itch.io

Hey!

Let me begin by saying that I do not feel entitled to your thoughts in any way, and you should never feel bad for not sharing them. Truly, the fact that you take time out of your day and make the effort to write to me is already something I deeply appreciate. So sincerely, thank you!

I also hope that whatever has led to your exhausted state is resolved soon, and that you feel better again as quickly as possible.

I wish I could say this update will fill you completely with happiness and joy, but knowing certain events... well... maybe not...

And please, dodge this as much as you like! You should never feel pressured or cornered into responding to anything posted here. 

If engaging with it is enjoyable for you and helps ease some of the stress of daily life, then I am glad for it to serve that purpose. And if you do not feel like responding, that is completely fine as well. You can always just think, “Eh, Maybe sometime later.”

I am not familiar with RenJS, but a long time ago I used a similar program called TyranoBuilder. It didn't require coding experience either. You would mostly arrange elements like components, then add your images and dialogue. 

Fortunately, Ren’Py has also been around for quite a long time, so there are many useful guides and tutorials available online. There are also other Ren’Py games you can look at to get a feel for what is possible, like DDLC or Slay the Princess.

I may be in the minority with this opinion, but I don't particularly mind choice driven stories that ultimately lead to the same ending. 

For me, while multiple endings are always interesting, I tend to define a story more by the journey than by the endpoint (Though I am also in the camp that if an ending is genuinely poorly written, it can ruin the journey for me as well). Even if I reach a similar ending as everyone else, the smaller moments throughout the story can still shape my personal view of the characters, the world, and the experience itself.

To use a simple example:

You have a bottle of water.

A: Share it with Jack.
B: Do not share it with Jack.

The ending is always that Jack betrays you.

Even so, the emotional meaning changes depending on what happened before. One perspective might be, “You betrayed me even though I gave you water!?” Another might be, “Well... I suppose I did refuse to give him water...”

That said, I do plan to include quite distinct endings. One of them is simply the one I personally consider the canon outcome.

As for a guide, I could absolutely see myself creating one. 

There are already quite a few dialogue branches that only appear under certain conditions. At the moment, it is not a huge amount, but I do plan to return to that later and expand those kinds of moments more as the game moves closer to its conclusion.

I hope that whenever you do play it, and please take your time and do so only when you feel like it, you come away from it with a satisfying experience. And if you are disappointed, please do not hesitate to tell me that as well!

I also hope I can maintain this level of effort, and continue improving it with each update. 

I tend to be very logic driven sometimes, so I cannot help but look for justified reasoning behind everything I do. 

Interact With Me! takes a great deal of time, and it also has its impact financially now and then. To be clear, I genuinely enjoy the process, and it is very rewarding to create something I care about. Most rewarding of all is seeing other people interact with it (Sorry). 

At the same time, that more analytical side of me can occasionally drain my enthusiasm, which sometimes leads to a few days where I don't work on it at all. That is also part of why the larger updates have taken at least two months so far.

...

That ended up being quite a lot of thoughts all at once, I apologize for that...

Thank you once again!

I truly hope you feel better very soon (preferably immediately, haha).

Warm regards!