Progress? Don't ask me about progress! Listen, we're still working on improving the backgrounds. Meanwhile, there's writing and designing being done for Shizuru, but that's not very visually exciting without art to accompany it. Still, we're gonna be explaining the basis of Shizuru's combat and why it is what it is. See, instead of the timer-based combat where the player has to outlast the Dommes that will make up the base game (and most likely the majority of future DLC), Shizuru is gonna be a more straight up fight. Let me start this explanation at the beginning, though.
We decided early on that each DLC girl would have her own unique mechanic in some way. As mentioned previously, originally Shizuru's unique mechanic was gonna be phase effects that alter how each of the 3 phases of a fight plays out by giving her buffs/debuffs. As you may recall, we decided a couple months back to give Hana phase effects as well for the final fight of the base game. We may also add phase effects to other DLC in the future. This means Shizuru needs something else to stand out.
That's where our testers come into the picture. We mentioned once that early testers were ignoring defensive options and focusing only on offense, to their own detriment; losing fights they could've won, if they'd used a more balanced approach. This led to adding the Hints screen in the game, which gives tactical advice to help people grasp how the game is meant to be played. However, once our testers understood the game, there was one recurring bit of feedback: "Okay, but what about just a straight up fight, though?"
Seeing as Shizuru is all about pleasure through pain and her story/character makes it unlikely she'd care about Michael's usual techniques, we decided this would be the perfect fit for her DLC. Players will have to use new techniques to weaken Shizuru's resolve 3 times to win the fight. Each time they do, Shizuru will have a new modifier added that will influence how she fights, which is where phase effects come in. We haven't finalized these ideas yet (and probably won't until the artist has time to figure out what would work), but think along the lines of tying her hands together, so she resorts to more aggressive kicks or adding nipple clamps that damage her every turn in exchange for a damage boost.
The exact phase effects will reflect the pleasurable pain techniques that Michael learns throughout the story scenes of the DLC. Of course, they'll increase in intensity and sexiness as you progress through the DLC, but we'll explain more about the story setup of the Shizuru DLC another time.