That’s bull, I’ve herd you’re capable of better, but that’s a moo point if you won’t even try. How cowardly!
But you’re still my kine of guy, a real legendairy writer, so if you ever need a reader, just say “Aletheia, I need to run this pasteurize,” and I will make rumen my schedule.
A++++++++ seller would buy again
Finally got around to sending another beta update off to Jason and Abby.
I hope this update will finally get rid of the annoying “switching NPCs” and “switching sides” bugs. I’m going to play through a few times over the weekend and see if I find any more things with variables dropping or not being set.
If not, I’ll move on to bigger-picture fixes:
That new build is out now on the beta server!
Feels like it’s been forever, but it was only a week since I posted here? Time is fake!
I should have a new update out this week, and this one will have some of the actual new content folks have requested or commented is probably needed for the game to make sense, as well as just the usual frantic bug fixes. (Mostly, this will be stuff for added NPC/parent interactions, so those don’t seem like they just kind of drop out of existence altogether.)
Didn’t quite manage it for this week, but I’m going to use the long weekend to put in some serious time on the game edits!
I’ve already got a hefty change log lined up, and the game should have quite a few updates and changes–both big and small–in the next build. For reference, I’m up to 366,000 words, from 356,000 on April 17th when I first finished the draft.
(ETA: And who knows? Maybe my NPCs will finally stop changing places arbitrarily, reappearing and disappearing at will, and having other crises of identity. 
)
I’ve finally worked my way through all but a couple of the updates and fixes I wanted to get done this time around, and should be sending a new build to @jasonstevanhill and @abbytrevor tomorrow—Spirits willing and the Worldsea don’t rise!
I’m sorry for all the delays on this, if you’ve been waiting to try again with a less buggy build! On the plus side, this one should take care of quite a lot of things. 
And just sent off the build! So look for that probably early next week. It has a lot of things. 
ETA: and just for fun, I took a look at the timer app I use to track my writing time and calculated that I’ve spent roughly 521 hours working on this game since November of 2023.
Dang. That’s a lot of hours!
Reading the premise alone, makes it sound incredibly boring.
Gods vs Men is so boring and overdone, at this point. Furthermore, I have read the Touge Oni and it does the concept of the ancient times when the myth and reality blended together masterfully. We need more stories like that. Instead of tired post modern crap like this.
So, uh…don’t play it, then?
Touge Oni looks pretty neat and I do enjoy things based on the Kojiki, which it seems to be modeled after. But this game isn’t inspired by that manga in any way (I hadn’t even heard of it before, to be honest). The inspirations for this one are things like Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Le Guin’s Hainish stories and novels. If you enjoy those (which are more firmly on the SF side of things, IMO) then you might like this.
If not, well, there are lots of other things to do. 
I really like the Earthsea stories by Ursula Le Guin but have not read her scifi stories.
I have an idea what her works are like in general, but would you mind giving a few non spoilery hints what inspired you?
Only ever watched Laputa halfway, so how those two things might blend together as inspiration escapes me for now.
If now is a bad time, with the ongoing beta and all that, please don’t feel pressured to answer immediately (or at all).
I just enjoy reading about what authors use as fuel for their writing and it’s interesting to see which parts stick most with people.
Sure thing–thank you for asking!
Although on the surface, Le Guin’s science fiction and fantasy is pretty different, there are actually a lot of similarities. No matter what genre she writes in, she has an interest in exploring conflicts between cultures and genders, and in examining (and subverting) the stereotypical ways that “Good VS Evil” as a setup was usually done back in the 60s and prior.
The Hainish cycle (where the majority of her SF writing takes place) doesn’t follow a particular set of characters or plotline like the Earthsea books, but explores different aspects and times of a universe where there is a sort of “United Nations” but of planets and systems, spread out far across space.
This game isn’t anywhere near that SFnal, though! It’s set on a single planet, a post-apocalyptic world where there’s a mix of fantasy and SF genre notes. (Nanotechnology! Gods and spirits! Dead civilizations! etc)
One thing that has always interested me about Le Guin’s SF books and stories is that they don’t usually portray “Technology!” as proof of a superior civilisation, etc. Some of her books, like The Telling, are more or less explicitly anticapitalist (as was Le Guin, in some speeches I have seen of hers!), but even the stories that aren’t often show a pretty troubled relationship between science/technology/capital and explore other ways of being and living in the world.
There is a bit of that here, for sure!
My favourites are The Left Hand of Darkness, The Disposessed (both venerable classics of SF at this point) as well as The Telling, but I also really enjoy her Hainish short stories, which tend to dig into a specific planet and explore some aspect of its society in ways that I never fail to find fascinating. Library of America recently released a collected two-volume set of Hainish Cycle novels, which also collects all the short stories. It’s, uh, expensive (
) but you can probably find it in a library or get it through interlibrary loan!
Le Guin’s Hainish stories play with gender/sexuality as cultural constructs a lot more openly than most of the Earthsea books, as well, and I am always here for that.
As for Laputa, like a lot of Miyazaki’s films, it hits pretty hard with an anti-war message. Also like others of his films (Nausicaä, for instance), there’s a backdrop with a vanished society that is higher in technology than what people currently have, and trying to reclaim that vanished society’s powers is Very Bad News.
So I guess that’s a bit more easy of an inspiration to explain… lol
(It’s also the general vibe of most of the final fantasy games–especially the ones that came out during the late 80s and early 90s, which made a big impression on me as a Callow Youth!)
Welp, I know what I’m asking for when Christmas comes around.
Ooh, I need to look into this.
Ok, I was already going to get your book but this convinced me even more that it was going to be my thing.
I should really find more media that’s along those lines (anti war and anti capitalism) especially in times like these.
Thank you for taking the time to type this all up, I appreciate it!
A more recent short story collection I really loved that hits those themes and is also space opera (I love space opera, in case that wasn’t clear!) is Ursula Whitcher’s North Continent Ribbon. Come for the unionizing spaceships, stay for the great characterization, fascinating setting, and the sense of watching history unfold.
It’s also one of the finalists for this year’s Ursula K. Le Guin prize for fictoin–which is doubly impressive since it’s a short story collection!
And of course there’s the Murderbot show on Apple +! But it’s pretty violent, for all that it is pretty strongly anticapitalist and more-or-less anti-violence.
(ETA Obviously I am always ready to talk about media I enjoy and that I think others will also enjoy. )
Have you read Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove?
Looks great! I just added it to my library holds.
A spaceship as the main character? Carrying a bunch of oddballs and trying to stop a killer? Now that’s a wacky premise if ever I saw one! 
I actually haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I have read Blood Moon, her interactive urban fantasy novel published by Hosted Games two years ago, and I’m not at all surprised she’s poised for mainstream success.
but also [shut up and take my money dot gif]