VN Ren'Py Chasing Sunsets [v0.9a] [Stone Fox Studios]

[ename144]

I want the main character to have the option to tell Jaye to grow up and back off. Have you ever tried to do a run through this game where the main character has a healthy normal relationship with Jaye? One where they learn to work together in a professional manner? It's pretty much impossible. She's stealing his journals, masturbating on his pillow, spying on him in the shower, and rubbing her ass against his crotch like a cat in heat.

More importantly, I want the main character to be able to have a serious conversation with her where he doesn't automatically start taking the blame for everything and saying that everything he did was because he loved her too much. Jaye is pushed way too hard by the writers here. George wants them together, Tara wants them together, even Mallory seems to want them to hook up or something. She just had that weird scene where she tries to get Jaye to do body shots with him to "break down a wall" with Jaye. I don't want that wall broken down. I want it built up and reinforced. Put some sentries on top.

Hear, hear!

It looked like that would be possible in Chapter 3, if you kept Jaye's Trust points up and her Love points down. Unfortunately Jaye flew off the rails in Chapter 4, brazenly attempting to seduce the MC at every turn regardless of their former feelings. And the options to decline are woefully inadequate; when she insists the MC get into bed naked with her, all we can do is slam the door on her. There's no option to stay dressed and talk it out once and for all, nor is this followed up on in Chapter 5. The otherwise excellent grieving scene happens in a complete vacuum.

Mallory's tone-deaf obsession with seeing the two step-siblings hook up doesn't help, either. You'd think a reporter would notice when an obsession is one sided. But it's even stranger from a meta sense: Mallory is the only alternative to Jaye in the game, yet her arc plays out as if we're expected to be pursuing Jaye first and foremost. We can't even max out Mallory's points if the MC turns down Tara's help getting into Jaye's pants.

 

[Lostanddamned]

Hear, hear!

It looked like that would be possible in Chapter 3, if you kept Jaye's Trust points up and her Love points down. Unfortunately Jaye flew off the rails in Chapter 4, brazenly attempting to seduce the MC at every turn regardless of their former feelings. And the options to decline are woefully inadequate; when she insists the MC get into bed naked with her, all we can do is slam the door on her. There's no option to stay dressed and talk it out once and for all, nor is this followed up on in Chapter 5. The otherwise excellent grieving scene happens in a complete vacuum.

Mallory's tone-deaf obsession with seeing the two step-siblings hook up doesn't help, either. You'd think a reporter would notice when an obsession is one sided. But it's even stranger from a meta sense: Mallory is the only alternative to Jaye in the game, yet her arc plays out as if we're expected to be pursuing Jaye first and foremost. We can't even max out Mallory's points if the MC turns down Tara's help getting into Jaye's pants.

I think they made it like that to force the game to follow the story they want to tell. I'm going to give you an example with Where the Heart Is. There's a character there named Jenna and you have the option to completely ignore all romance with her. But at one point of the game you get a call from her to go to a cafe because she found a clue about who sent the email at the beginning of the game and you have the option to accept or decline. If you decline, you get a Game Over screen.

Like the game is not limiting your choices, but has to put some borders so that you actually follow the storyline the devs wanted to tell. It's not realistic, but judging by how well the story is written and told, I think things like that can be overlooked.

Besides MC and Jaye's relationship developing for good isn't necessarily a bad thing and even Lisa didn't speak anything against it when she caught them together in the shower.

 

[Lostanddamned]

Obligatory best startup screen ever post.

 

[LizaS]

LizaS the ending we need, but not the one we deserve.

Hey, Kentyrr and Stone Fox Studios, no pressure at all. Don't do it if you don't wanna do it. Psh. No big deal.

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[Lostanddamned]

View attachment 1898292


Hey, Kentyrr and Stone Fox Studios, no pressure at all. Don't do it if you don't wanna do it. Psh. No big deal.

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Did you see the poll about how their next game should be and people wanted literally the same game again?

 

[LizaS]

Did you see the poll about how their next game should be and people wanted literally the same game again?

Yeah, I saw. I guess the people want Chasing Sunrises or whatever the name of their next game would be.
There's a Jaye too, but probably blond this time.

 

[Lostanddamned]

Yeah, I saw. I guess the people want Chasing Sunrises or whatever the name of their next game would be.
Jaye but prob blond this time.

A continuation of the story in which MC marries Jaye but Tara and Lisa end up as their side pieces would be amazing.

 

[SamualHand]

LizaS the ending we need, but not the one we deserve.

An ending where you look on some booties? Not the ending I want!

 

[Lostanddamned]

An ending where you look on some booties? Not the ending I want!

If you see that and you opt to look, that's cool if that's your vibe. It wasn't what I meant, mate and you know it.

 

[NebulousShooter]

I want the main character to have the option to tell Jaye to grow up and back off. Have you ever tried to do a run through this game where the main character has a healthy normal relationship with Jaye? One where they learn to work together in a professional manner? It's pretty much impossible. She's stealing his journals, masturbating on his pillow, spying on him in the shower, and rubbing her ass against his crotch like a cat in heat.

More importantly, I want the main character to be able to have a serious conversation with her where he doesn't automatically start taking the blame for everything and saying that everything he did was because he loved her too much. Jaye is pushed way too hard by the writers here. George wants them together, Tara wants them together, even Mallory seems to want them to hook up or something. She just had that weird scene where she tries to get Jaye to do body shots with him to "break down a wall" with Jaye. I don't want that wall broken down. I want it built up and reinforced. Put some sentries on top.

The entire premise of the vn is their desire for each other and the MC is consistently written avoiding conflict for the sake of Jaye, thats his personality. You are allowed to mold it, but you can't 180 who he is and you shouldn't, thats why the scenario where you let Jaye drown is so out of character that its seems like its a different person all together doing it. I'm glad thats there for you, or everyone else that wants that 'fantasy', but you can't tell me you don't see how disjointed that path is compared to the rest of the story.


You having a problem with the characters acting in accordance to the premise of the novel, their established personalities and backstories is more of a you problem, than a story problem. All of your 'wants' contradicting what we've been told and showed about the characters and the fact you call people that disagree 'Jaye fanboys" comes of as you self inserting, where you want to play out what you would do in that scenario and not what Alex would do.

Self inserts barely work with a blank slate, cookie cutter MC, which clearly its not the case here(so maybe you are playing the wrong VN), but even in that case I have yet to see one instance where playing that type of character leads to better storytelling.

Hell, ignore VNs, since they are niche genre, name one game ever where you have a blank slate character with slim to no backstory, where you have a memorable story. No fully open world rpg' plot is as impactful as a linear one, its no coincidence that vanilla Witcher 3 side plots are more memorable than the main story and the two expansions which have a more linear structure are miles better than the main game.

My point is that wanting a game to accommodate all your scenarios, especially when they are contradictory to the nature of the characters, just so you can playout your head canon fan-fic its delusional, even beyond the limitations of the software and the medium.

Hey, you are allowed to feel the way you feel about Jaye, you are allowed to say that if you were in Alex' shoes you would punch her in the face and go and have sex with Christian just to spite her, but that is not what Alex would do and thats the entire point you seem to miss.

We can't even max out Mallory's points if the MC turns down Tara's help getting into Jaye's pants.

With that I 100% agree, I wouldn't mind that getting changed, especially since the authors mentioned they are not fans of gameplay traps and locking choices behind ambiguous paths. I put that in the same category as BaDIK's Jill ooc, where the gameplay supersedes the story(and in both cases weakens it). DPC, for the sake of gameplay(morality system) and plot(the house) has Jill act out of character, probably for the first time in the story and in the process damages her character quite a bit, at least in my eyes.

 

[ugulugulu]

LizaS would do anything Stoya and Kentyrr would ask him to....Oh boy. How kinky.

 

[ename144]

I think they made it like that to force the game to follow the story they want to tell. I'm going to give you an example with Where the Heart Is. There's a character there named Jenna and you have the option to completely ignore all romance with her. But at one point of the game you get a call from her to go to a cafe because she found a clue about who sent the email at the beginning of the game and you have the option to accept or decline. If you decline, you get a Game Over screen.

Like the game is not limiting your choices, but has to put some borders so that you actually follow the storyline the devs wanted to tell. It's not realistic, but judging by how well the story is written and told, I think things like that can be overlooked.

Besides MC and Jaye's relationship developing for good isn't necessarily a bad thing and even Lisa didn't speak anything against it when she caught them together in the shower.

I don't think that's a great example; as I recall even the WtHI devs agreed the instant Game Over wasn't the best way to handle that situation. Which is more or less my point: AVNs are always going to be on rails, but there's a big difference between blatantly overriding the player's wishes to force them onto a single path and trying to meet the player halfway by changing some aspects of the necessary path forward to match their choice.

In WtHI, that would probably have been removing the choice from the date but allowing the date to be something of a dud if the player isn't into Jolina (BaDIK did something similar with Jill's first date and I think it worked quite well). Here in CS, we just need a way for the player to friendzone Jaye. That doesn't meant they need to be antagonists, just that the MC will be able to make it clear he's no longer in love with her.

That's obviously something the game will eventually accommodate since it IS possible to end her romance path in Chapter 4 and we know there will be a solo-Mallory ending. So why not spend a little extra time adding some dialog where Jaye can take the hint and stop stalking the MC like she's undergoing pon farr? It would make Jaye much less grating for those of us who aren't interested in dating her, and it could add some nice bittersweet scenes on alternate runs for those who are.

The entire premise of the vn is their desire for each other and the MC is consistently written avoiding conflict for the sake of Jaye, thats his personality. You are allowed to mold it, but you can't 180 who he is and you shouldn't, thats why the scenario where you let Jaye drown is so out of character that its seems like its a different person all together doing it. I'm glad thats there for you, or everyone else that wants that 'fantasy', but you can't tell me you don't see how disjointed that path is compared to the rest of the story.


You having a problem with the characters acting in accordance to the premise of the novel, their established personalities and backstories is more of a you problem, than a story problem. All of your 'wants' contradicting what we've been told and showed about the characters and the fact you call people that disagree 'Jaye fanboys" comes of as you self inserting, where you want to play out what you would do in that scenario and not what Alex would do.

Self inserts barely work with a blank slate, cookie cutter MC, which clearly its not the case here(so maybe you are playing the wrong VN), but even in that case I have yet to see one instance where playing that type of character leads to better storytelling.

Hell, ignore VNs, since they are niche genre, name one game ever where you have a blank slate character with slim to no backstory, where you have a memorable story. No fully open world rpg' plot is as impactful as a linear one, its no coincidence that vanilla Witcher 3 side plots are more memorable than the main story and the two expansions which have a more linear structure are miles better than the main game.

My point is that wanting a game to accommodate all your scenarios, especially when they are contradictory to the nature of the characters, just so you can playout your head canon fan-fic its delusional, even beyond the limitations of the software and the medium.

Hey, you are allowed to feel the way you feel about Jaye, you are allowed to say that if you were in Alex' shoes you would punch her in the face and go and have sex with Christian just to spite her, but that is not what Alex would do and thats the entire point you seem to miss.

With respect, you are mistaken. The premise of Chasing Sunsets is that that the MC and Jaye desired each other 5 years ago. Nothing we've seen *requires* that they still feel the same way now. More importantly, the devs have specifically designed the game so that it's possible to avoid ending up with Jaye. Given that, what purpose does it serve to demand players who aren't interested in Jaye pretend they are for the next N chapters? Do they think we're playing hard to get? Maybe denying us the option makes the game a little easier to write, but only at the cost of making it less fun to play.

Look at the tequila scene in Chapter 5. If you rejected Jaye (but not Mallory), the whole scene plays out exactly the same as on the Jaye route until the end, then it just peters out as Jaye declines and Mallory acts surprised. What exactly did we learn here? Any player who literally slammed the door on the Jaye romance knows this isn't ending in a sexy body shot (and almost certainly wouldn't want it to), so why tease that? It's an anticlimax for no purpose. The scene should have been rewritten so that we can explore what the relationship between the two is now that they've established it isn't going to be sexual. To me that's much more important than adding extra scenes with someone like Bianca.

As I said above, I understand that choices have limits in a computer game (hell, even real life GMs have practical limits on just how zany a player can go), but that's never an excuse to ignore player choices. Chasing Sunsets lets us turn down Jaye. The game should embrace that option, not keep finding technicalities to act as though we didn't pick it.

With that I 100% agree, I wouldn't mind that getting changed, especially since the authors mentioned they are not fans of gameplay traps and locking choices behind ambiguous paths. I put that in the same category as BaDIK's Jill ooc, where the gameplay supersedes the story(and in both cases weakens it). DPC, for the sake of gameplay(morality system) and plot(the house) has Jill act out of character, probably for the first time in the story and in the process damages her character quite a bit, at least in my eyes.

I don't know that I'd call it a trap - a few points aren't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. But it is very counterintuitive and it could become much worse if it keeps happening. And for the life of me I cannot see any benefit to doing it that way, so it's very confusing that it happened.

 

[Alfred the Fallen]

The entire premise of the vn is their desire for each other and the MC is consistently written avoiding conflict for the sake of Jaye, thats his personality. You are allowed to mold it, but you can't 180 who he is and you shouldn't, thats why the scenario where you let Jaye drown is so out of character that its seems like its a different person all together doing it. I'm glad thats there for you, or everyone else that wants that 'fantasy', but you can't tell me you don't see how disjointed that path is compared to the rest of the story.

That attempt to let Jaye drown is the dumbest thing in the game so far. It was completely out of the blue, it made no sense, and it dead ends to a game over screen. I don't know who it was designed for, but it certainly wasn't me. I think it was a huge waste of time.

You having a problem with the characters acting in accordance to the premise of the novel, their established personalities and backstories is more of a you problem, than a story problem. All of your 'wants' contradicting what we've been told and showed about the characters and the fact you call people that disagree 'Jaye fanboys" comes of as you self inserting, where you want to play out what you would do in that scenario and not what Alex would do.

Nope. It's a game problem.

Remember when Jaye lured Christian onto the boat so that she could arrange a do-over for her grad night? We were given some very different choices there on how to react. We could refuse to get involved, or encourage Jaye to beat him up, or to beat him ourselves. But most importantly, if you chose to beat him up, you could then follow up with another choice of why the main character did it. One of the options was to tell Jaye that he did it because it's what their parents wanted, and not for her. That's the kind of thing I wanted more of, and in truth, it was even a bit harsher than what I wanted. But those options dried up very quickly. But the fact that we already had one option to distance the main character from Jaye, sets the stage for more of the same later. So you are wrong to say that all of my 'wants' are contradicting what we've been shown so far. Because Alex already did things more extreme.

The developers started out with different options on how to deal with Jaye, but failed to follow up on the middle ground path. And it's a worse game because of it.

My point is that wanting a game to accommodate all your scenarios, especially when they are contradictory to the nature of the characters, just so you can playout your head canon fan-fic its delusional, even beyond the limitations of the software and the medium.

Your point is bullshit. Adding a few extra lines of dialogue here and there is not going beyond the limitations of the software by any means.

Hey, you are allowed to feel the way you feel about Jaye, you are allowed to say that if you were in Alex' shoes you would punch her in the face and go and have sex with Christian just to spite her, but that is not what Alex would do and thats the entire point you seem to miss.

Line better bait.

 

[Walter Victor]

I don't think that's a great example; as I recall even the WtHI devs agreed the instant Game Over wasn't the best way to handle that situation. Which is more or less my point: AVNs are always going to be on rails, but there's a big difference between blatantly overriding the player's wishes to force them onto a single path and trying to meet the player halfway by changing some aspects of the necessary path forward to match their choice.

In WtHI, that would probably have been removing the choice from the date but allowing the date to be something of a dud if the player isn't into Jolina (BaDIK did something similar with Jill's first date and I think it worked quite well). Here in CS, we just need a way for the player to friendzone Jaye. That doesn't meant they need to be antagonists, just that the MC will be able to make it clear he's no longer in love with her.

That's obviously something the game will eventually accommodate since it IS possible to end her romance path in Chapter 4 and we know there will be a solo-Mallory ending. So why not spend a little extra time adding some dialog where Jaye can take the hint and stop stalking the MC like she's undergoing pon farr? It would make Jaye much less grating for those of us who aren't interested in dating her, and it could add some nice bittersweet scenes on alternate runs for those who are.



With respect, you are mistaken. The premise of Chasing Sunsets is that that the MC and Jaye desired each other 5 years ago. Nothing we've seen *requires* that they still feel the same way now. More importantly, the devs have specifically designed the game so that it's possible to avoid ending up with Jaye. Given that, what purpose does it serve to demand players who aren't interested in Jaye pretend they are for the next N chapters? Do they think we're playing hard to get? Maybe denying us the option makes the game a little easier to write, but only at the cost of making it less fun to play.

Look at the tequila scene in Chapter 5. If you rejected Jaye (but not Mallory), the whole scene plays out exactly the same as on the Jaye route until the end, then it just peters out as Jaye declines and Mallory acts surprised. What exactly did we learn here? Any player who literally slammed the door on the Jaye romance knows this isn't ending in a sexy body shot (and almost certainly wouldn't want it to), so why tease that? It's an anticlimax for no purpose. The scene should have been rewritten so that we can explore what the relationship between the two is now that they've established it isn't going to be sexual. To me that's much more important than adding extra scenes with someone like Bianca.

As I said above, I understand that choices have limits in a computer game (hell, even real life GMs have practical limits on just how zany a player can go), but that's never an excuse to ignore player choices. Chasing Sunsets lets us turn down Jaye. The game should embrace that option, not keep finding technicalities to act as though we didn't pick it.


I don't know that I'd call it a trap - a few points aren't that big a deal in the grand scheme of things. But it is very counterintuitive and it could become much worse if it keeps happening. And for the life of me I cannot see any benefit to doing it that way, so it's very confusing that it happened.

I hope you realize that writing all of these alternate scenarios, that you posit would make the game better, are not going to accomplish anything. Do you honestly believe that the developers are going to go back and rewrite scenes to accommodate your better version?

You do this in EVERY game you play and claim to like. It never achieves ANYTHING in any of them. I really don't know what you think you are gaining by doing this so consistently.

You do seem to have well-thought-out ideas. Have you considered making your own game, with or without an artist (if you don't feel up to that part of it)?

 

[ename144]

I hope you realize that writing all of these alternate scenarios, that you posit would make the game better, are not going to accomplish anything. Do you honestly believe that the developers are going to go back and rewrite scenes to accommodate your better version?

You do this in EVERY game you play and claim to like. It never achieves ANYTHING in any of them. I really don't know what you think you are gaining by doing this so consistently.

You do seem to have well-thought-out ideas. Have you considered making your own game, with or without an artist (if you don't feel up to that part of it)?

It depends on the game, but in this case I'm hoping the devs will knock it off with shoving women at us then acting confused if we click the "No thank you" option. They put the button there, so I think it's reasonable to expect it to affect the way the characters act (not just skip past a current lewd scene). It sometimes feels like they consider the button to be an unfortunate genre obligation, but IMHO it's one of the strengths of VNs as a storytelling medium. We get to see how are choices affect the world!

This doesn't need to be about retrospect, either. There's every indication some my concerns will persist in Chapter 6; Amanda certainly will if they don't give us some way to express our displeasure (for people who dislike her, obviously). I normally talk about the past because it's hard to make examples out of content we haven't seen yet, but it's the future I'm worried about. Will anything change? Who knows. I'd like to think I improve the odds if I state my concerns politely, though.

I do mean it when I say I want to love this game. It has enormous potential, but it's only realizing about half of it and it's frustrating to see the rest languish on the vine. Especially because I think they could salvage some of it without inordinate effort. Look at Mallory's big lewd scene in Chapter 3. I thought that was a really well done and quite novel scene, but it was a little too fast for the way I was playing the MC (Mal had just lied to us, after all). Happily in that case we had the option to turn her down in a gentle way that made sense and kept the possibility open for the future. We even got a little follow up on it in the next chapter; I'd have preferred more instead of setting up the love triangle with Jaye, but at least the game acknowledged the choice. Great stuff, even if you didn't like the sex.

Chapter 5 didn't do much of that. How much time would it have taken to write some alternative lines after the MC accepts Mallory's heritage that don't reference the optional lessons from Chapter 3? How hard would it be to let the MC ask why Mal is sneaking into his bed at night again after he declined the first time, rather than just tease her about it as she leaves and acting like there's nothing odd in this turn of events? I'm not saying it would be zero cost to explore the paths less chosen, but I think it would have been quite affordable. And again, I'm not expecting a special Ename144 Edition of Chapter 5, but I am hoping they will spend a little more time thinking about the offramps from the inevitable Mallory-Amanda threesome when the time comes.

As for making my own game, I don't really have the programming skills and I certainly have no artistic skills. More importantly, I don't have any story ideas I consider worthwhile (at least not ones that are remotely practical for this sort of game).

 

[EndlessNights]

I want the main character to have the option to tell Jaye to grow up and back off. Have you ever tried to do a run through this game where the main character has a healthy normal relationship with Jaye? One where they learn to work together in a professional manner? It's pretty much impossible. She's stealing his journals, masturbating on his pillow, spying on him in the shower, and rubbing her ass against his crotch like a cat in heat.

More importantly, I want the main character to be able to have a serious conversation with her where he doesn't automatically start taking the blame for everything and saying that everything he did was because he loved her too much. Jaye is pushed way too hard by the writers here. George wants them together, Tara wants them together, even Mallory seems to want them to hook up or something. She just had that weird scene where she tries to get Jaye to do body shots with him to "break down a wall" with Jaye. I don't want that wall broken down. I want it built up and reinforced. Put some sentries on top.

Good points. I think the biggest reason I decided not to pursue Jaye on my first playthrough is that their relationship seemed obsessive in an unhealthy way. I tried instead to try to build a more normal sibling relationship with Jaye instead like you described and it was indeed rough going for a while. The thing is it's very much a shared, mutual obsession going on between Jaye and Alex. Just because our version of Alex might recognize it early on as something toxic doesn't mean Jaye has. To the contrary, she may still view their relationship as healthy, natural, and meant to be. She's still obsessed when she keeps throwing herself at the MC. The most bizarre aspect of their obsession is the way it seems to spread to other people like Tara and Mallory who also start to want Alex and Jaye to be together. I totally agree that it makes no sense for Mallory to want them to be together if she has any feelings for the MC herself.

In fact, the way Mallory acted earlier on in the game convinced me I'd done something wrong in my Mallory playthrough so I ended up giving up on her and making it into a neither Mallory nor Jaye playthrough instead. That route strangely makes a lot of sense to me and is a lot of fun. I can totally understand why Alex who has been through so much angst and trauma (including some very recent trauma) in his life to not want to commit to a serious relationship at the present time. He can spend his time with a bunch of great girls who aren't necessarily looking for anything serious at the moment either while still being there platonically for Jaye and Mallory when they need him. This kind of lifestyle might start to feel empty after a while, but I think it can be part of Alex's healing process. Plus, it's not like the "side girls" are necessarily one night stands...they may not have routes of their own or make contact all the time, but they do have ongoing relationships with Alex. Fiona became my favorite LI over texts. Incidentally, I didn't run into that body shot dialogue because my Alex was too busy pursuing the bartender.

Incidentally, I think it's possible you might end up having to not pursue either Jaye or Mallory in order to run the company with them. Otherwise, there'll inevitably be a huge scandal surrounding your relationship that would probably make living in the public eye unfeasible. I feel like your competitors would never let that story die. I can't imagine Mallory handling "Mommie Dearest" headlines in the tabloids very well. Jaye could possibly hold up against the scrutiny better, but I still think it would be very, very difficult. Granted, the game could go the pure fantasy route and have no one make a big deal out of it or have the characters keep their relationship secret which doesn't seem ideal, but I suspect part of romancing Mallory or Jaye in the end will involve walking away from the company and abandoning your parents' dream. (You'll no doubt leave the company in good hands.)

 

[Walter Victor]

It depends on the game, but in this case I'm hoping the devs will knock it off with shoving women at us then acting confused if we click the "No thank you" option. They put the button there, so I think it's reasonable to expect it to affect the way the characters act (not just skip past a current lewd scene). It sometimes feels like they consider the button to be an unfortunate genre obligation, but IMHO it's one of the strengths of VNs as a storytelling medium. We get to see how are choices affect the world!

This doesn't need to be about retrospect, either. There's every indication some my concerns will persist in Chapter 6; Amanda certainly will if they don't give us some way to express our displeasure (for people who dislike her, obviously). I normally talk about the past because it's hard to make examples out of content we haven't seen yet, but it's the future I'm worried about. Will anything change? Who knows. I'd like to think I improve the odds if I state my concerns politely, though.

I do mean it when I say I want to love this game. It has enormous potential, but it's only realizing about half of it and it's frustrating to see the rest languish on the vine. Especially because I think they could salvage some of it without inordinate effort. Look at Mallory's big lewd scene in Chapter 3. I thought that was a really well done and quite novel scene, but it was a little too fast for the way I was playing the MC (Mal had just lied to us, after all). Happily in that case we had the option to turn her down in a gentle way that made sense and kept the possibility open for the future. We even got a little follow up on it in the next chapter; I'd have preferred more instead of setting up the love triangle with Jaye, but at least the game acknowledged the choice. Great stuff, even if you didn't like the sex.

Chapter 5 didn't do much of that. How much time would it have taken to write some alternative lines after the MC accepts Mallory's heritage that don't reference the optional lessons from Chapter 3? How hard would it be to let the MC ask why Mal is sneaking into his bed at night again after he declined the first time, rather than just tease her about it as she leaves and acting like there's nothing odd in this turn of events? I'm not saying it would be zero cost to explore the paths less chosen, but I think it would have been quite affordable. And again, I'm not expecting a special Ename144 Edition of Chapter 5, but I am hoping they will spend a little more time thinking about the offramps from the inevitable Mallory-Amanda threesome when the time comes.

As for making my own game, I don't really have the programming skills and I certainly have no artistic skills. More importantly, I don't have any story ideas I consider worthwhile (at least not ones that are remotely practical for this sort of game).

Great response. But I feel that you are missing a lot of enjoyment by trying to correct the developers' vision. Your fault-finding is preventing you from enjoying an excellent game, and I STILL don't think it will do you any good (in changing anything in the future) and will probably lead to frustration. That can happen even with me. If things go too far wrong I will give up an a game. But I don't look to find fault in every inconsistency. These developers are not professionals with gigantic editing staffs. And even those that have them make obvious logic and continuity errors all the time. Movies and TV series are chock full of them.

As Voltaire said: "The best is the enemy of the good!" He used it to illustrates how one mistake would devastate him, but he learned that he couldn't let the work he had done be overshadowed by a mistake. I think it applies here. We shouldn't let a few mistakes ruin an otherwise great game for us.

We have pretty damned good here. It's one of the best porn games out there. Could it be better? Of course. There isn't a single game on this site that couldn't be improved. So what? Don Quixote teaches us that we should challenge reality, but what good did that actually do him? His delusions kept him happy, but they were delusions... and then he died.

Ah shit! I don't know why I posted all this. I'm not going to be able to persuade you to change. Maybe I don't want too So, good luck with your endeavors. I may not agree with them, but I certainly respect them.

 

[ename144]

Great response. But I feel that you are missing a lot of enjoyment by trying to correct the developers' vision. Your fault-finding is preventing you from enjoying an excellent game, and I STILL don't think it will do you any good (in changing anything in the future) and will probably lead to frustration. That can happen even with me. If things go too far wrong I will give up an a game. But I don't look to find fault in every inconsistency. These developers are not professionals with gigantic editing staffs. And even those that have them make obvious logic and continuity errors all the time. Movies and TV series are chock full of them.

As Voltaire said: "The best is the enemy of the good!" He used it to illustrates how one mistake would devastate him, but he learned that he couldn't let the work he had done be overshadowed by a mistake. I think it applies here. We shouldn't let a few mistakes ruin an otherwise great game for us.

We have pretty damned good here. It's one of the best porn games out there. Could it be better? Of course. There isn't a single game on this site that couldn't be improved. So what? Don Quixote teaches us that we should challenge reality, but what good did that actually do him? His delusions kept him happy, but they were delusions... and then he died.

As you say, any game could be improved at least a little (for a given player), so I agree we shouldn't let a minor flaw stand in the way of an otherwise good experience. But I would debate how minor some of this game's flaws are.

I mean, I dislike Fiona, but she's not worth worrying about. She's a bit part who is easily ignored if you're not into her. I can definitely live with the time "wasted" on her. Jaye, however, is no trivial character and the interaction with her is very much at the core of the game. IMHO if you find Jaye sexually unattractive, the game really struggles in chapters 4 and 5. Similarly I like Mallory a lot, but as of Chapter 5 I can't spend time with her without absorbing lethal doses of Amanda. And those are the only LIs in the game. Having trouble connecting with 100% of the main LIs is not what I would call a minor problem. Indeed, for me it's enough to prevent this game from being "one of the best porn games out there," despite its kick-ass visuals, crackling dialog and theoretically compelling characters.

Lots of people clearly disagree, and I recognize why they'd be concerned that my proposed changes could undermine a game that *is* working for them; at a minimum, any time spent on a platonic Jaye makes them wait longer for Jaye's big sex scene, and at worst it might inadvertently ruin an otherwise good scene. A game that tries to please everyone is going to be a very bland product, so I'm not saying my complaints *have* to be addressed. In the end if this game isn't intended for people who don't like incest (or whatever we want to call Amanda's antics), that's fair enough.

But - while I may be biased - I get the impression the game is trying to meet people like me halfway. We're certainly given enough options not to fool around with Jaye that I assume the devs intend to have a viable platonic path with her. I think it's fair to hope the devs may not realize how some of their implementation comes across in certain cases; if so, they might be willing to make small efforts to shore up those areas in the future.

Don't just treat the platonic path as a placeholder to tide us over until the epilogue, add a little unique dialogue to explore that path in the moment; that's most of what I'm asking for. (I'd also love a genuinely solo-Mallory route, but it's unclear at the moment how much additional effort that would take to support. So I'd be willing to settle for a good platonic route with her, too.)

Ah shit! I don't know why I posted all this. I'm not going to be able to persuade you to change. Maybe I don't want too So, good luck with your endeavors. I may not agree with them, but I certainly respect them.

Appreciate it, right back at you.

 

[NebulousShooter]

With respect, you are mistaken. The premise of Chasing Sunsets is that that the MC and Jaye desired each other 5 years ago. Nothing we've seen *requires* that they still feel the same way now.

If you refer to the bar MC, its fair enough to expect him to be exactly how you have decided to play him, but the MC has the Fiona encounter literally days/weeks before the reunion, which while it might not be the technical start of the story, its for all intents and purposes the start of the game and at that point he is still very much in love/obsessed with Jaye. Thats what I was referencing.

Sorry, not have the time at the moment, but will revisit the thread later date when I can properly read it/replay. I, compared to others, do like reading your in-depth analysis especially on characters, even if I may disagree. Hell I even think I have a couple of posts from other games bookmarked on this account, because I enjoyed reading them.

Line better bait.

lol

 

[Darg]

After playing the game main girl Jaye fells more like a ex wife that trying to get you back or something. She behave like you did terrible things to her or betrayed her or something one instence, then all flirty. Hell after 5 year of absence and parrents death, brother and sister dont even hug and mention it first couple encounters (but she very angry on MC because she love him?).
Idk, Mallory in that sence better written in my opinion.