itch.io

Good job getting the arrow meaning! And yes, I kind of blindsided you there by letting it apply also to the direction for the locker counting. A low blow as we'd say in the world of wrestling... Some have felt like I want my players to fail and... I kind of do? Not to make them feel miserable, but to let them know Emerson more. I want everyone to enjoy themselves with it. In any case, congrats on getting it right! :)

All right. Well, you're not the only one who's felt like skipping the puzzle, so I'll make those brain cells work a bit and see if I can find a smooth solution where you can either skip it or just improve the hints a bit so that it doesn't feel impossible.

With good reason, that was a big developer mistake... I'm embarrassed! *sheepish grin*

Hey, Konrankemono! Thank you for your honest feedback! I have had a few players be frustrated with this. I will find a solution and implement it in my next version that hopefully adresses this.

Ah! I honestly don't know. Work is slow now, April and May are the busiest months of year for me. I will let you know in updates along the way, but it'll definitely be at least some months until I get there.

Holy Moly, dear gods, no, that is not supposed to occur! Thank you, good Sir, for letting me know. I have rolled out a quick fix so that people who download it for the first time get the entire chapter 1, not just half of it. I'll write a devlog this week for those that this error might have confounded. Many thanks, gapbadge! :)

Going public, how? Isn't this sort of public here on Itch? :) I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but if you mean "when will the full game be done", the answer is I'm not sure - it will probably take me significant amounts of time. If you mean something else, let me know! :)

I see, thank you for the input! There is a hint - although not too easy to catch. It's the direction arrow on the key tag. It indicates which direction to count from, though it doesn't tell you to go from right to left when counting lockers too. Sorry your experience wasn't a good one!

I'm very happy that you like the look of it. Kartos has done a wonderful work with the characters, and BitterStrawberries with the backgrounds. I too think they mesh nicely. As for coach being available - he's a stud for sure. I don't think he'll be available in the future, he's a cameo character after all (and even more importantly, I need to keep my scope manageable), but I'm sure more people than you would like him to be! :) Thank you very much for the generous words :)

You want to date that big hothead? Could be fun :) I'll concentrate on making the routes for the four originals to not make the project so big it becomes impossible to manage, but if I have the energy and creativity and people are interested when that day comes, expanding could be an option. Thanks for the suggestion!

Yep, that was the main twist. The tiny hint is the circle arrow symbol on the key tag, but it was not a hint that was obvious. I think most players thought like you and possibly felt that the direction was not intuitive. But hey, that's one of the thing the wrestling federation did to make them more confusing to people who have not been invited to the lockerroom. Don't want them stealing all your jocks, after all! :)

Glad you liked it! I have some fun scenes planned for chapter 2, I think they'll be entertaining! :)

Thank you, Jorgie! I'll keep chipping away on it! :)

Ahh, but it wasn't easy in my mind. I would not have gotten it myself - at least not without the hint about which direction to count from. But then again, "failing" does yield the most amusing interaction with Emerson, so it's not any kind of real loss. You awaken his nurturing nature and have some playful banter with him instead of displaying sheer locker picking brilliance. Embrace the teamwork instead! :D

I promise not to. I've been pretty productive the past days, the writing flows really well, and that feels lovely. It is - if nothing else - promising  for chapter 2! :)

Thank you for following my project - even as it's taken so long! I hope you'll like it when you give it a spin! :)

No, really? I see! Well, then I will look at reactivating it, thank you for telling me! :)

Ah, you know, at some point during development, I removed it because it was 1) creating lots of saves that risked unintentionally becoming part of my builds, and 2) I didn't see the point of them. I could probably easily switch it back on. Can you tell me what the autosave function means to you? What value does it add, how does it improve playing the game? I just can't remember ever using it myself in any of the VNs I've played, so I figured it couldn't be very important.

Noo, good Sir, you went that thoroughly to business at it? Ahh, I well understand your frustration, then. Yeah, your chapter 1 choices do not make a difference to how much Emerson likes you. I didn't want to make it depend on a puzzle. It felt wrong to punish someone for not getting it perfectly, and it also felt wrong to punish players who pride themselves in getting everything right. And besides, although Emerson will tease you if you fail a lot, he's really not a judgmental person. So, for the future, you can trust that he'll separate silly, unimportant things from those that matter.

...and trying out 101-999 influencers sounds like a torment. Sorry, you're likely the only one who knows exactly where the different dialogue points kick in now! :/

You figured it out that fast? Well done! I'm glad you thought it was an all right variation to include in the game, thanks for the feedback! :)

Then you did exactly what I hoped some will - just be a himbo and let Emerson have fun with you over it.  Besides, the protagonist manages to poke some fun back at him :) Hmm, so the rollback is somehow disabled when you select lockers? It's not supposed to be, but I too find that sometimes it seems like Ren'Py decides that you've come to a point where it doesn't roll back. Mostly, I think it's been possible for me to roll back locker selections - I did that a LOT while testing it :)

Oh, nice, I'm always looking for puzzles to add to my own D&D campaigns, so if I helped with that, I'm glad! :) Being able to skip puzzles could be a good option to go with - mostly if I add more of them. Maybe the simplest would simply to make a button that appears when there's a quiz which lets you skip it if it's really not your thing. Thanks for the tip! :)

I'm glad you liked the puzzle and the interaction with Emerson. If you managed to get it in 4 attempts, I'd say that's fairly good! I'm glad you felt that the difficulty level was about right, and that you think the VN so far is unique and interactive :)

Yep, I've read many VNs and I see that many are abandoned in development. They take a lot of time, and it's easy to underestimate how friggin much work they are. Feature creep is a real danger - I've added a lot of stuff that wasn't intended in the start. Luckily, I've also cut quite a few too that I don't feel add enough value. Galleries and such, I would not spend much time on them as a player myself, so I think people are fine without them. But yeah, I'll keep chipping away at my project :)

I'm glad you're liking it so far and that you are enjoying the art. I agree - Kartos, Dave Canine and BitterStrawberries did a kickass job with it :)

Thanks for the feedback, even though you're not a big fan of puzzles. This one I agree is can be confusing, and that's why I made the post, I wanted to know if people were getting stuck on it or if it detracted from their enjoyment of chapter one.

The thing about it is that each time you pick a wrong locker, your potential husbando Emerson will start helping more and more. And this is my opinion, but that is a fun way to do it. Not succeeding has no negative consequence - on the contrary, you get more interaction with Emerson, and despite him being on the down right now, when he gets to help out, his naturally caring disposition gets to shine through. You'll see a bit of his true self, and there's some playful banter. So, in your case my advice would be: Don't feel like it means anything to get the locker right. Enjoy receiving help from a charming dragon?

Or if you want the solution, send me a DM on FA or Twitter, and I will tell you where I don't spoil it for anyone else :)

This is the last kind of feedback I thought I'd get! It's too easy, you brainiac?! :D Okay, thank you, that's noted. Not too easy and not too hard is a balancing act, but guess I'll just do my best with it. I probably won't add hints in advance, but maybe I'll add a comment from coach saying that "if you can't find it, I'm sure someone will help you with it". That way, the player gets a hint that it's a challenging puzzle, and that help will be coming if you need it :)

Thanks for such thought through feedback! Yes, precisely. People are both used to, and expect to/want to succeed in VNs, whether it means making the "right" choices to get the story you want or if it's getting a puzzle right at the first try. I guess they are used to being rewarded when things go flawlessly. I'm like that myself, I want to see what happens when you do everything "optimally". So, how to make people be comfortable and even enjoy not finding the way immediately...? Maybe I could add some sort of hint in advance... I'm glad you found that the interaction with Emerson took away some frustration with the puzzle, hopefully others do too - if they lean into and enjoy letting themselves accept his help rather than figuring it out themselves.

Hey, Islander! Thank you for the feedback! I'm glad you like the variation - that was one of the things I wanted too. I wanted diversity in species and to use some that don't appear that often. I guess dragons are common enough, but that one I just could not help me on, I like them so much... I'm also glad that my world building "works" for you. I feel like I've set up things nicely so that the entire city as well as the arena is now ready for use in future chapters :)

Hi! Did you try Bullwhip's chapter one? If so, thank you! Now I'm wondering about a specific part of it that I'd like some feedback on - the locker room puzzle.

I've always enjoyed puzzles, that's why I included it. I figured it would be a refreshing variation from simply reading. Also, it also plays a part in letting you get to know one of the husbandos, Emerson. He's not in the best place in his life right now, but still, he has a nourishing nature that cant' be denied. The more you fail at it finding your locker, the more engaged he'll be in your search, showing some of his true colors and being part in some (hopefully) amusing banter (failing might actually be more fun than succeeding here :).

But I digress. What did you think of the puzzle? Was it frustrating? Is it discouraging to need many attempts at it? Did it slow down your playthrough or feel like a needless and less enjoyable part?

I've been considering shortening it so that you get a max of five attempts. That would make it go much faster. Currently, you can fail a total of ten times before Emerson simply gives you the solution and playfully teases you a bit over the whole thing.

Do you have an opinion?

I'm glad you like it, Jespar! Thanks for encouragement and for not losing interest during the years! :D

Yeah, making that website turned out a waste of time and resources, even though I felt it looked cool. Was a nightmare to work with, though. In any case, I'm happy to finally put chapter 1 out there. Hope you like it! :)

You are NOT the first one who tells me should be romanceable, haha. Glad you enjoy his banter and IT antics, we'll see what more comes of that :)

Heh, I'm almost a bit surprised when people say they "remember" the start, because it's starting to be seriously long ago now :'P I'm glad you liked chapter one, and that it shows that I've polished the edges until I wanted to throw it out the window... :)

Hey! Thank you for the kind words and generous praise, I appreciate it a lot :) The art is all Kartos' and BitterStrawberries credit, they have done a wonderful job with it. The character art even shaped the personalities of the characters a bit because they came so alive when they got their art. Kartos is simply very good at what he does :)

It's not impossible that he might make some sort of guest appearance on a tag team, even with the protagonist - I've already planned that kind of thing. For now, the spotlight will in general mostly be on the protagonist and his original husbando candidates, but you never know. If I'm not spent by the time I'm done with the original romance routes, I might add more. I'll leave it to the future me to decide :)

Thank you, I'll do my best! And if you ever decide to make something and put it out there, just do your best and it will show! :D

Thank you! I will put off localization for now. I'm grateful that you are offering, but I feel like it'll be better to do this at a later point. I also don't have a system set up for monitoring localization. To do this, it's very important that changes I make become visible to people who translate it. Right now, that's missing, and it's not my first priority to fix it.

The following are issues that I have been made aware of, and that will be fixed soon:

• Small error in Renga's dialogue text when he tells you about Bullwhip in the "old days"
• One entry is missing in the credits list

The following are issues that have been reported, but that I currently do not know the extent of or cause for. If you experience these bugs, let me know so that I'm aware that it affects more than one user.

• The game gets stuck on a black screen when you enter Renga's car in the morning to go to the arena
• The game randomly loads the save screen during play (theory: the game will show the save screen on the click of the right mouse button, is it possible that the computer is registering unintentional right clicks somehow?)
• Very intense use of the show/hide icons buttons on the town map can crash the game (theory: the engine fudges up variables it uses when it gets stressed)