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Rickalick87

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A member registered Mar 21, 2023

Recent community posts

I love this project, but I don't know what to make of it.

The artwork is great, the writing is decent - the characters, the banter, the jokes, it's all competently written, a whole head above the average furry VN level. 

Of course, a lot of it, particularly the worldbuilding, doesn't make sense, but you think: "well, it's a goofy porn comedy game, it doesn't need to make  much sense".

And then the game suddenly shifts gears, completely changes the tone, and tries to tell you a serious story where people suffer and get hurt, get messed up, used, abused, and even murdered. The same goofy porn comedy characters in the same goofy porn comedy world.

It's going for the dramedy genre I guess, but the drama part just doesn't feel to me like it fits in that same world.

Maybe it's just me. 

I still recommend everyone to try it - it's a good project well worth your time.

A letter to Keo

Dear Keo, grow up already and address the issue like an adult.

Enough lying that you listened and addressed the concerns, while making changes to something that was never at the forefront of the discussion.

Stop pretending this is about how thin the lines got or how shading changed.

Quit hiding from your own community and just talk to us.

Admit that there was a change to the visual direction of the game. You are not helping the issue when you say this is just an all around improvement and nothing has changed. We're neither blind nor stupid, so quit treating us as such.

Make a statement that the change to the visual direction is final. That's what your actions have been saying so far anyway, so make it official already - you won't listen to any calls to changing the style, it's time to quit giving people false hope you might listen if they politely call to your reason long enough.

And finally, apologize to everyone unhappy with the changes in VN's visual direction. We've been supporting you for quite a while, you owe us that much. Your silence has been disheartening and just plain rude.

========================

A letter to everyone unhappy as I am

I'd like to thank all of you for being a pain in Keo's ass together with me. 

Thank you for not letting them pretend like they have an overwhelming support of the community on the unnecessarily drastic and sudden changes to the visual direction of the game.

Keo has been acting in bad faith, attempting to swipe the issue under the rug and you did not let them. I'm proud of you all. Game developers must be always called out on their bad actions and that's exactly what you've done.

Maybe I've lost faith, or maybe I am finally seeing the situation clearly, either way I've grown completely disenchanted with the project. Those who remain and want to keep up the fight - give them hell! I am with you in spirit, if not in presence.

========================

A letter to everyone supporting the changes

You have been incredibly tone-deaf to the situation, self-indulgently praising a change towards a visual style more appealing to your fetishes, CELEBRATING other fans getting backstabbed and robbed of something they loved by the very developer they have shown nothing but kindness and veneration for years and years before you even came around.

I genuinely wish you to end up in our place at some point in your life. Might even happen with Dawn Chorus - that would be ironic.

========================

Thank you everyone for lending me your attention. I'll see you around in discussions of games not made by people acting like children. 

Play only good games. 

Peace!

I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I think I'll refrain myself from playing that VN. It doesn't seem like my kind of VN and I would neither enjoy it nor be able to say anything good about it afterward. So I better not.

Sorry, I don't have the energy to argue about this. I am completely devastated by these changes and it pains me to discuss them at all. I just thought you would be interested to know about the update on the sprites, that's all.

Keo updated Broken Harbours with the new sprites of Rune and Devon, go check them out! :D

See, I said you were evil! Why would you even put it there if it wasn't meant to be opened? I replayed the game on hard just hoping to get that door opened - it's even shown as a pathway on the map!..

Great game though, I'm really glad you keep making them, you have a real knack for it, will replay again. Maybe not twice a year like EHF, but I will.

p.s. What's the official name for Melinda's pony-wolf hybrid? Is it Polf? Hopefully not Wony.

Completed on normal, got to the final boss on hard and still don't know how to open this door in the basement. 

Hopefully not by 100%ing the yellow orbs!

Oddwarg, I love your games ever since EHF, but I want to put your balls in a meat grinder for how evil is your code for the behavior of those flying snitches. They check if you're cutting them off, they detect you from way too far away, they turn around instantly, and they SPEED UP when approached, and OF COURSE they are making the most annoying sound in the world the entire time they are around - I was only able to catch any of them with sound turned off, because otherwise it's literally torture.

I collected several of these flying self-inflicted torture devices, each taking WAY TOO LONG, and gave up on the rest, it's just not worth it to hunt them down with how ridiculously annoying it is.

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I said what I said and I'm pretty sure it's not a ship I'll have to go down with.

Looking forward to discussing this with you after you see the sprites for yourself.

Though I really think that after everything you've heard about them, you should be asking Keo to show them already, not just be sitting on your hands till the controversial sprites go live. 

The cat is out of the bag anyway, and Patreon subscribers have known for a while now.

Sure, if by "great" you meant they will have a "generic furry porn vn where everyone is buff" look.

I mean... The new sprites are not horrible, but to have them replace already established looks is just a travesty.

While following Mikko's route, on day 2, after the lecture, don't pick option "Tag along". That's enough to fail his route and get you to the worse ending.

He isn't just losing hands, he is losing everything below that point, you just can't see it because his shorts and shirt are different sprites layered above his body sprite. You can try to cause the bug when Torulf is naked and you will see it.

Have you updated your video driver? If you did and the game still does that - upload your log somewhere and link it here. It's generally considered VN developer's responsibility to report to Tom all the Renpy bugs found in their VNs.

Or you can report it to the Renpy github yourself, if you have a git account or don't mind making one. https://github.com/renpy/renpy/issues

That's the thing, the new sprites look generally good, they could be put into any other VN and feel right at home! But they are a bad fit for the project.

We're not an anti-everything-new mob of luddites, the old sprites could be improved, of course. But after so many people got used to the old designs, it must be done with respect for said original designs!

Dawn Chorus is a fascinating passionate project, telling intimate down-to-earth stories of interpersonal relationships with incredible nuance. It really doesn't need to look like a generic furry porn game...

Fair enough, that was a bit too much, and I'm sorry. 

I overreacted, so it's for the best you deleted that comment. 

But you really should share the news about the upcoming sprites rework with itch/twitter/bsky users yourself.

It's big news and it worries me you are not only keeping it secret to anyone outside patreon, but are also ignoring any criticism even patreon subscribers are giving.

I apologize for being rude in my original comment, but it was passion for your project that commanded my actions. I am very concerned that the original sprites are being treated with such disregard for what made them good.

Yes, the old sprites aren't perfect, but they have their charm and they have been the official look of the characters we all grew to love. People love these characters the way they are, warts and all. You can't just discard their old looks and expect everyone to get on board with such drastic changes in design.

I don't believe there's malice in your actions, I know how game development, in its messy process, often makes things fall in place just perfectly to make for a disaster. 

But you need to be more open about this and keep the community more involved in the process of this change. You own the game, but you don't own the community, however there's no reason for us to antagonize each other. We can work together to make this change a true upgrade everyone will be happy about.

I understand you are a small team and your resources are not endless to keep remaking things, but I hope you can see this is a big change and it really needs more attention than this fire-and-forget approach.

Please don't be a stranger to your own fans.

Update your video card drivers and see if it helps. 

Older drivers have been having various issues with RenPy for a while now and there are no plans to fix that, since the user is supposed to keep their video drivers up to date anyway.

p.s. When reporting a renpy VN bug - you should, at the very least, provide log.txt from the game's main directory, as well as a screenshot of the problem, in case of a visual bug. More often than not, it's very hard to help using only a short description of the problem.

Thank you again for your replies - I wish more developers were this active and open with the community.

Oh hell, I know the struggles of being a jack of all trades on your own project only too well, so I get it, I really do. You did what was right for you and the project at the time and I'm not going to argue with that -  you certainly have a clearer picture of which scenes for which routes need releasing first. I should not have tried to advise you on that. Not only was it not my place to do so, it was a wrong approach to the problem.

And thank you for apologizing. I regret initially being so harsh now, there was no need for that attitude, I 'm sorry. 

And I want to be helpful here, not just nagging. So here's a thought - why not add menus for the choices that aren't implemented yet? Sure, one or more buttons would say  "(NOT IMPLEMENTED YET)", but that would still warn the player where they are going and give them some semblance of choice - "either leave and wait till your desired route releases, or check out this route that's already here, you might like it". Seems like that approach would keep everyone happy, or at least safe from becoming unhappy the way I did, wouldn't it?

Either way, thank you for your time, I took enough of it already. I'm sure we both already got what we could from this particular discussion anyway. I'll be back to check on your progress sometime in the future(I might even be lucky to have some control over whom the MC gets intimate with this time around, ha)

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Guess who's the only itch.io-bound maniac butchering Dawn Chorus' gamefiles.

Okay, the variable is called "nhia_beer" and it's only semi-important in Torulf's route. All other changes are small and happen during the fireplace party, here's a full list:



(spoiler)



During the fireplace party, changes numerous inconsequential lines like whether or not Lake gives Arvo another bottle, and who chugs soda during "Never Have I Ever".

During "Spin the bottle", if you are on Rune's, Bjorn's, or Torulf's route, sober Arvo can ask "What makes you happy?", while drunk Arvo can instead ask "What do you think of me?". 

During "Spin the bottle", on Rune's route, when Lake dares Rune to kiss Arvo, sober Arvo tries to protest. Drunk Arvo decides he is "in no state to protest" and is pretty much anticipating it.

During "Never Have I Ever", if NSFW is enabled, drunk Arvo can wreak havoc at the table by saying he never thought about drinking his own piss. Chaos ensues when he scores some points.

In Torulf's route:

During "Spin the bottle", if they haven't slept on day 1, drunk Arvo asks why Torulf has been avoiding him. Sober Arvo gets normal questions.

Changes what Arvo asks Torulf after the fireplace party, if they haven't slept on day 1 - drunk Arvo once again asks why Torulf has been avoiding him, and sober asks what's between Torulf and Lake.

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Sorry to break it to you, but the target of your delusional para-social "relationship" does not need your protection - never did, never will.

Thank you for your reply and your support on this, but no, I'm not interested in any human VNs right now.

Furry VNs have major advantage over human VNs because they start with a generally higher suspense of disbelief just because they are not about humans. So it's easier to enjoy them even when they are not perfect. And I already have a list of furry VNs I need to have a look at, which I am slowly but surely going through already.

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You're welcome! 

Devon's route is probably the most realistic one in what's already a very down to earth VN. It's how most young people's first serious romance goes - they just get bothered about it and keep seeking the company of their crush afraid to make a move.

I personally love all of them, except maybe Bjorn's, but that's because it has events that feel like they should be a choice, yet they are not.

Still, I recommend you to play all of them(and don't forget the Klaus route like I did!), as each is very interesting in its own way. Though I definitely recommend you play Lake's last, as it's soul bleach because of how sweet it is, and you're going to need that after some routes.

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Huh... Thanks for replying - despite the situation, it's nice to see a developer being active and patient with the community. With how angry I was, I was half-expecting to come back to a report or a ban.

But still, you can see where I'm coming from with this, right? It's just... I just got invested and then... Boom, suck a dick, player. And it's literally with the least attractive person in the entire game to me - both physically and personally, some bara fish dudebro who can't speak like an adult. I get it's a fetish, but it's not my fetish and I didn't enjoy being forced into it.

After I wrote that comment I kept pacing the room, seething, wondering if you did this just to insult the players who chose Dom or Axel - punish them for not choosing any of the bara men in your VN with mostly bara men. Not going to point fingers, but I've seen VN authors do this sort of thing before. I see now that's not the case here, but that's the mind space your VN put me in - I was seriously suspecting malicious intent, and I'm sure it's not how you want to make your players feel.

Why would you even first implement the route of doing something, instead of starting with the route of not doing it? No, I get it, you wanted to put out sex content before sfw content, because that's what many vocal players like,  but In a game where player's choice is supposed to matter, where the player gets invested in the story, you basically locked players who decided against pursuing any of the huge men into a sex scene with one of them.

Yes, it's WIP, and it's going to be different in the final version, or even in the very next update. But many, MANY players are playing the VN as it's being developed and this is going to be their experience. Sorry, but you should have anticipated this! For many players, myself included, this is forever going to be a bad memory. 

Yes, I know, it's a free VN, and you owe me nothing. and you put a lot of effort into it, and it's great that I could just download and play it! But! Could you please show some consideration in the future when choosing which routes to release first? Because this was Bad with capital B. And I'm sure you can do better.

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The game gives you a choice every step of the way, until it doesn't and you just randomly suck a dick of some stupendously idiotic dudebro you just met at a bar.

And that's after the protagonist has been very safe and sound about his actions and very judgmental of people slutting out. He just... Goes and sucks a dick, and the player gets kicked to the back seat, helpless to change anything. 

The writer just gives the player a huge middle finger, out of the blue, RIGHT AFTER MAKING YOU CHOOSE WHO YOU WANT TO PURSUE. 

Nope, fuck you, [player_name], fuck your agenda, fuck your preferences, fuck your decisions, and fuck your investment in the story - you suck idiot's dick because what are you going to do about it?

Very disappointing... smh 

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Mikko endings:




(spoiler)




The Bad One, aka Knocking On The Door

The Worse One, aka Happy Fun Time With Kinky Accessories <== You are here

THE WORST ONE, aka Flower Field

But hey, at least you saw it after it got changed a little. Initially, it was very ambiguous whether Arvo even survives it. I personally think Keo shouldn't have changed that and should have leaned heavily into the unintended but entertaining maniacal Mikko Route - would have made for a fun Halloween update.

To get a slightly less horrible ending, make sure to always pick Mikko events(Only some events are important, but it's easier to play all of them). It's the canon one and the one that's going to have a continuation in further updates, unlike the other two.

To get a much more horrible ending, follow Mikko's route, but go back to your room after you find the key. I warned you though, it's THE WORST ONE.

To avoid copy-pasting replies, here's my answer to the same question:

https://itch.io/post/9075988

Short version  - game still in development, updates every month. A good Mikko ending will come in a couple of years, maybe.

Obviously Keo knows better, but isn't it said in the game the science camp is supposed to be a week long?

It's poetic, in a way - cling together with one person and watch the rest of the world burn.

Remember, ships at the sea - some make it, some don't.

Oh yeah, I remember that one! But that's half a puzzle piece at best. Abandonment alone usually makes people crave attention, not learn to calmly mind their business.

Also, how does that even tie into his whole over-archiever persona?

No, I need to know more, this is decisively not enough information...

I want to learn more about Rune's backstory. There must be a reason why he's so determined to keep to his own devices and never bother anyone unless he has a good justification.

Because he's basically perfect, except he is all too eager to remain in the background and just wait to be discovered.

Isn't everything outside the canon Mikko route non-canon?

Yeah, but he can't have him. That's the whole point. Arvo and Torulf are friends with benefits, without the friends part. That's literally the very blatant summary of the problem - Arvo has an emotional attachment to someone who feels absolutely nothing but lust for him. Torulf drops meetings with Lake for Arvo just as easily as he sidesteps Arvo to go fuck Lake.

Why would you want Arvo to stay any longer in this abusive relationship?

As someone else put it, my headcannon Torulf route is the Lake route, where everyone are happy and Torulf is blueballed. xD

I don't know if I can judge - I don't have ADHD, so my understanding of it is anecdotal at best.

But if YOU feel ADHD vibes from Lake - then you very well might be right. After all, the characters in Dawn Chorus have been impeccably written so far.

Right?  It's a derailment route, which means you must start a different route and then switch to this one. 

To get it...

1. Get a coat on day 1(either talk to Rune before losing the key, or ask Devon for help when you lost it)

2. Do the Klaus event when given chance on the first day. Make sure you talk to him and follow him all the way into the woods.

3. After that  follow...

3.a) the Bjorn route, in which case just wait till you get a chance to chase after Klaus into the woods again.

3.b) the Devon route, in which case don't help him with telescopes and talk to Klaus in the cafeteria.

(3 edits)

I think you made a mistake in the description on the main page - the preview update for Bjorn and Rune has never been released on itch, you must have meant Patreon.

EDIT: It's fixed now, cool.


Also god I'm tired of Gudrun hijacking routes. She is so pushy, and she's mean to Lake for no reason, I don't want to be her friend, but I get no choice...

p.s. Guys, I don't mind the downvotes, it's okay to disagree,  but lets maybe have a conversation about this? I'm not just being a penis about this, I can defend this opinion, you know.

Yeah, no, I'm half-joking about Arvo getting drugged, of course - it's obviously just a narration method, like it always is with Dawn Chorus. Like you said, Arvo already dreamed up a whole nightmare, no reason why he couldn't dream up this too - this is the route of the unreliable narrator more than anything.

But it is fun to come up with theories of what's happening, don't you think? And it kind of aligns? Klaus is an irresponsible person who does whatever childish thing he wants with the smallest amount of justification even to himself, as you can learn from his and other routes, especially Jorgen's.

Onto your points! 

1) it was definitely Klaus who said he cut the tomatoes - I wrote that comment while looking at the script.

2) Such details are barely ever shown in Dawn Chorus, the text is doing the heavy lifting, and the visuals are vaguely connected to the plot at best. This is not a big project, so it can get away with this.

3) I told you, bean lottery - look it up if you've never heard of it. Klaus could put an edible in the dish and whoever gets it goes on a trip! Or maybe he put it just in Arvo's plate, not like Arvo is extremely attentive, had his key stolen and then returned without ever noticing.

Also, I think we should put this discussion on hold till you see all three Mikko endings, as I realized the Big Floof nightmare is one big metaphor for Arvo's feelings for Mikko.

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I mean the flashback you get after the ritual, Arvo telling his friends to not talk with Mikko without explaining why. You can learn about it from Mikko's route too, but in Klaus's route you can actually re-live that exact moment. 

It's sad how little it took for them to abandon Mikko - just "believe me, okay?" was enough. No shit Mikko hightailed out of there and applied to a boarding school.

I wonder what this ritual moment even is - is it metaphorical? Is magic canon? Did Klaus put something into the dish he helped Dan cook? He said with a grin that he cut the tomatoes for it and I've seen people refer to home-made drugs as tomatoes(since tomatoes are the most popular thing to home-grow). No one else was affected, but it could be the bean lottery - Klaus could very well be aware of that tradition, and with his fascination with fate... Yeah, he probably drugged Arvo.

p.s. I too am not amused with some of the special artworks for this VN. I'd rather prefer if all artwork was done by HQ - their works really look like windows into the world of Dawn Chorus and not just fancy paintings. The simple picture of Arvo looking at himself in the mirror has more weight than any other art in a different visual style, IMO.

(1 edit)

Ah, yes, you could say I'm fixated on it - it's currently giving me inspiration for my own projects, plus there seems to be still enough content for me to explore. Like a whole freaking route I didn't even know existed! It even has its own little loading animation, damn! It's so weird to see a new loading screen after having played this for a whole month, and it's not even new content.

So yeah, I checked out both Bjorn and Devon approaches to Klaus's route. Doesn't really change much whichever you choose, but it was nice to see that Devon would look if you disappeared - made me feel better about Arvo following Klaus into a lonely shack in the middle of nowhere. Either way, was nice to get a proper glimpse at Arvo being a massive penis to Mikko with his friends.

Also, I have an answer to your initial question.

I decided to be smart about it - I figured out how to butcher the game and looked into the script. No, there's no way to activate any other actions in that scene. "Run away" is literally the only option coded into the game. Maybe something else is planned, maybe it's just to give you an illusion of taking action - who knows.

Thanks for showing me this route, would have taken me some time before I'd have found it on my own and it wouldn't be any time soon.

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Okay, I'm retrying this right now and I guess I have never before tried to talk to him during his first event on my Bjorn playthroughs *facepalm*. This seems to be the trigger that allows you to chase after him after supper.  It seemed so pointless after the first time I did it - he runs away after like two lines anyway, how was I supposed to know it changes anything? 

Sorry I was suspicious of you.

I really need to spend some time and figure out how to properly butcher renpy games to check for routes without having to go through 358 possible combinations of decisions.

I'll play through the event and get back to you.

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Ah, I didn't know what android version looks like, playing on PC.

Either way, I can't follow him! He just disappears into the woods too fast. I tried it both with Arvo head over heels into Bjorn and while being dismissive of Bjorn, in case that changes anything. How the hell are you getting this second Klaus event? 0_o

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Okay, what is this? Are you... making fun of me? There isn't a Klaus route, just one event. To pick a route you pick a character at the end of day 1 and he isn't a choice. You simply don't see him outside of breakfast and his one event on day 1.

To my knowledge, there's never an option to follow him again in any of the actual routes, though I can vaguely remember him going into the woods again being mentioned in passing in someone else's route.

Also the screenshot you've shown is missing half the buttons at the bottom. What is this? Some ancient Halloween version?

Okay, this is getting entirely too cryptic.




(spoiler)



You follow Klaus, you see him with a huge wolf, you backpedal out of there, no choices there. You get back to the lodge, get help and find the ritual circle, and the wolf finds you - this time you have a choice, you can either just run, or push your companion towards danger first, either way the wolf catches up to you and your companion from the event wakes you up.

Later on, during the lights out event, if you get to the lobby, you meet Dan, a neighboring wolf who came to check up on the lodge. Arvo comments that this wolf's silhouette is familiar. Dan then acknowledges he has already met Klaus - it was him in the woods in the part of the Klaus event that was real. That's what I'm talking about. What are you talking about?