itch.io

no ETA yet but i'm working hard on it. the next update features a lot of new environment locations that we haven't seen in the revamp before and I've done a complete visual overhaul on them and there's a ton of action shots. i expected it to be a lot of work to start with, which is why i planned to limit the next update to mostly one series of events but it's been even more work than I was expecting. however, it's looking really good so far and the upgrade from the original is insane. i just dropped a public teaser yesterday if you want a preview. i promise it's coming and i'm working my tail off on it

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYA5oW6Fc54/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlOD...

heya, first off: thanks for the spoiler alert. lot of people don't think to include one and it kills my traffic when new players get spoiled in the comments and never check out the project. 

second: really glad you liked the story and appreciated it. i do get a lot of messages and stuff but i never stop enjoying them and i'm always humbled to talk about the project so thanks for taking the time to jot down your thoughts. 

while I still don't really know what i'm doing when it comes to writing or coding or anything, i do take this thing seriously and put a ton of work and thought into the direction things go so i always appreciate questions

you asked two different questions here but i'm going to regroup them because there's overlap. 

1. Braden POV: you mention wanting to get more screen time with Braden and get his perspective on things to fill in some of the mysteries. originally, this was where my head went too when writing it. my plan waaaaay back was to finish the story and then unlock a second playthrough that was braden's pov. i ended up scrapping that because after working on this project for almost 10 years now (demo dropped in October 2017), i've talked to a lot of people and i've seen how different characters have resonated with the community. I intentionally left most of zack's backstory as vague on purpose because i felt that if people knew too much about him, they'd begin to judge him on whether they thought his lack of self-acceptance was justified or not. i also intentionally made zack's ethnicity ambiguous for the same reasons. leaving things, vague allowed more people to fill in the blanks their own way-- many using experiences from their own lives to help relate to him better as a MC. in time, i learned this to be true about braden as well-- but actually even more so. the bulk of the story really pushes a mindset of being yourself, rather than seeking a label to try and categorize yourself and this same sexual ambiguity became even more powerful with readers when we didn't exactly find out what braden was thinking or what he was doing off camera. while i've never taken a stance on how to label his sexuality, i have my own thoughts but that's just my interpretation. over the years, since the story ended, braden has become a powerhouse to readers that were straight, bi, demi, etc. this perspective extends to things like the bathroom pic you mentioned (which isn't actually included in the other route of the story). it's left to the reader to determine because i found that the community themselves gained more from that and if i suddenly stepped forward to canonize something, in order to do that, i had to take something away from readers and i didn't want to do that. the bulk of the story is philosophical as hell and i wanted to keep that depth in multiple aspects of the story. 

2. Ending: for the revamp version, i have no plans to change the story or ending or anything drastic like that. there's things added in the revamp that weren't in the original but they're mostly cosmetic or just blending sentences together for smoothing things out and stuff like that-- and apparently people have said the revamp is funnier. there's definitely more character personality there because i'm not a complete newb anymore and that helps. 

i mentioned earlier that readers over the years have talked about the story and reacted to the characters and i've listened. i've never let the community steer the story, hell... i didn't even steer the story. the characters did and i can certainly say that i was surprised in the story several times by behaviors or their actions. that being said, when i got to the ending, i was concerned because it's a long story and soooo many people had read the story for soooo many different reasons. some people saw it as some rando porn game (so i specifically included ending related content to say that it wasn't), some people saw it as a voice or as validating their experiences, other older readers saw it as a way to look back at their youth and relive moments from the past, some saw it as giving them the fantasy of a missed opportunity and they lived their coulda-been lives out vicariously through the characters, others saw it as therapy-- feeling the philosophical side was directly confronting them, others read it and saw zack's obstacles and applied their own thoughts to those to overcome similar obstacles.  so when i got to the end, there was a lot of expectations and because there was only one ending (unlike most VNs where you can affect the ending), i needed an ending that checked all the boxes-- or at least most of them. some wanted a happy ending, some needed a happy ending, others wanted a dark ending because the entire trope of gay guy and str8 guy doesn't work, others wanted something literary and deep, some wanted a twist, and some just wanted a mindfuck that made them think. 

so that was my approach to the ending. given the information there, if you want a happy ending-- it's there. there's twists enough with plenty of things that were setup throughout the story. there's meta for the people that followed the project for years and felt part of it. there's a sadder perspective to the ending-- which you mentioned is that the epilogue never happened and was just written by the listener at zack's requestion. then there's the deeper perspectives in that the story was told to us by the listener and was neither his story or zacks but was both of them smashed together and braden was a mixture of the guy both of them fell for. hell, someone surprised me not too long ago by coming up with a really dark perspective on the ending that zack didn't see braden in the train station because it was braden's ghost and i was like whaaaaaat. then i got to looking at the facts and yeah... there's enough room there that you could go tragic supernatural with it (that perspective was an accident but it's objectively wild). so yeah, most VN's let you make choices in the project to affect the ending. in this one, the choice is made inside your head . i think, as a creator of something and never having done anything like this in my life, it was more rewarding for me to see the fan buzz on the ending and all the perspectives or people going back through to reread and catch things they missed.

last point is sequels: none planned right now. i set out to zack's story and his quest for self-acceptance and that's what i did. i'm open to a sequel if i have the energy but my requirement is that it needs to be as good if not better than the original. i dont want the run the story into the ground. i'll also note that a sequel will effectively destroy the hard work on the ending here because it would force a perspective and take all the other interpretations away and that's a massive amount of damage to do to a story. i'm fine knocking walls down but i need to make sure something pretty is built in their place

:)

<3 back at ya

sure thing. take your time. damn thing takes me forever to create anyway :p

no worries. i like interacting with people excited or curious about the project :)
so the way the narrative is written is that most BL or VN games are treated as "dating sims" and typically have a main character (MC) that meets a handful of characters and then you choose which one to pursue or "date." this sets up the multiple "routes" in the typical dating sim. i personally have a hard time with multi-tasking and had no idea what was i was doing with story writing or game development or art or coding or any of that and i figured that juggling multiple storylines would be insane for me to try and tackle. so rather than doing multiple guys to "date," i did one character pairing: zack and braden and focused hardcore on the narrative rather than just going surface level with a handful of guys and hopefully the depth of that narrative would outshine having multiple guys. however, there are 2 "routes" to the game, which was my way nodding back to the typical dating sim. but the way it's written here is that the main story is linear, then it splits at a certain choice in the game and sets up 2 routes. from there, the linear story continues but your choice of route changes a small handful of things that happen throughout the main story until it will split drastically in chapter 9 and then after that split, the main story will then merge back together for the ending. so the body of the story is sorta written generically enough that by adding only a few lines here and there or changing a picture, i can alter the entire perspective of the main story and basically create two different stories out of the same linear story. 

your choices, however, will have no impact on the ending. which i know goes completely against all dating sims and VN approaches ever. the reason here is that the story was never about us as a reader, it was about these characters. i wanted to build a story and entice the reader in by making relatable characters that you get attached to and eventually i wanted the reader to lose control of that and have no ability to affect the outcome. i think that creates tension and having choices that could help or hurt things takes away that tension because you could always redo it to make it more satisfactory to you. i didn't want the reader to have that out here, i wanted all of us, myself included even as the writer, to lose absolute control and have all of us dependent and watching from the outside as characters we've grown to love create their own destiny the same way a friend or family member or sibling would. 

So basically the way that it works is based on variables. when you make a decision, it either makes something true or false and later on, when the game needs to reference that choice, it uses those true/false variables. in order for the game to recognize a variable exists, it needs to be declared when the game starts-- not on boot-- but when you click new game. Meaning, that when i launched update 1, I would have had to include every possible variable for choice into the game then to never have to force someone to restart a new game. I didn't because i didn't exactly have the story planned out aaaaaand, in the early days, people used to break into the code and try to find variables to figure out where the story was going. To prevent that, i just didn't include any future stuff in the code at all and only planned one update at a time. Meaning when i write the next update, any new variables or choices in the game would have not been loaded at the beginning of the previous game version when you started playing so the game would crash when it gets to that choice and tell you the variable doesn't exist. 

to get around that, it's easier to delete old versions and just install the newest version. it usually wont let you play the full story loading an old game but your old game save files would mostly still work if you wanted to replay a certain scene (because all the old variables are still included in the new updates). however, to play the newest update, you'd always want to click New Game and then follow the red prompts. this loads all the necessary variables into the new game including the new ones then asks you some questions to mimic the choices you made before and basically quick creates your old save file with the necessary choices and then drops you at the end of the last update with all the new variables loaded. 

the last thing here is that the Revamp has the majority of variables preloaded. i just copied the old variable list from the original game and all of those were loaded at the start of the revamp. however, when i include new dialogue or content, I have created new variables or have renamed things to make them easier to find in my code. So yeah, the old variables from the original game mostly still work in the revamp but not always 

so every update, i'd recommend deleting the old version and just using the new one. old saves will also typically crash the game or skip content without telling you (there's a big long-winded reason why that i can explain if you want). I do think that the android version gets really buggy with multiple instances tho

you take care as well. and yep, chapter 10 is the last chapter and it's pretty friggen long. lot happens

Heya, so glad you liked the story. I wont disclose too much because I really want to avoid spoilers in the comments down here. Lot of people check down here before even downloading the game and i dont want to ruin things. But yes, there is currently a revamp that goes up to chapter 8. you can download it from here as well and i promise it's about a billion times better than the original. if you finished the story, with all 10 chapters, the revamp will eventually replace all of that and be the definitive version of the game. So that v18 update that's coming soon is only for the revamp and will give the second installment of chapter 8.

In terms of an actual sequel to the game, i know a lot of people want it. i'm not ready yet. the focus is the revamp for now and i really take this project seriously so i dont want to run it into the ground. I'd only consider a sequel if i felt reallyreally sure about my ability to do it-- plus, i'm on like year 9 of this one!! lmao. gonna take forever!! :P

heya, thank you for the kind words. I'm so glad you found me and even more honored that you're enjoying the story. It is very much a slow burn so if you're only on chapter 4, you have a looooong way to go. I'm currently on chapter 8 of the revamp and it'll probably be 2 more updates to finish that chapter then I have no idea how many updates it'll be for the last 2 chapters. each chapter gets progressively longer. hope you continue to enjoy the story and let me know what you think <3

heya :) first off, thank you for the kind words and i'm glad that you enjoyed the story and are looking forward to the next installment. i do have to agree with you on the rpg thing. that would be dope as hell as well as just having the option to free roam or explore an open world context within the universe. this story is fairly linear because i just had no idea what i was doing so i kept things pretty simple. rpg's require a lot of planning and math and balance and stuff. i'm a big rpg fan myself-- it's honestly my favorite genre-- and i think it would be super fun to do one. i just wasn't ready for it when i started this thing. i had to figure out how to write a story first :p

steam-- and honestly most platforms are a disaster right now because of all those political moms harassing Visa/MasterCard and then those companies going after platforms that have adult games. it's resulted in the majority of adult games just being banned or blacklisted at best and Steam was one of the first to cut a massive amount of adult content.  we're very much in an age of censorship right now which makes it increasingly difficult so who knows where things will be if i get to that point

Heya, first off: thank you for the kind words. I love that you appreciated the character development and the slice-of-life feel. If you’re looking for deep rambling philosophical stuff in the adult genre, I’m actually not aware of any other projects like this one. 

That being said, I will shout out two of the guys that have helped me with various parts of this project and they both focus on character development but have very different ways of storytelling. The first is Blake who has several different projects. New Hope is his flagship project and is a little less slice-of-life and more direct story-focused with some surprises in there but he has several projects and some are more akin to the slice-of-life style.

https://apollostudios-lgbt.itch.io/new-hope

The second is Jordyn (who recently re-branded as Project Kyler). He has just started his own solo project but is only two updates in. So the bones are there but it’s very new so there’s not a ton of story yet (which honestly can be fun to get in early on projects like this so you can slowly watch them come to life). You can find his current project here

https://projectkyler.itch.io/farmboy-and-the-wolf

Heya. So I’m still actively working on the v18 update now. While I don’t expect it to be as narratively long as the v17 update, it has 3 new environments that needed revamped and there’s a lot of action and movement shots that I’m just spending some extra time with. I think the extra time helps with the character development and it just makes the scenes more emotional and fun and comical depending. Right now… I’m maaaaaaybe halfway through ish but I’m expecting the later parts of the update to go much faster

aww. thank you so much for reading and i'm really glad you liked the story. be sure to check out the revamp if you haven't. if you only played the original, i promise the revamp is a billion times better visually and narratively. in terms of other projects, this is the only thing i've done. no other writing experience or projects or anything like that. i'm a psych major and this entire thing just started with me screwing around until i got serious with it and i was just learning in real time as the original updates came out. and honestly, i'm glad you were able to find the authentic balance between the nsfw stuff and the narrative. i really wasn't going for a porn game here. i just wanted an uncensored story about sexual acceptance

yo. hi. thank you from the bottom of my heart. i poured a ton of me into this and thank you for reading and commenting and just giving this project a chance.

so... if you just finished the original and haven't played the revamp... i'd really encouraged you to give the revamp a chance because it's sooo much better. the original was like my rough draft version compared to how i emotionally envisioned this. for better or worse: the revamp is more me and my vision.

that being said-- NO SPOILERS!!-- but i'm not sure where things go from here. i didn't plan a lot of this story and my current focus is doing justice to this story based on what i've learned so i want to complete the revamp first. after that:... yeah, idk. i dont like beating a story into the ground. i need to feel really confident if i go into a sequel. i refuse to do that for money stuff. the community has trusted me with these characters and i take that seriously. 

if i ever announce a sequel, it's because i'm all in

buuuut please check out the revamp if you haven't. i promise it's waaaay better <3

<3

thank you so much. i'm glad you're enjoying the emotional depth. braden is a pretty interesting character that still has some twists left to his arc. i was really happy to see how he resonated with folks. stay tuned. there's  A LOT left. here in an update or two, starts the rollercoaster and it honestly doesn't quit until like the last sentence of the story. hope you enjoy. plenty of heartstrings, heaviness, and a few laughs left. thanks for reading :)

well thank you. i really appreciate this. I think it's important that we each find who we are and try to live as authentically as possible to the core of that identity. For some people, it may be the more feminine stereotype you described but for others-- it could be the exact opposite. the important part in the process of finding who you are is to honestly self-reflect on whether your lifestyle is authentic to you or whether it's a way to try to hide or cover-up who you are. For some people, living more masculine is actually the lie because it's not who they are. but for others-- that's truth. in the past, it seems the media always portrayed gay characters as more feminine and comedic relief. but as time has moved on, we've had more exposure to alternatives to that. Zack has a very archaic view on sexuality because that's all he was ever really exposed to-- and i think that's true for a lot of people. it was for me. trying to identify the difference between the symptoms of self-hatred and authenticity can sometimes be a grueling process for people-- especially if they were raised in environments that demonized anything that wasn't hetero and cis. the ultimate moral to this story is to be your authentic you and to make peace with that. I'm really glad the story spoke to you. 

honestly, in my opinion, you're doing it the way I would prefer right now. the revamp is exponentially better than the original. at this point, the original is more of a behind-the-scenes look if you like the story and want to see how it originally appeared. so right now the revamp is in chapter 8 and we've only seen the first 1/3~ of chapter 8 so we've still got a lot left in chapter 8 so the next 2 updates will most likely finish out chapter 8. the chapters get progressively longer as the story goes and we're getting to the part of the story where things sorta turn up and don't stop until the literal last sentence of the story. the last chapters have traditionally the most popular. 

so i'm working on the next update now. lot of new environments that needed reworked and upgraded with a lot of work to preserve what was originally put into the project while still upgrading it with new textures and stuff. that being said, the next update will be a bit smaller than what we've seen so far. i needed an update to sorta "rest" and catch my breath-- it's been like 5 years since i did that and it was due. but so far the next update is looking visually insane. there's some teasers on my bsky if you haven't seen it yet :)

No. Basically, there's only one "romance" option in contrast to the traditional "dating sim" type of VN. Since this was my first project, I opted to do one character story and do it really detailed to accomplish my personal goals for the project

thanks so much. i really appreciate it and so glad you enjoyed it and my quirky, sarcastic humor <3

i'm into the next update already so stay tuned !!

thanks so much for understanding. hopefully, i'll get to the translations one of these days. i'm definitely not the fastest out there but i do try my best to stay consistent with the message behind it. thanks so much for reading <3

well... thank you very much. i really appreciate that. i also get why you're bummed out about the multiple routes thing here. i really do. i actually put a lot of thought into this and i've had live feedback from folks since 2017. i also paid a lot of attention to their conversations and what spoke to them as well as really read all of the messages and mail i've gotten over the years to see what had the biggest impact on people. story-wise: i get it-- i'd like more too. especially if alternate "dating" routes would be as heavy as this story is. however, the decision i made was more based on the story's impact on others and i can assure you that i'll always pick that. it's way more meaningful to write something that speaks to people and i don't want to take that away from them during the revamp. seriously appreciate the thoughts and questions and interest in this thing. thanks so much for reading <3

mikhail is a big favorite of mine too. so originally when i started this thing, i expected to finish the full game and then do maybe an alternate route with other characters or (my personal favorite) unlocking the story from braden's point of view. i ended up changing my mind with that by the time i got to the end of the story because (and this response will remain spoiler free) braden is a more powerful character without us knowing what's in his head or what was happening off camera. he just seemed to relate more to so many people that way by the end. so that being said, i'm going to leave it once i'm finished. no extra routes or anything. i told the story here that i wanted to tell. and you mention reactions to different characters: sure thing, you're entitled to your opinion for sure. he can be a very polarizing character

i knooooow. i'm soo sorry for not having translations. so this has been brought up several times and i even started the process of getting volunteers on the discord to do it (i refuse to use AI for anything and i will die on that hill ). the biggest obstacle to it has been me having time to work with people on the process of it but also knowing that when it's finished, it may require another run through for proofreading stuff and i dont want to waste people's time translating something that i could make random changes in. so right now, it's been kinda pushed off until way closer to the end or even when it's finished. i just want to say that i appreciate you, and the thousands of other people that have gone through this thing when it's not in your native language. i realize that i am not an easy writer to follow with all the metaphors and chaotic writing style. it just means a lot that you're willing to jump through those extra hoops just to experience this thing

maybe. we'll see when we get there. so far I've mostly learned that limited is better. i don't want people accidentally downloading the old version and having a "wtf" reaction to the quality and no sound when other people are making comments about the revamp and stuff. I guess I'd say, for now, if you're a fan of just having the original for nostalgic purposes, then keep a version stashed just in case. you could always message me if you lose it though and i could send a link :)

well thank you. i'm really glad you liked the original version. i know at the time the original was finished, some people didn't think a revamp was needed, but the support on the revamp from those that were loyal to the original has been very positive. while i'll admit that i'd hoped the revamp would be finished by now, i also didn't ever dream the quality of the revamp would reach where it is with each passing update. i had a lot of high expectations for it but even i've been surprised. so i hope that if/when you decide to visit it, that it meets your expectations as well. so much more heart than the original. it just feels more confident to me and that's a really good feeling.

in terms of leaving the old version up once the revamp is complete: i probably won't publicly on sites like this. On my patreon page, i still have the original demo posted-- which is quite awful, lol-- but i think it's good to openly show where you've been. I'm not ashamed of the original and I know the bulk of people that like the original, like it because they followed it for a long time and the quality of the project changing over time just became part of their own journey and that's nostalgic. however, having multiple versions of the same game on a website can be confusing. i try to describe it pretty clearly here on the itch.io page but people still get mixed up. So odds are, once the revamp is complete, i'll remove the original and the revamp will be the definitive edition. however, i'll likely keep the original on the patreon page for curious peeps -- or even new developers have checked it out just to get an idea where things started. 

heya, thanks for playing and being interested in things. So right now I dont have a sequel planned. I worked really hard on the ending of the original to try and check a lot of boxes. That being said, doing a sequel, could risk making some of those interpretations and headcanons obsolete and that's very much a concern of mine. however, i've openly stated that i'm open for a sequel if i feel like it's warranted or that I can do better than the original. i know people have suggested ideas for that (i'm talking in code here to avoid spoilers) but i also just really struggle with multitasking and I've been concerned that if i look too far into the future, it could negatively distract me from what i'm working on now and the project always comes first. with that said, also please realize that i didn't have much plans for this project and I sorta just play things out as they go. so not having a plan has very much been ... the plan. We'll see. this project started in 2017 so it's been a long haul so whatever i work on next, i want to make sure i'm dedicated to it

First off thank you for reading. I'm going to highly encourage you to place a spoiler warning on your post so that you don't ruin the story for others. Many people will read comments at the bottom of pages before even attempting to start a game, so immediately posting comments about endings can absolutely destroy projects. That being said, i dont like to delete comments on the page because I believe in transparency. 

That being said, I can try to respond but I will do so generally so as not to spoil the story for others. Over the years, there's been a handful of people have the reaction that you did but it's very much in the minority-- maybe like 7 or so and it's part of what sets this project apart from other stories in the genre. Many of the situations you see in the project are purposely meant to stimulate thought and reflection. On the Discord channel, the ending to the story stimulated months of immediate conversation about roles, sex, sexuality, and expectations within the relationship-- which was the point. We still have those conversations as new readers find the story and honestly, they never get old because it's been fantastic to see the community learn from each other and support the diversity of thought and experiences. The story confronts self-stigmas, labels, the impact of spirituality and religion and even validates the normality of the growing realization that not everyone has to be into anal.   I stand by the ending as it is and have no plans to change it in the Revamp-- mostly because the alternative like you suggested simple provides a sexual outlet and nothing else. It's super predictable, it describes almost every game I've ever seen in the adult genre, and honestly it doesn't fit with much of the narrative that's been setup throughout the story-- and that's not even getting into the logistics and hygiene required. While there is sexual content in the story, the bulk of that is placed in there to have a conversation about relationships or communication or roles or honestly safe and responsible sexual practices. This is what the bulk of the responses to the game usually highlight and it's specifically what I wanted to accomplish here with an ending that I'm super confident in and have received thousands of letters from people sharing their own stories and how much it validated them and set this project apart. The ending checks a lot of boxes for readers-- it just doesn't check the easy one because it doesn't give us anything to reflect on other than maybe it's "hot" and that's it-- I couldn't be happier with that and the impact it's had on others. 

I appreciate feedback and I always take it serious. I guess I would humbly ask that the story be held to a higher standard than a typical adult porn game and that's something the supporting community has found value in this project about. That was really my focus here. To tell a story where people find themselves, they laugh and cry, they learn together, they make mistakes, they embarrass themselves, they do cringe shit, and they try to learn to appreciate the importance of every second of their life together because in the end, nothing lasts forever.

Thanks so much for reading, if you want to talk in more detail about the story, there's a discord channel where I'm at daily and it's a much better place (through specific channels) to talk about specific things like the ending without spoiling it for others :)

<3

<3

well I’m excited that you’re excited 😊

Free version is 3 weeks after so should be slightly after the new year if things go well 

fairly soon will drop on Patreon and SubscribeStar. I just got through the sounds and music draft today so now it’s just down to editing the writing and polishing things . Hoping in like a week ish ?

thank you so much. i'm really glad you enjoyed the story and the character arcs. I'm big on dialogue and I think that talking with people IRL is how we get to know them so that's the direction I took here. I'm on the last scene of the next update now. It's gotten pretty involved but I do work on it full-time. stay tuned. <3

heya, thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment and let me know you enjoyed the story. I'm working on the next Revamp update now and I'm on the last scene so hopefully not too much longer. If you played the full original version, there is only one ending but choices throughout the story will chance some of the scenes and dialogue to give you a different experience. 

so i'm fine writing follow-up stories in the universe but I need to finish the revamp first and there needs to be  a clear narrative purpose for them. The following is my own personal opinion and in no way affects how i feel about the work of others-- particularly Apollo Studios because I love Blayke to death. i personally think that non-canon stuff can be fun to read or experience, it's just not for me as a creator.

My opinion:  I'm personally against writing non-canon stories. i think they're fun to debate and sometimes I'll drop a pic set on the Patreon page every now and then but that's very rare. It's mostly because I think it gets confusing. you'd have to really follow the project and pay attention to the socials to follow what's canon and what's not and I think that's asking a lot of a reader. the consequence of that, as the creator, is then i get bombed with questions to clarify story elements and I end up having to explain what's canon and what isn't and it can easily just turn into a distracting mess for me. In my early creating days, I considered doing a lot more non-canon stuff but as time has gone on, i realized those intentions were guided more by me just trying to drum up interest in the characters or get traffic-- and as a creator, that was the wrong position for me to take. my stance now is that I want to be true to my characters and prove to the audience that i'm careful with them and the story even if that means less traffic, views, financial gain, etc. that being said, i'm human and sometimes I'll just get some desire to do something off the rails for fun and I may share that but I can't see me ever doing a mini-side project of something non-canon because I would literally get blown up with messages from people asking how it fits into the story even if i clarified in the project that it was non-canon.

yikes, hey can you edit your post with a giant bold spoiler warning at the top? you're dropping bombs right off the bat. a lot of people pop down here in the comments to read before they play and spoilers can easily ruin the entire story for lots of new people and absolutely kills my traffic.

but to answer your question, no plans for a follow-up story right now. i really appreciate you reading the story and i appreciate your enthusiasm. my goal right now is to finish the revamp first. i need one completed project under my belt before I start looking towards the future. i'm not opposed to writing follow-up stories in the same universe, i just don't want to run the story or characters into the ground just for financial gain.

Heya, 

So first off, thanks for the long-time follow and thanks for the continued interest in the story. I do agree with the "experimentation" that you referenced. Without adding any spoilers since a lot of people check these comments before they even download, there is some experimentation in the story-- even if much of it is talk and just trying to figure out their boundaries. That being said, all of the adult content in the story is specifically dropped in there to push the story forward or setup something that's referenced later. You mention things like bondage, which does open up some potential conversation points (probably like consent or things like that). However, there's very much a control component there and for a story where the guys are trying to figure themselves out, it seems like a bit of a stretch for them to assume that much dominance. I think a lot of their scenes together are more like cat and mouse where they'll try something and then pull back afterwards. 

Another concern here is that despite the project being adult, I didn't want to go too heavily into sex or kink stuff to the point that it distracts from the plot and just becomes porny-- which is why much of the content is super vanilla. I'm also a very vanilla guy in general, if you asked me to write a bondage scene, I have no idea how to even write it. Given the internal monologues and stuff throughout the game, I'd want that present in that scene just as much as any other but I have no idea what Zack would think because I'm not a bondage fan. Literally triggers a fear response and i'm not sure how I could get myself into the headspace to write a scene like that. In other words, I'm definitely not the guy to write a scene like that and I doubt I'd do it justice in any way. lmao

he's a cutie <3