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I've played Chapter 1 a few times and then tried the other chapters but the only color I keep unlocking is "colorless"? There don't appear to be any choices/inputs I can offer to change a route.

I apologize for the long response but your review touched me and felt I needed to share a longer version of my decision to put down TDA.

I can't express how sad this makes me, but in a bittersweet way like remembering a loved pet that's no longer here. The appreciation you've outlined here for the world I was building makes my heart so full. The magic system that I used in TDA I've been toying with and reworking for a decade. It was first a non-furry, book (50 pages or so, also unfinished) and then I tried to overlap my love for world building and my lust for furry VNs.  It was more daunting than I had expected.

Developing a VN is technically easy. Anyone can do it. The difficulty is persistence and dedication, which isn't a strong suit for my ADHD brain. I bit off more than I could chew. 

Writing a chapter for TDA would take about 4-6 hours but then converting that into a VN was overwhelming (scripting the lines, adding expression markers for each new line, adding music, images, transitions, variables to track heart events). That 4-6 hours became 20+. After a long day at work, cooking dinner, taking care of the boys, trying to get to the gym, spending time with my boyfriend, friends, and family, and wanting to have wind-down solo time with a video game meant that I had very little energy/time left each week and I'd be giving up parts of my life to make it. 

I started TDA when I lost my job and found free time I hadn't had before. That opened the door for me to pour my creative energy into something I was truly passionate about. I daydreamed that I could grow enough support like Extra Curricular Activities or After Class, and be able to support myself doing something that I loved but that obviously takes time. I also didn't love the idea of being beholden to my supporters (no offense intended!). Although NONE of them were pushy or impatient, guilt would hit me hard when I didn't think I could make a monthly deadline or that the story maybe wouldn't be interesting or spicy or long or unique enough to warrant the support. These demons were internal, to be clear, but a trap I couldn't escape all the same. Writing/creating without expectations is freeing, but doesn't cover the bills. 

I contemplated just avoiding Patreon altogether to get rid of the expectations but then this would only be an expense. To add some data, TDA has been downloaded about 15,000 times on Itch but I've only made $134. The background artist I was working with was $100 per background so creating the game free of time constraints and expectations would have costed me a few thousand dollars. Patreon felt like the only way forward, where I was making near $300 per month even early on with few subscribers. It paid for the assets and was a glimmer of hope that perhaps it could support me as well but I couldn't remain jobless for a couple years as my following grew. I don't mean to criticize people who don't donate on itch (I'm that way for 50% of the games I've played), but it becomes impractical for creators looking for a way to put food on the table.

Once I got a job again, if I was to work on TDA only during my free time and when I had the energy left to give, I could only realistically give a few hours each weekend. A chapter would end up taking months to finish and with 20+ chapters planned with 5 unique chapters per datable character the roadmap was at least 6-8 years. It felt so daunting. 

The other killer was just how lonely it was. I was creating a world that people were enjoying but I was doing it alone. There was no one to share the success but also the tediousness of creating it. The idea of building something for years by myself was killing my mental health. I'm an introvert in many ways but no solo activity has kept me motivated for long. TDA is my longest project I've ever stuck with on my own.

I love creating. I still draw from time to time and write short stories on other platforms, but they have small finite ends. And there's no expectation for a sketch or short story to appear and so whether it's been 1 week or 1 year since a post no one worries or messages me.

I'm partly in denial for TDA being gone forever. There were moments, a couple years ago, when I thought about just publishing everything I had: sketches for characters not yet introduced, outfits and scenes I had drawn, the character arcs I had planned for each character. Just to give everything I had so at least we'd all be on the same page for what was in my mind; but I couldn't. Giving that all away feels like the final, internal confirmation that I was done and I haven't been ready to do that.

Please don't read too optimistically into that though. For me to ever consider revisiting TDA I would need to do-so with a team and if that doesn't include my boyfriend or a close friend then it still involves me giving up on other parts of my life to revitalize TDA and the chance of that being true is incredibly low (no one in my IRL appreciates the furry world).

So, thank you for your incredible review of my little unemployment project. I, too, love the world TDA is set in and hope it was enjoyable even if unfulfilling. 

<3 Healer Main

I think he'd enjoy that.

Ah, the dreaded, entitled fan ("I'm dreading to be disappointed by your other characters").  We finally meet. 

Imagine saying that to a chef after you were upset a dish had tomatoes in it and you hate tomatoes. How rude, first off, and how narrow-minded to think your taste preference precedes the person next to you. Hint: I'm not creating this game for you, specifically. There will undoubtedly be things you don't like or wish were slightly different, like a foreskin. I am sorry you feel the way you do, because it closes you off to a lot of great VNs (and perhaps even people) but that's on you. If you're here simply for porn and story is "just a bonus" then I'd probably recommend somewhere like furaffinity instead.

Here's how a respectful person would ask your question: "Will any of the guys be uncut?" To which they would have gotten a friendly, "Sure will! You won't get into any of the guy's pants (mostly) until their second one-on-one chapter but there will be a range."

Sorry you feel that way. While I will have uncut guys in the options, if that fact alone can make you abandon a route then you may be dissatisfied in other ways with each guy

Drax is next in the public demo; he's out now on my Patreon.

You've already made an awesome, unique idle game in that it's 3d so props to you! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with in the future.

Honestly enjoying this game. Here are some thoughts about 30 minutes in (disregard if these are able to be fixed later on in the game):

• Your home isn't safe; which almost always guarantees a wasp hit while you try to buy more hotdogs. Adding a way to close doors or making the home safe would solve this. The animation for entering the computer could also be made much faster to potentially fix this as well, or just not have an animation all-together (press e to buy 15 dogs).
• Bags of food behave randomly. It took me a while to figure out you CAN pick them up by pressing the right mouse button which is different than any other trash item, however it only works sometimes. It's unclear to me how these are supposed to be interacted with. This happens with other trash items occasionally too but almost always with bags of food.
• The ability to upgrade your wieners would be nice so that you use less with each toss, thus making you more efficient. This could be unlocked with cash or a combination of cash plus achievements (kill 50/200/500 wasps)
• Hungry villagers could spawn that act similarly to wasps where you throw them a dog for some cash, perhaps they litter afterwards too
• Trash cans could be purchased that have a low % of inspiring a villager to pickup trash on your behalf, generating additional passive income
• It's not clear what investing in businesses do. I wager they increase popularity which then increases sales at your stand, but that's just a guess. Villagers don't purchase dogs from the new stands you create so I'm left wondering if I wasted a bunch of money.
• BUG - While in the Build menu you're able to buy multiple versions of the same item for no benefit. I purchased 3 gazeebos before I noticed this. You have to buy the item, leave the build menu, and return for it to be off the menu.
• The physics of turning around is a bit clunky. You're unable to do quick 180's which makes kiting a hornet that spawned near you a nuisance since your character throws the hotdog the direction they're facing vs. where you're looking. The amount of dogs I've wasted because my guy can't turn quickly is over 100.
• Improvements to your character would be  a nice thing to sink money into: more health, less damage from hornets, faster running, potentially health regen either passively or with each kill/hotdog sale
• A hornet's killed tracker would be nice since we have big trackers for dogs sold and trash recycled 
• Speaking of trash, lots of upgrade potential there too: perhaps every 10 trash the bin is closed for 30 seconds to 'compact it' which acts as a time gate. Then you can upgrade the speed or the capacity of the bin. You could also upgrade the amount of cash you get for each piece recycled or increase spawn rate.
• Lastly, something I noticed later into the game is that hotdog sales actually slowed the more upgrades I purchased. I had idled for a few minutes early on while on a call and had about $4k but now, maybe an hour or so later, a few minutes of idle nets me maybe $200. Not sure what's going on there.

Unless you're in the sex work industry, yes.

Almost exclusively humanoid. There're a handful of side characters I haven't rendered so maybe some variation there? But I don't want to get your hopes up.

Yeah, that's more or less what I heard from folks. As a gamer myself, I found it challenging but passable; however, that's through my own bias and experience with PC gaming. 

In a later build I reduce the key options, number of successes required, and increase the time to press each one. That will allow the win/lose condition to be more of a choice for each player.

Ah, okay. Thanks! As I updated character models over time that's bound to happen. Those types of issues should fix themselves between scenes when sprites are re-called but between 1.04 and 1.08 I've done a handful of naming convention changes so... apologies for the unintended bear body! XD

Do you remember where that happened? So far, Rem should only be in his white robe.

Trust, it's a slow process T^T I took a month or so off with some life stuff so there will be a gap for a bit on itch but I'm realizing more and more that developing a game by yourself is a marathon not a sprint. 

Hey Luceus! I'm not sure why old saves are broken but I'm assuming it has to do with me switching over to using the Patreon builds. I'm not a code wiz so hopefully this issue resolves itself with builds moving forward.

You and me both

Correct. I still don't have expression sets drawn for half the characters too so they'll be implemented over time and then eventually I'll go back and enhance prior chapters with them.

Thanks CP! I agree on that 'schools of magic' question, I believe I removed it in 1.05.  I love that you like Bok so far. He's a tough one to love early on ;)

Ah, I was wondering what would 'break.' I mentioned this briefly in the post today but before I would build a 'new' version for public builds which benefited from any live Patreon content (typos, sprite updates, backgrounds, etc.). To save myself on time and not having to balance two active build versions I'm just going to share the Patreon build 2 months in delay. 

So with the last public build the story was accurate for v1.03 but it included assets from v1.05 and v.106. Now that I'm just 'unlocking' the Patreon distributions I have, the story moved forward in v1.04 but some assets jumped back to match v1.04 as well.

World domination seems more his jam

Yes. I think I have it tagged appropriately but let me know if not please

I only just started android builds with the last update. It took me a while to figure out and my testing potential is limited, but hopefully it works if you use it! :D

Thanks for the heads up! I'll update links in old posts. For ease, here's a permanent link: https://discord.gg/CwUQzCDJp6

Yeah. As the story is drafted currently, each guy would have about 4 sexually-themed scenes and 3 of them will have unique drawn events. For now, I don't plan to convert the game into an optional SFW option so people will just have to skip through those events if they don't wish to see.

Thanks Natsuwolf!

Sorry Koda; I hoped my trigger warning at the start would have warned you. Thanks for giving it a try all the same.

Backgrounds are all placeholders for now. I'll find a capable artist at a future time and replace all of them. T.T

Drax will definitely be a more dubious character to get involved with but to the consent comment, you have the ability to avoid most non-con stuff by just avoiding him. There's some key story moments that you can't avoid (like what leads you to wind up at The Delta Academy in the first place) but I want to make sure there's an 'out' for most things.

Thanks for the comment Hyou! :3

*^.^*

Thanks so much for the feedback Hollowknight! I admit, I had been play testing without the music on and now I see what you mean. T.T

I went through Chapter 2 and 3 this afternoon and moved around a lot of the music choices which should give the more somber tone the day is calling for, at least while you're in the medical ward.

I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts!

Thank you Jodie <3 

Take your time Monchi! Sending hugs.

Hey Mukjz! Thanks for the heads up. I'm still new to twitter so I think I have the settings enabled properly now. For the knife scene, that's one of the forced events to get you to TDA so unfortunately for the MC, there's no way to avoid it.

Thanks for sharing that tip Nikkz! I'll also make sure to cut a legitimate android version on the next update.

Really really really well done so far. I'm hooked.

Noted as something for me to figure out for the next build!

Can I say maybe? As it's a work in progress there will undoubtedly be elements I rework over time.  Meaningful choices I plan to call out pretty obviously but subtle ones (at least in my current thought process) I'd rather be discovered. As an example, where you get stabbed in Chapter 1 will vary some options later on (one being partially sexah') but won't affect any route meaningfully.

Correct. The MC still hasn't been introduced to the main 6 characters and so dialogue options are mostly for story flair (which will continue to be a part of the game; I like giving options even if it's not story-critical). The next public build will go up through Chapter 4 where you'll have met all characters and 'love points' behind the scenes will start impacting options for each character.

Wicked memory! Yeah that's me! When I think back to those character designs I cringe a bit  :shudder: