itch.io

I take your point on ballroom culture, genuinely, and I’m not dismissing it, but I think you’re conflating two things.

The way I use “clock” in the IF is “to notice” in the general sense. Characters clock a grin, clock a reaction, clock the vibe. Nobody’s being read, nobody’s cover is being blown. That’s the British usage, which has been in continuous everyday use since the early 20th century, it never went anywhere. It didn’t need a revival via RuPaul’s Drag Race because it was never gone.

The ballroom/AAVE sense is more specific: to see through something someone is trying to hide. Related, yes. The same? No. And crucially, that’s not what’s happening in the text.

Both things can have history with a word without one erasing the other. I’m not claiming British English invented it or owns it, I’m saying when I write it, I’m writing from my own language and lived experience, which is British, and that’s a valid source regardless of what else the word is doing in other contexts.

There are slight differences between the two, although you are mostly correct. ‘To clock’ in AAVE and Black LGBT+ Ballroom culture is ‘to notice something someone is trying to hide’, which came in around the 1980s. For general British slang, this started between 1910s-1930s, and means ‘to notice’ in general, not ‘notice something someone is trying to hide’. It’s commonly used, and I hear it in every day British life.

I don’t know what your culture is or your experiences are, but it is just as British as it is Black and Queer Ballroom Culture.

You’re welcome!

So a few things here!

The NHIE choices do affect stats, just not the ones you might expect to see shift. Picking “I cheated” doesn’t change your relationship with Mattie because you didn’t cheat on Mattie, you’re essentially strangers who have known each other for a few hours at this point. What it does affect is her trust in you (she lost 4 trust points, which feeds into the villa trust calculation), her pref (down 4, so she’s marginally less inclined toward you over the other islanders), and your popularity with the public. Your relationship with her, the romantic and platonic tracks, reflects what you’ve actually done/said to her, and you haven’t done anything to her yet. She just learned something about who you are. That’s different.

Also, if you’re playing a 28 year old who cheated once at 18, that’s a decade of growth. People change. The game accounts for that, and later, you’ll get to talk about your reasons for cheating, the amount you cheated, etc, which is more important than just cheating.

As for drinking when you say you’ve never done something, that’s not how Never Have I Ever works 😂 If you say you’ve never done it, you haven’t done it, so you don’t drink. That’s the whole game. The option to drink when you pick the prompt isn’t there because you’re the one asking the question, not answering it. If you want the thing to apply to you, don’t pick the prompt and then it can apply to you later.

And yes, the public relations tab moving during the drinking game is correct and intended! Every round is being watched. You’re always on camera.

Thank you so much for this, genuinely! Okay let me go through it.

The Izzie thing: you’re right and I’m fixing it. The first mention is her picking up the glass not drinking, but that’s clearly not reading that way.

The ‘someone refills a glass’ repetition: noted and fair. I’ll be more conscious of it going forward, I’m not going back to edit ch2 but it’s a good habit note for ch3 and beyond.

The Noah/Amber specific actions thing: also fair, and something I’ll keep an eye on. Again, not going back, but I hear you.

The drink option: I thought about it! The reason I didn’t is that by the end of chapter 2 there are already a LOT of choices and I wasn’t going to do much with a specific drink selection anyway. Also, non-alcoholic drinkers weren’t choosing between alcohol and water, there were non-alcoholic ciders and wines available too, so it’s not as binary as it might seem. Either way, there will be a mention in chapter 3 of dinner giving drinkers a chance to sober up before the evening, so it’s not just dropped. (For reference: only Anwar and Mattie weren’t drinking if your MC was, everyone else had something.)

The threesome question: it got scrapped for this chapter but it will be back later.

And the ‘you don’t drink but you should’ option 👀 You’ll find out.

It’s mostly different ‘Never Have I Ever’ prompts but it was so fun to write and it was fun to play with the dynamics and begin to shape what it’ll look like.

Yes it’s British slang, I’m so sorry!

Yes, the edits were definitely fat trimming more than anything, I know it was a 30k removal but that’s still significant.

The slashes around the please were supposed to be two so it turns into italics, so I’ll fix that soon. The ‘recalibrate’ has received a partial edit but at 400k, I’ve got to take it section by section (I’m also working on the ‘rather than’ thing because I’ve used that about 900 times in a 400k chapter and that is just too much, same for the word ‘settle’ - I’ve done up to Anwar’s scene and no further), I’ll fix the Mattie intro when I do the please, and I’ll have a look at the scene that’s similar to Scarlette’s to see if I feel right changing it.

Thank you so much for this!

The edits have been out for I think about two weeks now, I did announce it on tumblr and no one has commented about how successful I was despite people being willing to tell me it was repetitive, but I also know it’s not enough of an edit to make it worth replaying as nothing has technically changed in regards of the content other than tightening it up.

So I’m hoping I was successful, and you’re more than welcome to be honest with me about any critique you have in future because I cannot improve this without the input, if that makes sense

The Haoyu line you’re quoting doesn’t exist in the game. The actual line is: “just a small practical gesture that means you’ve been seen, you’re welcome here, here’s a drink.”

Nine words of interior shorthand. Not “it was a sign, a sign to say you’re welcome, you’re seen and honestly, that was enough.” You wrote that. That’s your version, and it does sound like AI, but it’s not what I wrote.

This is the problem with pattern-matching from memory rather than from the actual text. You’ve remembered a feeling you had while reading, reconstructed a sentence that matches the feeling, and then pointed at the sentence you invented as proof. I understand why it happens, if you’re reading quickly and you’ve seen a lot of AI output, the pattern-recognition kicks in before the actual reading does, but it means you’re not responding to my writing. You’re responding to what you assumed my writing was, and those are different things.

I’ve acknowledged that chapter one runs too analytical in places, particularly during the introductions. That’s a craft issue and it’s fair feedback. But “this has a flaw I can identify” is not the same as “this was generated,” and I’d appreciate that distinction being made, especially on a page where it affects whether people are willing to try the game.

I didn’t use AI. I’ve addressed this multiple times on my Tumblr, including with details of my editing process, and I’m not going to relitigate the whole thing here, but I’ll give you the short version.

The two lines you’ve quoted are describing two characters, who behave in opposite ways, and the writing is doing what it’s supposed to do there: showing you who these people are through how they occupy a conversation. Izzie talks over you because she’s looking for common ground. Theo doesn’t talk much, but he pays attention. That’s characterisation, not filler.

I’ve had feedback that the prose in chapter one runs too analytical, particularly during the introductions where you’re meeting nine people in quick succession and the MC is reading all of them at the same level of depth. That’s fair, I overcorrected from an earlier draft that was too sparse, and I’m editing to address it. But “this is dense” and “this is AI” are not the same observation, and I’d appreciate them not being treated as interchangeable.

If you want to see process, my Tumblr is @summeroflove-if, there are details of the actual editing, the cutting and reworking, going back months. The game is 439k words of prose I’ve done myself and I’ve been working on it for years. I’m not going to keep proving that every time someone reads a metaphor they don’t like, but the proof is there if you want it.

Thank you so much!

I just checked, there’s no blushing in chapter 1, but yes I always intended to ensure it was ambiguous regardless or face or skin colour. I already knew I’d have to be careful with people like Anwar and Scarlette as well, due to being dark-skinned, but honestly for most characters, even white ones, I’d rather focus on how they behave rather than an obvious cue like blushing, with a handful of exceptions for characters like Amber who wouldn’t often blush in any form so it would actually be notable if she does, if that makes sense. MC will be treated the same as dark skinned characters in terms of blushing because it’s easier to assume it’s not visible and give them other physical ways to show that moment.

I don’t think I’ve used blushing so far but the intention is to keep it neutral as you suggested. I am a white person and may slip, I’ll be honest, but I do actually intend on keeping it to ‘you feel your face warm’ and if characters were to comment on this kind of situation, it would be based on other behavioural cues rather than a visual one. I did consider including skin tone for the blushing situation but I felt it would unnecessarily complicate things when it would be focused on MCs experience of it and not the other characters perspective.

No, I’ve never included them before and I didn’t feel like I’d use them enough, if I’m being honest.

Like I’m barely going to use hair and eye colour, let’s be honest (height, hair texture and hair length are more used and easier to use), and skin colour and body type just seemed like shoving things in for the sake of it when they’re not going to get called upon–to call on skin colour, I’d have to assume people’s cultures and kind of put them into racial boxes that may not apply, in comparison of Scarlette, Haoyu or Anwar where I know their backgrounds, how important culture is to them, and so on. Body types, I could call upon but at the same time, I can’t think of how I’d do that naturally, in comparison to body confidence which I can call upon all the time and actually use meaningfully.

I’ve updated it to this for the minute as it’s a quicker fix: but I will update it to something more similar to your suggestion once I figure it out as I keep breaking it and that’s not the goal. I hope this works temporarily.

That’s the current available chapter, there is nothing else yet.

That’s right. Basically, the grey side is the reserved side in this case, and that’s bigger than the coloured (bold) side, and you’re 10% bold (or 90% reserved) so the stat bar is showing correctly.

However, I may need to find a better way of displaying the stat bars just because it would be easy to mistake and if you’re confused, others may be too. I’ll have a play tomorrow, but it may take a while to figure out because it took me weeks to figure out the first time.

I do recommend landscape just because it works better with the buttons (the back button shrinks and the settings go down to the bottom banner which isn’t the best), and especially if you prefer light mode as for some reason light mode background turns black on portrait, you can now set it to portrait in the game settings if you really want to. You can also change the text size if that would be better and solve your issues.

(I am a portrait puritan generally so I get it if that’s your general preference)

Thank you, it took a lot of work and a lot of learning to get this to where I wanted it to be, so I’m glad you liked it!

I didn’t feel like it added enough, I actually want to use the careers for texture throughout and fashion designer felt like I’d be squeezing it in.

That’s early, he comes in on day 5 but you shouldn’t see him yet. I’ll fix that when I get a chance!

Yeah, it’s been a year and a half and I basically figured out how to write better in that time.

As for the it/it’s neopronouns, I do need to check grammar before adding them so I use them correctly, but they should be in there by the next chapter release.

I’ve actually uploaded the first chapter of the rewrite today so you can play it now!

Okay so each day has three parts, and each part is a chapter, so ‘Day 4, Part 2’ took us to 11 chapters, and that was released in summer 2024. I had the Day/Part at the top in the header but if you’re enjoying it, you may not notice so I get it. I can make the chapter breaks clearer in the remake, I’ll probably put a poll up on Tumblr though to kind of gather info on whether the audience as a whole wants that or if that’ll pull them out of the game too much, and what they want it to look like. Most things, I do tend to poll on Tumblr just because it’s hard to get a general consensus here, but obviously, you won’t notice that until I release re-written Chapter 2 (so Day 1, Part 2).

I don’t know if you’d call them more fleshed out, we’re back to day 1 part 1 so still a lot of building, but MC now has body confidence that changes the text you see depending on your choice, you have the choice to lie about your motive for going on the show (you pick the truth in setup then when Amber asks, you get the chance to lie as 3 ROs are lying about their reasons for being on there and it’s unfair not to give MC that chance), and more text referring to height/age/hair length throughout when natural. Most people haven’t asked me to flesh out MC more, but if you have anything specific you wanted fleshing out that you remember off the top of your head, I can definitely add it in.

Also, in future chapters, you also get the chance to lie about other stuff (so like in never have I ever, each comment, you get the choice to be truthful or to lie about doing or not doing certain things, which may come back to bite you later)

It was 11 chapters a year ago, at 800k word iirc, so we are back to day 1 part 1 unfortunately, but thank you for this.

I got to chapter 11 and I just hated it. Not the concept, not the characters, but the quality. It wasn’t what I wanted my writing to be, so I’ve spent almost two years refining my writing skills by writing a shit ton of fanfic so they’re what I want them to be, learning the characters better, and two months ago, I began a proper rewrite.

I am terrified people will be disappointed, I’ve been sharing snippets on Tumblr and they seem to be getting positive reactions but I’m still scared because you never know for definite until it’s out there.

But not dead. Although this is better planned so the version you know is kind of dead.

If we’re being specific, 435k words.

The first chapter now has one on one scenes with all OG ROs before the coupling so you can actually get to know the ROs before making your choice, and find out Theo and Izzie’s reasons for picking each other, which I’ve really enjoyed writing and is where most of the words are. You can only chat with one per playthrough and you can have up to three entirely different conversations with each RO so there’s an average of 43k possible words per one on one. I just have the coupling left to write, which should take two weeks max (although I’m hoping for one).

No, that was a mistake, it's been fixed now!

The next public release is actually this Friday! 

I hate to say this, but have you noticed the button at the bottom titled character profiles? You may have to click the up arrow first of you're on mobile. Each character is on there, and if you click the name, it'll bring up their profile

I just checked the code and the game. The button that states 'next chapter' works fine, but you do have to scroll to find it. 

Are you asking about the events before she chooses you (day 3, part 2) or after the breakfast date (day 4, part 1)? I've made a few updates since completing day 4, part 1, but they mostly involve fixing mistakes rather than actual game updates. If you're stuck on day 3, part 2, I need to know so I can fix whatever error you're encountering. 

I've checked the code and played it through myself, and I haven't encountered this issue. Glitches like this do happen, but on my end, I can't fix it as there's no mistake in the code.

Fixed!

You have to turn Vanessa down directly on the first night. 

Is there a problem after pressing next? Because the button is there, I'm not seeing the issue

There is a planned throuple route with Theo and Izzie, but that's all. 

I promise that every contestant is available in the end, but that's a very long way off, so enjoy the ride 😅