enjoy the update! Please let us know what you think by leaving a comment, reaching out on social media, or filling out our feedback form (linked in the demo!). We love hearing from you and the feedback helps make Quality Dreams, Reasonably Priced the best it can be 💛

Hello body mod salespeople!

As we wrap up the final touches on our demo, I want to take a moment to chat about the client interviews in Quality Dreams, Reasonably Priced.

These sessions really make up the heart of the game. They hold key moments where we ask you to learn about someone else and empathize with them, before then deciding whether to put their wellbeing ahead of your character’s.

For some clients, the decision is easy; for some, you might start thinking of them one way and end a different way; and some lie in a moral grey zone, where just your understanding and biases are left to support your decision.

Since these scenes are so critical to conveying the themes and emotions of the game, we put a lot of thought into how they’re crafted. Each client interview has a uniquely designed dialogue flow based on the client’s personality and how they converse. Jin (the player character)’s job is to understand others and communicate with them, so we shape dialogue options based on how Jin understands the client’s conversation norms. The client then responds to these options based on their own feelings and understanding of the situation.

Take Ocean, the first client you meet in the game, as an example. (And mild spoiler warning here for anyone wanting to go into the game completely blind.)

Ocean is fairly straightforward, but he feels bit uneasy sharing about some topics. They’re also often willing to give the benefit of the doubt, choosing to be cordial and open until someone proves him wrong. Because of this, Jin will slowly breach and issue, generally only diving in more if Ocean seems open to talking about it.

On Ocean’s side, the game tracks how many times you’ve upset him or said something that they view as a red flag. This is the main thing that impacts Ocean’s willingness to share—he starts out giving you a baseline of trust and then watches to see if you abuse it. This, and Ocean’s straightforward honesty, makes them one of the easier characters to talk to in the game.

We hope you enjoy meeting and chatting with Ocean in our demo (coming out in the next few days!). Be sure to let us know what you think of them and of the rest of the demo 💛