itch.io

Well there’s always the chance it ends up being continued.  

It’s an incredibly small chance, to be certain, but I’d guess not as small as the chance of the books succeeding.

The majority of comments and upvotes would agree with you.  

Support for the book seems lukewarm at best. With even the people hoping that it does well mostly showing a lack of interest in reading it.

Yeah. 

I'm 49. And I've seen too many things dropped over the years to not get resentful any time it happens again.
Not when it's always when I've finally found something that actually appeals to my style and interests.

Unlikely. 

Dev seems hell bent on keeping complete control, going book-only, and totally abandoning anyone who actually gave a damn about the VN.

Further complicated by people like myself who Do Not Like safe & generic. 

It's like every time I find a game or story that feels like it was written with my narrative or gameplay preferences in mind , there's a high chance it'll get dropped or changed. 

On top of that, what really doesn't help is that I'm old enough to have seen way too many projects fail because the creators or decision makers ignore what works in favour of what the audience does not want. 

"Oh, it's just the haters. I'm sure we'll succeed anyway." They rarely do. 

And it's always things with great potential and that deserve better than their eventual fates. Seen it too many times.

I think what really bugs me is it's often the ones I find interesting that get dropped. 

Maybe it's that the stories are too deep and complex and the dev ends up feeling like they bit off more than they can chew, for some VNs the gameplay mechanics are quite complx so, again, maybe they become too adventurous. But they're the ones I find interesting. 

But it somewhat puts me off wanting to try out anything that's not already under significant development, or already finished. 

It definitely puts me off subscribing via Patreon, etc. And whenever I'm saving money (which needs to happen annoyingly frequently), the Patreons without recent significant updates are always the ones I drop tiers or cancel entirely. 

It just bugs me when a lot of the oens that survive are generic. And, in one case, even when a dev who cancelled a specific VN didn't leave the medium entirely, they'd dropped a really interesting idea in favour of a much more generic one.  

As for books...  

I listen to audiobooks. I will occasionally read written books, if I'm bored enough. And I have recently got back into reading comics & graphic novels. But I mainly listen. On my commute. Whilst doing household chores. Whilst in the bath or shower.  

So, going from an in-progress VN to having to wait what'll likely take at least a year or two for a release in my preferred format to just go back to the beginning and have to wait for the plot to catch up to where I'm already at?  

Yeah, no.

Oh, for the love of...  

Just discovered this one yesterday to fill the blank left by a cancelled VN. Didn't look at the updates. 

To be fair, though, your decision was posted quickly and with none of the drawn-out year-long uncertainty of certain other VN devs on Itch/Patreon. 

Also, at least you've not dropped VNs altogether in favour of a different medium, like other devs.

Et cela ne changera jamais. 

Le développeur a abandonné le projet sous sa forme actuelle. L'histoire sera réécrite sous forme de livre, mais rien de plus n'est prévu concernant le VN, y compris les traductions.

Translated with DeepL (https://dee.pl/app)

The really interesting (and darkly amusing) thing is that even amongst those who say they’ll read the book, many still state a clear preference for the  VN. 

Ignoring the audience is rarely the path to success. In fact, it can often the path to having to give up entirely. 

Seen it far too many times over the years. I’d like to be wrong but I strongly suspect Evermore is following that path.

I’m not offended, just tired.  

I’ve seen too many good stories or series left unfinished over the years. (And I have a lot of years)
Its bad enough when it’s for major health or financial reason. When it feels like it’s boiled down to “Would rather do something else” it’s even worse. 

I’ve also seen many (too many!) projects fail over the years due to a misguided change in direction. I’ve seen companies go from success to virtual extinction when it all could have been avoided by just listening to the audience.  

I guess I’m just too old and too tired to just sit by and watch when projects with vast potential get squandered.

But is it disrespect to state that many of us liked Evermore as-was and have little-to-no interest in a rewrite and change of medium?  
Personally, I’d class choosing to. It resolve a massive dangling plot point is disrespectful.  

As for discouraging? Yes!  
I don’t know about you but if I see someone walking a path or taking a stand that I’ve seen fail time and time again over the decades, I do try to discourage them. I’m tired of seeing promising projects fail because the people behind them want a change in direction that much of the audience are not interested in.

If it was only his mistake to live with, I wouldn’t mind as much.  

It’s leaving us all with dangling plotlines  that really makes me angry about the whole thing.  
It speaks to a major lack of respect towards the audience. 

Not a good sign in someone wanting to become an author.

I think he has until the end of the year, one way or the other.  

If 2027 rolls around without either book one or VN 0.6 releasing, chances of success are zero.

Of course it’s a mistake.  

Sadly, those with a vision of how they want to accomplish something are usually blind to any drawbacks, and march willingly down the road to obscurity.  

Seen it before. This has all the hallmarks.

Failure to listen to your audience is failure to survive.  

Just once, I want someone to realise “Shit, this ain’t gonna work” and return to what everyone’s telling them is the right path.

Also there are endless series that are already significantly in progress.   

Seek those out instead. Much more satisfying. 

My advice to any avid reader is to  avoid any series that only has book 1 out, unless you’re 100% prepared for the risk of abandonment.  
Melanie Rawn’s Exiles “trilogy” taught me that in the mid-90s.  

Only ever start a series that’s at least 3 books in - unless it’s a duology. 
These days, I favour series that have a good 5-10 books released. 

Also, be very wary of authors who are too interested in stretching out answers to mysteries. Cliffhangers are only good if eventually resolved. 
if someone wants to sift focus for a few years before resolving dangling plot lines, to hell with them.

I'm going to be polite but also kinda blunt.  

There are some changes you absolutely must make to your pages. Simply just to be fair to anyone searching itch and Patreon. (Something likely needs changing on Subscribestar but that site's locked behind age-verification. So bugger that.  

• More Information panel here still shows as In Development. Which also means it will be included in search results if people are filtering on release status. You need to switch to Cancelled. 
  • TBH, it should have been switch to On Hold the moment you went on the original hiatus. 
• Move the notification and link to post to above the Story section. it should be the first thing people see. Not an afterthought once the synopsis has got them interested only to dash their hopes. 
• Confider removing "You get to choose the outcome of this adventure, so choose wisely…" because, at this point, that's just cruel. 
  • On a tangent: This is a big part of what got me, and likely others, interested in the first place. There are plenty of linear books out there already. Stories that we can influence and are still actually interesting are damned rare. 
• Your Patreon still says "Creating Games". Probably needs changing to "Writing Books".  

I don't agree with those that say your actions thus far have been dishonest. however, continuing to not address these issues would be.

Sadly, I can't remember exactly when it happens and how to trigger it. 

And I have zero motivation to play back through from the beginning.

Unfortunate, but hey, what can you do?

Wait/hope for a change of heart?

It depends on who you do and how you do them.

Apparently, lack of time. VN creation is one of those things that is time intensive and hard to juggle with a job and other personal life commitments.  

It is understandable, as much as I (and many of us commenting)  think dropping the VN is a mistake and are sceptical of how successful it would be as a book. 

(Something can be both understandable and a wrong move at the same time)

Seeing as he’s dropped the project, I highly doubt it.

That's rough but understandable. When looking for games, I may take a quick look at the update history but mainly just want to paly it to see if it's for me or not. 

I found Evermore in early 2024. So, at the time, was still apparently in full development. There were public updates on Patreon showing 0.6 as being in progress. 
After that cliffhanger, I was actually contemplating becoming a paid member. Luckily the Indefinite pause update went up just before I decided to pull the trigger. 

But it's annoying. I was enjoying experiencing the story as the character. It's a different experience that what I get when reading (or, these days, listening to) books.

It is a shame. Prometheus clearly had the talent, it’s just a shame that it will get overshadowed by the sheer loss of goodwill such a direction shift has brought.  

There are plenty of of posts (and upvotes) here showing that people would rather it continued as it was.  

For actual support, there are a grand total of 7 comments on the Patreon post. That’s it.  
Granted, comments are subscriber-only. So maybe there are a lot of non-paying supporters who are Ok with things. But if that were the case, surely that support would show up here?  

The story’s audience is VN players and I highly suspect this is unlikely to change much any time soon.

I think multiple things are clear at this point: 

• Many people want to see Evermore continue in its original format
• Even many of those who support the dev’s choice to follow his own heart have little interest in actually reading the book
• When the books eventually start coming out, there will be very little goodwill from the existing audience, so  he’ll need to build a  new one from scratch.

I can see this last point being very problematic. A quick search on Amazon shows that “Evermore” is not an original title. And many of them are already fantasy and/or romance. 

Starting over as a regular novel series just feels like setting up for failure.

I get the feeling that there are many that agree with you.  

Sadly, the developer doesn’t appear to be one of them.

I think many of us wish this would be the case.

Unless the dev has a miraculous change of heart (unlikely), it is abandoned in game/VN form. 

Apparently, it will eventually be released as a series of books. But the current hanging plotline… I wouldn’t expect resolution and time this decade.  

Personally, as someone who has seen stories go on hiatus since the 90s and 00s, I don’t see it ever resolving. Every once in a a while it does happen but it’s rare enough to not be worth keeping your hopes up.

That’s the bit they’re not taking into account.  

Rather than seeing it as the dawn of a new book series, it’s merely Yet Another Abandoned Indie Game/VN”.

There have been so many over the years that most people are just likely to move and on forget. Those that don’t, many will just remain pissed that the original got dropped.

The real question here is when will the story catch up to the cliffhanger reveal? (And will it even get that far?)  
Leaving it there then going back to rework the story from the beginning is just… I dunno, it leaves a bad taste. 

This isn’t like a show being cancelled by a network, or a commercial game series being dropped by a publisher. 
 And it’s not like long running series that get dropped because the author has to stop entirely.

It’s someone making a conscious decision to change from one medium to another and rewrite from the beginning, despite a major cliffhanger, and to hell with the audience. 

Even if that wasn’t the intention, it is how it comes across.

Question, though. What are the chances of success if a significant chunk of the current follower have zero interest in the change of direction? 
At least, not until the "new" series catches up to the current cliffhanger. 

This just feels like a massive misstep. I've seen enough of them over the years to recognise the signs. Pivoting a product away from what people want, absolutely convinced they'll win people over. I've seen projects and entire platforms/companies fail over this kind of thing. 

You cannot force people to like a product they don't want to. If you're really lucky, you can hit on the right combination of factors that really does pull people in. More often than not, though, you have to make what people are asking for or you don't have a sustainable audience.

Really hoping this comes back one day. Although it feels unlikely.

I feel like the dev’s going in a direction where I don’t think the current audience is likely to follow.  

Whether he can attract a new audience is an open question. Could go either way.

I do care about the sexual content. Because it can have consequences that affect how parts of the story play out.

As long as he gets he may have to rebuild the audience practically from zero.  

The current audience likely want it mostly as-is. Not many are guaranteed to want to shift to a whole new medium.  

Even those that are willing are mostly going to want to see the story progress. Currently fans will mainly rejoin when the current cliffhanger resolves. Oh, they'll dip in to see how the rewrite goes but they won't want to retread old ground.  

It would almost be better to just start over with a whole new story. People who like the narrative style will still get something familiar but with no preconceptions or regrets about how the story should go.  

Then, once established, revisit Evermore after having proved that he can complete a project before revisiting an abandoned one.  

Because, yes, to all intents and purposes Evermore is abandoned, even if the narrative isn't dropped forever.

Although the level of vitriol is disappointing, the general sentiment here is quite understandable and (to be honest) justified.  

Something that was enjoyed for what it was has been cancelled in favour of recreating it as something that it wasn't. Of course people are pissed.  

Especially anyone who stayed subscribed to the Patreon. Yes, subcribing to a Patreon is a risk. Yes, staying subbed to one that's on hiatus is a bigger risk. But going silent for a year before announcing a total shift in direction is a little sketchy.  

As I said in the comments on the actual post, for me, whether I continue to follow is completely down to if there's an audiobook. That's how I experience book these days. When driving. When on a train (standing room, to space to hold a book). When doing household chores (adulthood sucks, but these tasks need completing).  

If I have time to sit down, I'm gaming or playing VNs. And this was one of the good ones.   

And now it's abandoned. Something may rise in its place, wearing its skin, but it won't be the same.

I'll never not want to know where it could have gone in the VN format.  

I enjoy exploring the world visually.  

I'd love to know how, and how not, to attract the other women. And see where the relationship combinations could go. 

You have to take it in the direction you need to go.  But it was as a VN that hooked many of us into it.   

Personally, the only other format I follow is audiobook. And having the characters be acted (even b a single narrator) would be excellent. But given the time it would take to write, then sell enough to cover the cost, the actually record. It'd be years. Maybe I'll be nostalgic for a story that grew from a VN I had fond memories of. Maybe I'll've moved on.  

Who knows.

I'm in two minds as to what I think about this.  

On the one hand, the direction of the overall plot was interesting and a part of me would love to see where it ends up going - regardless of the medium.  

On the other, I got into this because of it being a (A)VN. And part of what made it an interesting story, for me at least, was the relationships aspects. In all of their harem/smut glory.  
Aspects of some of the characters and events just wouldn't work as well if you toned down or removed the sexual aspects.  

Ultimately, though, for me it'll boil down to a combination of how much gets toned down and whether there's an audiobook version. I very rarely read regular books anymore. I listen to audiobooks on my commute and play games & VNs during my downtime.  

A good story and a good narrator and I'll continue to follow the story.
(Even if, to me, it'll never quite beat experiencing it in VN/game form. That's what hooked me in the first place.)

You should be worried.  

Right now, adult game pages are still accessible but the developers' pages are not. So, you'll say goodbye to even existing followers being able to easily discover any new games.  

Chances are they'll put in some sort of age verification process soon. But that still requires people to want to jump through that particular hoop.  

As you say, there's a chance even your own dashboard could be locked out. 

And the main thing really is that all it now takes is some lobby group on a power trip to convince whoever government at the time that your particular subject matter is potentially harmful to kids and you can kiss visibility goodbye.

Is Tumblr even still a thing?

Itch fighting this here would mean ALL creators here get fucked.  

You're not wrong but it does go a bit deeper than that.  

• NSFW creators are likely feeling very much thrown under the bus right now. They'll be a big part of what got Itch so popular in the first place. 
  • Now, they're more trouble than they're worth and cut loose before the official statement was made. That'll leave a nasty taste in many people's mouths.  
• They've set a precedent that puritanical organisations can force payment processors to squash content they disagree with and Itch will immediately roll over without a fight.
  •  So you will have creators not currently affected wonder what the next tag or subgenre to get this treatment will be.  

Intentionally or not, Itch are now saying that they heavily favour safe content. And that the definition of "safe" can change at any time, depending on who can bully the flow of money at any given time. Which doesn't quite sound like the open marketplace for independent digital creators with a focus on independent video games that Itch still claims to be.