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This was beautiful!  I really loved the art and how everything around us was made to be ethereal and dreamlike.  The story was bittersweet and lovely too.

This was awesome :D  Loved how you incorporated the investigation with a bit of randomness due to stats, and all the characters were great.  I especially love how Bill found it in his heart to try being kind, it was nice to have a small ray of hope character development in the midst of all the sadness of the other characters  well-being depleting over time.

I did encounter a bit of a bug, though--maybe it's just me, but when I was having the interaction with Lewis in his office about Susannah, I panicked that my suspicion maxed out at the end and tried to reload my save from the start of the conversation...only for my suspicion to now be maxed no matter what save file I loaded, even from earlier points in the game.  I was only able to progress by restarting the game, saving, and then loading the save from Lewis' office again, now with both my stress and suspicion stats reset to 0 from the restart.  It might just be my own dumb luck though XD

Overall: loved it!

Aww, thanks! It brightens my day to hear that :D

I still want to make a sequel, my life's just gotten more full since I made this one so less time for creative projects.  Though I have to thank you for bringing it up, I haven't decided what to do for Nanowrimo this year and the sequel might be just the change I need from other stuff XD

Yeah I see where you're coming from. 

My reasoning for the game design choice was I wanted a storyline that wasn't focused on the romance side, even though I realize that's probably not the expectation most readers would have going into it. It's a friendship-first adventure, with a dash of romance as an optional bonus.  It was important to me to make sure players spent time with all the characters instead of focusing in on only their favorite.  My (imperfect) solution to this was the survival system as--like you mentioned--it made narrative sense for the characters to all train and learn together.  But, yes, unfortunately this does lead to Vane getting a loooottt of attention.  Even with some changes I made later in development to give him some "freebie" points, it never quite evened out just...lessened that steep dip to his side.  And for someone who doesn't care for the character, I can see how this would be a slog. 

I should have done more to fix that imbalance earlier on in development, and I'm truly sorry that this decision has created such a bitter gaming experience for you.  

Somehow you've made it even MORE BEAUTIFUL!  Truly, this is just too awesome.  I couldn't ask for more XD  

Yes, there will be a sequel!  Currently I have the main characters and the some of the core plot figured out (beginning, end, and some of the middle), and then I'm juggling different ideas for gameplay and what role I want the protagonist to play in that.   

Oh.  My.  Stars.    OOHHHHMMYYYSTARSSSSS!!!  Your art is so incredible and amazing!  The personality in your line work has me in awe!  I love it so much!  THANK YOU!   

Agh, that's awesome XD  
Thank you for taking the time to share all your kind comments about the game!  It thrills me that you enjoyed it so much!  I understand what you mean about the romance endings, the change was something I was a little iffy about, and that's why there's an implied time buffer of a couple weeks from the time Makani reunites with her family to the time the romance epilogues start.  But an implication isn't the same as actually seeing something change, and I get that.  I suppose I didn't really think about making it an option to get started on those routes sooner.  

As for your questions:
--The sequels will have their own casts, but Makani and co. will absolutely cross paths with them and continue to play an important role in the series.

--Men in Groriu's culture often tie their hair back for convenience, but it doesn't carry a special meaning.  Groriu likes to wear his hair a little looser than some, but also likes people to play with/braid it.  Usually they keep their hair long, --it catches the light of their bioluminescence, making them more visible to their own kind in the dark, while also attracting prey that's too curious for it's own good.  Short hair is usually only found in hollows around the rim, where cannibalism is more prevalent, as to not give foes something they can easily grab onto in fight. (side note: a woman cutting her hair short is a public declaration that she isn't interested in taking a mate).

--Kameckt's mom had a pack for a couple years when she was young before her crooked tail (scoliosis) started getting obvious.  The decision was then made to put her with the Archivists, and her childhood pack either remained a group of three, or combined with another young pack that had lost a member too and became a rare pack of six.  Archivists don't have 'official' packs, but they do tend to naturally group up in bands of 4-7.  Kameckt's mom has some very close friends among the Archivists that she works with in a very pack-like way.

--Of these four, it's either the Mu'etti or the Ame'sol.

Wow, you made a new account just to give me feedback!  That's awesome!  Thank you :D  Sorry about your other account, though, hope you'll find a way to get it back!

I'm glad you enjoyed the longer conversations (admittedly, some of them might have been too long XD  But I was having fun).  I can see what you mean about the music too.  I'll remember that for next time, thank you.  And I'm glad my inexperience at art didn't detract from the story too much :)  I must keep practicing!
Also yes!  There are a couple tiny hints at things to happen in the sequels in some of the later images of the game (and in the library too) :D

The journey from chapter 3 to the final battle took...I'm going to say five weeks? In the past any attempt to hunt the Pena was done by one person at a time--the characters had a much better chance because they were together, and then there are couple other small reasons to do with how the Pena fit into the world-building, but I admit, it might be too far a leap of logic for some.

Yes, the sandbar scene where Makani hugs someone changes based on what ending you picked.  So she'll hug Riu in his romantic ending, Vane in Vane's ending, and so on, and then there's a slightly different version of the scene for the friendship ending too that includes all three of them.

Well it's too bad you don't want to see the rest, but I understand.  Sometimes when I'm playing a VN and get a favorite pair/ending, it's hard for anything else to measure up.  So nothing wrong with ending on a high note :)  And I'm glad the transition between friendship and romantic interest felt natural. Thanks again for playing!

Woo!  Congratulations!  And thank you!  It makes me really happy to hear you had fun!  I love it when people love my characters and how all of them get along!  It was really important to me that they grow as a group of friends all together instead of only getting closer to Makani.  And Vane is absolutely a friend-shipper XD

Actually your headcanon is true canon!  Makani does have a scar and a slight limp from now on.  I just keep thinking of it in terms of how it's reflected in the sequels so I forgot to put that into the ending (my bad).  Because yes, there will be sequels.  Two planned, and if I can manage it a short stint at webcomics to go into some back-stories, but two more games for sure.  The other games will have their own central casts (you catch a glimpse of one of these upcoming protagonists in the "Awakening" CG), but  Makani and co. will continue to play a big role in the series, don't worry.

Makani and Vane are both 19, Kameckt is 26, and Groriu is 28. I hope those numbers don't bother anyone too much...  Kameckt and Riu had to be a bit older for their backstories to work.

Thank you so much!  I haven't been able to stop smiling since I read your kind words.  I'm so happy the game was worth the wait and brought joy to someone else!  That's all I ever wanted from this project :D

That's also kind of why some of the art isn't that great.  It's not my strong suit, but it's something I want to improve at.  I knew that if I agonized over the art, I'd never get done, I'd get insecure, and I'd wind up never wanting to show it to anybody.  Learning to accept the flaws in my art, I think, has been a big step for me. 

My sister and I tried to catch as many typos as we could, but I'm not surprised we missed a few.  I don't intend to lose sleep over them.  Even if someone did get me a list, I probably wouldn't do anything with it at this point unless it was really substantial.

Alright, so the best end actually extends off of the good ending.  The epilogue plays like this:  Good end-->Romance or Friendship end-->Best End (if you've met the requirements).  In order to get the best end, you need to see all the maxed stat scenes (combat and friendship) in chapter 6 (maxing combat AFTER that chapter won't count).  The good and romance/friendship endings don't change, but if you chose a romance ending, then the best end scene varies by a few lines here and there based on who you chose.

There are technically four bad endings, but you'll only ever see one in a playthrough.  The game checks survival stats in this order: Vane-->Groriu-->Kameckt-->Makani.  So for example, if Vane's survival stat isn't high enough, then the game ends there in a short scene, you get the Bad End cg (there's only one cg--it's the same for all four characters), and then that's that.  You never even make it to chapter 8.

No worries about the length, I liked having so much to read and think about, thank you so much for taking the time!  And thank you for playing and loving the game too! :D :D :D

It's still in progress.  Everything's done up through chapter six (of eight + epilogues), and most of the writing and art beyond that is done too, I just haven't programmed it together yet.  I've overcome one of the writing walls I ran up against, now there's just one more, and when I can write my way around that, I should be home free.  

These last few months have seen little progress due to some personal issues, I apologize.  I've been trying to take care of myself during this time instead of working on the game.  I know I'm not great at this game dev. thing.  I posted this demo to prove to myself I could do this, but in the future, I'll keep in mind not to put out a demo when there's still so much work to be done on the game.

I'm pushing the release date to December to give me a little more room. Working on this game and  trying to finish for November has been hurting my performance at work, and as I don't make a lot of money right now, I need to realign my priorities.  I hope you all understand.

You're fine.  They're fair questions to ask.  I don't consider them that spoilery, myself, since I'm planning on making some sort of guide anyway since I feel like it sounds more complicated than it actually is.

Yes, this set-up does mean that nothing blatantly romantic will be happening until the very end.  Romance has never been the point of this game, it's always been meant as a bonus.  I understand this is odd for a VN, and perhaps I should be more clear about that in the game's information so that players aren't disappointed if they were expecting more of a dating sim.  One of my personal goals for writing this story was to practice writing the development of friendships, and so that's what the core of this story is--the tale of four people learning to get along and be friends.

If you're concerned that this means the romance will be shoe-horned in right at the end, it may help to know that the Set 2 Endings are a sort of epilogue with a beginning, middle, and end all their own, and are about 9000-10,000 words a piece to give the blossom of a romantic relationship some believability.  

To get a romantic ending, a character late in the game will ask Makani whether or not she is in love, and if she responds in the affirmative then the character will hint at how she can move in the right direction towards which guy she likes.  You do need a certain number of friendship points for the romantic ending to initiate, but you should have little problem reaching that since practicing with the guys also raises this stat in addition to their survivability, and there are scattered other dialogue options throughout that often raise the friendship stat of more than one guy at a time.  Nothing depletes the friendship stat, and there are other rewards for filling it up other than just getting a Set 2 ending ;)

There are two sets of endings:  Set 1 is the overall bad/good/best ending that wraps up the plot.  Set 2 are the romantic/non-romantic endings.  These can be combined in different ways (unless you get a bad ending, in which case you never get to see the Set 2 endings).  

There's a scene that will be added into early chapter 3 that explains the 'gameplay', so to speak.  Basically it comes down to in order to avoid a bad end, you have to spend time with all three characters.  Putting all your attention on one guy will leave the other two without the sparring/hunting experience they need and they WILL die in the final battle if they don't have that experience--ending your adventure prematurely (about a full chapter before the game is 'supposed' to end).  Even Makani is killable if you aren't careful enough with your choices.
So yes, bad endings aplenty :P

Oh Riu...he tries so hard not to be cute XD  I'm glad you like his appearance too!  I thought it would fit to make him look a little more fabulous striking since his color scheme is essentially monotone as opposed to Vane and Makani's bright, warm colors that help them stand out from the cooler backgrounds and Kameckt's contrasting black, white, and gold.  The races have all been really fun to design, and I wanted to do something different with my merfolk since they're based more on actual sea life than mythology.  I've had a blast world-building for this story!  

Thanks for playing through again!  I'm working on getting the final game out as fast as I can!

Ah yes, hello again!  

The demo was last updated in March--mostly fixing little grammar/spelling/art errors, but I did add close to 8000 words worth of additional content from Chapter 3.  I'm not sure whether or not you would count that enough for a replay or not, but it's there if you're interested :)

And thanks!

Thank you so much for playing!  I'm glad you enjoyed it!  A cross-country ocean/road trip is basically exactly what this is, and Vane is absolutely my sea slug disney princess XD  I'm always excited to hear that people like the characters so far.  I've tried to keep the cast balanced between the different personalities.

--I don't have a place I post updates very regularly, I'm afraid.  That's a part of the game development process that I haven't figured out how to handle, yet.  As I get into these last few months before I plan to post the game, I'll probably post more art updates on the lemmasoft WIP forum for the game, but most of the work I've been doing in writing (though it literally just occurred to me that I could be sharing that too, but I haven't been.  Perhaps I should start).  

--I'm writing the rough draft of the last chapter and a half and then I have some unfinished ending scenes.  I've begun work on the remaining sprites (figuring out good poses, and about half them also have lineart), and I've programmed up through half of chapter 3.  I've also changed some of the GUI layout and have some plans to fix up the main menu so more. 

--Makani [mah-kah-nee]
Groriu [groh-ree-oo]
Kameckt [kah-mekt]
Vane [vayn]
Ruim [roo-im]
Tilka [til-kah]
Nikan [nik-an]
Noken [noh-ken]
Kaial [keye-ehl]
Nareen [nah-reen]
And the rest of the cast for the sake of future reference:
Alita [ah-lee-tah]
Enoch [ee-nokh]
Tember [tem-berr]
Nigauti [nih-goo-tee]
Somufe [saw-moof]
Hylli [heye-lee]
Logai [loh-geye]
Yujezu [yoo-jeh-zoo]
Pena [pen-aw]
Thra [thraw]
Arun [a-roon]
Carab [car-awb]
Elval [el-vahl]

Thank you for playing!  I'm glad you enjoyed it!  I also love the ocean!  It's part of what's made writing this so fun!

By November is the plan.

I'm happy to hear you are interested :D I do plan to release on Mac eventually, I'm just waiting for one or two people to get back to me and make sure it works. There have already been some issues with the Mac version that I wasn't aware would be a problem, so I didn't want to release it until the little wrinkles get smoothed away.

Thank you so much for the feedback! I'm really happy to hear that you enjoyed the demo!

The characters were a lot of fun to design, I'm glad you like them! And I'm really happy to hear that you think Makani is a balanced character (we don't want any boring flat protagonists around here!). I'll go back over the code and script after November, a few people by now have told me on other sites that there are some typos to fix and there are some other details I need to clear up and polish I think too.