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You play as a Mah'Abeu, which is more a title than a species.

Mah'Abeu's are genetically enhanced humans. Your appearance and DNA is still very much human.
I can't do spoilers here, but it does have some effects on your character. I believe some of it has already been revealed, and we there are some consequences which will also be revealed soon. <3

Right now you can pursue several people with no/limited consequences. We have some planned content where the LI's will each be affected by your choices down the line. (Some won't mind, and others will be devastated)

We're also working on the foundation for the first ever throuple(?) relationship option, which will be hinted at with the next content release, depending on who you flirted with thus far.

Hope that answers your question! <3

<3 We hope to share the answer with you soon!
In the meantime, if you've enjoyed the writing, consider peeking at Infinite Stars, a much much longer story written by the same team!

Thank you for your interest! We're working very hard on the next content release for Infinite Stars, releasing later this month, and then we have two other projects that will be releasing in April and May, respectively if all goes according to plan. 

We'll most likely revert our attention back to Thalassaphilia then, or earlier if possible.

Sorry for the wait, but comments like yours encourage us to continue working on Thalassaphilia!

Yeah, if we do continue development, the full game will be downloadable. (In the meantime, I haven't tried myself, but it might be possible to download the game via the itchio app!)

Thanks! The writing was a group effort, but the same writers as for Infinite Stars.

• Regarding the images, I'm not sure. The UI is an experimental concept for an upcoming project and we used SWAK as an opportunity to prototype it. The planned UI will have some more features on the left, and it does allow for backgrounds behind the characters. I actually built it so the backgrounds are displayed while slowly panning from left to right, but at the same time we're flirting with the idea of not using backgrounds (hence the prototype) as it allows for faster development with lower costs.

• The protagonist is written as female, but intentionally kept vague. If the project is "successful enough" we'll go back and make it a player choice
• Yeah, we did. The concept was inspired by "Europa Report" and it's a gentle nod at Neptune's moon Thalassa. <3

Thanks for the feedback and encouragement. We have a bit more planned for the story, and not to keep repeating myself, but if the reception and support warrants it, we'll continue working on it. If not, it's a fun little game (Over 20K+ words though to 100% complete) and allowed us to implement some ideas we've been wanting to try.

You're absolutely right. This takes place during the colonization of Sol era. A lot of the colonies have declared independence and the Protectorate is still very new (and very much focused on Earth's interests instead of Sol as a whole.)

For the foreseeable future, yes. I needed to give our supporters something extra to say thank you for their support!

Absolutely! <3 We just expanded our team this month.

Hey, thanks for the question! It's vague on purpose to make self inserts easier. For context, when prompted to compare your age with Khalil, Khalil is probably in his early to mid 30s, meaning younger would probably be late 20's and very young would be early 20's when compared to his age. <3

Not at all. The rewrite was on unreleased content, so it won't impact any saves. Once the content is public, and you're still wondering what was rewritten, you're welcome to ping me here or on Discord, and I'll share more details, but right now it's quite spoiler heavy.

Yup, we love the ladies from A6, and we love doing cross promotions like these! (You can read more about the cross promotion over here.)

Not at all!

It's similar to the subjective "how old is your Mah'Abeu" and the intention is that players should be able to decide. Depending on the decisions you make, it is entirely possible that MC was in their pre-teens to early adolescence during the war. It's possible that MC played an active part in the war, or that they were still undergoing training at the Academy.

(There is a short lore piece that I wrote a few years ago where Lochem decided to join the war, leaving Mayvheen and his fiance behind.)

I'll raise your insights with the team. (It feels weird saying team!) It wasn't an intentional design choice!

I might do that eventually, once the whole story is concluded. Right now the intimate scenes are there as a thank you to all the generous people who make Infinite Stars possible on Patreon. If you can't afford to support the game, or don't want to use Patreon, that's fine! The game is written in such a way that you should still be able to have an enjoyable experience even without access to the nsfw content. <3

Alright! There's a lot to unpack here! <3

So yeah, the options can be broken down to friends, friends with benefits/lovers and kind of "meh, it's you."

The characters should NOT be able to trigger intimate scenes if you never flirted with them, and you're absolutely right: The "we're going to die, let's live without regrets" setup was an intentional and plausible reason to remove any relationship obstacles to intimacy without having it feel rushed. (–In my opinion. It's interesting that you mention it feels rushed to you, several people have voiced the same opinion, while several others have claimed that it's way too drawn out, and then several others have mentioned it feels perfect. Such is the ways of internet feedback.)

The friendship option still shows the flirting options to simulate the whole friends to lovers dynamic, but if you never pick a flirt option, you should remain JUST friends and intimate scenes won't/shouldn't trigger. Initially the not interested option functioned the same, but I had to change it as some players were legitimately frustrated, especially when they were doing a playthrough as a straight male for example, and continually kept seeing the flirt options despite choosing "not interested."

If you have any specific scenes that felt out of place for you character's personality, please let me know (you can do so on our discord server), along with how you feel your character would have reacted in the situation. It's not always possible, but sometimes it is and I love to add fixes like that, even if they are done retroactively. You can talk to several of our other fans, adding choices/content like that happens more often than you think!

The romance options were added due to market demand. I've always believed that Infinite Stars should have a strong story, even if you were asexual and not interested in any romantic options, and I feel I've achieved that to a sense. I also feel that the romance options are little stories on their own, running parallel to the main story, and that the free version of the game (without any intimate scenes) should be able to give a full and wholly enjoyable experience without having to pay anything, while still rewarding the super fans willing to support the development of the game with something special and extra (the intimate scenes.)

Part of my original design document states that there will never be any crucial main story plot developments that occur ONLY during an intimate scene, as free players won't be able to experience it.

I'm quite excited for the content we're currently working on. I hate building hype, as it's so easy to overhype something, so I'll try to cone across as unexcited as possible: With Veera's intimate scene(s) we've been working on, she has a whole story arc how she changes as a person, with each intimate scene slowly chipping away at her masks and revealing the woman inside the assault armor. Veera will still be Veera, but you'll have a better connection and understanding of her after going through her various intimate scenes. There are also some scenes which are 100% fanservice scenes that aren't taken as serious. (Sometimes it's just fun to write (and play) silly yet hot romantic kissing scenes to take a break from the tension of the story!)

There aren't any professional aspirations when it comes to writing Infinite Stars. I break TONS of writing rules deliberately because it shouldn't be a chore to me, and it's not trying to be anything else than what it is– a fun hobby. It started as a hobby, and I sincerely hope it stays that way. There is so much planned story in my head, and the day when there are no more new ideas or if it's no longer fun to write is the day that I'll neatly wrap the story up.

Apologies for the ramble, it's been a day and a half for me! <3

I feel you! Good luck with the new job! <3

Thanks for the super useful piece of software!! <3 Keep on doing good in the world! You are seen and appreciated!

I'd love to add more dark skin portraits!

Each portrait in the game is either one of the team members, a patron on the captain or higher tier, or one of our cross promotions where the other developer team chooses which one of their characters we can add to the game as a portrait! <3

Aaaand I just realized I never uploaded the image to the post. Oops! It's there now.

Not only is it welcomed, it's encouraged! We love fanart, and there is a special sfw and nsfw fanart channel on our Discord. <3

It has been asked several times yes, but no need to apologise! If more people ask about it, it helps us know we are on the right track!

In short: Yes. You will be able romance the Cephilusk. <3

Not yet, but it will be in the continuation of Episode 4 along with some other twists and surprises!

Argh! Sorry. Fixed.

Phew! It's fixed! Silly Steam and their silly file structure! (Also super thanks for letting me know!!)

(If it's still not working for you, just verify the integrity of your game files)

Thanks for the headsup, will look into it right away

The full game with the new content of Episode 4. :)

Hope that answers your question, but if I've somehow misunderstood the question, feel free to let me know! <3

It is still the latest (for now) <3
The next batch of the content has been in the oven for a while, and it's almost ready– You can almost smell it baking!

(Seriously, it should be ready in the next 2-3 weeks depending on beta tester feedback!)

<3

<3

The ensign tier has access to the same NSFW content as the Commander+ tier, just not on android. That's all.

The link to the latest build is over here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-build-1-82867479

We have a new Khalil casual + intimate scene that's almost ready for release, but most of our attention has been prepping for the next public release in November.

Hey, not sure about the gamepad support. 

As for putting it on Steam, I doubt it. There are some not insignificant costs involved in uploading a game to Steam. (unless if we do it as a DLC? mmm.) 

In all honesty, we'll probably merge it with the main game and have it trigger as a surprise event if you happen to be playing on Halloween / in October. 

Appreciate the feedback! Comments like these make all the hours spent working on it worth it! <3

Thank you so much! We had a ton of fun writing it!

Definitely two major season arcs. I'd say we're roughly through the first third/half of the first season once Episode 4 concludes. (We'll be releasing the start of Episode 4 in November!)

After season 2, we'll see what happens.

I'm sad to say it's probably your computer.

We've had some bug reports, (mostly typos or small stuff, nothing about crashes) but all of them happen after that scene.

I suspect it might be the large backgrounds/art assets being scaled, and your computer is possibly a bit older?

I like the idea... It definitely won't be during season 1, but once the current arc is wrapped up and our crew returns home to Sol– who knows? <3

It takes a while to show up. Don't stress! <3

As a small indie dev, I haven't been paying much heed to your regular comments advocating for AI over our hand-drawn assets on our devlogs, as I respect everyone's hustle. I did, however, want to highlight a few points that you might or might not have considered.

Other than the pending legal and ethical implications that I won't go into– it's been argued to death, and an internet opinion about whether it's right or wrong isn't going to sway anyone. The simple answer is, "We just don't know what's going to happen yet."

If I were going to invest the next three to five years of my life to develop a game, I would do it right the first time. It would suck to invest that time and effort only for the courts to definitively decide two years in that the use of 3rd party AI tools does infringe on Intellectual Property rights. They might end up doing so. They might not. Large stores like Steam are playing it safe by proactively pulling a large majority of games from their catalogue that were made with the help of AI tools. Is it fair? Depends on who you ask, but it doesn't matter. The core issue is, as an indie dev who hopefully has some business sense, would you gamble the next five years of your time and energy to develop a game with AI tools?

"But my time is free! If I lose the next five years, it didn't cost me anything as I used free AI tools." I hope you don't think like this, but if you do, there is an economic concept called "opportunity cost." Think of it like this: your time might be 'free', but if you had two options, one where you create a game that ends up being a flop due to AI assets, and another where you create a game with terrible hand-drawn scribbles that lead to $1,000 in sales, even though your time is still 'free', pursuing the first option effectively 'costs' you $1,000 in losses, as had you chosen the second option, you would have made $1,000. It's oversimplified, but you get the idea.

Secondly, AI art is very easy to spot. It has a certain 'look and feel'. It's the same with RPG Maker shovelware games. They all look the same, and people associate that with "low effort" or "terrible quality". Is it fair? Probably not. I can pour my heart and soul into the best-ever RPG Maker game, worthy of being the next moonshot, but potential players will barely glance at it before clicking away. Making a game is hard, but it's the easiest part of making a successful game. Marketing your game and getting people to play what you've made is infinitely harder, as I'm sure you've noticed with your own released games.

AI is great, but it's not "there" yet. You can't create nuanced and deliberate art or stories with it. It will improve over the next few years, and it will become more usable, but it won't ever be "intentional." Not until it advanced to a truly sentient and self-aware program. Until then, it's just algorithms throwing splotches of paint on a canvas until it resembles something that matches your prompt by referencing the data it was trained on.

Lastly, and I hesitate to mention this. I look for the best in people, and I ascribe your regular comments about AI on our devlogs to you just being very excited about AI, which is great. I have a tech background, and my day job is in tech, and AI also excites me. I can't wait to see what the future holds, but we need to be sensitive to those around us.

I hope you have a lovely weekend, and I hope you take my words to heart. You probably won't, but the optimist in me chooses to believe that you will. <3