Thank-you! I am planning on having the first five-ish chapters in by October (fingers crossed), with the intent on having a chapter done per content update until the story starts really branching out, which will be where updates take longer (because, you know, bugs thrive in hasty environments 
). Thank you for your interest!
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No, they haven’t! I plan on introducing Tess in the next chapter, and Ranger will depend on whether or not I decide to scrap or keep a couple of scenes (if I keep what I’m currently working on, he’ll be introduced depending on a few things that the MC decides to do, so that can range between this upcoming chapter or a couple of chapters after).
I currently am undecided about making them gender-flipped, but I will say that if I do decide to tease the idea further, that won’t be until further down the road when I have their routes written out past the notes/main points to see how that would work.
Thank-you for reading/playing!
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This seems great can’t wait for more, can I recommend not adding too many love interests? Maybe like two three more tops.
Pretty sure there no more, just whether the others will be gender flippable.
So yes, Toln, Tess, and Ranger are the main ROs. There might be a couple of others, but it’s not set in stone. I’m not looking to add ROs just for the sake of romance, though. It just depends whether or not I feel like it would fit the story later on
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Update 06.04.23 ~ About 15k Words Added
Okay, so I strangely had a lot more time than I thought I would to write out this next chapter, which is weird because I’ve been doing a lot with just life in general. I wasn’t expecting to get much done, as there were some slight coding algorithms I was trying to figure out, but after waking up early with solutions for the past few days, I got it figured out.
Anyways, new chapter! I don’t want to spoil too much, but depending on what you decide, you’ll find yourself ending the chapter differently than others 
About 15k words were added, with far less code than the first couple of chapters (I can’t tell you guys how many variables took up the word count in the setup), so you should be seeing a little more content than the first chapter.
Oh, but I do want to warn you guys, you’ll be getting a little bit of info on the MC and their grief. Remember, their mom was murdered years ago - it wasn’t at all pretty. So you will be getting a couple of clips on that, too.
Major Points:
→ Find out about the recent murder
→ Decide how to break the news to Tommy/Tally
→ Figure out how to deal with resurfacing thoughts
For those of you curious about some of the paths and don’t mind taking the edge of surprise out of the equation, you can . . .
→ Help save a man from hypothermia
- Note, for this scene, I spent HOURS doing a good amount of research to make this as realistic as possible. Google wasn’t very forthtelling, so I had to make do with the information I could gather. I would hate for an important scene like this to be completely butchered because of my ignorance, so if you’ve been in that situation before, let me know if there’s some inaccurate info in there! (and I’m so sorry that’s happened to you! I’ve been stuck outside in the cold before, so I can’t imagine how much worse that would have been if it escalated to something like this >.<)
→ Run after Toln in the middle of a snowstorm (Hint: Timing will affect the outcome!)
→ Prepare to share a meal with Toln and Tommy/Tally, and figure out how to best break the news to your sibling
→ Briefly come across a stranger in the middle of a storm
Tess is briefly introduced, and depending on how you go about things, you may even get to meet Ranger! More scenes on each of them will be in the next chapter, though.
The next chapter will vary depending on where you left off! I’m not expecting to be done with it in a week or two, unlike this one lol.
For questions about a save system:
Honestly, I’ve been thinking about implementing a save system of my own at some point. Knowing how different this story can come out, I want to give readers the option to do things differently throughout the story so that they’re not restarting from scratch. Also, I’ve done some digging on the save system from dashingdon and it looks like if I do that, I’ll have to comment the input out every time I test it (I use randomtesting a lot to shift through code-breaking bugs). I’m still researching this and planning through it, but at the very least I’ll put in some sort of character creation section where you can choose which chapter to jump to and, depending on the chapter, you’ll get prompted for the major decisions that led you there so that you won’t have to go through each choice when there’s an update.
In the meantime, I apologize for the inconvenience!
Bug Notices
In this chapter, there are a few different ways for it to end before moving onto the next chapter. I’ve test-run (test-runned? Test-ran?) it a few times and had my younger sister play through it and it all looks fine so far, so fingers crossed! It’s about 15k words without much code, so if you find anything that doesn’t look quite right, please feel free to let me know!
I’m trying to flush out bugs where I can, but it’s possible I’ve still missed a few as far as grammar goes. I am a firm believer that you can’t depend solely on yourself when it comes to editing stuff like that, as the human brain has the tendency to fill in gaps without you noticing (for me, at least). So, if you could kindly screenshot any mistakes you find and let me know, I would greatly appreciate it!
Important Note for Personality/Early Chapter Updates
I’ve also added a couple choices at the beginning to help implement protective-MC-behavior in concern to the sibling after a couple of y’all mentioned it. I didn’t realize I had missed those, to be honest! If there’s a part in the story where there’s not a choice that would fit your MC’s personality, don’t feel bad for letting me know! I’m generally more of an introverted peacekeeper kind of person with a bit of a sarcastic streak at times, and so while I do strive to keep the various personalities out there in mind, it is fully possible that I might miss some of the more aggressive/impulsive traits in minor scenarios.
I will like to say, however, for those of y’all that want to jump right in to burning the world, be patient You’re a 25-year-old young adult who’s been taking care of your sibling for the past seven, almost eight years. You can give people the cold shoulder and be distant, of course, but as far as harming/killing/leaving people to die for absolutely zero reason . . . that will come 
Also, I’m still trying to figure out the best way to show the stats screen. Don’t worry too much about it for now; just know that this game is going to be more choice-personality-based than stat-based. As I continue to write out these scenes, I’ll get a better idea - my vision is to portray it kind of as a file, as if you’re reading through notes in the MC’s journal/diary/brain.
Edit: There was a bug on line 852 in Chapter 2 that is now fixed! If you receive an error concerning that line and clicked on the demo link before around 4pm CT (USA), try refreshing/going through the link again. It should be fixed
21 Likes
The figure watched the trio struggle from a ways out, cloaked in a black garment to cover their face and body. They recognized each of them; the boy that lost his mother and had to take care of his sister, the girl with olive-brown skin and a strange family history, and the pale-skinned man who had far more involvement in this area than anyone realized.
The figure was glad the man was saved. They didn’t want to have to step in - saving someone they planned to kill later was far too much of an inconvienance, but it would have been a necessary one.
Is the pale skinned man a reference to Toln? Because in that playthrough Toln was Joyce.
Hmm. Did you get the scene where your MC helped pull someone out of the water? Because the pale skinned man is the one that was in the water
Yeah, I’m sorry! I’m hoping to get a save system in at some point, I’m just not sure how to go about it. What are you referencing to in regards to your screenshot?
Edit nevermind, I see what you’re saying! Thank-you for pointing that out - I’ll get onto fixing that
I think I choose 2 option that lead me to the same error like the screenshot I took. So it didn’t let me through and I’m stuck there
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Okay, it should be fixed now! There was a line of code I forgot to take out, but it should be good. Thank-you!
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Hi there! I believe this was an error I just fixed a little while ago; I’ve ran about 500 random tests just to be on the safe side and they’re all passing so far. The line of code that was causing the error isn’t there anymore.
I’m sorry about the inconvenience, but thank-you for taking the time to post this!
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That’s strange, the error appeared when I was playing the new update when I choose:
to go to change first and the panic option. :0
It’s okayyy, I just started the game and avoided that route.
Very intriguing update , can’t wait to see more! 
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Hmm. I mean, it was an error caught not long after the update, if that helps . . . ah, bugs are frustrating 
Thank-you for your interest I’m glad you’re enjoying the story so far!
My character didn’t help any pale skinned man or even meet them, yet I keep getting this ending as if I have.
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Hmm. Are you on the path where it’s just you and your sibling? I think I found the error, but I just want to be sure
Edit: Nevermind, it was a misnaming error. This should be fixed!
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Wow such a quick update. No complaining of course, I loved it and can’t wait to read more. The plot continues getting more and more interesting. Also I love our sibling and Toln so much, they’re just great!
Oh, and found a little typo → “What? I don’t Joyce walking home in this weather.” → There’s a “want” missing between “don’t” and “Joyce”.
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