VN Ren'Py Completed Chasing Sunsets [v1.10a] [Stone Fox Studios]

[Nurikabe]

I've thought about this some more after remembering that Tanaka is perfectly nice to Mallory and Jaye during the breakfast scene. The most logical explanation I can come up with for her behavior towards the MC is that she's upset with him for having hurt Sarah by leaving.

Ofc it's immature or even cruel to punish someone who's still grieving the death of both his parents. And yet we get a game over if we avoid her (because I'd never make the other saving choice of asking my sister to physically attack a bigger man who's also proven to be violent and unstable and would be in self-defense).

That's a good point.

 

[felicemastronzo]

I've thought about this some more after remembering that Tanaka is perfectly nice to Mallory and Jaye during the breakfast scene. The most logical explanation I can come up with for her behavior towards the MC is that she's upset with him for having hurt Sarah by leaving.

Ofc it's immature or even cruel to punish someone who's still grieving the death of both his parents. And yet we get a game over if we avoid her (because I'd never make the other saving choice of asking my sister to physically attack a bigger man who's also proven to be violent and unstable and would be in self-defense).

which, as things turned out, would be yet another bad behaviour by his parents.

because we know very well that in fact Sara didn't suffer so much from MC's decision, and even externally encouraged it (as well as directly causing the rift between her children when they promised to explain to Jaye why Mc was avoiding her if he ever did) by accompanying him from afar on his pilgrimage in search of himself.

was an opportunity to humiliate MC and show Tanaka as a bad ass, the same was done later with Lisa.

 

[Cabin Fever]

source?

This is from the dev's since-deleted account here:

Last question for the day as my plane is landing: There is one linear central plot. There are multiple arcs within that plot, but the arc the player chooses will change how the central plot is resolved. The plan is to execute episodically. The paths open up after the next update.

As for the size and frequency of updates, the rule of thumb is you can have it fast, you can have it right, or you can have it cheap: Pick two.

Joking aside there is a sweet spot between long waits, big updates, and quality every developer ends up compromising on. In my perfect world, we’d release an entire episode every 90 days. The intro took us 120 days with no experience.

I’ll have a better feel for ambition vs reality after Ch1 drops.

90 days is the goal we set for ourselves, and we hit it with Chapter 2. Chapter 3 is a bit more ambitious in art and story, but we'll do our best to stay on target.

 

[Nurikabe]

Well, that was over two years ago.

 

[ename144]

This is from the dev's since-deleted account here:

As much as the devs may want 90 day development cycles, that isn't the reality. Based on digging through their Patreon release dates, they've only hit the 90 day mark once, and the last three updates have topped 150 days.

Spoiler: Chasing Sunsets Release Times

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I'd be very surprised if the next chapter came out before October.

Mind you, none of this should be taken as complaint. It takes time to make a high quality game, especially in the later chapters when there are a lot of variables to account for. Chasing Sunsets is a very high quality game (my personal nits notwithstanding) and the development time is justified. But there's no point in pretending the time is shorter than it is.

 

[Elduriel]

As much as the devs may want 90 day development cycles, that isn't the reality. Based on digging through their Patreon release dates, they've only hit the 90 day mark once, and the last three updates have topped 150 days.

Spoiler: Chasing Sunsets Release Times

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I'd be very surprised if the next chapter came out before October.

Mind you, none of this should be taken as complaint. It takes time to make a high quality game, especially in the later chapters when there are a lot of variables to account for. Chasing Sunsets is a very high quality game (my personal nits notwithstanding) and the development time is justified. But there's no point in pretending the time is shorter than it is.

6 months isn't even that long, there are other similar quality games with even longer dev cycles... it's out when it's out, it's gonna be good regardless

 

[Mike Hunt TG]

Does anyone know what VN do the brother/sister couple that Jaye and the MC come from? I love how there is so much cross referencing between devs and VNs. I also noticed Lexi in the shop at one point.

 

[Deleted member 6168082]

Does anyone know what VN do the brother/sister couple that Jaye and the MC come from?

Did you mean to ask, where do the brother/sister couple that Jaye and MC meet come from?

The only crossover names I could find with searching is, Summer Scent, Artemis and Leap of Faith

 

[PaxHadrian17]

I've thought about this some more after remembering that Tanaka is perfectly nice to Mallory and Jaye during the breakfast scene. The most logical explanation I can come up with for her behavior towards the MC is that she's upset with him for having hurt Sarah by leaving.

Ofc it's immature or even cruel to punish someone who's still grieving the death of both his parents. And yet we get a game over if we avoid her (because I'd never make the other saving choice of asking my sister to physically attack a bigger man who's also proven to be violent and unstable and would be in self-defense).

I took the Chef Tanaka intro scene a different way.

Jaye is always busting the MC's chops - his boy band looks etc. I figured that she, with Mallory playing along, told Chef Tanaka a bit about the MC and effectively set him up to be shut down by Chef Tanaka.

That's something my sisters would do to me to keep me humble, especially at that age.

It never crossed my mind that Chef Tanaka was intentionally being cruel to the MC - only that she was predisposed to see him as just another guy trying to score with the hot Asian on the fancy yacht - something I think she's seen before...

There are two paths to success versus the assassin - and training with Chef Tanaka in self-defense is one of the ways that helps you to survive.

I appreciate that the story included another path to survive.

If the MC chose to let Jaye handle Christian - then he knows that she is capable of defending herself against a normal opponent.

This assassin is someone who is Not a normal opponent, and the MC is smart enough to recognize that he might not be up to the task to defeat him solo.

From a pragmatic perspective (and that is how I view this choice), if the assassin wins - we all die (MC, Jaye and Mallory) - so the odds of survival increase if he has two opponents to worry about, especially if one is female - who he is likely to discount compared to the MC.

Would I Want to put Jaye in harms way - No - but if I thought it was the only way she might survive - then Yes - and the MC would be right there with her, taking that risk.

Cheers!

 

[alex13_zen]

6 months isn't even that long, there are other similar quality games with even longer dev cycles... it's out when it's out, it's gonna be good regardless

Thinking like this helps the devs push releases ever further apart which they definitely want: not only do they make more money with a longer dev time, but they also don't need to work as hard daily (or hire an extra person to help).

If other devs make the same mistake it doesn't mean we should encourage it, we should try to keep them honest.

Also, as players, we tend to lose touch with the characters and story after so much time. I definitely care less after 6 months compared to 3 and I doubt I'm alone.

 

[qvcatullus]

Does anyone know what VN do the brother/sister couple that Jaye and the MC come from? I love how there is so much cross referencing between devs and VNs. I also noticed Lexi in the shop at one point.

The couple that they meet (Jack and Eve) are from Summer Scent. Jaye has a pretty long cameo in that game as well, and there's other fun interplay, like CS's naughty French Captain as a reference to SS's dev, The Naughty Captain, who is French.

The signature style of that game is that it's quite drama heavy, and there are a LOT of branching routes that interplay for how the game can go (not just which girl do you romance, but is your character supportive, controlling, or batshit nuts, etc.). That makes the choices you make along the way extremely important for how things proceed, and sometimes this is a good thing, but sometimes (rarely, one big exception I allude to here) it means things like hanging out with the wrong person at the shopping mall can get you a bad ending later on in a certain route even though it wasn't very obvious at the time which choice would lead to a certain conversation. To mitigate that, the game has a built-in walkthrough (lighthouse mode) where you can set what route you want to follow and it will give you nudges if a choice can push away from that route.

If those don't sound like your kind of game, don't play, but if they do, it's quite solid. Play through the existing content once blind and see where you end up, then try playing with lighthouse on to pick your route if it went off the rails or you got a bad ending.

 

[Elduriel]

Thinking like this helps the devs push releases ever further apart which they definitely want: not only do they make more money with a longer dev time, but they also don't need to work as hard daily (or hire an extra person to help).

If other devs make the same mistake it doesn't mean we should encourage it, we should try to keep them honest.

Also, as players, we tend to lose touch with the characters and story after so much time. I definitely care less after 6 months compared to 3 and I doubt I'm alone.

well I'm not going to complain about that on a pirate forum, I'll take what I get... if you pay for it then you certainly can if you don't like something

 

[alex13_zen]

I know many devs gain a lot by having their game on this very popular forum: Steam buyers, Patreon supporters, constructive criticism, praise and appreciation which serve as motivation, etc.
It's not really immoral to complain here and thread activity in general can help to keep the interest alive.

 

[Tremonia]

Thinking like this helps the devs push releases ever further apart which they definitely want: not only do they make more money with a longer dev time, but they also don't need to work as hard daily (or hire an extra person to help).

It's a progress and it definitely don't help to squeeze out a dev like a lemon. I want devs who take care of themselves and have a solid work life balance. You don't get good results out of stressed and overworked people. Well, and money... just don't pledge more than it's worth to you. One can stop to pledge at Patreon at any time. It takes only a few clicks.

If other devs make the same mistake it doesn't mean we should encourage it, we should try to keep them honest.

It's not a mistake. Good things take a while. I don't want an (A)VN which is shitty and full of bugs, plot holes, and bad graphics because the dev worked fast and not accurate.

Also, as players, we tend to lose touch with the characters and story after so much time. I definitely care less after 6 months compared to 3 and I doubt I'm alone.

No, you're not alone but you're not part of the majority.

 

[alex13_zen]

It's a progress and it definitely don't help to squeeze out a dev like a lemon. I want devs who take care of themselves and have a solid work life balance. You don't get good results out of stressed and overworked people. Well, and money... just don't pledge more than it's worth to you. One can stop to pledge at Patreon at any time. It takes only a few clicks.
It's not a mistake. Good things take a while. I don't want an (A)VN which is shitty and full of bugs, plot holes, and bad graphics because the dev worked fast and not accurate.
No, you're not alone but you're not part of the majority.

Devs reading things like this will be rubbing their hands. No one said about over-working them, just holding them accountable because there is an observed trend of increasing time between releases, seen with many games.

Yes, one can stop a pledge on Pateron when one feels the devs are too slow. But we're encouraging them to be slow if our attitude is ' 6 months isn't even that long, there are other similar quality games with even longer dev cycles'. This just keeps moving the goalpost to our detriment.

 

[HornyyPussy]

I think you have a slightly mistaken point of view. Just because it takes longer doesn't mean that developers work less. It's normal that as the game progresses it needs more and more development time due to all the variables. When it takes 1000 images to make chapter 1, you will need 2000 or more in chapter 10 to make it look like they have the same content.
And what difference does it make if you get an update in 3 months with 1000 images, to one in 6 months with 2000 images? It's the same and the total development time will be the same in the end.

You really should avoid using logic around here, it offset some people........

 

[VaderExMachina]

Cameos in the Chasing Sunsets/ARTEMIS/Leap of Faith AVN shared universe timeline
(spoiler tags to make post smaller)

As of November 2023:


1- Jaye in Summer Scent since she mentions her parents as still being alive (although i consider this AVN as not being part of the shared universe, imma add it here for continuity)

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2- Jaye at the harbor in Leap of Faith where she talks to the LoF MC (James) and takes a selfie with Lexi.

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3- Jaye's selfie with Lexi is sent to Tara.

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4- DJ Kink (Kindra) appears in LoF and kisses the MC (James), mistaking him for the ARTEMIS MC (Aiden)

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5- Kindra calls Lexi to ask for a favor and shows her the ARTEMIS MC (Aiden), telling her she "also had one at home" and Lexi mistakes him for the LoF MC (James) (meaning this cameo is after a "Lexi Ending" in LoF, however that doesn't mean it's the canon ending)

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6- In Ch.7 of Chasing Sunsets, Artemis talks to Amanda in a group chat.

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7- Jaye calls the siblings from Summer Scent, they talk with Jaye and give advice on her "relationship" with Alex (again i personally don't consider this game as part of the shared universe)

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Unknown point- Christine AKA Sea, James's (LoF MC) half-sister appears in U4IA as a possible LI, still clumsy as ever (this is considered as part of the shared universe since U4IA is a sequel to LoF)

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Unknown point- Jaye and Mallory in Single Again

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Unknown point- Lexi and Cece in Fog of War

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Unknown point- Cece in Dreams of Reality.

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Unknown point- Cece in Beyond Tomorrow

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Special mention - Eternum cameo in Chasing Sunsets chapter 8

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follow-up post

 

[Tremonia]

1- Jaye in Summer Scent since she mentions her parents as still being alive (although i consider this AVN as not being part of the shared universe, imma add it here for continuity)

The story of Summer Scent takes place some years before Chasing Sunsets. Jaye mentioned it in Chapter 7 before calling them.

And for the cameos, there's one in One Day at a Time with Dreams of Reality. Lydia and MC are talking about the park bench and the memorial plate on it. Don't want to spoil more. Everyone who played Dreams of Reality knows which bench.

 

[troll822]

No. Dev has a publicly stated target of a release every 90 days. Not that they always make it, but that's what they aim for, and more often than not they are fairly close to that target.

I go by the number of updates so far. There have been 7 full updates (0.1~>0.8) From Sep 2020 to May 2023. So, 7 updates in 32 months. That is 1 update every 4 1/2 months. Now, take into account that newer chapters are bigger, the story needs to be revisited etc and it is reasonable to expect that later chapters will take more than that while previous chapters were indeed 3 months.

 

[_Sen _]

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“Should I hug her? Pet her head? Kick her? Why is she looking at me like how I look at shepherd's pie?”
― I.O. Scheffer