Wow, that's so kind. Thank you. When I get a chance I'll see what I can do.
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A lot of people find success in specializing the band members to different skills. This is because the better the skill, the easier it is to maintain it and get successes. So for your writer char they will churn out songs really fast and you'll end up with more than you know what to do with! For the band score during gigs, your band's TOTAL scores are weighed rather than the individuals themselves. So this strat does work.
Buying gear at the shop helps ensure that band members never drop below a certain # in the respective skill. So buying a guitar means that Dallas can't bottom out on his music skill anymore, so you can focus him on other things if you need to. That bonus to his skill counts as actual skill. Buying gifts at the mall will also reduce their stress and raise their affection.
It takes a while to get a good song writer in your band but it's worth the investment. Pick someone you think would write songs in the vein that you want for your band (angry Robin, sexy Beau, angsty Dallas, or silly Emmitt)
Good luck!
Hi Toskaa,
I'm taking a hiatus from the game at the moment. I'm working on myself for personal reasons. The other contributors have done their part and moved on, so it's just me. I was overly ambitious in adding story to the "open mode" game mode which has since become a literal sequel to the main game and so I have to make 2 games to feel like a complete 1. The main story is done and complete so don't worry about that. There is lots to do in open mode, but the epilogues for the main boys aren't complete and Seth is not written. Lots of people are telling me to consider the game as done and move on. I'm very stubborn and don't want to, but after 10 years I think the choice isn't mine to make anymore. I wrote the game while in an abusive household, which I escaped into an abusive relationship with a person who specifically used my writing against me. So going back is a bit rough for me. I'm not closing this chapter so much as I am putting a bookmark in it to come back later when I'm better.
Thank you for your kind words. Glad you like it.
Wow, TJade, this is why I make games. It's so thrilling to get long reviews like this, to know what you liked and didn't like. And you definitely picked up on some meta stuff, such as how things seemed "random" sometimes and that's because it was a community contribution! Way back when I was first making the game, I had trouble coming up with character designs because I was more interested in building a band sim (that changed, obviously) and let people submit chars for open-mode. They were free to then write these chars if they wanted, only a few stayed on. But me and the others took on these designs and had fun with them. One of the biggest contributors, Serenity-Frost, wrote Rose, Faust and Xander and basically all of Sebastian. I went through and unified Robin's voice with my version so that it felt more cohesive. My next update gives proper credit to the character designer and writers on the band member selection screen. (Owen being a cowboy was the decision of the artist and I was like, OK lol.)
Strange. He's only available in Open Mode for starters. If he doesn't come up as a potential recruit, you may need to re-watch his final Story Mode scene to trigger the unlock again. There's also the cheat code "let's date" (F1 key by default) that you can use to unlock all the unlockables romances.
Nope, I just never finished writing it! It is rather intense, emotionally, because it deals with darker issues like substance abuse and CPTSD. Which sort of made me realize that I'm similar and, well, I'm going to a therapist now so that's good. I'm healing and improving so I hope to writing again soon. :) Thanks for checking in.
The only stipulations I have for Sterling II is that the date is the 15th of the month or later, you're on Dallas' path in Story Mode (which you are), and you've seen Sterling I (which you said you have). It's a scene that triggers on the main planner page... uh, maybe more important custscenes are happening (I doubt it ...) or you're in a weird lull period such as its Christmas-New Years (it should still work though??). If you're on skip mode, maybe try turning that off? It's weird you can't trigger it.
CDs can sell too fast which is why I included the option to delay. If Robin won't hang out with him, that means they're in a bad place in their relationship. Have you seen the Rooftop scene? It's one of the longest cutscenes in the game so I think you'd notice. If not, see if Emmitt has something to say. There's a dialogue that progresses Dallas' romance. Sometimes chars you aren't dating get ignored so maybe you didn't go through Emmitt's dialogues this time?
There is one thing you can do that cancels a romance route, and that is not leaving Sterling's apartment with Dallas when presented with the option.
If you're talking about the game's help screen, You must be IN GAME for it to work. It will not work from the main menu. F1 does something different for some people on some OS, so I included an option to toggle the key needed to press to the letter "c" on your keyboard. In order to toggle this, you must go into the game setting and go into the "Advanced" tab (button near top) to go to the page where it is on.
Did she struggle with the games, or did she only ask her brother to help her to hang out with him? I was wondering since she would say "I beat it" like it was really simple?
She was telling the truth. Wizz was sloppy and made a mistake. His mind was preoccupied with Robin when he was programming.
Games help her focus and spend time with her brother, so it's a win-win. She's good at them, he just skins them like kids games.
Was I the only one who noticed when Robin told Wizz “You’re too good-looking; I have to know you down a peg? 0:” Was that sarcasm and I just have a bad sense of it :’) ?
She was being sincere. She had something else in her mind when she pictured Wizz and he looked much better than that. She's acutely aware that he's more intelligent, because he can do things that she can't and knows words she doesn't. The fact that he didn't "pay" for that by being ugly too brings out her biases and insecurities. She went so far as to call him a "jock" which implies pros and cons (popular, handsome, and capable but also arrogant, mean, and snobby). Wizz views her much the same way, funnily enough. She's a hotshot on magazine covers and TV, and he felt she hadn't paid her dues either. They had placed each other on a pedestal that they wanted to knock down out of envy. Then they realized they're actually both weirdos.
Could I ask when Wizz started thinking Robin in a romantic way?
That's a tad hard to answer because he asks himself if he's honestly attracted to her routinely so he can find reasons to deny it. He's already aware that she's pretty, so it's more a matter of him convincing himself that she's not his type, that she's a bad person, etc. He's actively trying not to think of Robin in a romantic way. He doesn't want to be like everyone else (so he thinks). It would make him feel like a sheep.
When she starts going out of her way to talk and hang out with him, it makes all that a lot more complicated. On one hand, holy shit is she annoying. On the other, she feels like she belongs in his apartment. He isolated himself, even from his family. He felt that it was an improvement and a healthy choice for him, but it has turned out not to be. The daily disruptions that a dog or younger sister would provide turned out to be something he missed, but had now grown used to not having them.
So if I had to pinpoint a time, it would be when Robin still comes over to see Wizz after almost breaking his records and finding out about his glasses/brown eyes.
Did you have ideas of more lyrics about Wizz’s song about Robin? I loved it xD Do you have an idea of what his voice would be too? :D
Someone from the game's Discord asked if comedian Bo Burnham was anything like Wizz to me and - well, he's actually a perfect fit. (based on his stage persona anyway) Sharp to the point of being an asshole, crude or polished on his terms, really against people thinking they know him, doesn't want to seem predictable, needs to be seen as authentic, struggling with depression/mental health, tries really fucking hard, is surprisingly empathetic, and of course is incredibly talented. All the way down to his strong opinions of the music industry. He even looks like him! I'm serious, I'm really surprised how well that dude fits with the character. So if you want more of Wizz's humor in your life, you just need to watch that guy's comedy specials.
Stick with Wizz till the end. He's a fan favorite but he has to grow on you.
The base instruments (no upgrades) that everyone has may change in color depending on the char because that the instrument they bring with them. Just personal choices I made on a whim. I stand by my decision to make Seth's board purple. :)
D&R get plenty cheesy. Marriage is a theme for their open mode arc. ;)
Oh goodie, because I actually write a detailed summary of the story from the other people's perspectives (well, Dallas' was the most detailed) so that I can understand the relationship better and I just hope that it naturally comes out while writing - but of course not too easily - my editor figured something out too early and was annoyed I wasn't address it haha. So things can run the risk of being too hidden too ... I think my timeline of D & R's history is a bit hard to grasp so here's the timeline:
They meet around 18 -20 years old (I don't have an exact number in mind) but Robin is already forming a band with Owen and Sterling at this point, but it's not much to brag about. So D & R spend time outside of it and become friends. D is already crushin on R at this point. R is still crushin on S because she craves his approval, so she doesn't realize this, but she doesn't go to school and thinks D is cool. D isn't upfront about his attraction, partly unsure of her relationship with Sterling, partly believing that she was flirting back so it was mutual (she was, unknowingly), but also kinda scared cuz she's a big city girl. It wasn't very long until the scene where Robin gets kissed by Sterling for the first time. (S felt R slipping away and made some realizations that he didn't want to lose her.) And also where Dallas realizes that he actually totally missed his chance. Just totally. She is way too happy. And that's where it starts getting emo. A couple years go by, D & R are still good friends, but S gets the bulk of her time. D feels like he has to deal with the messes that S makes of her (this is where it gets real "nice guy" territory). So one night they're both drunk, R is particularly hurt, D is particularly done with giving a shit about S, and they fuck in a closet. D admits he loves her, R chooses to ignore this because her heart wouldn't be able to handle that. Next day R basically begs D to act like none of that happened. It was a big moment for him, a nothing moment for her (this is false). And that is when things officially spiral and where the flashback sequence R has while drowning. So when Dallas says that she's lying, he is referring to not only to her literally pretending she didn't know, but yes, unfortunately also since they met. To him, he's only ever shown her love, but that means R has really only ever seen a version of Dallas that loves with her, so how could she spot his love if, to her, he never showed it? She rationalized the sex as being for sex. She didn't quite enjoy it so it wasn't enough for her to flip her world upside down. So it was never going to work the way he thought it would. They both needed to go through some ugly.
As for your question on the proposal, that will be addressed in their open ended story once I'm finished with it. :)
EDIT: I found this excerpt from a scene I don't think made it to the preview in Open Mode...
"I felt like shit when we ... we let him go." "For years. I never got over it." "But did I write a single song about him? No." "I hid that sadness deep down. I buried it so well I thought I'd forgotten when I saw him again." "And then it was uncovered and so fresh every time he spoke." "Just the sound of his voice hurt." "I hid my feelings from the very moment I met him." "It must have been so frustrating to be so open, so in love with someone in complete denial all the way until what was supposed to be the end.
Beau's open mode ending is done, but I've been split between Emmitt, Seth and Dallas' path to finish after that. Maybe I'll focus Dallas now that I'm thinking about him.
Hehe no problem~ Yes I'd still love your thoughts. It helps to motivate me to work on the game again.
Re: Robin admitting she preferred old Dallas- This is a long one. Sorry. It was frustrating more than anything else to him. It's what he wants to hear - he wants to talk about her and the past and their friendship - all of it. But he can't. He fucked up and was never forward with Robin, definitely borders on "nice guy" territory and he knows this. But he's also a victim of Sterling as well, who purposefully drove a wedge between D & R out of jealousy and need for control. And even when Dallas realized this, there was nothing he could say or do to help Robin help herself. Sterling won his war. So ultimately he felt like he abandoned her to him despite the fact that he shouldn't feel responsibility for it. He spends years getting over it, and then hears Robin's finally free of him. He finds a broken mess. So he bites his tongue around her, tries to sever his own feelings to protect himself, often fails. But he walks this tight rope daily and when Robin can just be so brazenly honest about these things, it's like a slap to the face. He's envious that he can't do the same. He's angry that she didn't listen to him back then. He's upset at himself for not doing more. He's confused on whether he still likes her like that anymore. She makes his heart race, she still surprises him, and she's still cute. But she's been a negative thing to him for so long, and for her to reach out so sloppily, and only under the influence, really makes him question if Robin is his own brand of Sterling; addicted to a toxic love. So in short, it hurt. He wants it, but not sure that he should.
This is for in that moment. Robin heals and adjusts over time, and so does he. Their resentment towards each other turns out to be mostly of Sterling's creation and their lack of maturity.
Robin couldn't write her own songs while in Shocker. :( She did project meaning onto the lyrics so that she could sing them with emotion, so there were likely songs that made her think of Dallas.
I'm just happy to see people enjoy what I write. Sometimes I can beat myself up and think I'm a bad writer, so I'm relieved when someone tells me otherwise. So thank you. :) I'm glad that playing different routes gives you something to appreciate about the other ones too. I think seeing different sides of people is really makes you bond with them.
Guitar pick: Glad you picked up on that. In my mind he did keep the pick she gave him from the flashback for a long time, but he threw it away in a moment of anguish sometime after leaving Shocker. However he came across a different one later and he kept it because it gave him some shred of happiness. If only he knew about it, it wasn't that big of a deal, you see. People from our past change us and leave their mark on us. It's not a bad thing to want to remember Robin in his own way -but then he fucked up and gave it directly to her and he was embarrassed about that once he realized a couple days later.
Christmas: A lot when she looks back on it. She wasn't big on figuring herself out internally back then, but as she got more introspective, she realized how much Dallas wanting to spend time with her on a day she decided would have no meaning to her as a coping mechanism did indeed make her feel like a whole human.
I'll get the tough question out of the way, I do envision Robin's miscarriage to be a product of stress. Robin did not actually get pregnant until after Dallas left Shocker (or shortly before), so Dallas does not know Robin went through any of that. (I plan on D & R talking about it later, but as of right now, only Beau knows of the ordeal and only by accident.) Sterling's day-to-day abuse, the pain of losing Dallas, feeling isolated and estranged from herself did not foster a healthy Robin, no.
To answer your sweet, light-hearted question: Dallas would have reacted very positively! He was basically waiting for any reason to fall back in love with her, to see that the old her was still there somewhere, and that would have been the gesture to do it. He would still stand by his principals and such, and he would still be her friend for a while before anything more intimate, but it would have meant a lot to him. Sorry I'm cruel.
That's so nice to hear.
I've been asked that before and I never have a specific voice in mind for her. There's so many that would work for her. I couldn't pick just one, but this one is closest to my brain voice (Liz Granite): http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/breaker-more?song=7