Where i question the MC is, why didn't he tried to call Tara after he couldn't reach Jaye 20 times, i mean that would have made sense and from Taras reaction i'm pretty sure she and MC stayed in contact at least from time to time.
While the dev themselves have confirmed that they'd add an explanation to answer this question, I personally think it's just one of those things that simply didn't really matter. As a player, often times we over-analyze things and start questioning "why not this and that" and the reason is simply that the characters in the game think/behave differently than us, and there's limited scope of what can be done when telling a story. You cannot and should not have to explain everything.
A simple example is about this phone call, the dev could explain why MC didn't call Tara, but we can easily push further and go with "Why not call George? He'd definitely know what's up and in touch with Jaye" or maybe "Considering there's ample time gap between hearing the news of parents' death and the funeral service, can't MC just use email? Or social media messaging system? Or social media video call? Surely MC isn't blocked on all of those, right?" and so on. Ultimately, what matters for the story-telling purpose is simply that MC did try to call Jaye, and Jaye didn't realize she had MC's number blocked.
Oh then I missed that implication its pretty common for someone to forget they have a number if they dont actually use it so I wasnt even questioning that part. At least for me if I go through my contacts right now Ill probably find at least 3 or 4 people I either dont remember or dont remember getting their number.
I might be misremembering, but I think Tara was the one who drove MC to the airport when he ran away after graduation party. My understanding is that he had her phone number at least since then, so that he wouldn't have actually forgotten about it.
Unlocked
Dev Update: Patrons, Livestreams, Patches, Features, Oh My!
Predictably, Kent and I did a pretty piss-poor job taking a week off after launching our first chapter. I immediately got to work writing Chapter 2, and Kent began pulling together the asset inventory to build our scenes right away.
While this was happening, we broke a threshold we never thought possible. Between Patreon and SubscribeStar, our little game has over 300 patrons now, and we are still in a state of shock. We are consistently blown away by the support we get from each of you and from our friends in the development community.
With that said, and because (as is our habit) we ended on another cliffhanger of sorts, lots of questions have flooded in about when we will release the next installment and if we'll support other platforms.
I'll address the second question first: We released the PC version without a Linux distro by mistake. Here is how we will correct that:
In the next few days, I will release Chapter 1 v0.2a. Here are the release notes:
Correct all identified spelling and grammar issues present in 0.2
Restore the "S" key to the Ren'Py default Screenshot function
Restore the "About" page to the main menu with keybinds clearly identified
Restore the autosave to the end of Chapter 1 (Page 9, Slot 2)
Linux distribution included
We have been asked if we will begin to natively provide an Android version, and my answer right now is an unequivocal "maybe." I'm looking into what it will take to do so and what (if any) UI elements would have to be re-engineered to do so. So, in short...We'll see if the juice is worth the squeeze and update you in the next post on our decision.
Our third Stone Fox Developer Livestream will be held on February 20th at 16:00 UTC on our Discord server in the #dev-livestream channel. As usual we will not spoil story beats, but we will answer questions about our development process, philosophy, design choices, and future plans, as well as share insider details on challenges and successes we had while developing Chapter 1! While the voice channel allows only developers and moderators to speak, drop your questions into the #questions-for-dev-streams or #voice-chat channels in Discord. We will do our best to answer questions posed in advance during the Livestream and post the recording later, so if you can't attend, you can hopefully still have your question answered.
Right now, we are working to add a few new major features into Chapter 2:
Achievement System
End of Chapter Summary
Scene UI Enhancement
The Achievement System is envisioned to be exactly what it sounds like if you've ever played a Steam game. We expect to unlock achievements both through completing the game on a certain path or by unlocking images or scenes that showcase a specific kink.
The End of Chapter Summary is still going through an iterative process to determine what adds value and what does not. Right now, at a minimum we would like to show your current points (out of a maximum) and make a note of any major decisions you've made during the chapter which can influence either the ending, or the relationships you cultivate along the way. More to come on this.
The Scene UI Enhancement is something I'm not going to go into detail with here, however there is a scene planned for Chapter 2 that will allow for a somewhat different means of interactivity. This will be our effort to skin that particular cat, and will likely be necessary for some future scenes as well.
As to when we plan to release Chapter 2, once again we are not sure. We are definitely a lot further along with it than we were with Chapter 1 a week after the Prologue released, so if we keep the momentum without PC failures, illness, or family interventions, it seems highly likely to me that the wait for Chapter 2 will be somewhat shorter than the wait for Chapter 1. We will do our best to set expectations as early as possible and be transparent about anything that sets us back.
In celebration of 300 Patrons, Kent has made a special commemorative render, which you will find at the top of this post. Another version without Chasing Sunsets badging is attached to the bottom of the post in case you want to use it as a wallpaper.
We are reviewing ways we can reward our most loyal patrons with benefits that recognize their contribution to the game. We'll put some thought into how we can say thank you appropriately to our fans. We know that not everyone has a lot of spare income, and we want to make sure we recognize our most loyal supporters, not just the ones with the most spare change.
For those of you who have little to spare, but really enjoy our game, there are countless other ways you can help us out. Whether it's boosting the Discord server, using your world-of-mouth to share us with others, giving us constructive feedback, or reviewing us on sites that carry our game, being part of the team doesn't necessarily mean opening your wallet!
We are also considering a staggered release schedule to provide patrons a bit more exclusivity after content releases before it leaks to other sites. We'll obviously listen to our patrons, and evaluate any changes for effectiveness before adopting any permanent policy.
Yeah, the dev's have said there will be a long over due conversation in the next chapter, so it should be good. I assume we'll have the choice on how to respond to some of the conversation and go down (and this is totally my guess pulled out of thin air) one of 3 ways, forgiving, neutral or unforgiving.
While the dev themselves have confirmed that they'd add an explanation to answer this question, I personally think it's just one of those things that simply didn't really matter. As a player, often times we over-analyze things and start questioning "why not this and that" and the reason is simply that the characters in the game think/behave differently than us, and there's limited scope of what can be done when telling a story. You cannot and should not have to explain everything.
Indeed, there are so many things we can thing of and lose threads we could pull at to destroy the story, but it's just that a story, sometimes there has to be a little suspension of belief to advance the plot.
Yeah, of course it's probably going to start a whole bunch of theories now trying to confirm it's Tara on the yacht. Naxos you idiot, it's Rikki not Tara. Maybe for 400 or 500 they'll do a similar one but include Tara and Linda.
Yeah, of course it's probably going to start a whole bunch of theories now trying to confirm it's Tara on the yacht. Maybe for 400 or 500 they'll do a similar one but include Rikki and Linda.
I've been pondering Mallory a lot. I just have no clue how she fits in yet. So I went back and reread all her scenes, and jotted down the things that seemed important and tried to slap together a theory for fun.
At first I thought Mall would turn out to be the MC's lost sister and I've posted as much, but the more I've thought about it, the less sense it makes, for many of the reasons you mentioned. Not least of all the complete lack of Sarah giving any indication of another child. Only logical sense to me if she's somehow related is she and the MC have the same father (I can't remember what was said if anything of his biological father) but different mothers.
I doubt it has anything to do with Amanda's condition as that would make no sense again in Mal needing to be at the will reading.
Oh then I missed that implication its pretty common for someone to forget they have a number if they dont actually use it so I wasnt even questioning that part. At least for me if I go through my contacts right now Ill probably find at least 3 or 4 people I either dont remember or dont remember getting their number.
Likewise, I couldn't tell you 90% of my contacts and many that are there I'd have to think about for a while to remember who they are, but a close family friend like rather is not likely to be forgotten. For me it was pretty obvious the MC was trying to hide that he had Tara's number from Jaye. Especially with Tara saying "Cut the shit", if there really was uncertaintity, I'm sure Tara would have said something more like "Are you sure you don't have it? Check."
Just like the prologue this update was very high quality as well. Great models, great characters some nice dialogues.
I have some issues but that mostly personal preference.
I don't like Mallory. I sympathize with her because of her past but I don't like how she manipulates MC.
I also have a problem with MC-s personality. He seem to run away from any complications. He ran away after the graduation. After the funeral he promised to speak with Faye before the meeting about the inheritance but walked away instead without talking to her. After the meeting he walked away again just when the misunderstanding was cleared. When he saw Mallory coming out from the lawyer he simply let it go and didn't try to find out about it until they are on the boat. You would think this is quite an important detail.
Finally, after the intro I thought it was a mistake to include the sex scene with the parents as they die soon after that and therefore they don't matter for the rest of the game. This time I thought not including the sex scene with MC and Linda in the past was a great missed opportunity. The current Linda is still hot, but I would have liked to see a scene with Linda in the past.
I try not to get too caught up in the debate here, but credit where it's due: I sometimes have to be reminded that the reader only has certain information in front of them, and this question is one I had not answered in the Chapter 2 script. I've done so now. Good eye.
There will be a few extra lines to explain this in the next release that would not have been there if not for you.
While the dev themselves have confirmed that they'd add an explanation to answer this question, I personally think it's just one of those things that simply didn't really matter. As a player, often times we over-analyze things and start questioning "why not this and that" and the reason is simply that the characters in the game think/behave differently than us, and there's limited scope of what can be done when telling a story. You cannot and should not have to explain everything.
A simple example is about this phone call, the dev could explain why MC didn't call Tara, but we can easily push further and go with "Why not call George? He'd definitely know what's up and in touch with Jaye" or maybe "Considering there's ample time gap between hearing the news of parents' death and the funeral service, can't MC just use email? Or social media messaging system? Or social media video call? Surely MC isn't blocked on all of those, right?" and so on. Ultimately, what matters for the story-telling purpose is simply that MC did try to call Jaye, and Jaye didn't realize she had MC's number blocked.
U are certainly right with that and as Naxos has said a little bit suspension of disbelief is most of the times needed and nothing bad.
I don't think i would have tought about or even noticed something like that normaly.
The only reason why it kinda catched my eye is:
Tara and her being sure i mc has her number, just after he said that he tried to call Jaye 20+ times.
I mean why not calling her bff if u tried so hard to reach ur sis, she sure would know what is the situation with her.
Having now played Intertwined, I wonder how much of this passive aggressive response is due to their MC model pretty much being the same used for Christian.
Having now played Intertwined, I wonder how much of this passive aggressive response is due to their MC model pretty much being the same used for Christian.
I hadn't heard that, and it certainly wasn't intentional. I will say that the pool of male models in the DAZ store is significantly more limited than female models, and I find most artists have an understandable bias toward spending their customization time on the female models in their inventory: So seeing similar male models is fairly common, in my experience. Asset limitations have led the community to assume crossover or collaboration between different studios because of similar badging on say...Cheerleader outfits available on the DAZ Store and popular games that use them, when no such connection exists.
If we had a nickel for every time we played a new game and saw something we would have done differently if we knew they'd used a specific asset or morph, we wouldn't need patrons! By the same token, I think most devs are aware of this truth, and tend to not take such similarities personally.
Asset limitations have led to a number of meme-worthy inside jokes within the AVN community around environments as well, such as "That Clothing Store," or "That Park with the Tunnel" that so many games have used.
That aside, Kent and I would be upset if something said in the confidence of the patron channels on our Discord server were circulated publicly, and we wish Nyx and her game the very best! We've heard great things.
Edit: Love alone is not enough to want to be with someone even if you may know she loves you, when it is only pain and drama that you get back from that person. There is a reason why the saying is do not stick your dick in crazy and by now MC has no reasons anymore to think she has changed or that she is even willing to patch things up after all hose years, whether he has been wrong as well in past and present and made bad decisions. MC has every reason though to think that when it comes to him she is crazy material.
Just going by how Jaye acts Im doubtful she actually loves the MC. She says she loves him but high school sweet hearts say they love each other too in the end its just them having fucked up hormones. The way she acts makes me think she has an unhealthy obsession with MC that she confuses with love.
Forgot to say it before but I do hope George isn't behind some shady shit, it'd be almost refreshing if he's just a good guy lawyer looking out for everyone's best interest.
I hadn't heard that, and it certainly wasn't intentional. I will say that the pool of male models in the DAZ store is significantly more limited than female models, and I find most artists have an understandable bias toward spending their customization time on the female models in their inventory: So seeing similar male models is fairly common, in my experience. Asset limitations have led the community to assume crossover or collaboration between different studios because of similar badging on say...Cheerleader outfits available on the DAZ Store and popular games that use them, when no such connection exists.
If we had a nickel for every time we played a new game and saw something we would have done differently if we knew they'd used a specific asset or morph, we wouldn't need patrons! By the same token, I think most devs are aware of this truth, and tend to not take such similarities personally.
Asset limitations have led to a number of meme-worthy inside jokes within the AVN community around environments as well, such as "That Clothing Store," or "That Park with the Tunnel" that so many games have used.
That aside, Kent and I would be upset if something said in the confidence of the patron channels on our Discord server were circulated publicly, and we wish Nyx and her game the very best! We've heard great things.
Yeah, I understand and I doubt that really has anything to do with it and I might be misremembering but it's kind of a funny coincidence.
Also there's like a minor similarity between your story and Intertwined's, so minor I'd consider it superficial with the MC in both leaving after an incident between them and the LI they grew up before returning years later, completely different in where they go and what happens in the intermittent years and the ages of the characters when they left. Characters don't even really share and personality traits or anything, surely nothing that would require someone having to had played it for inspiration.
As for the limited environments and models are a main reason why I pretend these games taking place on a studio back lot and sets and the models being actors, also probably why I don't project myself on the MC and don't get about out of shape of female characters not in a relationship with the MC having... let's say a life outside the MC.
The only environment that bugs is the convenience store when it's treated like an actual grocery store/supermarket since there apparently isn't a proper one available, I'm surprised that no one has seemingly made a one even something small that could better pass for it. On the other end a large semi-customizable set would be a nice and allow for different story opportunities, I'm thinking something like the TV series Superstore. I imagine no one has done that because the amount of work required for it could be significant compared to how much it may get fully utilized and expensive.
The only environment that bugs is the convenience store when it's treated like an actual grocery store/supermarket since there apparently isn't a proper one available, I'm surprised that no one has seemingly made a one even something small that could better pass for it. On the other end a large semi-customizable set would be a nice and allow for different story opportunities, I'm thinking something like the TV series Superstore. I imagine no one has done that because the amount of work required for it could be significant compared to how much it may get fully utilized and expensive.
It's an unfortunate truth that even the simplest plot or scene prop can cause enormous headache, and Kent and I have really had to learn how to meet in the middle on art and story. In an early draft of Chasing Sunsets, more misunderstandings between the siblings (and more things that brought them closer together) were storyboarded, but would have resulted in an exceedingly long prologue with a lot more "Goblin-Headed DAZ children" in them. One of those stories involved the accidental loss of Jaye's pet hamster due to MC's well-intentioned (but poorly-executed) attempt to allow it some "fresh air." While there are hamster assets on the DAZ store, there are certainly no hamster habitats, so it was scrapped.
It ended up being for the best, as we decided to periodically explore these moments at the story progresses rather than cram them all into the prologue.
Another case in point was the snowball fight. Predictably, as soon as we released 0.2, the DAZ store launched all kinds of snowball fight assets, but they sure weren't there when we needed them.
When all else fails, we commission a custom model. This was the case for the mountain cabin, the two-seat snowmobile, James and Sarah's burial site, and "HeirWolf." While the model was available to purchase, our 3D modeler had to create a working door.
It's an unfortunate truth that even the simplest plot or scene prop can cause enormous headache, and Kent and I have really had to learn how to meet in the middle on art and story. In an early draft of Chasing Sunsets, more misunderstandings between the siblings (and more things that brought them closer together) were storyboarded, but would have resulted in an exceedingly long prologue with a lot more "Goblin-Headed DAZ children" in them. One of those stories involved the accidental loss of Jaye's pet hamster due to MC's well-intentioned (but poorly-executed) attempt to allow it some "fresh air." While there are hamster assets on the DAZ store, there are certainly no hamster habitats, so it was scrapped.
It ended up being for the best, as we decided to periodically explore these moments at the story progresses rather than cram them all into the prologue.
Another case in point was the snowball fight. Predictably, as soon as we released 0.2, the DAZ store launched all kinds of snowball fight assets, but they sure weren't there when we needed them.
When all else fails, we commission a custom model. This was the case for the mountain cabin, the two-seat snowmobile, James and Sarah's burial site, and "HeirWolf." While the model was available to purchase, our 3D modeler had to create a working door.
This game is great so far, and I'm not usually a fan of "This is how my life unfolded" and the decisions you make affect the ending games. Guess every rule has an exception.
