Is this patch universal or do we need to wait for an update?Unofficial Insect-Patch attached!
To add some bugs, ya know!
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I wouldn't say "shockingly"; especially after the dev shelved their last project - a smaller scope with a reasonable development goal seems entirely sensible to me in that context.
But yes, after playing this update I was musing about the scope of this too.
I think for me it's
1) the neutering of the minigame. I get why people wouldn't want to play time-pressure shop support, but if you remove the time pressure, it's really 100% whatever. It only checks your ability to ... read. Even porn game players should consistently manage that. ^^ So there's really no gameplay in that sense at all. And you easily make the money and it's not relevant for anything else.
And 2) you are entirely confined to actions within your home where you really only do Hangout for Affection or Handcuffs for Desire. And you do not make any choices again, either gameplay-wise or narratively. So once again it's super confined.
At this stage to me I'd probably prefer it as simply a visual novel. Gameplay implies to me that you actually get to do something mechanically and there's not enough of that to quite justify for me the whole earning-money-go-to-next-day loop.
... obviously with all the usual caveats of "it's just 0.3 who knows what's planned".
- Apr 2, 2019
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It is, yeah. Seeing how it's just setting
patch = True, it may even be more 'universal' than intended. 
Merlin-Magic
Member
- Jan 28, 2024
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As developers get more experience, they get better at making games. They also get better at making games simpler. This happens with most developers, because making a game is VERY difficult. It is hard to balance the quality, and the complexity.
They may even get burned out if the game is too hard to make and abandon the idea entirely.
Then there is always the looming time constraint as the players ask for the game or even loose interest if the game takes too long.
It is a difficult balance to maintain. I think 395 is just trying to balance all of these problems and not give up entirely.
Sir Weshmish
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- Mar 4, 2019
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I don't know. It's hard to support the dev with another game. As they abandoned the last one when times get rough.
The dude wrote MIST, one of the best games ever. As MIST ended, he seamlessly launched Morn, such that we would say goodbye to MIST and roll directly into Morn. That was a bold, player-focused move.
The easy thing would've been to write MIST II, but he clearly wants to be creative and tell unique stories. So he penned something entirely different from MIST--what a breath of fresh air in a world dominated by various re-tread stories packaged as "universes." Right?
Unfortunately, once Morn got off the runway and gained some altitude, he realized that he wasn't happy with Morn. Fortunately for us, he had the integrity to tear it up and start over. That really sucked. We, as the audience, and he, as the story teller, had a lot invested in Morn. It took a shit ton of integrity to write to us in many updates his growing lack of faith in Morn. Admitting failure is a hard thing to do, even harder when it's a creative thing that you've exposed to a wider audience.
Unless you're making art yourself, you likely have no idea how much backside effort goes into a work of creative art. As a consumer of art, it seems so very easy and effortless...and so easy to critique. Making that art? As someone that does art for a living, there's a reason why artists frequently burn out. You have no idea how much 24/7 grueling work goes into seeming to be nonchalantly brilliant. There's a reason why we have substance abuse problems. Product is easy. Actual art is really, really hard and it takes a toll.
And that leaves us with Handcuffs...
Having been a pretentious asshole that told you what you should think about MIST and Morn, I'm not going to tell you what to think about Handcuffs. Time will tell.
That said, I think it's fair to say that 395 deserves a bit more good will than you're willing to give. On the other hand, if Handcuffs implodes, like Morn... Yeah, you win.
