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Beautiful work, well done, I look forward to seeing more! :)

Glad to see a new version up! :) Give us more jackedrabbit! :D

Hey, friend! Thank you! Yes, I spent some 7 years making the first chapter. The next won't take as long. If I manage to put it out before the year is over, I'd be happy with that.

Hard to say, because the story sort of forms as I go along. I have a general plan, but I know things will turn out a bit differently - they just always do when I write. It'll be one chapter first that leads up to choosing a partner. Then one chapter of preparing for and wrestling each match in the tournament - likely three in total per route. Then a climax of at the end, with possibly an extra match there too. So... we're probably looking at 14-15 chapters if I don't pack some of these into larger ones - or get writing help.

Hey! Thank you for letting me know you liked it! I appreciate that a lot! :) Sorry for the late replies, I have not mastered the art of activating notifications on Itch community boards, so I have a tendency to miss them. I need to do better. I'm glad you enjoyed meeting the different characters - their personalities are (I hope) fairly varied, so they'll offer different experiences for sure. The plan for build two is getting to know them a bit more before having to choose between them. And yes, I am a slow developer, but... it's still on :)

Thanks so much for the feedback! Sorry for the late reply, I find the notifications lacking when someone posts something in the forums! But I'm very glad you liked it so far. Coach Renga is not planned to be a love interest (because he's a cameo character that belongs to someone other than me), but hopefully, one of the four candidates you'll choose between will pique your interest :)

Heya! Thanks for letting me know you liked it! That's great to hear from a pro wrestling fan! :) It is still in development, but I'm not a fast developer. The next chapter - when it's ready - will let you spend some more time with the four wrestling partner candidates and prepare you to make a choice between them. At the same time, different factions in the federation will be trying to help you, create problems for you or test you. Hopefully, it'll be an entertaining installment too :)

Hey! As I've told a few other posters, I'm embarrassed to reply to you this late. Have I not received notifications? Or have I overlooked them? I'm not sure, but I'll check the forums in the future instead of counting on a notification if I get a message. I've apparently missed several posts. Anyway, I'm glad that you enjoyed the first chapter. Lord knows a lot of sweat went into it. As for Dallas, right now, he's not a romanceable character. The reason is simply that I need to keep the scope manageable. If/when I finish the four original options, I can consider adding more if there's still juice left in me. Or perhaps there can still be some way to get to know him better without marrying him - you know, get a taste of him on the side... we'll see, I don't dare to promise anything. But thank you for the kind feedback :)

Hey! As I've commented to others above, I'm embarrassed to reply to you this late. It's either a notification issue or a me-not-being-alert-issue. I've apparently missed several posts. I hope you're hanging in there and that you follow several VNs so that the lack of an update has not been torture. I'm glad there's a lot of good content out there, it takes the pressure off me a bit. But yes - your words are encouraging, and I need to get back into my stride and be more productive. Thank you for the nudge :)

I'm frankly embarrassed to reply to you this late. Either I've not had a notification, or I've somehow missed it - this is the case with several posts. Thank you for the encouraging words, I very much appreciate it. I have to get back on my horse here and produce chapter two :) When I read the posts today and saw how many had rated the game positively, it stung because I know all too well that I owe you all a new chapter.

I'm frankly embarrassed to reply to you a year late. I thought I'd get notifications for each post people make, but... maybe not? I've missed several. In any case, thank you for the feedback! Yes - Renga is a hunk, you're not the only one who would have liked to be able to reel him in :) The main reason why he's not romanceable is that he doesn't belong to me. Renga is a cameo character, so having him as a romanceable isn't really doable. I need complete creative control of romanceable characters, and in theory, if for some reason the owner one day told me to remove him from the story, I would have to oblige. If he was romanceable, that would be a complete disaster because so much time and resources would have been invested in him. So... I hope you'll enjoy the scaly boys, Bale and Emerson :)

Thank you for reminding me, bud :) Yes, I haven't made the progress I had hoped at all.  Been stuck a while, a little bit due to life happening, but frankly a big part due to discipline. A creative project requires committing to again and again. Have I given it up? Nope. So thanks for nudging me and letting me know there are people who care for more :)

Yep, many of the locations already have backgrounds that are ready to use, so you'll see some of them eventually.

As for chatting - I so rarely get time to dedicate to social media, so I'm a fairly unreliable chat partner, I'm afraid :)

Well, they all have different angles. Some feel safe - like Emerson. Some need a bit of work - like Thorne. Some seem fun - like Felix. And Bale - well, some have even been offended by his abrasive nature. But maybe there's something else there once you understand him properly?

As a developer, I'm not allowed to really have a favorite, my job is to make all of the routes rewarding to follow :) As a player of many, many VNs though, the archetype I often am interested in is the shy guys - getting to know them, earning their trust, watching them unfold and grow. In my game, that'd be Thorne.

Yes, that is the thing - every single route is a lot of work. So first I need to complete the others. If there's any juice left in me, I might add more. Several of the silhouettes are really people that haven't been shown yet, but none are romanceable as of now.

Yep, you're right. Both are candidates.

My #1 wish is to make a minigame out of it. It requires coding that is possibly beyond me and creates a layer of complexity that is hard. But it would be cool!

If I can't do that, I'll do it the other way - with you trying to make smart choices during the matches, and succeeding if you make enough good ones. And I'd try to drop hints in advance of the matches about opponent strengths to be aware of and weaknesses you could exploit - as well as making you get to know your partner so that you'd have a way of knowing how to work the best as a team with them.

Kai is super fun to write - such a sassy and sarcastic person. Several have wanted to date him, but the character belongs to someone else, so it's better for me to do romance routes with those that are my own :)

Yes, that's one way of figuring it out, so you did well with the puzzle. When Emerson tells you what locker you tried to open, you can reason yourself to what the different parts of the key tag code means - like you did!

The puzzle tag code broken up - with the solution 3B12 as example:
First figure (3): The locker segment which your locker is - start counting from the door and go counter clockwise (the arrow circle symbol is the hint)
The letter (B): The row which your locker is in - T means top row, B means bottom row
Second figure (12): Which locker in the row your locker is - start counting from right to left (this is what throws people off since it feels strange, and Emerson gives some hints about it, although I realize they can be a bit subtle)

So - the correct locker is in segment 3 (counting from door counter clockwise), bottom row all the way to the left.

And for anyone else who wonders: No, how fast you solve the puzzle does not affect what Emerson thinks of you - he will merely tease you a bit for not figuring it out and finding and opening your locker for you. Then you get to tease Emerson back which I think is fun.

Hey, friend! I made a little subcategory for questions and marked it with a spoiler warning. How about putting your questions there? :)
https://itch.io/board/4043194/questions

Hey, friend! I'm very glad you like it so far, thank you for saying so! :) I'm sadly a very slow developer, so it's not finished at all. I hope you have a few other projects you follow too so that you get your regular VN fill, and then I will drop updates when nobody expects it to add to that feed once in a while :)

Hey again, bud! I've tested the build on my own Android device. The game seems to run okay on it - I got through the whole story without it crashing, and I also got up the keyboard when prompted to type in answers. My device is a somewhat aging Samsung S8. I'm going to guess that your device has software that runs the game differently someehow. I'm sorry to say that there's not that much I can do to correct this. I'm hoping that a solution might present itself as Ren'Py, the engine the game is built in, gets new updates. Sorry, bud! :/

Hey, mister! Thank you for letting me know! I'm not sure what would cause this - I will test it on a device of mine and see if that one too has trouble with it.

Well, Kai made the building blueprint, and that one is full of his usual life tired banter in all the info descriptions. He's passionate about his profession, software, but his workplace makes it very hard to produce things . He's treated mostly as a computer literate secretary by his extremely computer illiterate boss, and he's constantly ordered to spend his time doing things that are not really his job (hence the lack of enthusiasm). He didn't make the town map, though - maybe that didn't come across very clearly. It's a regular tourist fold-out town map that he grabbed somewhere in case the protagonist would want it. And if the protagonist expresses gratitude (if he's enthusiastic about his arrival), Kai will downplay that he made a kind gesture because it's just become second nature to him to be irritable and sassy. It's how he's coped with his miserable work life. All this should come across more clearly as the story unfolds :)

Hmm. It would be possible to add some scribble on a couple of lockers, maybe one per segment. The scribble could be the last number in the tag code. That would be a hint that the lockers also need to be counted backward...

No, normally lockers would be labeled. In this case, the federation made a backwards twist just so that overly enthusiastic fans would have trouble locating the lockers of their favorite wrestlers to steal souvenirs from them. The part where having to count lockers backwards is the one that most get stuck on. I could add a hint on the key tag so that there's a better way to know. Currently, you just have to work out that since you count segments backward, that's the way to go for the lockers too, but it's not obvious. A backwards arrow along with the locker number could help, right? I'd also add an early hint before the puzzle starts saying something about "the locker solution being rather backwards".

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