It was a rhetorical question, mostly. They can spend time together socially on two occasions, and the PC can give Nan a gift, but there is no romantic touching, there is nothing that couldn’t possibly be understood as anything but flirtation, there is certainly no talk of exclusivity or commitment.
You can definitely select a couple of options that set “romantic interest” flags and probably would pretty clearly suggest romantic interest in real life as well, so I can see why players would be taken aback. But I don’t remember adding anything that suggests exclusivity, for sure–outside of normal expectations, which I think it’s clear by now are way different than mine! 
For those who haven’t yet played, the two “dates” are:
- go to a festival with Nan immediately after meeting (not really a date? although in the context of a game with explicitly defined ROs, I guess probably fair to assume it is one)
- go to a market with Nan later (not explicitly a date but, again, in context…)
The player can also choose to accompany an NPC to either of these for non-romantic reasons, though. So they’re not explicitly romance flag events. (And, indeed, you can also choose to be completely aro/ace and still build queerplatonic relationships with the characters.)
Anyway, it’s pretty clear that (regardless of gendered assumptions from some specific group of players) the game did not make it clear enough up front that this was “poly route” stuff. I hope the revision fixes that, even though it’s a small one!
ETA: Jason just told me the update is now live!
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I wasn’t originally planning on commenting on this, but I figured it might be worth noting that I’ve been in several long lasting poly relationships with partners of multiple genders, and I’ve never known a single one of them who would be absolutely okay with some random person flirting/dating with one of their partners out of the blue.
People need time to adjust, even poly people. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that if a person doesn’t give their original partner/dating friend time to adjust and discuss in depth before moving in with a new partner, then that is extremely toxic behaviour on the part of the Nan/Teurix side of things. It could cause a lot of very understandable hurt.
The level of compersion you’re describing about how you’d feel is extremely unusual, even in the poly community. (I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, it’s just atypical.) Jealousy is default for most people, and poly folks need to do the work too.
I’ve seen many, many poly relationships fail because people didn’t take the time to care for their current partner’s feelings, and instead ran off with a new crush because of NRE (new relationship energy.) That’s bad, bad, bad mojo.
I’m not posting this to be mean, only in an attempt to be informative. Good faith, I promise. For what it’s worth, I really enjoy your writing. Thank you for your work 
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Thank you for the insights! I do really appreciate it, for sure. I know consent and clarity is super important in all kinds of relationships, and it makes sense it would be even more important in a relationship with multiple (that is, more than two) people involved!
And ooooo, extra thank you for the new word (compersion) 
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It wasn’t an established partnership, though. At most, the PC and Nan had hung out a couple times when they happened to be going the same way at the same time. You could say they’d had a couple dates, perhaps, but they’d never planned a date together. They probably wouldn’t have known how to contact each other if they’d wanted to. They may have never so much as touched each other intentionally, and they definitely hadn’t kissed. They hadn’t even really discussed their feelings for each other, let alone made any sort of commitment or even defined the relationship. Teurix had no way of knowing there was anything at all between Nan and the PC unless Nan told him. They’re all very young; the PC is barely an adult according the norms of their society. Nan has been abused and imprisoned all her life; when she meets the PC, it’s functionally the second time in her life she’s gone outside. Teurix is from a population that hasn’t had any interaction with Gigantea in multiple generations. These characters aren’t even part of the same culture, so there’s no reason to assume they’re on the same page about how a romantic relationship would develop and progress, particularly in the absence of explicit communication about what they both want. They certainly aren’t savvy in the ways of polyamory; it’s not something any of the characters are depicted as actively wanting. If they do end up as a throuple, it’s basically treated as an accommodation they’re all willing to try because one of them happened to fall in love with both of the others. (Some of this may have changed slightly with the update.)
I don’t deny there are things that could and probably should have been handled differently. (Honestly, as an alpha tester with a decent grasp on the pulse of this community, I should have seen this coming, and although I liked the relationship just fine the way it was set up before - Nan’s instant connection with Teurix makes perfect sense according to my understanding of their characters - I feel I owe someone an apology, although I’m not entirely sure whom.) But it’s a little alarming to me how many people are framing this as a matter of cheating rather than inadequate communication, particularly since the response is so overwhelmingly gender-specific. (“Nan” can be male or nonbinary, but all the complaints I’ve seen have referred to her in the feminine - and I find it very hard to imagine that anyone would be shocked that Aanan, Nan’s male version, didn’t consider himself claimed lock, stock, and barrel after hanging out a couple times.)
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My response was mostly a reply to Stewart saying that he didn’t understand how most people approach relationships. My intent was to add some context from the poly perspective and how a ‘thruple’ relationship would likely struggle with this situation in our world.
I totally understand what you’re saying, but the issue here is the format. There is very limited time in an IF for the MC to meet the RO and establish a relationship. Our readers have been trained for years to expect that after a fairly obvious RO is signaled in the text, that if they pursue the relationship at each available opportunity, it’s more or less locked in by chapter 3 or 4.
These may not have been romantic dates in the traditional sense, but from the prospective of an IF reader, they are absolutely a crystal clear signal that ‘okay, we’re a thing, now’ so I can’t blame readers for feeling that way. That doesn’t mean their overreaction is justified, I’m just saying that from a design perspective, I understand why this reaction occurred.
I don’t think I called it cheating. The whole point of my post was about communication.
I realize that from a practical standpoint the MC and Nan/Aanan were only together for a few scenes, but let’s keep in mind that there are hundreds of thousands of books and movies where the lead and the love interest fall in love within the span of a few scenes. Fiction is compressed by necessity and doesn’t really follow the timeline that a normal life might. Expectations adjust accordingly when consuming fiction.
To be absolutely clear–I don’t approve of the way readers have been acting so nasty about this. I think it’s a massive over reaction. I’m just bringing my perspective as a poly person and as a designer/writer.
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I get what you’re saying also, and I think it’s a valuable perspective. Although I happened to hit the button that made my reply a response to you, it was only partially an actual response to you, and just as much a reaction to the situation overall. Your response, even where I might personally disagree with some of the particulars, was eminently fair and reasonable. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear.
And I absolutely should have considered the game-design perspective rather than just what makes sense for the characters. I am too … diegetic … sometimes, and maybe that’s a problem for someone as much in love with the publishing industry as I am. But I also wish there was a little more room for an author to try something different without people leaping to conclusions, and more room in general to explore things in fiction, including IF, that fall outside the standard expectations. I think IF is best when it’s not all wish fulfillment, and I think the disappointment that may arise when we want more than is entirely fair for us to expect is a legitimate theme. And at the same time, the story-wrangler in me understands entirely the importance to fiction of a shorthand of conventions and tropes. And I’m forced to remind myself what I so often counsel others: there is no One Right Way.
I’ll step back from this now and leave the field to those who understand the medium and the message far better than I do.
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Oh, okay I misunderstood. No worries at all. 
I think about that sometimes, too. I think there’s something to be said for the fact that we as a brand have grown a bit formulaic and because of that we’ve cultivated an expectation with our readers for things to always work out in certain ways within standard parameters. I’m honestly not sure how to go about changing that.
No need to step back at all! I think you’re eminently qualified to talk about this topic. You’ve tested a huge amount of games and I know personally that you’re an excellent editor with a good eye for prose. Your contributions are always welcome!
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No offense intended but I honestly can’t see how you came to this conclusion, Nan/Aanan literally starts blushing in the first scene Teurix is introduced and rapidly grows close to him both on and off-screen in a much shorter time span than they’ve been interacting with the PC, not to mention the PC (assuming player choice) has been helping them out.
The setup is just plain bad and doesn’t make sense, the whole thing is written like the author really wanted it to play out a certain way regardless of how the user is playing through the story and the choices they pick, and considering how the rest of the game is written that’s quite the fair conclusion to reach. For instance:
For context, up to this point I had picked every choice for reconciliation and had the stats to do it, then got hit with this.
Unless this is bug, this is bad no matter how you look at it and was the final straw that made me quit.
And I really wanted to like this game, the concept is right up my alley, but this, being forced into a poly route, and the lack of consistency in tone of the story for the choices you pick is too much.
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I’m not sure there is any point to arguing about the Nan/Aanan and Teurix thing any further when the author has acknowledged the issue and took steps to address it? Maybe we should go back to focusing on the game itself instead of debating whether or not people’s concerns here were valid.
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yeah ngl I stopped playing at this point
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This is a bug, fwiw. I’ll go fix it!
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Guess who has two thumbs and reintroduced a bunch of old, already resolved bugs by making code updates to old files by mistake???
Sigh. I just sent Jason fixes for the fixes. Hoping they will be online when he sees them.
I still need to address the bug in chapter 9 but have family visiting. I hope to get to it soon (of course it’s in a chapter near the end, so testing will take a while!)
Also Discourse thinks I talk too much.
All in all, this has clearly not been the best launch. Apologies for the mess, everyone!
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Hey there! Feels like years since I’ve posted a public message on this forum!
I actually finished the game like an hour or two ago, and I assume you saying you reintroduced a bunch of old resolved bugs is related to the bunch of bug reports I submitted during my playthrough?
I hope it wasn’t TOO much, I realize I sent a lot of them!
I actually came here to try and understand the major issue I had on my playthrough, which is… funnily enough the opposite of other people here! I wanted to romance Teurix only to discover he was somehow already in a relationship with Aanan. But your corrections to the Aanan side made it so Aanan indeed didn’t seem at all interested in Teurix, while on the other hand, I assume you didn’t add a variant to the Teurix confession scene to take the lack of interest between them into account? It seemed so out of the blue haha! At least I had enough relationship points to make Teurix chose my MC so in the end it worked out, but I understand better why this came to be.
I guess the fact the poly talk with Aanan happened in the midst of an outing with Gerran also didn’t help in whatever was going on.
While I’m at it, I must say I absolutely ADORE Teurix! I just wish we had more time with him, especially since there’s a single chapter between him being introduced and locking into his romance, no matter if it’s solo or poly.
Obviously this is a lot to “ask”, but I feel like it’s not bad to suggest it still, just in case. Since between chapters 5 and 6 there’s a few weeks of downtime, would you maybe consider adding an “in-between” scene with Teurix, just to bring his amount of content closer to that of the others? It would allow to know him better and get more relationship points with him if needed for the choice in chapter 6 (I didn’t struggle, but I believe I hit ALL the affiinty ups with him, and that if I had missed any it wouldn’t have worked out). Obviously this is not me demanding it or anything! I’m just a bit sad because of the little content with my favorite character!
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Maybe spoiler.. but i don’t know howv to add that tag so my apologies.. So my ending was not something i like, probably a bug?? I defeat the boss and it’s dead, but then the ending was all about how everyone is scared of that dead boss and how it might get them.
Congratulations, you’re a programmer now. 
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That is definitely a bug.
Any chance you could submit a bug report from in game? I will take a look regardless but that sends me more data and makes it easier to figure out what’s gone wrong.
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Just sent Jason a set of new files with most of today’s reported bugs fixed.
I am still working on the following:
- The screenshot above showing the “changed my mind” text when trying to peacefully resolve things with the Spireguard (from the Surge)
- Some stuff with Teurix in chapter 6
- Myrrina being angry with the player in chapter 5 after the player has already repaired their relationship
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I’ve been wondering something about the rock skipping minigame. Is the result at all dependent on stats, or is it solely based on the choices you make during the minigame? And is it actually possible to beat 10 skips and 150 meters? I know the minigames don’t matter to the story, but my competitive brain still wants to beat it.