Others Flexible Survival [v2025-11-11] [Nuku Valentines]

[Infinatious]

I'm trying to get to the Zephyr Lobby, but putting in "nav zephyr lobby" just gets me a "That noun did not make sense in this context." Am I putting in the wrong phrase? Do I need to find the building first?

yes, you need to know where the building is before you can travel to it

 

[Cake3Purple6Cheese948]

More questions:

What command do I need to use so Doctor Medea will examine my PC for pregnancy?

How do I use the boombox? All I can do is Look at it.

Edit: Well, seems I need to find the supplies for Dr Medea first, despite what she says.
And I had to type just "play" to use the boombox.

 

[Cake3Purple6Cheese948]

Where the best place to go to report bugs?

 

[nackedsnake]

It's really sad to see a dev teams' degradation happening:
A changelog that's a text-wall, but really not much contents.
Are you trying to pull wool over our eyes?
If anyone is interested to check:

Spoiler: Textwall Without Substance

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-------------

Where the best place to go to report bugs?

Their Discord on front page

 

[Nabrik]

Lots of boobs and nothing gay, eh. IMHO.
I guess soon the game will have more scenes with ridiculously fat female with tits the size of howitzers, like in TITS, and dicks the size of lampposts. Also I can forget about revealing and fleshing out normal old characters.

 

[somebodyelseiguess]

It's really sad to see a dev teams' degradation happening:
A changelog that's a text-wall, but really not much contents.
Are you trying to pull wool over our eyes?

Man, seeing that the Galaxite script file has over 3000 lines now, lets me believe there is some shadowy futa cabal controling not only furry/herm fandom but some government as well.

 

[Raindancer]

Lots of boobs and nothing gay, eh. IMHO.
I guess soon the game will have more scenes with ridiculously fat female with tits the size of howitzers, like in TITS, and dicks the size of lampposts. Also I can forget about revealing and fleshing out normal old characters.

You just shouldn't have activate the images. They're terrible. Much better to use your imagination in games like this.

 

[Nabrik]

You just shouldn't have activate the images. They're terrible. Much better to use your imagination in games like this.

I never activate pictures. But text content won't change because of that.

 

[Darkairus]

Damn, what a SHITTY update, it's has been months the focus is towards this boring npc called Galaxite, if this continues then it will be a TiTs 2 / CoC 3 game next...

 

[nackedsnake]

Damn, what a SHITTY update, it's has been months the focus is towards this boring npc called Galaxite, if this continues then it will be a TiTs 2 / CoC 3 game next...

If you ignore all the bloat in the changelog, there's really only 1 writer that's adding contents.
Make sense if this writer is only interested in M/F or Futa, no idea the quality of writing since I'm not interested.
Don't think it'll be next TiTs or CoC consider the amount of work done

 

[Darkairus]

If you ignore all the bloat in the changelog, there's really only 1 writer that's adding contents.
Make sense if this writer is only interested in M/F or Futa, no idea the quality of writing since I'm not interested.
Don't think it'll be next TiTs or CoC consider the amount of work done

I know it won't be the next TiTs or CoC, it was just a rough comparison with how things are being done for months, also about the writer I didn't really saw that, before commenting earlier, either way I'm not interested with this content at all.

 

[Woozieydreamer]

Damn, what a SHITTY update, it's has been months the focus is towards this boring npc called Galaxite, if this continues then it will be a TiTs 2 / CoC 3 game next...

Probably won't fully be a second CoC 2/TiTS situation, but yeah. Absolutely don't give a shit about Galaxite or whatever. How they went from multiple writers adding stuff just last year to only one guy expanding his absurd personal wish-fulfillment futa questline is baffling to me.

 

[Lestev]

Probably won't fully be a second CoC 2/TiTS situation, but yeah. Absolutely don't give a shit about Galaxite or whatever. How they went from multiple writers adding stuff just last year to only one guy expanding his absurd personal wish-fulfillment futa questline is baffling to me.

I suppose they eventually grow bored and leave the project. A lot of different writers have come and gone, and it can be noticed by the amount of half finished characters and plotlines. Many of my favorite characters ended up being abandoned. Yeah, for now there seems to be just one active writer and they write about their main kinks, which is fine, even if I am too among the ones who are not particularly interested in this content. I think people are at their best when they write about their favorite stuff.

Anyway, I think it's the first time they hit such a content drought... which makes it even weirder that they choose to paywall updates right at this moment.

 

[Sarkath]

I suppose they eventually grow bored and leave the project. A lot of different writers have come and gone, and it can be noticed by the amount of half finished characters and plotlines.

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the build system being pretty cumbersome, coupled with the fact that FS has been pushing Inform to its very limits for a while now. I imagine a secondary cause would be the fact that a decent chunk of the writing seems to be commissioned, so if the person who commissioned the piece stops paying up, well…

Anyway, I think it's the first time they hit such a content drought... which makes it even weirder that they choose to paywall updates right at this moment.

Honestly, even if it stopped right now it's still had a really good run. Despite plenty of dangling threads, there's still a ton of content available due to its 14 (!) years of consistent development.

Personally, I think their best bet if they wanted to continue would be to take the lessons learned, finish up what they can, and start a new project with a stronger foundation. The Godot port was a nice thought, but trying to port and adapt that much content (not to mention filtering out the stuff that they don't have permission to carry forward) feels like a fool's errand.

 

[nackedsnake]

Honestly, even if it stopped right now it's still had a really good run. Despite plenty of dangling threads, there's still a ton of content available due to its 14 (!) years of consistent development.

Personally, I think their best bet if they wanted to continue would be to take the lessons learned, finish up what they can, and start a new project with a stronger foundation. The Godot port was a nice thought, but trying to port and adapt that much content (not to mention filtering out the stuff that they don't have permission to carry forward) feels like a fool's errand.

It's like almost everyone cares about this project thinks the same at this point.
And the devs are not stupid, I bet they know full well what's good for them, or for the project.
Tho Building new things is always more difficult than continuing on the current one, no matter how fucked up it is.

TBH, given how recent events unfold - Content drought, Doubling down Patreon, Profit chasing, Misleading changelog, etc, I don't think a new game from them is happening
It's clear they plan to ride on this asset for money till they can't, the goal is not making great games anymore.

That's why I said team degradation / corruption: This actually happens a lot in the industry

 

[Woozieydreamer]

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the build system being pretty cumbersome, coupled with the fact that FS has been pushing Inform to its very limits for a while now. I imagine a secondary cause would be the fact that a decent chunk of the writing seems to be commissioned, so if the person who commissioned the piece stops paying up, well…



Honestly, even if it stopped right now it's still had a really good run. Despite plenty of dangling threads, there's still a ton of content available due to its 14 (!) years of consistent development.

Personally, I think their best bet if they wanted to continue would be to take the lessons learned, finish up what they can, and start a new project with a stronger foundation. The Godot port was a nice thought, but trying to port and adapt that much content (not to mention filtering out the stuff that they don't have permission to carry forward) feels like a fool's errand.

Given the shift to doubling down on the Patreon to the point of content gating, the overall lack of content, focusing on personal fetishes and commissions instead of expansions to the characters they can develop and more, it's very unlikely they have any intentions of making a new game anytime soon. They're just going to go all in on milking the shit out of FS until they can't do so anymore, using people eager to commission them for content or still hoping to see their favorite characters expanded as borderline paypigs until that well is dried up. And when it does, theyll jump ship and scatter to the next big project to repeat the cycle.

Personally, I wouldn't even want a new game from them just judging on how much they've managed to bungle FS's development in such a relatively short timespan. The best bet is that when it's inevitably abandoned unceremoniously, you get people who actually care to pick it back up. But I'm not holding my breath.

 

[Sarkath]

Personally, I wouldn't even want a new game from them just judging on how much they've managed to bungle FS's development in such a relatively short timespan.

Like I said, the game itself is built on an increasingly shaky foundation (and, in fairness, they couldn't have known what a cluster it would become when they started the project 14 years ago—Inform is niche but it's still very well-established in the IF scene). Trying to get the game in its current state to even build sucks ass (last time I tried it, it took something like 12 minutes to build the game on a Ryzen 5900X—absolute madness), and that alone would dissuade anyone from contributing. It's completely understandable why the content well is drying up.

I can't really speak for their intentions on how they're handling their Patreon, of course. Looking at

You must be registered to see the links

it's pretty clear that their numbers have been on a steady decline (and even when their earnings were public they were only doing okay-ish—like under $20k/year), and that certainly helped pick them up a bit. It definitely doesn't help that their rewards weren't exactly compelling. I mean, $25/mo for a rotating cheat code is obscene.

As far as making a new game is concerned, it's worth noting that Flexible Survival isn't the only "Flexible" game—two of them came before this. It wouldn't be unprecedented to create a fourth game in the loosely-connected series, though I imagine nowadays the sunk cost fallacy would kick in pretty hard.

 

[Woozieydreamer]

Like I said, the game itself is built on an increasingly shaky foundation (and, in fairness, they couldn't have known what a cluster it would become when they started the project 14 years ago—Inform is niche but it's still very well-established in the IF scene). Trying to get the game in its current state to even build sucks ass (last time I tried it, it took something like 12 minutes to build the game on a Ryzen 5900X—absolute madness), and that alone would dissuade anyone from contributing. It's completely understandable why the content well is drying up.

I can't really speak for their intentions on how they're handling their Patreon, of course. Looking at

You must be registered to see the links

it's pretty clear that their numbers have been on a steady decline (and even when their earnings were public they were only doing okay-ish—like under $20k/year), and that certainly helped pick them up a bit. It definitely doesn't help that their rewards weren't exactly compelling. I mean, $25/mo for a rotating cheat code is obscene.

As far as making a new game is concerned, it's worth noting that Flexible Survival isn't the only "Flexible" game—two of them came before this. It wouldn't be unprecedented to create a fourth game in the loosely-connected series, though I imagine nowadays the sunk cost fallacy would kick in pretty hard.

I think my big problem with the claims that it's down to Inform being strained (which I was understanding of when I still believed they were doing a Godot port) and them losing interest is that they claimed around an update or two ago that they've gotten a lot of new contributors and yet...there's no evidence of that. They wouldn't need to Patreon-gate stuff if that were true and we wouldn't be getting one guy flooding the update log with his futa dom-exclusive questline and nothing else.

I can fully understand how the game being too big for Inform now and them not being willing to tiptoe around all the characters they can no longer write for would cripple development, but there's an immense lack of transparency when it comes to what work - if any - they're doing on the game. From being unwilling to be open as to how many still-active contributors there are, to them doubling down on locking off content unless you're a patron, to solely focusing on commissions/personal fetish pieces. It paints a pretty grim picture of where the game is going and even if they choose to make a new Flexible X type game, the likelihood of it even being half as fun (not even saying expansive, because there's no chance of them ever rivaling over 14 years worth of content) is nil.

 

[Sarkath]

I think my big problem with the claims that it's down to Inform being strained (which I was understanding of when I still believed they were doing a Godot port) and them losing interest is that they claimed around an update or two ago that they've gotten a lot of new contributors and yet...there's no evidence of that.

Like I said, in addition to Inform being strained (there's plenty of evidence of that from a former FS dev in this very thread, as well as tickets opened on Inform's bug tracker) the build system is a sluggish pain in the ass. I generally feel like I have a lot of patience, but I was turned away very quickly by the build times. I can't even imagine what the experience would be like to someone who doesn't have development knowledge.

I can fully understand how the game being too big for Inform now and them not being willing to tiptoe around all the characters they can no longer write for would cripple development, but there's an immense lack of transparency when it comes to what work - if any - they're doing on the game.

Yep, no arguments here. When you start accepting money for a product you absolutely need to keep people in the loop.

It paints a pretty grim picture of where the game is going and even if they choose to make a new Flexible X type game, the likelihood of it even being half as fun (not even saying expansive, because there's no chance of them ever rivaling over 14 years worth of content) is nil.

It's hard to say, really. I think a lot of gooners would argue that FS already is a pretty big slog simply due to its IF roots, coupled with the fact that its built-in map system (ZPS) being introduced way too late and still featuring a ton of jank. I don't remember when CoC came out, but I'm fairly certain the two games came out at a similar time, and CoC absolutely trounces FS in terms of approachability. I'm not sure what the writer's experience is like with CoC (or CoC2/TiTS), but I can't imagine it being worse. I mean, the FS writers have to reuse character stats like strength and intellect to track story variables. :|

Considering how much clout FS still has, if they created a sequel that had a better user experience and featured less friction for the writers I think it would have a much greater opportunity for growth than continuing the stumble down their current path. That said, I'm not sure how many experienced programmers they have on their team. The Godot port didn't exactly look stellar last time I looked into it, and I'm not sure how much progress has actually been made on it.

 

[nackedsnake]

It's hard to say, really. I think a lot of gooners would argue that FS already is a pretty big slog simply due to its IF roots, coupled with the fact that its built-in map system (ZPS) being introduced way too late and still featuring a ton of jank. I don't remember when CoC came out, but I'm fairly certain the two games came out at a similar time, and CoC absolutely trounces FS in terms of approachability. I'm not sure what the writer's experience is like with CoC (or CoC2/TiTS), but I can't imagine it being worse. I mean, the FS writers have to reuse character stats like strength and intellect to track story variables. :|

Considering how much clout FS still has, if they created a sequel that had a better user experience and featured less friction for the writers I think it would have a much greater opportunity for growth than continuing the stumble down their current path. That said, I'm not sure how many experienced programmers they have on their team. The Godot port didn't exactly look stellar last time I looked into it, and I'm not sure how much progress has actually been made on it.

That's the problem here. For indie game devs, Purpose and Focus is the core.

Technical Difficulty always happens. But it's devs job to solve them.
The iterations came before FS, is like experiments created for FS, which were moved on pretty quick.
But that's not what's happening to current FS.

We don't know what happens behind doors, Tho the shift to milk money is very apparent,
It's no longer in the dev's best interest, to Improve FS, or to Develop a new one.
That's why neither is happening, when current FS is struggling for years now.

From all games I saw in my years, Once the dev treat money as the End, rather than a Mean, the quality will tank tremendously, if not dead very soon.

Funny enough, Both TiTs and CoC2 are in the very similar state. I guess all these games hv overstayed their welcome.
An Forever money making machine doesn't really exist.