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I'm mostly talking about the meaningful routes - Mikko's and Torulf's, since they are the big branching ones with a lot of deep character exploration, while other routes are more straightforward.

In Torulf's route she inserts herself at the point where I simply don't believe Arvo would let in another pushy stranger and it ruins my suspense of disbelief.

In Mikko's route she comes in at the exact point where Arvo can salvage things and talk to Mikko straight, with the fire of Mikko's decisiveness lit under the tiger's ass, but now it's suddenly a group outing and he doesn't get a moment of intimacy because of her. It's frustrating to the highest degree.

Fuck her, she ruins everything, both times coming in at the worst time with the worst opinions, without anyone asking her. She is a really obnoxious person, in my opinion.

p.s. also she's being a possessive friend in Jorgen's route early on, but I haven't played Jorgen's route for several updates, so idk what she does there yet.

That whole sub-route is so forced. "Hey, a stranger forced their way into your life and you got burned after trusting him - time to throw yourself at yet another stranger forcing themselves into your life!". And Gudrun really forces her way into that route, like omg.

Worst sub-route ever. I already hated Gudrun for being ham-fisted into every route at 11th hour with their opinion nobody asked for, but this is just too much.

The entire THEM conspiracy sideplots branch is unnecessarily edgy.

This is a fun porn world with fun porn logic, serious themes already barely work here, clashing with the tone of the rest of the story and the setting itself. Edgy stuff doesn't work at all and just annoys the reader with zero benefit for the story. 

Like, okay, cool, I already hated Therium and the cat, what did that ending achieve?

Literally nothing would change if the route ended with Therium saying "nah-ah-ah, not how this story goes" and snapping the player back to the choice. The ending we got is literally a bad prank from the author. Just like that shotgun flashback - the scene was done in the most lolrandumb cringe-inducing edgy way possible just to annoy you.

Also the 'teacher?' reveal was super obvious. The plague doctor cosplayer having furless skin was a dead giveaway - I still don't understand what was the point of him even being two characters.

I still don't understand what bug you are talking about, Liquid containers taking on outside liquids when submerged is clearly intended behavior. I'm not talking about that, I'm being baffled why it's a mechanic in the first place, because it works off an insane assumption that you are putting uncapped bottles into your bags.

I was hoping the developer would read this and either disable the mechanic for now, or add a way to close bottles.

People keep finding new ways to say they hate the new sprites.

I haven't tested it, so speaking from my impressions. Liquids containers are not leaking. But all liquids containers that both have something in them and have free space can passively take in liquids from outside if you are submerged deeply enough. I don't know what counts as "deep enough" but it feels overtuned against you, just like many other things in this game.

I don't think it matters where a liquids container is on you - hands, bag, or a worn backpack. Or maybe it does and the bag must physically get submerged, I don't know.

Empty containers you have will never get anything in them from outside, unless you actually drop said container into the liquid, or pour a bit of some liquid into it first. Which suggests that there IS a bottle cap mechanic, but you don't have access to controlling it, it just auto-activates with an empty bottle.

The only container that doesn't seem to take in outside liquids is the one you can wear in the same slot as a fanny pack.

>You can now scavenge dumpsters for trash!

The developer must have played Pathologic 2

Liquids collisions make no sense. 1mm puddle shouldn't freely move the player and giant boxes around and easily throw them off a cliff.

It makes no sense what items can freely roll like they're perfectly spherical balls. Dropped a toolbox that was making me overweight and it just ROLLED AWAY.

Also, did I somehow miss the way to close water bottles or does this game actually take place in a universe where they never invented bottle caps? It makes no sense that I have to hunt down 250ml cups because this way I can make sure all my liquid containers stay full and I can use them one at a time.

Oh, that's right, it could be a slider! Sorry, that's definitely a better option than changing things for everyone, you're right!

Floor tiles blending in with the background even under light is annoying and not fun at all.

Items cluttering on the ground are impossible to sort through with pixel hunting, there should be a proximity inventory.

Rates of all conditions progression, including hunger and thirst, are definitely cranked up way too high.

So are the spaghetti until they get wet.

Also he's really into getting Mikko and Arvo back together. I think the tanuki boy is a fudanshi.

Travis would say no because he wants you to stay with Mikko, duh.

Keo keeps rewriting the axe murder ending, and it just keeps getting weirder because of it.

I don't know what the scene originally was, I only came around patch 0.28, I think. But I caught the tail end of someone giving Keo shit over changing it. I think it might have used to end with the axe sound, or maybe the axe sound was meaty, or maybe there was blood - something gruesome like that.

In 0.35.1, which I have kept, the cuffs were real(screenshots attached)

Now it's 0.51.1 and there's no blood, no axe, no cuffs... And since there's no Mikko - the scene now suggests that it was all purely imaginary, Arvo simply freaked out from being around Mikko and ran.

That feels more anti-climactic than the jumpscare of the worst ending, IMO. That one at least follows the motif of Mikko's repeating monologue about how nothing we do matters, and we're less than dust on the cosmic scale. You're dying, never having made up for your betrayal to your best friend/love, but at least you both happened, no matter how inexplicably unlikely, and managed to enjoy each other's company for a bit. And if it ended poorly - well... None of it mattered in the first place.

p.s. Imagine Travis' face in the morning when he found out that Arvo fucking DIED! 😳How would he try to make amends for his sticky paws? Would he tell Mikko? How would Mikko feel about it? I love exploring the doomed timelines like this, they are so rich for good meaty developments.

p.p.s. The Bad Ending, if read as "it was all a dream", shouldn't really be the end, as it invites a continuation of the story - Mikko going ballistic from Arvo not just leaving the lodge, but straight up dropping out of the university. Running way from him. FUCKING. AGAIN. It could actually lead to a satisfying ending where Mikko actually corners him with cuffs to make sure this time he stays around long enough for them to talk. How it would go from there - imagine for yourself, fanon is bae. ;)

Alright, without spoilers, but you must promise to come back and discuss them with me after you play them.

The Bad Ending - stay with Mikko but ignore him. (I think you only need to ignore his invitation to go outside, but if you're going for a bad ending - might as well ignore him completely, this way the final scene seems more natural).

THE WORST ENDING - Agree to stay with Mikko, but bail on him when you find the key.

Make sure you get all of Mikko's bad endings, otherwise the experience is not complete. Come back and let me know how you like his kinky side >:3

Excuse me, which route is this?

I realized what I like about the old sprites. 

I like how artistically artificial they look. Their expressions, their poses - they are aimed directly at YOU, the viewer, the only real person here, whose act of witnessing the show makes it real.

When it's a one on one dialogue, your companion stands in the middle of the frame, staring right at you, unblinking, like they are a character in a Wes Anderson movie. His works exude the same artistic artificiality as the old Dawn Chorus sprites - everything is not just artificial, but draws attention to its artificial nature.

I always loved works of fiction that are not afraid to make a nod, or better yet, a full bow to their artificial nature. "Pathologic" is a great example - it has main characters, background characters, and then the extras that don't even get a costume, they are just wearing a black bodysuit and a mask to create the sense of scale and numbers.

But back to Dawn Chorus. It's not just the old sprites that have this artistically artificial nature, other aspects of the FVN share that quality.

The background extras are not even black-clad shadows, they straight up don't exist. There's several dozen people in the lodge, you only ever see less than a dozen.

A lot of the writing here is unnatural in an artistic fashion as well. 

Every single OOC dialogue about ships at the sea the characters have is non-diegetic, it doesn't actually happen in the world of the VN. 

Every single perspective change is just the omnipotent storyteller lifting the curtain only to you, the viewer.

Every single monologue is saturated with theatrical pathos, like there's a literal spotlight shining on the speaker. Especially the self-analyzational sermons you shouldn't hear, because they are happening inside another character's head, or even in another time. It's completely fake but also extremely awesome.

And the old sprites really add to that feel - they grasp your attention demanding you witness them.

And the best part is that it's all entirely accidental. The creators of this FVN did not intend this at all, it happened by completely improbable sheer cosmic occurrence. The universe just shuffled the deck of reality 14 billion years ago and a never-ending sequence of happenstances made it just so happen that the people behind Dawn Chorus had created this deeply artistic artificial feel to their work while just trying to tell a story.

I think it's fantastic.

0.50.7, patched from Patreon.

Legacy is missing Dan's sprites, happens in day2_12_fireplace2 sequence of events. It was in Rune's route, though I'm sure this must be an issue in other routes as well.

The exact ones that gave me grief were

images/sprites/misc/dan dark-legacy.webp

images/sprites/misc/dan-legacy.webp

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your honesty and openness.

Came here after dealing with a FVN creator who is a way, way lesser community manager than you, and it's so horribly tiring to deal with them. You're just a breath of fresh air.

Please stay as you are, you're amazing and I hope your project succeeds and becomes popular. I recommend it to people whenever I can.

"Precious space in the options menu"? You mean the one you can expand literally endlessly? "Confuse new players"? There's absolutely nothing confusing about having two options for sprites, the concept of options is very-very clear. And people usually prefer to have them easily available, not hidden behind passwords.

Sigh... Keo, we've been through this.

I know you're just a writer, and a good one, and it's clear that the whole community management thing is hard for you. But resorting to making up excuses like you did before is going to have the exact same result as before. It's just going to give people false hope that they can reason with you. Again. And when they will inevitably fail, their resentment for you will grow. Again. And people will start getting obnoxious about this. AGAIN. And it will be your own fault. AGAIN.

You've taken a stance on this, it's obvious - you are a very resolute person. And I'm not asking you to give up your position - I know better now. But please, please, be direct about it, make it obvious - don't sugarcoat it, don't avoid it, don't pretend there's a good reason for this. Just be honest and say: "I don't want to make it a visible option". It won't make anyone happy, but it will sure as hell keep people from growing unhappier over time.

p.s. Either get better at this or find a community manager that can do this for you, because you're running out of legs to shoot. You can jerk people around between "oh wow, Keo listened!" and "Oh fuck, Keo is lying again" only so many times before they give up on you completely.

p.p.s. You want to see a creator being a great community manager? Look at your fellow FVN creator Xevvy - he too often has to say "no" to people, but he is always direct, always honest, and no one is ever unhappy with him for more than it takes him to respond. I don't even care for his VN, but my god, what an amazing person. I keep recommending people his VN just because I want to see him succeed. This could be you... If you could just be open with us. You have no idea how hard this is for us and how much we want to love you.

I'm yet to check it out, but bringing back the old sprites is a nice gesture.

Though I really don't think they should be locked behind a code. Just make it an option in the settings, please, this is an entirely unnecessary complication.

Haven't played in a while, but I think there's an option in the settings to make your ass not leak for that part. Or maybe a cheat code? Can't recall.

You don't have to thank me, I'm the one grateful for the experience and your reply is a display of gratitude in itself.

That said, my eloquence must be failing me, because I see that you misunderstand the issue I have with that scene. I'll try again if don't mind.

On day 2 the way Mizz speaks about his interest in Rael and his plans to go slow with him, it can be easily read as a declaration of a beginning of a relationship.

And those usually come with an expectation of being an exceptional arrangement, and not a "I'll tell you how special you are to me and then turn around and blow someone else".

So, the way the scene at the observation deck reads after that is that Mizz had consciously betrayed Rael's trust and Rael just did nothing about it. He even apologized about something that wasn't his fault like a lemon - the possibility of getting caught is a big part of having sex in a public place, it was Bromm's and Mizz's fault they got caught, not Rael's fault for catching them. Play stupid games - win stupid prizes. Batman couldn't beat an apology out of me there.

And regardless of that, what Mizz is angry about is irrelevant, because he just lost his right to be angry. He betrayed Rael's trust and he should not be allowed to make this about Bromm or himself. 

Again, I'm not daft, I realize that this is not your intended read, but it's a very possible and obvious read from where I'm standing. Other people will see things this way too.

And replying to your suggestion about playing things differently - no, even if I chose the option to stay quiet and spare Bromm's feelings at the expense of my own, I would NOT want sloppy seconds after him. And yes, the player can choose to not receive a blowjob there, to Mizz's  brief surprise, but you did not put it there for the reasons I would pick it for, so it's irrelevant in the context of our discussion - it's just Rael being shy, not Rael being angry.

So what am I suggesting?

The easiest(and also the worst) way to fix this is to avoid this read completely. Rewrite parts of Mizz's dialogue to make sure he beats the player over the head with the fact that there's no exclusive arrangement between them, and he will lift tail whenever he  wants for whomever he wants while they're flirting and he's telling Rael that he is so special. With a second chance for the player to block Mizz's romance by saying that is not acceptable to him.

The better option(though not for your free time) is to lean into this. You stumbled into this accidentally, but this is good drama, and drama sells - this could be everyone's favorite scene because conflict is memorable. 

(for example, Dawn Chorus fans love-love-LOVE the Axe Murder ending, even though it's a bad and non-canon ending, it's simply exciting and memorable BECAUSE it's a bad experience that's meant to be be a bad experience) 

What I'm saying is that even if it cuts off Mizz's romance option, you should allow the player an option to make Rael be hurt and angry, let him dig his heels in and tank his relationship with Mizz. This is a game about relationships, yet we haven't had any opportunities to lower our scores with anyone yet.

P.S. I'm retracting my notion that Rael is so different from a modern day person that he is allowed a special outlook on the situation - while talking about his Punk years, Rael mentioned people in his gang breaking each other's heart, so an expectation of an exclusive relationship is not something out of the ordinary for their world or him personally.

No, I understand what you mean. From his perspective Mizz isn't doing anything wrong - he already knew Bromm before you, probably intimately too, and he is genuinely putting you on a slow burn because he is actually interested in you, and he made you no promises of a closed relationship even as he admitted his interest. 

But the way things are right now - they ignore the player's perspective on this situation completely and treat him as if he is unequivocally in the wrong for having his own feelings and expectations of Mizz. Not Rael, the player.

Rael might be cool with this, he is not me, he was born and raised in the far-off future of a different world, he does not have my sensibilities and expectations of people.

But I am the one playing the game. I am the one whose feelings are real.

And I do realize the difficulties of creating a vast branching experience like you are creating, and I know you don't have endless resources to iron out every little thing... 

And, honestly, apart from this one particular experience, I've got nothing but praise for you, you're nailing it, truly. I am genuinely in awe at the scale of the story's branching. I tried to see all events for every character as the most obvious background paths, so I think I'm being objective when I say the game's been astonishingly amazing so far.

Which makes this particular event all the more disappointing because of how high the overall experience has been before it hit such a harrowing low. I feel like this is NOT one of those moments where you should just shrug it off and say that you only have two hands and can't cover all bases. I felt this way, and I'm hardly unique, so others will follow and be disappointed.

You must see that this needs at least a way for the player to make Rael be offended and not complicit in his own humiliation.

Call me old-fashioned, but I am rather disappointed that Mizz can play hard to get with you, and then turn around and blow Bromm. Where I'm from it's called leading you on.

And you don't get to call him out on that.

AND he is the one angry if you interrupt.

AND you're forced to apologize without a prompt.

Yeah, that part left a rather sour taste in my mouth.

If he's interested in Rael - maybe don't have Mizz put him on hold and then rush to suck off someone else.

If He's going to do it anyway - maybe let Rael be disappointed.

If he's going to be angry when, after all that, you interrupt Mizz - maybe let me dig in my heels and tank our relationship score even lower.

Because the way it is right now - the game made me lose all interest in Mizz by making him a two-faced whore, and then forced me to apologize to him too. That's just adding insult to injury.

As I am free to give them shit for it.

If the game suddenly turned into a body horror with straight romance - you wouldn't be defending the developer, you would be up in arms, because the game would be ruined for you. I'm exaggerating to make my point obvious, of course, but it doesn't really matter how far off from your expectation the game goes, when it's already out of bounds of acceptable for you.

The original designs were a promise. To change that - is to betray the trust of the community. This is why a good developer includes the community in the decision-making process when it's something that can make or break the entire project for large portions of the fanbase.

Monchi didn't do it, which mean he doesn't respect us. We didn't even get a heads-up, it was just dropped on us - in his eyes we don't even deserve a fucking word of warning from his fucking majesty.

So it's really bizarre that all these people with a para-social relationship with a person who doesn't give a shit about them are defending him.

> he was unrealistically twinky for someone of his background

Debatable. But regardless, it's a porn FVN about magic and ancient ghostly Viziers, this is not and has never been about realism. Please don't try to make this about something irrelevant.

What this IS about is Monchimutt pulling a bait and switch, betraying the trust of his community by changing a character's design in a meaningful way without a discussion. This is a huge middle finger to each and every one of us, including you. This is a message, and it says: "I do what I want and I do not care about your opinions and emotional investments in the slightest".

> John is clearly the embodiment of Twinkness still

John in his next update if we don't rise up against Monchi's tyranny:

Why do VN artists keep doing this to us? Are we not allowed to have any twinks? Thick arms, pecks the size of his head... Who is this? What did you do to my boy? Why?

Where were you when Monchimutt joined the twink genocide?

No art - no advertisement potential.

The shitty busted gramophone sound is beyond annoying and it brought on a bout of tinnitus for me. I hate you so much for this you can't imagine.

The writing is competent and even has some well-executed humorous moments, which is so rare, especially among VNs exploring serious topics. 

But I feel like the tension falls flat after the reveal of MC's backstory - the reveal is too heavy-handed and rushed. It was one of the big mysteries of the story, something like that should be delivered through tiny hints throughout the entire story, not in a singular monologue.

p.s. I can't express how much I hate this page's design. Red on black is killing my eyes.

It's just Hjort's ending, it doesn't unlock in the gallery when you get it, it's bugged.

2 row 2 pic - Gylden riding the dildo. As Gylden, say that getting a dildo up your butt is not a big deal, then prove it.

3 row 1 pic - Gylden ending, look through comments for a specific walkthrough to get it.

3 row 2 pic - Hjort ending, Right now it doesn't seem to unlock, even when you get the ending.

A rather complex game for a game jam - animations, choices, 13 whole scenes, several endings. There are plenty of games that do less without time restraints. I am impressed.

That said... 

The animations are sometimes very stiff and don't always make sense logically or physically.

The differences between different stages of a cut-scene are miniscule.

Facial expressions are sometimes too animated and hard to read, since the actual emotion for the situation blinks for only a second before the face goes back to seemingly random idle changes). 

I have some notes about some inconsistencies in the writing, but being seriously critical of a porn plot would be silly, so it gets a pass.

And the character bodies for Hjort and Raev look completely different in idle stances and in cut-scenes - you be the judge which ones are off-model.

But, like I said, this is a nice little porn game that does more than could be expected of a game jam entry.

The bugs I found:

1. Hjort's ending's scene just doesn't unlock in the scenes, no matter how many times I get the ending.

2. Raev's turn is bugged and him talking to Coach part plays twice - first when you pick it, then after the Hjort/Gylden scene plays out.

3. After playing a scene from the gallery where characters undress, they stay undressed if you start a new game.

4. In Raev's dildo scene, pressing 'change scene' shows you the screen where he already, well, arrived, instead of the animation.

5. Picking 'Celebration' ending from the gallery and selecting 'animation' will still play the scene. If you also pick 'Don't celebrate' then after the ending, the game will instantly start from the beginning.

There was also some scene where I could switch to the 'second couple' and it was just an empty white screen, since it wasn't the 'Celebration' ending, but I forgot which scene it was.

To the developer: 

I know this might seem unimportant, since you're already working on another game, but this one is going to stay your only game for a while longer, so you might want to fix the bugs anyway. They don't seem too complicated and supporting your titles does wonders for one's reputation. And vice versa. You do NOT want to be known as 'that dev who publishes bugged games and never fixes them'.

Best of wishes and thank you for a lovely game!

It's too early to meaningfully judge the project, but two things are obvious:

1. This is shaping up to be a rather gross VN for people who are into that sort of stuff. No kink shaming, and I myself don't mind, but I think it wouldn't hurt for the game to throw up a warning screen.

2. The cast is promising to be quite colourful(though it's obvious some characters are meant to be two-dimensional meat puppets while others will meaningfully affect the story.

That said, I sincerely hope the protagonist grows at least a bit of a spine in the future - it's weird to have a pro-active protagonist with an agency who  nevertheless plops on his back at the first signs of trouble and lets literally anyone and everyone walk all over him.