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I loved those books, and while I started this part of the story premised on "what would the master strain look like, how does Alex go find it", I definitely landed on something very reminiscent of that storyline. Happy to have it be a little homage to one of the greats.

I am not the developer, but I am a Patreon creator. It's possible the developer paused billing for a month, in which case no new subs are allowed during the pause.

Your wait (and patience) is definitely going to pay off. ❤️

Ack! Sorry for the delay; I missed this. Spoilers Ahead

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Easiest way to do it is not be in a relationship with Nick, and lie to Seth in the cabin's living room.

Thank you!

Without more information, I'm not sure how to help you. All downloads appear to be working. You may want to reach out to Itch support, or confirm your device has enough storage.

Sem mais informações, não sei como ajudá-lo. Todos os downloads parecem estar funcionando. Você pode entrar em contato com o suporte do Itch ou confirmar se seu dispositivo tem armazenamento suficiente.
(From Google Translate, probably not very good.)

I may eventually redo the gate-keeping logic on this but in short...

SPOILERS AHEAD

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You need to have a good relationship with Nick, then in Chapter 11 when Alex and Nick are talking in the park, Alex needs to ask Nick if he still cares about Ronan, then say "Ronan still has your heart." Later in the same chapter, when Nick is talking with Riley, select "I'm not sure" or "All yours, kid." That should unlock it.

Basically I was trying to avoid the player accidentally setting themselves up for an NTR type scenario.

It is definitely shorter than some previous updates, but after checking in with Patrons, I decided to make this one shorter and get it out quicker rather than having everyone waiting 4 to 6 months between updates.

No problem. I know it's confusing, even to me. It honestly had me stopped and double-checking everything as I was pushing the updates to Itch. It's just the way my version numbering method and this particular update have aligned (or "mis-aligned"). 

Each time there is an update with new story content, the number goes up. Technical updates are a letter, and reset when there is new content. Probably better systems out there but it made sense when I started it a few years ago. 🤣

Correct. The version number is independent of the chapter.

No, no typo, you were right! It is a day late for Itch. I was on the road returning from a wedding and didn't get home until late. Unfortunately with the way Itch requires developers to handle updates for large games (BBN qualifies as over 1 GB), I have to use an Itch-provided tool called Butler and there is no way to schedule things to happen in advance (at least, I'm not aware of one). So, between Itch not letting me schedule it in advance and my schedule on the road, it wound up a bit late. My apologies for that! I could have planned a little better or shared a mini-update from the road. But it is up and available now!

SPOILERS AHEAD

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To unlock the striptease with Nick (as of Build 0.10b):  Looking through the code, you need to have a relationship score with him of 20 or 25, and a not so great score with Mayhew. To get that, pick "Resist" at the end of Chapter 3, then in chapters 5 and 6...

"Why Me" or "Make an Appointment" at opening of Ch 5 (0 points); then "Act Normal" or "Self-Deprecating" joke (+10); "Avoid the conversation" (0 points); "reject the feeling"; invite him to use the spare bed (+10 points). That should keep the score with Mayhew low and get you 20 points with Nick to unlock the striptease.

Hmm. The walkthrough may be outdated. When I initially made this scene, it was almost impossible for anyone to get to sleep with him. I eventually recoded it to make it easier to sleep with him, but that really shrunk the range in which you get this middle result of him doing a strip tease by the spare bed. I'll look up the coding next time I'm working on the script and will reply to your comment here. Thanks for asking and sorry for the inconvenience. I'll try to get the walkthrough updated, too. 

Without more information, it's rather difficult to help, but I've tested it on my own device and it installs normally. Typically when someone says it's not installing on their device, they are either out of storage or there is a setting on their phone that is preventing it. The only advice I can offer is that it seems Itch is forcing the application into a Zip file, so you may need to extract the zip on your phone before you can install it. 

Not really, there are too many choices for me to setup a system where you can select them to go to a chapter. That said, you can enable the Skip feature and set it to include skipping unseen text, transitions and after choices. Should get you through everything in less than 5 minutes. 

😟While I'm sad you're upset (and you're not the only one), I am oddly gratified people care enough about these characters that it is upsetting. Unfortunately, past that, I'm not going to say anything until after the next update releases. I hope you hang in there.

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it! ❤️

I do not have plans to continue updating the walkthrough, no. If I do, I'll probably start from scratch and do it a different way, such as just recording relationship score adjustments from decisions and then what score you need for gatekept branches. I'm generally pretty good about answering questions over on discord, though, if you have any. 

As for the second question... Generally, sleeping with someone won't block off a lot of options, but there are a couple exceptions. I will probably redo the earliest scene with Nick at some point as the decision tree for that was a bit arbitrary and was when I was just starting, but the idea there was more that if you had made decisions more aligned with a pro-Mayhew mindset, then you wouldn't be able to sleep with Nick. I haven't done a lot of that since, but... There is and will be a series of optional encounters that, if pursued, will block off certain endings. There are hints about that, though. 

No problem! You're not the only one who has asked and I know it's confusing. Just a coincidence with how the builds and chapters have been released. Eventually, the version number will be in sync with the latest chapter, and eventually the version number will be higher (e.g., chapter 16 gets released in two or more builds/versions).

That's correct. 👍 Version number is not the same as chapter number.

Hey there. By the numbers, it is the biggest single update, but it may play out as a bit shorter due to branches in the sex scenes, which occupied a lot of the script and images. I'm aiming for a quicker turn around on the next update (aiming for early access in early April, then Itch in May); that update is going to be smaller, but entirely story-focused without a lot of branches.

I'll take a look and follow-up. There are a couple images that don't want to unlock due to a bug, but most of them should work. Anyway, I'll look and follow-up here. 

Yes and no. It won't be a romance in the way I'm setting up for Nick or Connor, but yes, you can gradually get him to warm up to you (should see some hints of that in Chapter 15 if you've played it right) and I have at least one path/ending I'm working towards where you'll be able to include him.

Yay! Glad you liked it. I wanted to have a little fun with it and not have it be all drab and serious. 🤣

No problem! Here's a screenshot to help.

If you're on PC or Mac, you can define a name for the save game. It's at the top of the save menu. Unfortunately it is not available on Android due to screen size and sometimes the keyboard would fill too much of the screen and make it impossible to save. 

I'm kind of leaving guides up to fans at this point as it slows me down. Sorry! Probably not the answer you were looking for. 

Thanks for sharing this! ❤️

I think the next update (coming to Itch in a couple weeks) will make you very happy but also comes with a brutal cliffhanger. 

So, spoilers ahead so keep reading at your own risk, but I have said this already at least on Discord, so... 

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While BBN is not a dating simulator and close, one-on-one relationships are not the focus, you will be able to eventually get Ronan to warm up to you and even have an emotional/romantic relationship with him. There are some strings, that I've hinted at in other contexts, but that's all I'll say. And the next update does give you an opportunity to progress towards that. 

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! ❤️ And thank you for this kind note. It will definitely continue to grow but I try to keep the file sizes under control. 

VtM and the World of Darkness generally are definitely inspirations. I played a lot in the 90s. Mostly I played WtA, but a few vampires here and there, and I loved the tragically brief television series, Kindred: the Embraced. 

On the size of the game, I hear you! I was worried about this way back after I'd made the first couple of chapters and saw it ballooning. To try to keep it under control, all the audio is converted to ogg format, which has a much smaller footprint than wav and mp3, and images are in either jpg or webp format. (If I used the original png, we'd probably be at 10gb right now!) I also avoid movie files because, as much as I'd love to have some proper animated movies or backgrounds, the file sizes are huge and if I do it once, I'll have to keep doing it or it would be a really odd standout moment. (Maybe for the conclusions...) 

I've set a deadline for myself to get it out to Patrons by this Sunday, February 11. It'll then come to Itch 30 days later. 

And definitely some Mayhew content in this update!

Yeah, I've had a love-hate relationship with muscles in Daz (the software I use to create the images). Folks may remember a scene with Santino when he was bulging out of a badly fitted suit. I have since learned how to fix that issue, but it kept me from going really heavy with the muscles. And, adding a lot of vascularity to a body is another layer of complication. Since I started, there is an asset I could buy and use to add more vascularity to models, but it would change how they appear. Once BBN is finished, I will debate whether to do a remaster and, if so, I'll make some of those tweaks.

Body hair is a long-standing issue with Daz and the subject of many threads over on Discord and among VN creators. I have since found a body hair resource I like, but it wasn't available when I started. That said, there is an in-character reason Ronan is fully shaved and that will be shared eventually. For some of the other characters, it was simply an asset issue.

Cheers!

This whole thread has me lolling but I may as well chime in. 

Connor's eyes are, I would say, stunning. Perhaps inhumanly so. I dont know if the shade of blue itself is particularly intense, but he does have a very pronounced limbal ring around the iris. I'd swear I had read somewhere (a year or more ago) it's a benign concentration of cholesterol, but I can't find a source to support that right now, and most descriptions I find just refer to it as heavy pigmentation. Anyway... That darker circle around the iris really emphasizes the color within, dividing it from the white of the sclera. 

So, in his human form, Connor's eyes are pretty intense. When agitated or highly aroused, shifters and elders both get an unnatural flare to their eyes. For shifters, it's similar to the natural color of their eyes. For elders, it's red. While Connor is a Patron-sponsored character, this is a mechanic I've had since BBN launched.

As for the symbology of anything, most of the characters' names and certain features were chosen to reflect certain traits. I won't go too far into it as I don't want anyone to think I'm putting on airs and see myself as writing the next great American novel or something, but there is some symbolism and I'll let folks draw their own conclusions. I love reading them. 

Cheers. 

Hey! Thanks for the comment and so glad you're enjoying it. I think I answered a question from you about Connor on Discord, but let me know if not! 

I'm hopeful I'll have it done by the end of January. Making good progress on the last scene, but it'll depend a little on what I find in QC.

Hey there! Yes, I'm still working away at it. I started a new job about a year ago and that combined with family obligations mean I have a lot less free time, but I work a bit on it every day. Currently working through renders for a sex scene that has been technically challenging but nearly finished.

No, sorry, currently only English is available.

Ha! I don't think I even want to google that one! *shudder* I promise: no bat penis!

While the next update is focused more on Alex, the updates after that will have an opportunity to (re-) build the relationship between Nick and Ronan.

This honestly made me laugh out loud. 😂❤️

Hey there. Glad you're enjoying it and thanks for the feedback.