Dev here. Only very recently did I learn about the existence of this thread. Answering some commonly asked questions from this thread here:
Q: Can I make the scenes and lighting better?
A: I do want to. Unfortunately at the moment, I am limited by the hardware I own. All of my renders happen on a pretty old 3070 (mobile), which limits how complex my scenes can be. Even with the current scenes, I have to do quite a bit of optimizations to get it to render in a reasonable amount of time. With some very complex scenes, unless I constantly remove and add objects, the scene doesn't even fit in my GPU's VRAM. And now that I'm already 9 parts in, it is also impossible for me to change the artstyle to something totally different that might be a bit easier on my GPU. So till the conclusion of this VN, I guess I am stuck with it. I do plan on getting an upgrade to a 50 series sometime this year, but even if I do, I do not want to change the quality of renders suddenly midway through the story and backtracking and re-doing every single old part is too much of a hassle. So for this VN, this is what the quality will have to be. I have, though, over the past few weeks working on this VN, learnt a lot of hacks on how to get the best out of a scene with the least amount of resources. You will notice that the scenes have gotten better wrt quality.
Q: So many character and scene inconsistencies? Why?
A: I guess I have to attribute these to me simply figuring shit out as I go. This is my first VN and there's quite a bit I had to learn when it came to 3D scene design and rendering. In 0.61 release, I have gone back and fixed a few old scenes. But fixing old scenes isn't that easy. I have lost some scenes files and making them from scratch takes a significantly long amount of time. I will still, as and when time permits, be going back and fixing up old renders when I can, especially the ones that are too much of an eyesore. Thanks btw for the note on the skinny legs in one of the renders - I somehow totally missed it. That unfortunately was not an issue that arose from optimization but rather plain sloppy work on my end.
Q: Why do you release small parts frequently rather than release big parts at a time?
A: Well, in my head, I've split this VN into parts. Each part is a self contained minor event in the larger storyline. So once I finish one part, I like to release it so it's out there as soon as it's done. Keeping it hidden with me isn't helping anyone, so I might as well release it. I always include changelogs in my releases, along with number of renders, lines of dialogue, etc. so that people can make informed decisions as to whether an update is too soon to download for them or if they'd like to wait and download once a few parts have been released.
Q: The choices don't seem to make a difference?
A: They do. It depends on what you are looking for wrt choices. None of the choices will cause a major branching chain in the story. While I understand there are people who love a huge divergence in the novel based on choices, it also leads to a lot of problems wrt creative vision. Generally, this story will have only one major branch. Choices are minor deviations on how events within that branch will play out. For instance, when it comes to the whether Claire should try to make Miles jealous or not does lead to some extra events - for instance, an optional kiss and some more conversational pieces in the next part. Some of these choices do carry across parts as well.
Q: This is so slow! Why?
A: Well, there's enough NTR out there where the wife goes and bangs the first dick she sees. That's not the story I wanted to write. Angst is a bit of a slow burn. But as the parts continue, the action does increase in frequency. After all, I'm starting from a point where the couple is totally new to this whole thing. It takes time for that relationship to build and I want to capture that in my story.
Q: Will the wife be going on 'dates' with another men?
A: Depends on what your definition of a date is. She's not looking for a romantic relationship with someone else, if that's what you are asking. Wrt the restaurant 'date', well, Miles and Claire are just figuring it out. So it stands to reason that she goes out, figures out what it feels like for herself and then the couple together decide on how to proceed further. In the next couple of parts, this dynamic gets solidified.
Some notes of my own:
- Angst is primarily meant to be more story driven rather than visual driven. Think of it as the visuals aiding the story more than the story aiding the visuals. That's how I have been writing this VN as well - dialogue and events first. So this might not be the right fit for somehow who doesn't enjoy a good slow read.
- I am a solo developer on this project and I don't work with this (or VNs in general) full time. It's purely a passion project. I have had a story I've wanted to tell here and a VN was the best format and I wanted to take a shot at it. This is also why I don't have a strict release timeline. I work on this whenever time (and creativity) allows me to do so.
I might not be very active here, but happy to answer any questions if you have when I visit back
