itch.io

Appreciate it. For reference to others reading through here, I and a number of others have been able to re-enter payment info without issue, but Substar is finicky about what banks they can and can't work with, especially outside the US, so unfortunately there is a possibility of further issues with this. Still worth checking and trying though.

For those who find they absolutely, positively cannot get Substar to process their payment anymore, I DO have a Patreon: : Bitshiftgames (can't link in comments due to itch's idiotic anti-spam). Only use that as a last resort though: I won't be doing game discussion over there, as I have to keep it a "clean" tip jar. Can still sub at the same tiers though.

Excellent, appreciate it.

Yeeeesh. Well, maybe this IS part of the problem then. My experience with Substar is that they aren't BAD per-say, but they really have some issues with clear communication, especially in baffling places like this where you'd think you'd put priority (they're a company that makes money taking fees on subs. Maybe make sure the subs are being paid, so YOU can get paid?)

For what it's worth though, I do show you as "active" in my dashboard, so I think you were good regardless. But it certainly couldn't hurt to fix the payment method, and thanks for taking the time!

Aw, thanks! If you like 1 this much, I definitely think you'll have a fun time with GT. 

And you'd be surprised actually, I've heard from a lot of people that this hits their exact niche really well. What surprises me more is that there aren't more games like this in the explicit space. What I'm doing is, in many ways, the most obvious thing imaginable: Ordinary game, smug hero, he loses, he gets fucked. I think the problem is that most people either do lovey dovey stuff or they just don't follow through enough. Some in particular you lose and it's just...a picture. Not even a written out scene, just a picture and then back to the menu. People don't seem to understand that the losing, the mindfuck, the corruption etc is the POINT of a game like this. They serve up a meal with a very nice appetizer and then you get to the main course and it's...a single slice of bread.

Not to be too fancy, but psychology matters in a game like this. It's not just, or even primarily a dirty picture delivery system. It's about the journey, the experience of playing thorough it. The GAMEPLAY is what's hot, on a meta level, because interaction forces you to engage mentally and emotionally in a way staring at a picture or text doesn't. You are responsible for these events. They happened because of the way YOU chose to play. Which adds a lot.

So I've just been doing what seems obvious to me, making a game I find hot. And thankfully, that seems to result in something a lot of OTHER people enjoy too.

Yeah, it comes down to a lot of save scumming for the most part. That sounds about right though; I just wasn't sure exactly how "pure" of a run was possible because while I'm careful to never make sex that's 100% unavoidable, some of the side stuff leading up to it might be. Definitely possible to beat Khazeem without the cologne though, in fact I think most people do, they never put 2 and 2 together despite the hints. But I deliberately left that open as a possibility, it's just supposed to be so tedious that it prompts you to look for an easier way.

Now that might genuinely be impossible. More "no dick shoved into you" runs.

Eventually (starting in Chapter 3 actually), staying "pure" in a general sense will allow you to date Scratch, so that will be the reward for people crazy enough to play a porn game and AVOID ALL THE PORN. Otherwise though, I just see finishing the games totally pure as a kind of fun esoteric challenge, like highly selective 100% ings of a game or the really weird speed run categories. 

Lol. You never really miss someone till they're gone.
I think because of the hubbub last year a bunch of scammers were just suddenly made aware that itch existed, and had fairly lax comment moderation, so they decided to jump on it, but now they're finally getting bored and moving on to something else. It would seem spam, like everything, is not immune to the cruel whims of attention span.

They're mostly not in this one. There is a scene near the start though, the alley next to the hotel, that triggers on your second time entering Haven as you pass by the alley. IF you meet the requirements: you have to transfer a DataCrystal.js file from the first game after playing it a certain way. Or just edit the DataCrystal file already with the game in js\plugins (it's just a text file) to change NumberofBoarDefeats from 0 to 3, and ChaptOneTrainedEnd from 0 to 1. That should guarantee it triggers.

Excellent. Just know you may have some competition then.

No, I tend to leave the maps and a bit of programming stuff from the previous games in in case I need to reference them for whatever reason, though I've stripped a lot of that out working on 3 now for practical reasons. But the entirety of the first game, in terms of maps and a lot of code is in the second for that purpose. They take up almost no space, and I was under the mistaken belief that I couldn't have two copies of RPGMaker open at the same time for a while, so I thought that was what I was stuck with if I wanted to check old work or reuse some of it. 

Long story short though no, none of that old CS1 stuff in GT is used, it was just there as a reference bucket for me (though there IS obviously one boar scene in GT, in the alley early on).

Glad to hear you're working on a translation though! What language are you working with? There's already one in Japanese and Chinese, and one in Spanish has been underway for a while, though I'm unsure of the progress there.

Ha, fair enough. And again, thanks for the art. Very fun piece.

Oh eventually absolutely. He does care. Just a bit distracted.

Ooh, that makes sense then, looks like Corbin got it. Ha, very much over-complicated it. Missed opportunity to not do a shift cypher though. And also...Italian?! Because you're Italian? I think that was what threw me off the most.

Understood on the socials then, no worries.

And interesting. "319720IT".

-It is not a valid actual cattle tag ID, as convention places the letter FIRST, and only one letter, not two.

-It is the same number of characters as "Bitshift", and ends in the same character. This might be the encoded string, but how do we get there?

-It cannot be ASCII encoding, as the "IT" would be nonsensical: ASCII is denoted in hex, and i and t don't exist in hex. It's also much too short if we're aiming for "bitshift".

-The obvious joke would be to use some kind of shift cypher (hur hur), but the combination of letters and numbers, and the fact that the "t" at the end appears to be unencoded (or at least "drop through") throw wrenches in this. At the very least, it's not a SIMPLE shift cypher, where we're just shifting everything x characters in the alphabet.

-Discarding "bitshift", if we convert the numbers into letters assuming a = 0, that gives dbjhca. If we then multiple-shift in sequence 1, 3, 25 every two characters, this gives "cagedb", which added back on to the letters gives "cagedbit". Which is somewhat sensical give Mezz's new decoration, but I only have moderate confidence this is the intended string; this feels less like a decoding and more like I'm practicing numerology. 

That's my guess so far though.

Mostly he's too obsessive about whatever he's working on to notice. But his mind does tend to wander, every once in a while.

The world of the games being what it is, making new tech is largely impossible (unless you're Towerfolk) because the fabrication capability just doesn't exist. Even if you knew EXACTLY how a certain simple integrated circuit worked IRL for example, and the whole manufacturing process, if you were hurled back to the middle ages, you wouldn't be able to make it, because you couldn't even make all the precursors to it. 

What CAN be done is salvage and repair, and the upside is that there was so MUCH made before everything fell apart that there's plenty to dig into in terms of spare parts. So that's what Scratch does, and did before meeting Mezz: Junkers dig things out of the ruins, sell them on to people like Scratch, who then repair them and sell the working items for a profit. It's a little like those guys that buy busted game consoles off ebay for cheap and re-sell them once they're working and cleaned up.

Pairing up with Mezz gives him protection of course, and the chance to assist with something beyond just survival, which he enjoys, but he still does the repair work as well.

But what does he do for fun? Well again, tinkering is ALSO what he does for fun; trying to recombine things in new ways, digging up obscure tech info, trying to understand random things the junkers find that he's never seen before. The work side is limited to things that are in demand once repaired, but the fun side can be more eclectic and wacky, experimental. He doesn't just repair, he "invents", in limited ways.

Outside of tech though? He doesn't get out much. He reads for one: mostly whatever data files he can get his paws on, fiction or non, but also actual, physical books. He only has three so far; real books were rare antiques even before the City fell apart. But he enjoys what he can get. He also plays/composes music on synthesizers and weird electronic instruments he cobbles together. 

Oooh, you're the one that did that cool pose with the staff too! Excellent. Yes, I'd definitely say you're improving.

As for the Towerfolk, the various groups I ended up doing or planning to do in large part had to do with assets that were available, tilesets, music etc, overlapping with themes I was interested in. So the Gutter is a chance to explore all the fun sleazy "slum" stuff that's out there, chapter 3 will be a bunch of oooOOOooo spooky stuff, and the Tower will be a chance to get into the sci-fi stuff in a more focused way. Not aristocracy so much as unregulated hypercapitalism, science run amok, a lot of backstabbing etc. A bit Bioshock, but without the fancy aspirations of Objectivism. Maybe more the practical reality of what that city became, rather than Ryan's grand ambitions for it. BUT, that's a long way off. Gotta get 3 out first.

Ha, and I don't mind either way, I don't blame people if they just want to stick to the basics and enjoy a porn game. I'm just a NEEERD so I like having some backdrop for all this.

Oh and easter egg? The tag number maybe? Doesn't immediately jog any memory, although it does remind me of the nonsensical resolutions some of the images end up at sometimes when I'm being sloppy. 

This is great! Chain to the floor especially is under-used, glad to see it. And I love that expression on Mezz. 

I will say that canonically, the towerfolk MOSTLY don't go to the Gutter, both because they think it's beneath them (literally and figuratively), and because they have...quite a bit to entertain them in their own little world. They're a very insular bunch. That said, it isn't unthinkable a few might venture to the Gutter occasionally, or send representatives, if for no other reason than that the "subjects" they had on hand were too damaged or...genetically compromised to be useful. Did you know IRL that most lab rats come from a very narrow genetic makeup, which potentially throws into question countless studies done on them, as their responses to various drugs might not be reflective of the species in general? 

Regardless though, I give HUGE kudos to you for even bothering to read through all my goofy lore, let alone make a pic with it. Much appreciated. Do you have a Twitter/FA etc? Totally fine to "promote" here as long as you're doing it connected to fanart you did.

Also: "But this one wouldn't stop talking." Yeah. Yeah that's about right.

There are a number of things to consider here.

First, I do not in any way claim to be making amazing combat gameplay here. It's...ok. Hopefully. But nothing special. 

In terms of RNG, two things. One, RNG in RPGMaker is cursed. I've done a LOT to improve it behind the scenes believe it or not, it's even worse on default config. I have a BUNCH of logic to ensure players don't just keep "rolling" the same thing into infinity even though it's supposed to have a 1/3 chance or whatever. But yes, that dice game is...something. In testing, I've had times where it's taken me many, many attempts to get through it, and others where I've gotten it first try. I'm just...happy that game works generally though.

But second, there are a few things to consider if you want to do the combat "legit". 1. You can use Mahir's gift to turn off the hypno, full stop. As long as you're not in slut mode, it shouldn't trigger the alternate end. 2. Fighting in CS in general is about timing of attacks and healing items. You've gotta master that back and forth. There is a right time and a wrong time to do both, and sometimes a quick single attack is better than trying to charge a multi-hit. 3. Yes, some of the special enemies near the end of the first section are essentially down to having a lucky exchange. Save scumming to some degree is an expected part of gameplay. My guiding principle here wasn't that every fight should be winable with proper strategy, it was that if I couldn't get through a given fight after 3 restarts, with decent supplies etc, the mechanics probably needed to be tweaked. For the most part, I'm able to fight through that section keeping to that standard, and have done so several times while testing various things. But I deliberately made the "normal" fighting a bit of a pain toward the end so that it would be increasingly tempting to take the "easy way out." 4. Although 3 is true, strategy does still matter to some degree. Using single attack to snipe specific enemies early does become important in certain mob arrangements. 

And no worries, appreciate the feedback. As for RNG in 3, I can only speak to the rats for sure so far, just starting on solidifying the wolf mechanics now. The rats are designed to be fairly easy to deal with unless you're REALLY throwing though, so it shouldn't be that much of an issue there. The wolves aren't as clear yet, but in general they're going to be more dramatic one on one or one on two fights, so I don't think it'll be as much of a problem. You won't be juggling as much in those fights.

The cologne is the "right" way to do certain versions of the Khazeem fight: its smell counters his control when used, and immediately knocks Mezz back to normal mentally.

No worries, certainly know the busy feeling. But appreciate it, and glad to see more whenever you have the time.

I...am not sure how I missed this, apologies! The forum system here can be a little random on when it decides to give me notifications. But thank you for the art, it's much appreciated!

Oh no problem, definitely know the feeling of having a lot going on. But glad you were able to finish these, and would certainly be glad to see more from you in the future!

Depends on what you consider "permanent", but I've been working on hammering down some more of the lore details and actual flow of things today, and there's definitely at least one thing I think would qualify. Just don't be discouraged if it's not in first-release: the thing I'm thinking of will probably be packaged in later.

If you just mean a hard-stop bad end possibility with the rats though, absolutely going to be the case.

Ha! Glad you approve.

Of course, glad to take feedback as long as it's civil! That said:

"Gotta be completely straightforward, this type of games (smut) isn't my type of game in any shape or form."

I mean no offense by this, and don't mean this as an attack, but if that's the case, why are you playing this game? These games exist primarily as frameworks to get people off, to entertain in the explicit realm. If you're not interested, that's fine of course, but why play this then? I suspect you have notes on gameplay, and I'm happy to discuss, but just understand that any game mechanics etc in these games exist in service to that primary goal. Absent the explicit content, it's just...kind of mediocre small-time RPG. 

That, said, let's get into it! 

"I wished block had more practical usage besides like 3 enemies (2 being bosses)"

These games in general essentially exist from a base of me starting with the defaults RPGMaker MV supplies, and then tweaking here and there and building as it occurs to me, if it works. Block is/was there initially simply because it was part of the basic moveset of characters in the game engine, and I thought it might serve a purpose in the games eventually (and it looked kinda neat). As you noted, it DID end up getting used a little, but not a ton yet. I am blending it in/finding a few more uses for it in Chapter 3, though they're a bit subtle. Not a core thing by any means.

Glad you like the charge mechanic. It's not exactly big-brain, but I saw another game use it as a basic way to not just have battles be "press attack repeatedly" without having to actually design a complex system, and shamelessly ripped it off. It's a lot, for a low dev cost. A lot of things in the game are like that.

" I wish there was some sort of maybe in game passive which told you that you do regain all energy back after the fight,"

It's a deliberate design decision in these games to explain only what's absolutely necessary. If there's a core item or switch or whatever that's not already blindingly obvious, I'll sparkly it or light it, if there's some flow point that might not be obvious, I'll have Mezz say something to himself, but otherwise, this is very much a game that expects players to figure things out on their own. It springs in part from my experience playing a lot of barely or not at all translated Japanese eroge, where EVERYTHING had to be figured out by me due to the language barrier, and I was always impressed at how many games were entirely possible to figure out knowing only meager Japanese. So that's been a kind of dual guiding principle for my stuff: on the one hand, I don't hand-hold, but on the other I do my best to make sure it IS fairly easy to figure everything out if you poke a little. There's also a lot in the games kind of hidden around the margins; non-essential, but for those who do manage to poke around enough. 

Long story short, you DID eventually notice your energy was refilling. And you got to feel smarter for working that out yourself rather than having a pamphlet given to you. So working as intended.

Oh yeah, the item "trick" with one of the bosses was something I was very proud off...only to find that a lot of people just tank it the hard way anyway! Which is fine, and an intended option, but it's much, much easier if you do it the "right" way.

Ah, ok, now I'm starting to see where you're coming from in terms of the explicit content. This comes up a lot, so let me dust off: THE SCALE.

Games have a scale of sexy. An admixture if you will. Almost every game has at least a LITTLE sexy (even the original mario bros and fucking pacman, though it's minuscule). But you can slide that divider on the scale one way or the other, more sexy, less serious story, more story, less sexy. What I've found, at least in my experience, is that that divider should NEVER BE IN THE MIDDLE. It has to bias, either to one side or the other. You can have a very horny game with a bit of story, or a very in-depth story with just a bit of sexy, but half and half doesn't work. So I, obviously, bias toward sexy. 

Please understand I don't meant to mock you, but I've seen this reaction a few times, and it's always a little amusing.  "Why is there so much porn in this game it gets in the way of the gameplay!" Because it's a porn game. More specifically, it's a game about losing control, humiliation, corruption, and all kinds of mind games. That's why you lose control in some sections. That's the point. It's hot (to some people, myself included). If it isn't to YOU, that's certainly understandable, people like different things. But again, all of this exists in service to the horny. I think some people just don't understand this somehow. There isn't too much sugar in the coffee, there's just the right amount of coffee in the sugar, because this is a coffee pastry, not a cup of joe. 

All that said, I WILL say that the games, in general, ARE very deliberately structured so that if something happens, you really, probably let it happen. You probably know what's going to happen if you poke around that weird pipe in a deserted tunnel. You probably know what's going to happen if you don't stand up to Mahir, or keep losing to the mobs. It is difficult, often VERY difficult, but you should be able to play through the game without any sexual content at all, as long as you don't lose. The whole premise, the whole underlying kink of the games is that you COULD have avoided it, technically. But you didn't, because it was easier not to, and things kept sliding farther and farther into corruption.

And I want to underline that again, because you brought up the tunnel specifically. I can't TELL you, that ruins the whole thing. The whole point is about risk. But basic storytelling clues should key you in that this is a risky action to take. I'm glancing at it now, the prompt is:

"There's something stuck in the vent.

Try to knock it free?

Yes     No"

If you've played any survival horror, you know what this is. You know that when a game asks "Do you want to take obvious action x?" instead of just automatically DOING it, there's a reason. The meta implication is "Shit's about to go down, are you ready? Have you saved? Are you SURE you want to do this?" This is basically ripped off directly from Silent Hill, but a bunch of games do it. It's so well established that the games eventually start toying with it and keying you up only for nothing much to happen. But you know it COULD, and that it probably WILL on one of these prompts eventually. I just want to emphasize this because choice IS important in GT. There's risk, and the unknown, but you do largely end up where you choose to be. And if not...reload! While I try not to be TOO bullshit, these games are designed with the expectation that you save often, and rotate your saves.

I'm not mad or offended, in fact I'm somewhat honored you're actually interacting with/perceiving this as an ordinary game, instead of a smut one. But it IS a smut one. That is its purpose. I feel strongly that explicit content works better if it's paired with CONTEXT: setting, characters, gameplay mechanics, etc. That's why, for those into it, playing something like this is a lot more fun than just looking at a stack of pictures. But these games are, at the end of the day, tools for getting people horny. If you want to try to enjoy them WITHOUT that I suppose you can, and again, I'm honored you would even try, but it's a little like ordering the salad at McDonalds. That's not really what it's for. 

That said, there's nothing wrong with enjoying the characters or the setting. I do too! But that sexuality is a core part of what these games are, for better and worse. 

Boars are mostly the first game. There is boar scene early on in GT in Haven, but it requires a few different steps to unlock:

1. Transferring the datacrystal.js file from the first game AFTER YOU'VE COMPLETED A GAME where you were defeated a bunch. It goes in the js/plugins folder of GT, overwrite the one that's already there.

2. If you've done this correctly, the SECOND time you return to Haven in the intro, a scene should trigger as you walk past the alley next to the hotel.

Nice! Yeah, a few people told me, reached out to thank him but haven't heard back -.-. Very cute (and very hot) stuff though.

Oh hey, glad to hear from you, and glad you're enjoying the games! I hope you don't mind me leaving this in English; I'd just be running it through auto-translate anyway, and whatever you have set up on your browser is probably as good or better.

Really appreciate the kind words. I do what I can, but knowing people care certainly helps as I power through these long development times. So on to the questions:

I use RPGMaker MV. In my opinion it's the best version. MZ is a minor upgrade that adds some neat little things (for example when you program an autopath for a character, it actually visualizes it for you instead of you having to hold it in your mind), but it's not essential and I don't want to risk breaking old plugins. The version after MZ turned RPGMaker into a plugin/addon for Unity, which is a horrifying and disgusting idea.

I refer to the games as "Chapters", and the plan is, and has been, to eventually have 5 (the one that's currently in development would be #3). We'll see if I manage to get that far though. Each game is designed to be its own story as well though, so even on their own they should be fun enough.

As for other games, we'll have to see. There are a lot of options and possibilities out there, but things change fast, year to year and even month to month. We'll see where I am when and if I finish this series.

No problem asking about translations though. The way that works is simple: people are free to do fan translations, and if they like they can submit them. If I take a look through the translation and it seems stable/decent quality, I share it. So the answer is that there will be a Russian translation as soon as someone makes one, which hasn't happened yet to my knowledge. I think there was talk of one at some point, but it never happened. If someone wants to though, the files are all there, unencrypted text, and using something like Translator++ can help you keep track of your work and avoid typos that break the formatting. No rules other than try to be accurate, and human translation is preferred. If you use more that 20% machine translation material, be sure to say so.

And again, thanks for your support, and kind words. Much appreciated.

Glad you're enjoying the games so far!

I thought there might be a config file that could be tweaked for keybinds, but it doesn't look like it. No plans to custom code that at this point, has too much potential to break other things. I will point out though that the Japanese controls are A and Z for your confirm and cancel buttons, which is much more natural than enter and shift, buttons on the left, movement on right. All available by default, and easier than trying to mash your hands into that one part of the keyboard at least. 
I did originally intend to do some mouse control with the glory hole mini-game, but it just isn't doable with the way RPGMaker and available plugins handle mouse input. Too flaky.
And no, no discord. This is the place to discuss the game, ask about bugs, share fanart etc.

People have asked, no plans at the moment, but we will see. And thanks! Glad you're enjoying the games so far, and same to you, hope it's a good holiday season.

Oh man, haven't been to hypnohub in ages.

Oh there's a lot of possibilities. Only limited time and space to put them in, but there will definitely be some fun ones.

GT you mean? Really appreciate it. I mean at the end of the day, it IS just the porn game. I'm not making earth-shattering art here. But I take these games seriously when I'm making them, and I'm glad that comes across at least a little. There's a lot of potential for explicit games that just isn't explored, most of it is extremely flat. It's an interactive medium, and you can do a lot of fun things with that if you care.

Oh MV, which came out around 2015/2016 I think, is a huge step up from the earlier stuff. Much better gui IMHO, huge plugin ecosystem. If you want, you can basically put the whole thing up on blocks and make it whatever you like, because MV swaps from being an ordinary exe to basically just a headerless browser running a big pile of javascript. So definitionally, anything js can do, MV can probably do as well. 
MZ came out a bit later, which was more of a modest tweak to MV to improve the GUI a bit more, add a few things here and there. And then...they made it into an addon for Unity. YECH. I'm content to stick with MV.

Thanks! Yeah, I really enjoy the RPG format, because once you have a few art assets you can easily drop in a new NPC here or there and add some more little dialog etc. It's easy to fill out the little corners of the world, and a fun thing to work on.

Oh I've definitely considered doing more with Scratch. Aside from the dating side content in 3 though, that'll probably be saved for 4, as 4 will be somewhat tech-themed. It'll be a good fit.

Glad you liked it! I'll definitely agree that the forced return to the glory hole are a little flat: there are many experiments here, and not all of them work. I assume MOST people probably only did that route as a secondary anyway though, or had an earlier save before getting addicted, so it wasn't the end of the world. 
But yes, Mezz is DEFINITELY aware he's desirable. Or...well it's complicated. He's smug about everything, including that. But I think he's one of those people who's laser-focused on a particular thing, in this case being the image in his mind of what a "hero" is. He's not SO laser focused that it makes him an asshole, he still cares about and helps other people, and not just to stroke his own ego or live out his own self-image. But it does make him a little blind to other things, like how Scratch feels about him, or maybe even the thugs he encounters. 

In his mind, I think he sees all those interactions through the lens of "bad guys torturing the hero", or in the case of say the center path, the hero doing something sly to sneak past. Mezz I think is one of those infuriating people who's very good at what he does, but never really takes things fully seriously until he's FORCED to (which he obviously is, quite frequently in these games). Again, not to the point of being an asshole or being shitty to people, or being totally divorced from reality: He's still somewhat practical, down to earth, helps people when they need it. But he definitely has an ego, and VERY much enjoys what he does, and gets kind of caught up in it all. Which is why it's so much fun to pull him forcefully out of that.

You finished them! I honestly forgot they weren't complete; your "in progress" versions had a really neat inked look even at that stage. Glad to see them with color and shading though, there is some TEXTURE to these. Love it. And you draw a very cute Mezz! Thanks for taking the time to do art of the game, and two pieces at that! Much appreciated.
Also, while the boars wearing bondage harnesses certainly isn't canon, I love it here, and especially love that even the harnesses ALSO have the goofy shoulder spikes. Perfect.

Same to you!