Hehe~ No problem~ It was a complete thrill being able to experience and be part of this story~ Was definitely a wild ride that I could not get enough of~ Definitely a top pick in my opinion~ Will definitely be re-running the story at some point to see if I can improve my relationship scores in some way or get everyone involved in the festivities since I actually rather liked Liukhalo. Poor kitty deserved better than what he got. Granted, I liked pretty much almost everyone and thought they were all written with a rather great amount of realism and consistency, so have no complaints on that front~
And yeah, the bugs definitely didn't get in the way that much, but that was likely more to do with the fact that the choices made that were changed didn't seem to have any longer lasting effects or weren't brought up a whole lot. Only major event change that I can recall being brought up that wasn't exclusively brought up towards the end was when Drackey and I had that extended lunch break where he and I brought up a time I supposedly ditched him and made up an excuse that had me helping Scylez with a project. Actually had to look at the plot web for that, and I can only surmise they were talking about the Chapter 3 event where he asked me to get a drink to start up the missing item sub-plot; but I know for a fact I agreed to that drink due to it being an explicitly urgent matter, so that was a bit odd; but not something that got in the way of things. Was almost definitely the first time I encountered the bug in dialog, or at least the first time that it stuck out so explicitly, so I just assumed at the time it was tied to the inaccessible content; only to realize it might have been a bigger issue when the other events mentioned came up at the end game.
Not saying that the lack of references to past events is a problem, as I surmise that was mostly due to the fact the game in its current state is almost entirely focused on only going through major events that are tied to the main plot in some way and, given particular snippets of dialog, said events seem to happen anywhere from days, to literal weeks, and maybe even a couple months apart, and as such don't really have that many places for said references to realistically come up. I can only assume this is something that's going to be changed as the day-to-day open area segments of the game get further and further along in development and branched out more, so it's definitely good that this bug is rearing its ugly head up now and not later on when it could pose an actual direct threat to the game and its enjoyment value.
Oh, and speaking of that plot web actually reminded me of something. There are things mentioned in the web that seem backwards or improperly linked. To avoid spoiling too much, two of the bigger ones that I noticed that seemed inconsistent to how I played are the scene where you can either accuse or ask Kase about the valuables; and the scene where you have to end the argument between Blinki, Liukhalo, Drackey, and Radolf. The Kase situation seems to be labelled backwards, as I went the friendlier ask route in-game since being aggressive out the gate seemed like a real bad idea when talking to a headstrong equine jock, but the web had my route labelled as the accusatory route. And then the event with Liukhalo didn't actually occur with me, even though the web says it was supposed to occur if you sided with either him and Blinki, and I definitely took Blinki's side of that debate since he was the one I was most sympathetic towards in that debate and the one I wanted to form a tighter connection with. Not saying it's a problem, but it's definitely weird seeing inconsistencies like that. There were other things, but those are the two that I can immediately remember. Might have to go through and write those down too at some point...
Next time I play through this game, likely whenever the next update comes out, I'll try to remember to keep a notepad or something open so I can have a better log of events as they play out. See if I can catch some more of these bugs, typos, and incorrect name tags coming up so I can provide even more assistance in making this the near perfect experience it's already shaping itself to be; as I believe I recall the name tag issue being a surprisingly prevalent one. Actually saw it come up again during Izzy's lewd scene when I was going through the scene selector to see the romance opportunities I missed out on. I mean...if having someone comb through your work so critically and potentially sending said list your way is something you wouldn't mind a complete stranger doing, that is... ^w^;
And now I'm the one babbling again... Guess that just shows how enthusiastic I am about this project... ^w^; But yeah, amazing work thus far, and seriously looking forward to see where this ends up~ Seeing the triple digit numbers given to the bonus scenes of the scene selector has me rather excited for the potential of this piece and what might come to follow~ Either way, definitely loving the work so far~ Ended up downloading NocVeil last night, and will definitely be giving that its own look through and rating when I get a chance~ And am definitely excited to hear about this new project and will be giving that a look too when it becomes available~
Oh god... This game... Hooked immediately, and somehow managed to get what appeared to be the best ending on the first go; with it being made better due to my romantic relationship with, well...Scylez, honestly. That sweet and loyal raptor was too damn cute and innocent to not get attached to~ No idea why I admitted that, but I did.
And, well..I only really think it was the best ending I got. Was only labelled as the good ending, but not sure how the ending I got could have been any more picturesque outside of maybe having better bonds with some of the other characters since everyone except Scylez, Willow, Izzy, and Blinki all had a final score of 5 or below, which actually confuses me a bit, but we'll get into that later; and not sure how I could have done more than I did with the minimal bonding opportunities presented to me.
I also just now realized partway through writing the second half of this post that Liukhalo didn't seem to make an appearance during the festival in any way, shape, or form, so now I am wondering where he went off to and if I could get him to show up with the others at the end and have that actually be the "best/perfect" ending.
Anyway, first time I've heard of you and your work, and already in love with all of it. Only regret I had was not being able to stay awake long enough to complete it in one sitting.
That being said, I did notice quite a pair of rather noticeable bugs/glitches that did somewhat get in the way and cause some confusion/worry for me every now and then of varying degrees. The first one isn't anything major and was pretty much entirely negligible for the most part, but the second one is definitely something that should be looked into if at all possible, as it does risk ruining the experience quite a considerable amount:
1) Every now and then, more often towards the final few chapters, the game would declare someone was talking when that person either wasn't talking, or wasn't in the scene entirely. For instance, when Scylez woke me up for the festival and was talking about the things he did for me while I was sleeping and recovering from my wounds, it suddenly said Blinki was talking when it was mentioned I didn't really have much food for the raptor to work with, and I got super excited thinking he was about to come in since his fate was left rather ambiguous last I saw him, but then realized it was a glitch when the next bit was just continued dialog from Scylez without the ice dragon showing up.
2) This ties into the relationship score confusion earlier, and it's going to take a couple blocks of text just to go through my experiences/examples; but loading a save game seems to have a rather high chance of altering some of the selections the player made previously in the run.
For instance, there were a couple times, I think somewhere around 3 or 4 times, where I reloaded a save just to reread some of the dialog to influence my choices better or to see what the immediate effect the other option had before reloading to go back down my original path so I can try and stay on the path my heart and mind originally told me to go down; and I noticed that rather frequently, even though all of this was supposed to be on a single playthrough on "All Natural" mode, the characters would be called in as their clothed variants. The first 1 or 2 times this was usually fixed on a scene transition, but when I loaded my save from last night to actually complete the game, the characters were called in as their fully-clothed versions and stayed that way all the way to the end screen.
Also during the festival, the "missing item" storyline seemed to have been completely altered from what actually happened, as the characters involved were talking as if the culprit came clean with the victim about what happened; even though I selected to take full blame for the incident and never ratted out the true culprit. I mean, it was nice to see that their relationship was completely in tact regardless of the truth, but it was extremely strange seeing myself and the others talk about the event in a way that didn't actually happen according to the choices I actually made.
I also saw some characters and names appear that I seemed like I was supposed to be familiar with during said festival, but I had no memory of; namely Radolf mentioning a fellow named "Tyson;" and one of the stall owners being a chameleon painter. Given the tone used by myself and Radolf, it seemed like that name and the description were supposed to be meaningful to me in some way, but neither of those details came up prior to those final moments, and as such I was just left rather confused. Thinking on it, I can theorize the painter was supposed to be reminiscent of Liukhalo since he was the only artist I was aware of prior to this point, but a chameleon and a somewhat alien feline were way too far apart for the connection, and the chameleon wasn't given any sort of color designation when Liukhalo's "defining" feature was his green fur...so the only other thing I can think of is that the game alerted my choices in a way that had me connect to Radolf in some meaningful way so as to have him talk about this Tyson person, and either that same choice or another choice was alerted to have me stumble across this chameleon.
And then at the end screen, the relationship scores showed Jane had a final relationship score of 0 even though I romanced her. There wasn't any dialog regarding my romance of both her and Scylez from either of them, and I wasn't forced to choose between either of the raptors, so that was highly unlikely to play a part in her nonexistent score; meaning that the only thing that could have affected it that I am aware of would be the one time I reloaded a save after romancing her, which would have been during our climatic escape to see if all of the nameless NPCs we were rescuing could have been saved.
So yeah, that second thing is definitely something that should be looked into if at all possible. But still, it was an amazing experience, and am certainly looking forward to playing through the rest of your current work when I get the chance~ And likely even your future projects~ And I'll certainly be keeping an eye on this one's development~ Would love to give it another playthrough when it's more further developed and the open-world segments mentioned on the main menu are fully developed~ Would absolutely love nothing more than to see what new potential story paths and bonding opportunities that side of the game brings to the table~
