It’s so moving to hear that you and others are crying at my game!
and I don’t think you should feel bad for liking video game ROs. I love getting lost in romance, really. But we are here to move the culture of depth in character analysis forward in video games as a community invested in longform character simulation. We know the world can do better, and do better we do. I know I’m still trying to in my other work.
yea, i mainly spam devs through their tumblrs but it seems like u don’t have one for the wip. so i revived the ol’ acc
i said i was gonna get all the endings but i can’t bear to be insensitive towards len just yet. so thoughts after 4 (and a half) endings it is !
not to be dramatic, but this is probably my favorite game ever played. to the point where the game asked me what my fave game was, n i was like “hm, would it be weird if i put this one?” i wasn’t even through my first full playthrough LMAO
it was honestly so much wild fun the first 2/3rds, was giggling like crazy over every reference i understood. the dialogue was INSANE like it perfectly encapsulates the vibe of “fuck it we ball” that i’d expect in a trapped-in-a-videogame genre.
some faves:
“i didn’t know 3d would do it for you”
“len the vampire toxic nightcore mmd (male ver)”
“my kingdom for a rest!”
just anything orion said tbh. my manic pixie dream girlie
asterius calling themself a “scary darkcel” after kissing mc like half a dozen times
“trad [mc] strikes again”
yea i lost it at the mmd reference bc i never thought in a million years i’d read it in this context. thanks for cramming every fandom and strange subculture ever in here
all the meta comments were amazing… enough said. i’m a bish for 4th-wall-breaking
The Characters. oh lawd the characters are where u can feel the full brunt of 8yrs work-! their motivations are so gradually yet clearly defined i could almost predict their answers and actions before they happen dang… safe to say all of them are loveable (except grace screw grace. for a queen of hearts she ain’t got one). i have just a few criticisms here: i cldn’t fully comprehend em’s views as much as the others, especially on being an ai. i could grasp her devotion to orion but not so much else. buuut i might’ve just missed it. also, a bit sad on not seeing asterius nb implementation. but if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen.
the way the reader fully realizes why the ais are how they are is soooo perfect. like first playthrough, i was unironically clueless and clicking clueless choices bc i wanted to “save everyone” (i did know len was an ai tho cuz i played the old bad end like. five billion times). i took the amnesia pills n realized asterius was ours… mind blown moment (all the times i failed to offer them agency made sense…). then when orion said the first thing we should do is have a picnic- i was weepin like a widow bc no way are they waking up after THAT flag.
but dang are they human. almost feel more human than some humans tbh. i’m so tired of the ai takeover spiel and finally someone puts it in words that they deserve their own lives… i was crazy about that. the way u indirectly went after the idol/entertainment industry and absolutely curb-stomped it too!! just a lot of social issues u covered and you did it all wonderfully.
finding the alternate endings helped fill in the blanks i had ofc, but u can kinda sorta figure it out if ur paying attention, at least by technobabble. on the other hand, i really, REALLY liked playing a lil naive, purehearted mc and how the game doesn’t completely screw u over bc of it. it warmed my heart to see such a mature story show that u can find a happy ending by being kind.
this truly is a story about love in video games. but probably not so much romantic love like i and probably many others expected. it’s more love of a parent/creator, unrequited love, love of humanity. and a love of fun and whimsy!! i hope many more experience it.
some lines that stuck with me:
“i want to be happy.”
“it’s pretty. pretty like you.”
“you loved us far too much.”
“thank you for being my reality.”
yea all of these made me bawl my eyes out. what about it.
i wanted u to know that u really touched my heart with ur story. just the Specific Vibe of first playing this in covid times, just wanting to escape the ennui, bag some hotties, and save the day; to now, a little more grown up, seeing the rise of ai, and realizing the value of living Real Freakin’ Life. it’s insane how it lined up like that.
so yea. i’m proud to be a dwmu fangirl lmao this game rocks
p.s. i actually used to have a burning hatred for vampires. cldn’t stand 'em. but i fell so dang hard for len that i ended up taking a uni course on vampire lit last year. and it was friggin AWESOME i will never regret it. i was about to put your game into my final paper bc it was my inspiration, but i thought it inappropriate to put it in while it was unfinished lol
Sobbing incoherently at 3am about this game. Thank you very much 
(I’m so glad I didn’t finish this first playthrough at work omg)
i love this game soo much its actually insane. during my first run i got the len blackmail ending and it made me cry then on my second run i got ending 1. and i thought it’d be happier but no! i was fooled! and it made me cry even harder.
another thing i have to say: as a very big vocaloid fan, i’m so glad for the vocaloid references!! made me smile so much when we first met len because i thought it was a reference to len the vocaloid as well hahaha.
I saw the twist coming
I thought, “no way they’d do that, it’s such an obvious cyberpunk cliché. They spent so long making this, that would be way too simple.”
And then
I actually didn’t even finish it. I got so disillusioned I stopped before the end.
Which is a shame because I enjoyed it (except for chapter 3, I hate old-style adventure game “puzzles” with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns) and then I feel like all that time was wasted.
I’ve made it through chapter 3 so far and I gotta say, my favorite character is easily the author.
My favorite arguments. Every time.
I don’t usually comment here, but having just finished my first playthrough I have to say this is one of the most intelligently written IF games for a while! I went in with no preconceptions, and had to finish it in one sitting, something I would not normally do, but thats a tribute to how much your story kept me invested in what was happening to the characters.
Its right on point too with the big debates going on world wide about AI and its effect on all of us, and deserves to be successful.
That’s amazing to hear! I’ve sure spent a long time hoping that these points would get across to players. Knowing this game is actually tough. Knowing this game is supposed to stick a knife in your heart. I’m so glad to hear it twisted.
After finishing this game I felt empty, like I lost something and something is missing I dont know how to explain this feeling I am not a emotional guy. This game/book is unique
I haven’t uploaded a new version quite yet, but I have an update that now the game is passing the randomtest 100 times! Unfortunately when I try to run it 1000 times chrome seems to run out of memory. But it’s a good sign that it’s at least going to be crash free very soon.
I still have to unravel some of the design issues in the classical thunderdome and check pronoun use throughout the game, but I’m excited!
I laughed, I cried, I got angry. Absolute masterpiece!
All right, I’ve uploaded a fix to the dashingdon link which I THINK OR BELIEVE:
The last thing to really do here is to unravel the design flow of the classical thunderdome to make it winnable. I like all the scenes in the classical thunderdome but I wrote it during a bit of a lockdown frenzy, so figuring out how to get through it so that it can actually be won properly is a bit of a challenge here.
As far as I can tell, that’s the very last thing I have to do on the game before making assets for publication. If there are additional steps anyone knows of, please do tell.
Ridiculously, I wrote much of this game in regular old ass notepad when I first was working on it. Then I worked on it in NotePad ++. I am working on it in Sublime now.
I have used no highlighter or tools of any kind to develop it. There is nothing autochecking anything I’m doing. It’s all just ‘fire it and run it until it crashes’. I didn’t even know randomtest existed until 2020 so all crashes I found were from personal testing.
I am aware after working professionally in game development now for all this time that this was a foolish endeavour, but, old habits die hard, I still haven’t been doing anything other than looking at the raw text files in sublime and running the automatic tester over and over again.
on my first play through and absolutely loving it! ran into a game break when len asks about your favorite video game in the car during the fifth(?) chapter or so but it’s incredible going to replay a different route now !
Oh my goodness I was genuinely editing that section tonight (adding more game reactivity/Easter eggs) so I must have messed it up.
At least the game not crashing was true before I edited that aha.
Is it a crash you couldn’t progress beyond in the savegames? Sorry about that. I can get it fixed first thing in the morning (1am here in Ireland).
If there’s a way of getting through that section without answering that question you should be safe
no worries at all! i imagine the coding is pretty heavy and it’s mind boggling to me in general so mad respect for that. i tried a couple re-saves bc i saw that you had posted that you had made some edits while i was reading but i ran into the same issue, and i don’t think it’s bypassable by different choice selections at this moment.
I think I’ve fixed it now. I fixed it last night but just failed to actually upload the change!
I don’t know if it’s just a problem in my browser but it won’t let me save the game or access my previous saves, only this message appears
Error: Bad Slot - Has smPlugin been included?
Oh dear I commented it out in order to use the automated tester. Will put it back!
