itch.io

Thank you! It’s gratifying to hear that the story is engaging despite not being routed.

And I’ll definitely pass the kudos along to them!

I’m extremely flattered and grateful. Thank you!

Appreciated! I hope you’re still able to enjoy it.

Thanks for checking us out!

Thank you so much!

I definitely appreciate the sentiment!

I have a lot of theories on why engagement has been limited, and obviously you may come up with your own upon reading. But generally speaking, I’m taking a lot of creative risks with this project (risks in the fvn space, a least), and I think the community-at-large is still trying to determine exactly how they feel about it.

The usual problem of “sex sells” aside, if I had to outline the basic issues, it’d look something like this:

• The game’s still young, and takes a long time to produce because of the detail. I know many folks who have said they’re interested but want more content before they commit to reading. And with the packed field these days, there’s a lot of other options with more content.
• I’ve also been told by many that science fiction is an immediate turn-off. This is in part because of the conceptual demands it places on the readers (and I’m definitely leaning into that).
• The game has a somewhat unwarranted reputation of being too information-dense. I say “somewhat” because while the database is entirely optional reading, the prose itself is still rich with detail. I recognize this more literary style can be a challenging read, especially if unexpected. But a challenge is what I want to offer, within reason of course. Something to chew on.
• There’s a large cast to develop. I think it’s been a drag on readers getting really invested in a favorite character since we haven’t had a ton of time with any single one for more than a chapter (yet).

If you end up having any thoughts or feedback after your read, feel free to share!

Thank you, Hash! 💖

Thank you!

😏😏😏😏

Thank you!! 🙏

You’re absolutely fine! Everyone appreciated the shout-out.

Also thank you for all of your support and encouragement!

It’s funny that you mention “orientalism” because I’m familiar with Edward Said’s work and very conscious of how indelicate depictions of non-western cultures can be. My intention is definitely to provide a nuanced view of every culture (and their inspirations) to the best of my ability.

You’re very correct about both the complexity and the metanarrative. I’ve tried to artfully layer meaning and foreshadowing in different ways, some of it quite veiled. As mentioned in the other itch post, ‘getting it’ isn’t required to enjoy the work, but it’s there for those who enjoy reading into things. (I encourage it!)

On Aerran x Ravy: I probably spent 40+ hours writing and rewriting that godforsaken scene lmao. Some feedback has been it’s belaboring the point and could be expressed more simply, and I don’t necessarily disagree? But the belaboring is trying to accomplish a lot of things: Characterize Aerran and his big brain opaqueness, metacomment on complexity, and as you stated, leave the scene with unresolved tension to capitalize on later.

On Darek: (I did not realize that about his name, but it works!) I’m glad he came off the way you’ve described. He’s definitely supposed to be a character with unclear motivations. I don’t want to say more lest I give away too much.

On Crown: You have characterized him very well, and we’ll definitely be digging more into all of that in chapters 3B/4.

On Kavir: Exactly.

I love that you spent so much time thinking about all this. It’s why I put so much effort into being really specific with construction often down to the word. It’s unfortunate when it doesn’t land, but it’s soooo satisfying when it does and I get feedback like this. Thank you!

Much appreciated! It’s gratifying to hear the “now” plot is reasonably gripping, hehe.

I definitely encourage you to go back to the flashback sometime before chapter 3B & 4 because it will be… relevant. 😏

My programmer recompiled and reuploaded the mac file. Redownload and it should be working as expected now!

For Reference’s sake:

So I had my folks look into this more, and it looks like there was some compiling issue that’s breaking the default macOS unzipper. Using a third-party unzipper (they were using https://theunarchiver.com/ ) works just fine, which is why we didn’t catch it initially.

So that’s a temporary solution in the event this happens again. But it looks like a simple recompile on our end fixed it with default macOS.

I typed “command” but it was apparently “control.” I’m very mac-illiterate lmao. But yes, give the instructions in the link a shot and then please circle back and let me know. We’ll figure it out.

Thank you for the report!

I am being told by my mac testers (I’m not a mac user myself) that the first time you open an unverified app on a mac, you have to hold the control key while launching the game. If that doesn’t work, please let us know!

See: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/open-a-mac-app-from-an-unidentified-developer-mh40616/mac

Thank you for this review!

My inspirations for this project absolutely include Bladerunner. We’re looking at Film Noir, Spy Thrillers, Cyberfantasy Speculative Fiction video game staples like the Xeno series (Xenogears, Xenosaga), and obviously Cyberpunk staples like Neuromancer. Pretty much all of these explore different nuances of the human condition, and argue there’s often few clear distinctions between the virtuous and the villainous.

I’m not going to pretend that I’ll explore those themes as gracefully as elevated authors like Philip K Dick or William Gibson, haha, but rest assured that black and white is not the aim here.

Thank you so much Zankies!

Wow, thank you for this extremely in-depth review and critique. I made it a point to share it with the rest of the team, especially the musicians!

I’ll look into some of the other things you noted. The writing I can speak to now (since I do that).

Your observations are astute! Especially about the pacing of Ravy’s inner thoughts in the middle of dialogue. Time essentially stops whenever narration or exposition begins, so there’s a very limited window to express information before the tension of the moment begins to fade. But sometimes you just can’t express everything in dialogue. So what you see in the prose right now is me trying to find creative ways to use that limited window as efficiently as I can. I’m definitely learning as I go.

To your other point: I’m absolutely taking some risks with the prose. I’m trying to balance figurative and symbolic “litfic” moments with the crisper and snappy dialogue/action moments more typical of visual novels. I want to provide readers the fun and comfy as much as I want to challenge them with greater complexity–something to chew on and have reason to come back if it doesn’t make total sense on a first pass.

A lot of my favorite writers come from Science Fiction stock and they do so many interesting things with broad vocabulary and symbolic imagery. I’m trying my hand at it here. I am certain it will succeed in some place and not in others, and therein lies the experiment and the risk.

The places it doesn’t work, I’ll probably return to later in the development process when we have a broader and more mature understanding of the work. I’m very much a “nothing is set in stone” sort of writer. I’m very open to changing things to create the better story (within reason).

You’ll definitely be seeing more of Crown going forward! He absolutely has a “stage face” vs his normal grumpy scrungly self. And yeah it is Crown that thinks Ravy x Kavir being in relationship while working together is a bad idea.

As for Kavir, we’ll be seeing more of him in Ch 4 to better answer your questions about that. The short summary is that Ravy x Kavir are indeed close but have a complicated relationship.

Thank you! And not yet, but Volume 1 (chapters 1-3) will 100% be getting a release on youtube. For spotify, we still need to figure out licensing arrangements, but we’ll announce it once that’s figured out.

My feelings as well. I may have overstated that particular issue somewhat, because in the greater VN community this may already be well-understood. I’ve just had it personally pointed out to me several times that not including choices in the visual novel medium is a weakness of game design. Obviously, I disagree with that sentiment. 😅

You’re so real adding it in rn brb

Not yet.

Human to anthro in some capacity. Specifics are big spoiler territory, but we’ll be going a little more into it in chapter 3, and the title screen hints at it as well.

We’re definitely keeping this in mind with future iterations of the logo. Thanks for the note!

Like the LOOM itself (which is custom-made), that functionality isn’t baked into ren’py and requires custom python code and actual programming knowledge, so it is in fact quite challenging. Our situation also isn’t identical to Nekojishi’s use of a glossary, so it’s not something we can emulate directly.

(But it is something we’re looking into, along with a couple of other options.)

Thanks for the feedback!

Because we do multiple article updates per LOOM notification, (rather than every notification being for a specific article), do you think it would be less annoying to just have the LOOM send a notification at the end of every major scene (or chapter) with the expectation there will be multiple new/updated articles?

We don’t want to do a notification for every new update because then updates would be very frequent.

Maybe we can figure out some way for it to list all the updates in a separate window. 🤔 And just have a handful of notification alerts per build.

Definitely noted. We’re working on some ways to make new articles easier to find and the notification itself to be less demanding. Thanks for the feedback!

Thank you so much! We’re glad you enjoyed it.

A Kavir lover, you say. 😁

I’m glad you’re enjoying the game and thank you for the feedback!

We’ll probably continue experimenting with the best way to communicate the LOOM information. We’re trying to find some compromise between timely information reveals but not annoying the reader with an abundance of notifications.

I’m glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the feedback! We’ll look into doing an accessibility pass on the LOOM font and review the animation issue.

My pleasure! Sparking engaging discussion is a big part of why I want to write String Zero.

Thanks for hopping in for the journey!

Thanks for your thoughts!

I’ve thought a lot about this and actually wrote a long twitter thread about it, which you can read here. I’ll expand on it somewhat.

In short, I’m fine with implementing some kind of visual censorship, such as blurs or black bars for nudity in CGs, because society has very different opinions about visual vs. literary sex and nudity (and also I don’t want streamers to get in trouble).

It’s important to note that “NSFW” means different things to different people. To some people it means “any kind of sex,” to others it means “explicit, pornographic sex written intentionally to arouse.” These are not the same things because the first could suggest someone thinks a work is NSFW because of a general discomfort with sex or it could be contextual discomfort (such as reading sex in public/at work). Those are both fair and specific concerns that fall under my answer of “this game is 18+ and may have contextually inappropriate content; avoid it if that makes you uncomfortable.”

The second interpretation of NSFW, however, is typically the one that gets all the discourse. I encourage everyone to think hard on why they think about NSFW the way they do. For me, I see the situation like this: An anti-NSFW (or NSFW ambivalent) argument that reads NSFW solely as “explicit, pornographic sex written intentionally to arouse” is problematic because it presumes the author’s intention, and generally presumes it is always the same (“only getting the reader off”) with little nuance. It then proceeds to base an argument of “NSFW is unnecessary fan service” or “NSFW is just porn” from there. Therefore, NSFW is “just something you can hide or remove” because it’s not important. It’s fluff. It’s designed to arouse and nothing more.

I think that is a problematic argument because it presumes sex is always something meaningless, and must always be intentionally pornographic, when sex can be some of the most powerful, vulnerable, revealing moments of a novel. You don’t see literary fiction shying away from sex scenes for example, and those aren’t considered pornographic. Indeed, they often end up on popular and very public best-seller lists.

This is why I personally think censoring words, such as writing two completely separate scenes for NSFW vs SFW is fundamentally inappropriate (unless the scene was literally only written to be porn and has no other purpose—a rarity, in most media). Authors are very particular with their words, and I’m trying to communicate some very specific things when I write. If those specific things require some level of explicit detail, then compromising that detail for the sake of being SFW means I’m not communicating what I intended the way I intended, and am essentially self-censoring.

That’s what I mean when I said earlier “if I feel it’s meaningful.” If the sex is developing characters in a meaningful way, it’s important to include it; if it’s not, then I won’t. If that inclusion makes someone uncomfortable, fair enough! Then this story may not be for them. This is also why I don’t want to promise NSFW: I’m not shy about including sex in my writing, but this isn’t a game about sex, so I don’t want readers to be caught up on a promise of something titillating when that’s not a primary focus of the novel. Again: If sex scenes are appropriate to communicate something, I’ll include them. If not, I won’t.

I hope that helps explain my thoughts!

Thank you! We’ll definitely look into translations once we can find some trusted partners to work with.

The short answer is: I’m using 18+ as a general umbrella for anything adult, which may include NSFW. So if anyone wants to avoid NSFW, this game may not be for them.

The longer answer is: I’ve been ambiguous about it intentionally because while I am not presently planning on any specific explicit scenes, I want the freedom to include them if I decide it’s meaningful to do so.

However, if I call the game NSFW, then there’s an expectation for sex scenes, which may upset readers if I ultimately decide not to include them. If I don’t call the game NSFW but then include sex scenes, I’ll potentially upset those who are reading the game to avoid NSFW.

It is a complicated space to exist, so I’m trying to be thoughtful about it.

Glad I could help! And you’re absolutely onto something.

Art theory and criticism can be truly illuminating when it isn’t burdened by academic language and jargon. 🙄

Thanks for this insight, Ryou!

It reminds me of the concept of the Liminal, which isn’t horror in itself, because horror is–as you stated–more about a self-conscious awareness of unknowing, an invitation for monkey hindbrain scrabbling (especially for cosmic horror).

Liminality is almost the opposite, because it isn’t about the unknown directly, it’s about the subversion of some known (often mundane) environmental expectation. As Natalie Wynn discusses in her video essay on Liminality, it’s a complicated aesthetic to talk about because it encapsulates a lot of different feelings: lingering in a place that is intended to be transitional (the threshold); a present haunted by lost futures (the hauntological); the unfamiliar in the familiar (the uncanny); a collection of worlds that don’t belong together (the eerie); and potentially many other things (the nostalgic, the surreal, the weird, etc.)

My read on what you’re describing is very much Liminal, because you don’t seem focused on the aesthetics of decay, but on the transitional moment between unsinking and sinking; being and unbeing. It isn’t about an end state (dying, drowning, reaching the bottom), it’s about a perpetual state of in-between–existing in the threshold–a place only intended to be traversed, and never lingered in. The idea of being trapped there, or constantly reliving such a thing can be… unsettling. Hence the “The Backrooms” of internet fame.

Specifically, however, I think we’re talking about “the eerie.” Thalassophobia and the eerie are often companions because the ocean itself is a collision of worlds: what we can see and what we know vs. what we can’t see and what we can only imply, with a huge threshold of unsettling transition between them: The Liminal.

In Soulcreek, The Blackzones encapsulate this very well. Their borders already establish a threshold–a clear marker that “beyond this is parts unknown,” yes–but there is no visible indicator anything is wrong: The grass is still green; the trees are still healthy. We look at the familiar but understand there is something unfamiliar; we can intuit there is both something missing (people) and something present (demons), but precise agency eludes us; it is both uncanny and eerie. Unsettling. Liminal.

Consider this quote by Mark Fisher from “The Weird and the Eerie”:

“The sensation of the eerie occurs either when there is something present where they should be nothing, or there is nothing present when there should be something.”

For example, an eerie presence would be a feeling of agency where there should be none, like the feeling of being watched. An eerie loneliness is wandering in a space where you expect people to be, but they aren’t. A ship in the process of sinking is eerie especially if we don’t know why it’s sinking, because ships aren’t supposed to do that. (Nor should we be there to see it.)

Wynn summarizes the concept as, “The eerie implies speculative questions about incomprehensible agency,” and thus, an unknown. Why is the ship sinking? Where is it going? Why are we there? And is at its most powerful when we are surrounded by the familiar.

Cosmic horror lives in the space where that implication becomes terrifying: essentially, the moment we become self-aware of the implications of that unknowing–when the safety of the familiar becomes uncertain. The more evidence we’re given–the more we step away from speculation into a more concrete sense of knowing there’s a lurker at the threshold–is when eerie begins to approach horror.

And as I think you astutely pointed out, that lurker needn’t be a monster. It just needs to be elementally unfathomable.

Like the Deep.

Thank you so much for engaging with the work! And never fear: it’s just the introduction that’s getting a rework. My style of prose will otherwise remain.

As the very first thing new readers see, we ultimately decided the poetry of the introduction went a little too hard into literary fiction for mostly indulgent reasons. I think we can keep some of that sublime sense while grounding it in more concrete details that are a bit easier to follow.

In any event, this is all a work in progress, so I’ll definitely be playing with ideas and revisions as we go along, hehe.

(Also a note that if you leave the LOOM notification up, it won’t indicate any new entries. It just stays there. LOOMing. Begging you to read it. But otherwise leaves you alone. So you can exercise restraint, right? 😁)

I am and honored and gratified you were able to engage so much with the work. Thank you for reading, and I hope you find future chapters as thought-provoking.