No update today.
Okay, was a bit better today. Maybe tomorrow I’ll be back to a normal work routine(and thus progress). 
Thanks! I do appreciate the cheering, and it’s especially useful at times like these. 
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No update today.
Alright, finally almost back to normal. Should be much easier to continue tomorrow(and hopefully on Monday too since on Sunday I can’t work as usual). Although since I’ll be making the larger version of the next update(rather than the smaller one I intended to post before I left), it probably won’t be ready tomorrow. Some day next week, I’d guess.
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No update today.
Finally some real progress. Hopefully it’ll continue despite me not being able to work tomorrow, but it usually has in the past, since it’s just one day rather than multiple ones. Should be able to post the stuff next week.
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No update today.
Decent progress, which is good given the circumstances. A bit busy this week, but it’ll definitely be done this week I’d imagine.
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No update today.
Not terribly much progress today, and likely even less tomorrow due to schedule. Thursday onwards should be pretty free though.
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No update today.
Yeah, as expected, didn’t really get much done today. Tomorrow should be a good day.
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No update today.
Slow but steady progress. Less than I hoped perhaps, but still something.
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Not sure if it’s been answered already, but who are the RO’s of this story?
No update today.
Won’t be able to work tomorrow, but will on Sunday. Doesn’t look like it’s quite ready this week, but we’ll see.
Currently I’m planning them to be Stillwater, Mouse, Carrington, and Bailey. I think they’re a fairly varied bunch so hopefully they’ll give people a broad choice of options. (If you haven’t tried the story out yet, the very description of them is: A genetically engineered superman(male), a young hacker(male), a brutish cop(female), a mechanic(female). No restrictions on who they prefer)
Also, romance will be a pretty minor thing in the story from my point of view(a spice or flavor really, rather than the ‘main dish’), but of course your mileage will vary. 
Once I’m done with the current portion(aka “major update”) I’ll update the specifics in the opening post with all the other stuff that needs to be there to garner more interest from people who haven’t tried it yet.
Theoretically the choices are still in the air, but I’d say Stillwater and Mouse are definitely locked in. The latter two are probably going to be the other two options, but we’ll see. If people hate the idea I might change them to other characters(please specify who if you disagree. I’d prefer 2 males and 2 females overall). In any case I’d say four is the maximum with the way I work as I prefer depth to breadth generally speaking.
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2 male and 2 female RO sounds good. But if Bailey is gonna be one I hope she would play a bigger role in the story, so that her romance wouldn’t seem shallow, and gives more room to flesh out romantic scenes with her.
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Needless to say Stillwater already stole my heart. He’s so incredibly multi-faceted and cute of course. 
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I hope, of course if you want, to add more than 4 RO. Maybe the chief and/or Mari.
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I read the story but i don’t remember well the name of our partner’s sister, i think it’s the chief. No? 
If she is not one of those two girls… i thought she was going to be one of the ros because we interacted pretty much with her and of course we have the Television Scene 
I agree, I think we didn’t have many interactions with this character as the other ros
Major updateeeeee 
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No update today.
Sadly, didn’t get it done yet. Not sure how much time I’ll have next week, but should be enough to put it out despite the upcoming holiday buzz.
True. Her presence in the scenes is way less than I originally planned for. It’s pretty natural for the other three to be present and thus interactable with all the time, which makes it pretty unbalanced for her. We’ll see if I can add some more scenes with her earlier on.
He does seem to be the most popular character in pretty much all the ways. Not a surprise really, given that it’s precisely why he’s in the position he is in story-wise(in other words, I figured people might like him since I was quite inspired when I came up with him).
If I do end up adding more folks, they’ll be less “involved” than the “main” four ROs. Simply put, it’s a question of time and work for me, I can’t just make a zillion scenes for every character and all that(it’s easier for the main characters since they’re available most of the time so the player’s connection to them is easy to establish). But who knows, maybe I’ll think of an efficient way to do it. In any case, as I always say, romance isn’t the focus of this story, sadly. 
Yeah, Chief Chaska, that’s her alright. Maybe I should do a poll on who people prefer and switch the potential ROs depending on that(of course it needs to make sense to me too 
).
There aren’t that many scenes with her, at least ones where you actually get to talk to her. She has some screentime, sure, but it’s mostly her talking to you, rather than the two of you holding a conversation. Though I suppose Bailey doesn’t have any more scenes than she does.
Yes, we’re almost there. It won’t be super long until I’ll start working on it. Just a few updates and then it’s finally time. I do need to have all the stuff ready and decided when I do, so maybe I really should start doing some polls about what people like(what to focus on etc).
.
With that in mind, and given the context of the recent discussion, here’s a poll about the potential ROs. Feel free to put a checkmark on whomever you like(up to four), but do keep in mind that this isn’t a definitive poll, so even if the numbers say something I might ignore them.
I tried to put pretty much everyone I could think of in there, but if I missed someone you’d like to be in the poll please mention them.
(If you have no idea who someone is based on the name, you probably won’t vote for them so don’t worry about not recognizing all the names )
- Stillwater
- Mouse
- Carrington
- Bailey
- Chief Chaska
- Chief Prosecutor Harmsworth
- Mari Badr
- Alvarez
- Janice Brand
- Balthazar Rittenkroft
- Bob from the lobby
- Omar Mason
- Kaarina Evelyn
- Ulrika Daniels
- Luc Garillac
- Fairfax
- Hawley
- Sheriff Sarah-Lee
- Deputy Mayor Rutherwood
- Blake Sullivan
- Not interested in romance, please focus your efforts elsewhere.
0
voters
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don’t force yourself to do more than you are willing to do even if it’s not in this week or next it’s better than you getting burnt out on this
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I f i recall correctly i believe their goal from the beginning-esque was to finish at the end of this year/holidays which is possibly eating them up a bit 
Im terrible, the Chief scene that comes to mind first is the bathroom/hand washing in the beginning
As of 4-5 hours since the poll dropped, Top 3 based on 15 voters is 60%Mari / 46% Carrington / 40% Sheriff Sarah-Lee
Wonder how different the numbers will be once more people check back. Maybe the Stillwater/Mouse wave will dominate/comeback from 33%/26% respectfully (??? Blanking on the proper R word) 
(respective?)
(Pssssst someone refresh me on who Fairfax/Ulrika is)
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Author been writing a reply for prob 5 mins, im scared 
Thanks for the concern! I’ll keep that in mind. But really, there’s no need to worry.
Yup, that’s the case indeed. The deadlines always go farther and farther away, and it’s very annoying and quite frustrating. At this pace it’ll take like half a year to finish everything. 
That’s why every delay seems like such a defeat. But yeah, I do understand the risks of burnout and all that stuff.
No surprise since that’s like one of the three that exist. In addition to it, there’s just two meeting scenes plus the TV scenes that I remember.
Yeah, it’s pretty interesting to see how the percentages change. With the amount of voters being relatively low, every vote counts a lot. I guess in retrospect I should’ve posted the poll during an update to get more attention to it, but ah well.
Fairfax is the male Designer Soldier you’ll see if you attend the pool/billiards game with Carrington. (his first appearance, though he’ll be in one of the sub-plots with Hawley)
Ulrika Daniels is the annoyed woman in the poker game who wants to beat Stillwater in the game. (you might’ve bumped into her at the beginning if you searched the police station instead of going to the bathroom, but other than that it’s her first apperance. She and Garillac will be in one of the sub-plots)
I’m thorough with what I do.
(Took me 15 minutes to post this? )
Speaking of thoroughness, I of course forgot a bunch of people like Security Chief Gilles, his underling Angelica Marais, the “father” of Designer Humans Frederick Ambrose, Miss Brand’s secretary Francis Ricci, Gargoyle, etc. I doubt they’d get too many votes since many of them have optional or branched scenes so half the players probably haven’t really seen them at all.
It’s like I have too many characters in the story 
Admittedly many of them are quite minor and show up in only a scene or two, but a lot might show up again depending on your branch etc, so romance stuff is potentially relevant. Although I guess it’s tough to do a “fast” romance if the character shows up too late, that sorta stuff should probably start relatively early on.
Anyway, as I alluded to above, the side-plots have a lot more screentime for some of the characters(mainly the detective pairs, meaning: Hawley+Fairfax, Daniels+Garillc, Evelyn+Mason).
9 Likes
No update today.
Sadly, progress has slowed down quite a bit today(and possibly for the rest of the week). Hope it’ll pick up in the coming days. Essentially my deadline is around the 21st or 20th or so. After that I won’t be able to work until after New Year’s. If I can put an hour a day it should be fine, but we’ll see. 
As for the poll… the results are certainly interesting. Frankly I’m surprised to see Carrington so high up on the list. It’s good though, since she’s a prominent character I won’t have to do any extra work to incorporate romance stuff into the game-story. As for the second female option… well, that’s a bit tougher it seems.
Bailey is around the middle of the list, really, so it might be okay to have the second option be her, but we’ll see.
Mari Badr has the same amount of votes as Carrington does, but it’s a bit tougher to have her be a romantic interest since many of her scenes are(at the moment) tied to the corporate/city hall cooperation stuff, which limits her screen time if you have the other path(and thus makes it awkward if you’re not on the corporate-branch and get fewer scenes with her). I’d like it if the other character was as “universal” as the other choices…
…Which means that it could be Chief Chaska, since she’s pretty high up too. On the other hand, she’s sort of a bit too similar to Stillwater(though not really, I suppose, they are rather different in the end), at least in the sense that both are Designer Soldiers(well, even Mari Badr is a Designer human I guess). Chaska is pretty universal though, scene wise, which is good.
Sarah-Lee is potentially a good choice too, since she’s pretty different from the other characters(and thus gives precious variability to the options), and she’s mostly tied to the “basic path” which means she’s an universal option too. On the other hand, she’s pretty close to Bailey vote-wise, so…
In any case, I won’t be making any decision about the matter until I start doing the sub-plots and the like, since they’ll have great relevance to it indirectly.
Given that Stillwater and Mouse are the top two male choices by a long shot, I’ll probably go ahead and lock them for now(in the sense that I won’t give it much thought). After everything is finished(the entire project), I might ask again regarding the romances and see how much work it might be to add other romantic options, but for now it’ll be 2 male and 2 female. If it seems easy, I’ll add others too, but it’s impossible to say if I will at the moment. I guess it’s always possible to add “minor bonus” romances as opposed to the major relationship options(friendship, rivalry, romance, combinations of all three). Anyway, not something I’ll be thinking about any time soon.
Interestingly the male choices got way fewer votes overall, comparatively speaking. Hard to say what it means, since voting behaviour is always tough to crack(especially since you could give 1-4 votes. Although the rough average is 3 votes per voter, it seems). Might be as simple as there being less male characters overall in “visible” positions story-wise, which means they get less screen time and thus less interest. Guess I’ll refrain from making any more wild guesses about the matter, it’s just something I noticed.
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Allow me to speculate (in the least responsible manner!) on your behalf. 
-
I think it’s relatively clear why Stillwater gathered the most votes amongst the male R.O., right? He’s the robotic/blank slate option that allows reader(s) to project whatever they want unto them. He’s also the emotionally withdrawn/unavailable/undeveloped, and given that he’s a robot he’s the “safe bad-boy”.
- The same applies to Chief Chaska.
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Mouse has managed to secure/corner BOTH the sympathy vote (the “nerd” who got picked on the first day on the job) and the underdog vote (stood up to his “tormentor” and provided/brought S-tier support skills/capabilities when
was about to hit the fan). 
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