itch.io

Thank you! :)

Both :(

The very first one, New game etc, but... Apparently... It works now? I haven't changed browser or anything 🧐

Well, bugs are weird! I can try it now at least, haha. 

I'm sorry, sure! It happened once with Abeni and every time with Valerian, up to the third chapter—I tried all the variables, custom names. I'm using Google Chrome from Android. 

The menu looks weird, and there are two error messages: 

1. The string "01" isn't the same type of data as the number 0
   1. You might want to convert one side to a number using (num:), or to a string using (str:).
2. You can't get any data values, let alone the string "length", from the number 0
   1. I tried to access a value in a string/array/datamap, but I couldn't find it.

Unfortunately, the name doesn't get saved. After loading, the info page says, "I don't know you"—and the name simply gets skipped in dialogues. 

No vampires here, sorry.

Thank you for the links! Your reflection on how developing one's identity is at the core of self-acceptance was really interesting. I have to admit I also laughed quite a bit at the game being an "anxiety simulator" because... yeah, it's true.

I'm serious, I really appreciated everything even before starting chapter 5! If you tell me these things, then I can't wait to continue playing. In the meantime, I’m recommending it to people I know :-)

Hey! 

I'm genuinely happy that I made you smile; that was my main goal. I also understand your anxiety when it comes to other writers—or rather, I have low self-esteem, so I get anxiety in general, lol. But really, you don’t need to worry about it. I just mentioned it to emphasize how much I understand the difficulty behind writing, not to promote myself (especially since half of my work isn’t even in English). Don’t feel obligated to "return the favor" or anything :-) 

I also understand the difference with writing "papers and stuff" (here comes another unsolicited personal note...). After my master’s, I made the poor decision to stay in academia, and now I’m doing a PhD. The competitiveness in the field really requires you to do research with one hand and write articles with the other... So, I know very well how academic writing has nothing to do with writing fiction. Kudos to you for reaching this level of skill without previous experience in fiction writing, specifically! 

This brings me to a question I forgot to ask earlier; if it’s too personal to answer, don’t worry. The fact that you have the same academic background as the protagonist and use his avatar as your profile picture got me thinking. Is it an autobiographical story? How much of the story is based on your own experiences?

(I’m at the beginning of chapter five, so feel free to stay vague!)

Thanks again for your heartfelt response, I really appreciate it. 

Hi again! So, I finally managed to play. My score was 3529!

I'm reporting some kind of bug, though. If you open the Faith Shop during the end of the day, you could end up covering the pop-up of the free daily card (it happened multiple times, ugh.) If that's the case, closing the Faith Shop will just start the new day with no free daily card selection.

Nice little game, though! Greetings from the old Acerrae, on the opposite side of Vesuvius from Pompeii and thus saved from the eruption 😁

Oh, then I spent two-three days every time without enough resources to place any card! 😬

I don't know if that's supposed to happen, but I'll try again. Thank you :) 

I tried clicking the card and then a tile, then double clicking the card, and then any other variations I could think of, lol. I even tried from smartphone and other browsers, so I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. Maybe I should try downloading it. 

It doesn't work on Chrome browser, for some reason. I can click around, even extinguish fires, but clicking cards does nothing at all. Idk.

Hey there Legit, I finally managed to bypass the problem on COGDemos. You can now go back to play here. Sorry about the hassle!

Hey Melody, I finally managed to bypass the problem on COGDemos. You can now go back to play here. Sorry about the hassle!

I have a hard time believing there was "no previous storytelling experience" here. Granted, I’m only reading the Revamp for now, but let me say a few things.

I have a serious love-hate relationship with coming-of-age stories. As a gay man, that relationship is even more intense when the coming-of-age revolves around one's sexual orientation. As for NSFW games, I usually just straight-up dislike them—at best, they make me cringe.

I stumbled upon Straight!? completely by chance, and I’ll admit, my initial interest was just barely enough to make me download and launch it. It took me less than five minutes to decide I wanted to spend the next five hours playing (which, as a busy adult juggling two jobs, meant waking up with some serious dark circles the next morning—but also the satisfaction of an incredibly enjoyable read).

I’m an author. I’ve published a few novels, worked as a game writer, and now I write interactive fiction. I’ve never made a visual novel, so I can’t speak professionally on that aspect. But honestly, I found the visual side secondary to your writing. It’s engaging, irreverent, sometimes all over the place—but in the best way possible. It captures overthinking brilliantly and does an even better job portraying what it feels like to talk more to yourself than to the rest of the world. On top of that, it does so with excellent vocabulary, deliberate word choices, rhetorical flourishes, and digressions that may not always be essential but add so much flavor.

Which brings me back to my initial comment. I came here specifically to find a way to reach out and congratulate you (then I realized there’s a comment section—ironic, considering I’ve posted here myself… very Zack of me). I ended up rereading the intro and literally blurted out a very loud WHAT?! upon seeing that you had "no previous storytelling experience." Now, of course, that means I’ll have to check out the "original rough draft"—and if I don’t see a clear improvement, I’ll have no choice but to seethe with envy.

Jokes aside, my compliments are 100% genuine. You’ve got a gem on your hands. I really hope to see this on Steam someday—it would be an instant, proud purchase for me. And please don’t stop here—if this is what you can do with zero prior experience, I cannot wait to see what you’ll create after Straight!?.

Wishing you all the best.

I think you accidentally clicked on the blue 'Make your own games' link at the bottom, under the game box! ☺

(I didn't remove it because this should just be a temporary fix, sorry!) 

By the way, I added an option to disable achievements in the game. If you'd like, you can try turning them off to see if that "fixes" the issues on itch.io. Sorry again for all the trouble–I have no idea why everything's acting up all at once this week, lol.

Yeah, other players have had the same bug (check out the other comments). Unfortunately, it looks like itch.io has an issue with achievements, and I'm thinking about disabling them for now. The good news is that it seems to be device and/or browser-dependent; maybe you could try using a different device or browser?

I've read that the webmaster of CoGDemos is working on the bug on her end. Would you like me to update you when she fixes it?

I've read that the webmaster of CoGDemos is working on the bug. Do you want me to notify you when I have news about a fix? 

Thanks so much, I’m really glad you like it! I hope it keeps living up to your expectations in the future :)

Hi there! I’m really sorry, but unfortunately these are two unrelated issues, and neither of them has anything to do with the code, which is correct. Other creators are also experiencing the error with CoGDemos, while the one on itch.io—I’m not sure what’s causing it, but I see at least one other person has run into it too (and just yesterday, too!). Could you please try again using a different browser or device? I’m really sorry for the trouble you’re having.

Alright, so: the issue was that, depending on the choices made, there was a chance you wouldn’t be able to convince her enough, but there was still too much time left (it’s all about balancing numbers—and oh boy, am I terrible at math). I worked around it by increasing the time required for the different questions and adding another option where MC can take a moment to think about what to do next (losing even more time, lol). This should now allow the scene to move forward correctly. Thanks again for the feedback!

No bother at all! Ugh, this shouldn't be happening, I'm sorry. I'll playtest it myself and get back to you soon, but please, be sure to clear the cache in the meantime. 

My bad, I've now fixed the bug. Enjoy! ♥

No, that shouldn't happen. I'm going to check the code now. BRB!

I've lost my beloved dog about ten days ago. I've started crying even before starting the game. 

It was a short, very sweet game. Thank you for this.