Quick FYI to touch on some comments I saw.
Not Enough Sex: No, there's not a ton of sex content in this one. Nicki has two alignment-dependent scenes, Ashe has a short one, Brittani has some teasing, and Pepper has some webcam content. I said this a few times over the last month, and over on my pages, but the original plan was for this to be part of a larger chapter, which would have included three more sex scenes at various points on the light/dark axis, and some big story developments for Gabby. But, I got in the weeds with the update, and would have needed to push the release date back by at least a month, and likely more. Which leads me to my next point..
Too Short: See my comment about getting in the weeds. Basically, my decision to end the last chapter with the player in several very different circumstances (Sleeping alone, sleeping with Nicki, sleeping with Ashe, sleeping with Risa..) along with several other modifiers (Did you know Pepper is a camgirl? Did you know Nicki left? Was Ashe happy with you when she slept over? Is Carolina and Maya happy with you?) just wound up being more work than anticipated. So, an update with almost 900 renders can be played through one time, and you may only see 450 of those.
Do I Need to Wait for the Next Two Official Releases? Not really. The new stuff will come after the events of 0.55, and it's just my attempt to put a nicer bow on the end of the chapter. I'll release that stuff as a patch for people who don't want to re-download the whole update.
Dubya-tee-eff, No More Dark Content? Not really.. Again, this has been a converstion before. I was warning of this even before the last update, and everyone was saying it'd be the death of the game and blah blah blah.. Then the Ashe chapter came out, and I think people realized the truth was more nuanced. My goal has never been to force people into the box of being a good guy. Just that there be realistic consequences for being a bad guy. Consequences =/= punishment, by the way. Learning that Brittani's mom is basically willing to sell her to you is a consequence of being a bad guy, feeding into the dark path. But, so is driving off Nicki, and dealing with the repercussions that come with that. I just want to explore what happens to a Guy who's basically constantly lashing out at the people around him. While he may drive a lot of people away, that doesn't mean everyone will be in a position to leave immediately, and it doesn't mean he might not attract other like-minded people.
Also, to be perfectly blunt, it's never been my intention to write pure misery porn. I've played games that went that route, and I don't think there's any real meat on that bone. I'm trying to make like.. Breaking Bad, not A Serbian Film.
Also, also? Even the vanilla paths for characters will get trimmed a bit, just based on what the story needs. Like, Nicki's around all the time because she's your assistant. How much do we really need to see a Carolina who's been relegated to a friend path? Not much, I'd reckon.
Now, I also think it's worth noting that Not Enough Sex/Too Short are the direct results of me trying to address other critiques I'd previously gotten. People complained that the story wasn't moving fast enough. Okay, now we have scenes advancing the story of Pepper's bruises, your relationship with Nicki, your relationship with Ashe, Brittani's relationship with her mom, the future of your collaboration with Brittani, another glimpse at a place MC's invested in, a look at the downside of fame with being stalked by internet oddballs, a look at Alex's past, the idea that MC's going to learn some self-defense, Maya and Carolina's relationship with MC being dependent on how MC's treated Nicki, the photo mystery having another clue put into place, and more stuff besides. Story movement tends to come at the expense of long sex scenes.
People also dinged me for only presenting the 'illusion of choice.' Well, now the game radically diverges based on what you chose last chapter. But again, that does come at the expense of having one long, mostly linear update.
I'm not putting the blame on people who commented asking for more story/more choices, by the way. Ultimately, I'm the one who made the thing, for good or ill. But, sometimes I like to take these things as a challenge, and use them as inspiration to try new things. It's not always successful!
If I had put this update out as I envisioned it, with sex content for Risa and Mason, and double the renders/story stuff, I feel a lot of these complaints would be moot. But, I've only got so many hours in a day, which I can only devote a few of to game development. So, I made the best thing I could with the time alloted to me, and got it into my paying supporters' hands, because I feel like I owe it to them. I've always said I don't want to be a dev who dithers around for a year or more and then puts out a single update.
It's because it's a breath of fresh air that follows the logic of its own world and characters within it that it's taken the time to setup.
