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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

Thanks for the feedback! I can't make any promises since we're hard at work with Epi 4, but if possible we'll try to circle back and resolve some of these issues!

Shower!

Each week we have a poll on Patreon for peeps to vote what character they want more content for, what time of content they want (thus far everyone keeps voting for more nsfw scenes) and then some of the scene specifics.

The chosen scene for June was an intimates/nsfw scene for MC & Lochem, taking place in the shower.

What can I say!? <3

Soon TM...

But seriously, we are busy writing her romance arc amongst a few other stuff. <3

It should be fixed now? Sorry for taking a while to get to it! Let me know if it's still an issue! <3

Are you getting an error message or something that you can share with me so I can look into it? <3

Hi, there are quite a few bugfixes, new backgrounds (I love the shuttle) and some new content. There is also some new content that you should see after the "Following scene(s) are under construction."

We had to rewrite the story controller a while back, and this unfortunately won't allow you to progress with your old save. I hate introducing save breaking features, but unfortunately it's something that has to happen once in a while. (Ironically, this save breaking feature means we can add much more new content, without breaking future saves when it comes to adding to the story!)

Edit: Thanks to EVERYONE in the community who jumped in and helped resolve the issue in the comments below! <3

Thanks for all the kind words!

Yes, we had to change our story controller, and this unfortunately broke older saves. Much like the change in art direction, I know losing saves sucks, and it wasn't an easy decision.

Changes like these will however allow us to continue working on and expanding Infinite Stars in new directions for years to come! <3

(Sorry for taking so long to reply. I started typing this message 12 hours ago, and just realized I never finished it!)

Thanks and oops! A little sleep deprived. 

Episode 1 and 2 are the prologue, with mc joining the crew at the start of Episode 3. It is a long game, last I checked it's about 112K+ words, the prologue making up roughly 25K words. <3

Hey, you've reached the end of the existing content. <3

There is a new patch coming out later today with some graphic updates (more portraits and Kiaria's sprite change), but we'll start introducing more and more scenes from next month (I've already written a whole bunch! and we're busy hiring an additional writer to speed up the content production)

In the meantime, (trying to avoid spoilers), depending on how creative you feel, you might want to start writing some scenes of your own for the AI core?

I'm sorry you feel that way. Cleo will miss your headpats and the crew will spend their days talking about the good old days when Cubs was still around.

Stay safe ;) 

Hey! I love questions like these!

So appearance wise, your MC probably looks entirely human, depending on [spoiler reasons]. There are exceptions in some extreme cases, but most Mah'Abeu's look indistinguishable from regular humans. <3

Congrats! This looks great! <3