Steamberry

Only a couple and potentially only in very specific scenarios.

If Magnus and Morgan had been able to escape properly to the Wastes and live with Lance undisturbed for months, or a year. I actually think a poly relationship would have been inevitable. I think it will be harder for this to develop at Endgame where Magnus still is inclined to put up all those walls and and wear masks with people.

If Morgan and Caleb were dating there's a non-zero chance of Ari realising he's in love with both of them and if he were to ever tell them (which...he probably would tell Caleb during a match of volitant or something. Just...blurt it out). I think they'd adopt him because pining Ari is just too sad.

It was a combination of things - there were plenty of bad outcomes due to the Entente, due to the guilds and Savarre. All of them clashing, them stirring up some other grumpy species and clashing.

He wanted someone he could trust (more less) there to act as the brakes on that situation, to force a reconciliation of the powerful and less powerful in the Milky Way galaxy. And Wil has a particular gift for being a sort of chaos factor. So throwing them into the middle of things was bound to stop some of the clashes that he saw because Wil was never going to do what other people wanted.

Elion does act in extremes which is one reason why he drives the people in his life insane. He's very single minded which I think just happens when you get that old.

Thank you! I'm always so happy when someone appreciates the flowcharts. OWO

I really stumbled into visual novels by accident because I was researching for something. I ended up playing a few to see how they were structured and just remember thinking that it was a really interesting form of story telling - writing-centric, but with a multi-media and interactive element. And that was it. I decided "I'm making one. >=O" and started googling.

When it comes to advice, I always recommend that you start writing even as you're researching things like art or game engines. Renpy is kind of the "standard" for indie and PC visual novels - it's been around a long time and has a really robust community around it so it's not difficult to find tutorials and youtube videos explaining how to do things. There is even a forum (lemmasoft) where you can find artists or composers and coders if you need to hire freelancers.

But the thing is that writing is nearly always where a project stalls out if it's going to stall out. If you have a 100000 word script, you can find a way to turn that into a game. But if you have images and an OST and no script, you can't really move forward.

So I highly recommend that if you are interested in making a visual novel, start getting the idea for the story and characters and script down because you can research all the other things and figure out how to do them at any point but the writing is where the biggest time sink is waiting for you.

There are quite a few developer communities floating around the internet as well but in general most devs are really free with advice and information so devlogs and blogs are also a really good source of information!

Itch has a ton of resources too - I'd be wary of a lot of the background packs as many of them are AI but there are tons of other tools to help with effects, with things like pronoun customisation, music rooms, and all sorts of other features. Feniks is a great resource but there are others who have cool tools out there too! Feniks also has some tutorials for various things on their site.

I try to have a logic in my head as I write and as much ass makes sense, have the reasoning come forward in the story. It's one reason I tend to explore the MC's inner world a lot when I write.

I don't mind MCs who think differently than me in stories but I struggle when they think so oddly that I can't understand it and there's not enough of an internal world that's explored for me to understand their decisions.

I know my writing isn't perfect by any stretch but I'm glad, at least, this part comes through to some players! (*^▽^*)

I love Kav - though he was a late addition, I feel like adding him was the best decision. He rounded out the cast extremely well.

I'm sure he gets scruffy here and there but he no longer has a need to hide anymore.

LoL! That's fair though. I think that, in general, fantasy is more popular because it feels a little more accessible to people. Even soft sci-fi can feel overwhelming at times I think.

I'm really enjoying dipping back into fantasy. As much as I love science fiction, I've been doing sci-fi since 2019 really. Because that's when I started writing Gilded Shadows. Being able to get back into a fantasy setting is just really fun.

I will warn with a lot of these asks - many are starting to veer into territory where there is not a lot of world building. I will answer where I can but definitely do not assume I have an answer for some of this (this isn't aimed at you specifically - just anyone sending asks right now.)

I'll always do my best to answer but sometimes I may be saying "I do not...know." In some cases I may or may not have ever come up with anything definitive.

THIS TIME I have an answer though!!

As stated in the game, Gates has a husband (Nenkotta) and a wife (Avvi) and triplets (identical twins and a third fraternal sibling - they never got names from me). His wife is capable of carrying sperm from two mates at a time so the twins are biologically Gates's and the third child is biologically Nenkotta's. Multiples are also pretty standard with her species so they nearly always have 2-4 kids at a time.

Not that it really matters because the triplets are all everyone's kids. But it is just an interesting quirk of the wife's species since it's common for them to have multiple mates. I like to think that the twins look exactly like Gates and the third triplet looks exactly Nen. LoL

They knew when they got involved that Gates travelled a lot. Avvi did too at the time but settled planetside after the three of them started a family together. It works out for them. When Gates is home, he's glued to them basically. And when he's away they stay in touch as much as possible.

They involve a short public ceremony but most of the wedding ceremony is private and done between the two people getting married. It involves a ceremonial bath and politely groping each other's vetere syl. LoL

Most couples shut themselves away together for a week or so for some deep telepathic bonding.

I don't know that I have a ton of info about them. Um. Fraise took Lerin's last name when they got married since that's not a custom for his people but he liked the idea of it when he learned about it.

Same with wedding bands - that is a Terran thing but he quite likes it so he wears his religiously.

They had instant, mutual attraction when they met and it just sort of naturally flowed into a relationship.

They've been married for around 10 years.