stonefoxstudios

Chasing Sunsets Chapter 2 (0.3) is done! *Updated*

**UPDATE**

After talking to Kent, we feel that pushing the day one access to the Engineer Tier made no difference on how quickly our update leaked.   Based on that, we'll be reversing that policy.   This was always about reaching the largest possible audience, and excluding our $1 supporters or forcing them to download from pirate sites was not the answer.

Kentyrr and I are pleased to announce that we hit our target release date, and that Chapter 2 is now available for download to our Engineer Tier and above.   Deckhand Tier will receive links to download Chapter 2 on May 14.

Chapter 2 is nearly identical in script length and art inventory to Chapter 1, so you can anticipate a similar playtime.

We'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to our beta team for helping iron out any bugs in what ended up being a bigger effort than I expected.

If you play VNs with your sound off, we're particularly proud of the sound work in the Dehiba scene, which features many custom sound effects by our friend Hank Rockwell.

The Achievement system is threaded through the Prologue and Chapter 1 as well, but those achievements are not retroactive, so unfortunately you will have to play again if collecting them holds any interest for you.

Additionally, the End of Chapter Summary has been retrofitted into Chapter 1 as well, so you may be able to roll back from your most recent save to view it.

We've also included a little note at the beginning of the game before the Chapter 2 placard, which is worth paying attention to.

Kent and I will hold a Livestream for Q&A in two weeks, so look for the announcement here.  Thank you to everyone who has supported us!   We hope you enjoy Chapter 2 as much as we enjoyed making it!

As always, we look forward to your feedback and a lively discussion in Discord once the new content has been digested.  We do ask that you use the #spoilers-and-help channel to discuss this chapter until a few weeks have passed.

Mac Version 

PC/Unix Version 

Stoya & Kentyrr

Stone Fox Studios 

Home Stretch to Chapter 2 Release

When Kentyrr and I started this, we never thought we'd devote so many more hours to it than we do our day jobs, but we do!

Chapter 2's art is finishing it's final render phase as I write this, and I have most of it already integrated with the script.

Tonight, Kent and I will do our first full play though the chapter frame-by-frame and try to identify any art gaps, continuity issues, plot holes, or other errors, followed shortly after by test release to our beta crew.

As of right now, Chapter 2 is about the same size as Chapter 1 in sheer code size and art inventory, but features and sound have not been integrated yet, so we'll see how it shakes out in the release version.

We are shooting for a May 7 release, barring any surprises like save compatibility or other integration issues.  In the event we run into problems, we'll be transparent about it and adjust expectations accordingly.

Chapter 2 kicks off the main story in earnest, and some of the threads that have only been hinted at so far will begin to come into focus.   Answers to some burning questions from previous installments will also be revealed.

Faces from the past will resurface and their actions will be explored from other perspectives. 

As always at this point in development, we ask that if you prefer not to have your subscriber name in the credits, to let us know via DM.   If you'd prefer to have it displayed differently than your Patron name, you can also request that.   It goes without saying that we will not put real names in the credits unless specifically authorized to do so.

The wait is nearly over!   Who was on that helicopter?   What happened to Hank?  Why was MC in Sicily?   What is Mallory up to?   What's next for succession?  What freaky shit is Fiona up to this week?

Soon...

Chapter Summary Feature

As promised in my last post, please find the above video detailing the chapter summary.

One of the things that bothers me as an avid VN player myself is that when a development cycle lasts months, it's easy to forget details of where I left off when new content is released..

A method of helping players re-acclimate to the story would be to allow the player to pull up the summary of the last update's playthrough at the beginning of a new chapter.   It also felt like a good idea to let the player know what their choices amounted to at the end of a chapter, so they can revisit them if they're unhappy with the outcome.

The above video should demonstrate our first swing at an approach to bridging this gap.

My intent is to make retrofit this to Chapter 1 and possibly the Prologue as well.

Thanks to Evite for all of his effort in bringing this surprisingly challenging feature to life in Ren'Py.

Some Updates

Happy April, everyone!

Chapter 2 is moving along nicely with the last "difficult" scene from an art perspective fully rendered and complete.   Remaining art is primarily conversational, and should go comparatively quickly.

We're gunning for a Chapter 2 release no later than May 7, which hits our 90-day development cycle goal.

With that said, we are going to make a minor adjustment to the patron tiers going forward.  Since we believe patrons deserve a somewhat longer "exclusivity" period than 3 hours, we are going to move the game availability on launch day to the $5 Tier, and release to the $1 Tier a week later.   Each release has leaked from the $1 Tier, so this is just an attempt to give those contributing toward development the most a chance to enjoy the game first.

We have no illusions that it will take a week to leak regardless, but we figured we'd start small, and adjust as necessary.

The other major announcement regarding the game is this chapter we will be migrating to Ren'Py 7.4.4 (over 7.3.5).   We nearly did this for Chapter 1, however the Mac renderer was buggy at the time.   It has since been fixed, and we require one of the 7.4.4 improvements for the End-of-Chapter Summary feature.   This should only really impact users who play on Windows XP.

Speaking of that, the End-of-Chapter Summary is complete and looks great.   We'll share a video of that soon!  For now, here's a teaser:

Special thanks to Evite who has put a lot of effort into researching and developing this feature.   It looks fantastic in action!

I'm taking this week off from my day job to complete integration of features and new art.   We are approaching our first beta of Chapter 2 rapidly.

Today also represents the 1 year anniversary of our partnership.  April 5th of last year is when Kentyrr and I first began seriously thinking about making a game.   For those of you who have been with us since the beginning, thank you for joining us for the ride!

Chapter 2 Check-In!

Today is something of a milestone for us, as our most challenging scene of the update is behind us.   It feels like a good time to break down our current progress level for the chapter.

As stated previously, the achievement system is ready to go, and the end-of chapter summary is looking pretty sweet as well.   Hopefully we'll be able to share a preview video of that in the next week or two.

Below is where things stand at the moment.  We have about 600 images for the chapter rendered, post-worked, compressed, and folded into the game.   

That said, art and integration (merging features and art into the script) remain the largest chunks of work left.   We should feel comfortable forecasting a date after the next scene (which is also fairly challenging) is completed.  The render work after that is primarily conversational, and Kent is really good at churning those out efficiently.

Knock on wood, there have been no major hiccups so far, and we'll start pulling all of these threads together in the coming weeks as our beta build comes together for testing.

As always, Kentyrr and I are grateful for the support we receive from you, and look forward to the Chapter 2 launch with every bit as much enthusiasm as our fans!

Dev Update - Chapter 2 Progress / Achievement System

While time is really flying for us at SFS, we know that this probably isn't the case for those of you waiting patiently for the next installment.

Kent is currently working his way through the most demanding scene he's had to do so far.   Suffice it to say that low light, wet skin, and confined spaces where nearly everything deforms under pressure adds significantly to the challenge, and as such we're far from our peak number of renders per day at the moment.   For this, we figure quality will be appreciated far more in the long term than quantity.

Evite has been working hard on putting together a presentable Achievement System which you can see demoed briefly above.   We expect any achievements you've unlocked in your existing save will apply when you begin Chapter 2.      

As previously stated, the story for Chapter 2 is 100% written, and the game is playable through to the end of the chapter, with art working hard to catch up to the script.   Next up, my focus will be on an end-of-chapter summary and coming up with a creative way to merge a particularly intertwined series of scenes in an elegant manner.

The beta schedule is somewhat up-in-the-air at the moment as we rendered out-of-order this cycle due to the fact that we didn't want the scene Kent is working on now left until the end.   We wanted plenty of time to get it right, and based on how it's looking so far, I feel like we've done just that.

Thanks again for the support and encouragement.   We couldn't be more excited about what comes next, and hopefully you'll agree after you've seen it that we aren't slowing down!

Chasing Sunsets v0.2b (Final Bugfix)

Here is the final update to the Chapter 1 release, and the last revision until Chapter 2 is released.   There is no new content, and this primarily correcting the few spelling/grammar errors that have been reported since 0.2a, a few code issues that caused the game not to execute properly after being decompiled, and it repairs two minor image issues in the scene/image galleries.

There is no reason to download this if you have a saved game in 0.2, or 0.2a that you're happy with, this just satisfies my OCD, and gives us a cleaner launch pad to build 0.3 on.

PC Version 

Mac Version 

Chapter 2 Development Update

Spring is nearly here, and a month to the day after the release of Chapter 1, we are going strong on Chapter 2 development.   Currently, the chapter sits at 70% written, with over 300 images rendered for the next installment.

The heart of Chapter 2 really centers on two scenes, and each of them will be challenging for different reasons.   One will require rendering more different characters in a single scene than we have had to previously, and the other...Well, you'll see.  ;-)

So far, Chapter 2 has been pretty smooth sailing.   We have had none of the PC or DAZ issues we had in Chapter 1, and the workflow is humming along.

Feedback from our LiveStream has been largely positive, and some of the theories over what will happen next have been fun and interesting to read.

I wish there were peeks behind the curtain or tidbits we could throw out there without spoiling the story, but this is the "where the rubber meets the road" portion of the dev cycle where the pieces are all in place, and we just have to start sewing them together.

Right now, Kent is focused on backfilling art for the dialogue and story written so far, and I'm collecting sound and music for this episode, and getting them formatted and level-adjusted for inclusion in the game.

My plan will be to complete dialogue 100% for Chapter 2 by next weekend, and then focus on feature completion and making the UI tweak necessary for the Chapter 2 lewd scene.

We'd like to give a special shout out to Ocean of "Summer's Gone" fame for help in getting the lighting with one particularly challenging environment just right.   

Thanks again for indulging us with our little cliffhanger again.   We'll give you a break from them in Chapter 2, as promised, but all bets are off after that!

Dev Update: Patrons, Livestreams, Patches, Features, Oh My!

**Updated to add links to 0.2a with Linux Distro and Bug Fixes**

Predictably, Kent and I did a pretty piss-poor job taking a week off after launching our first chapter.  I immediately got to work writing Chapter 2, and Kent began pulling together the asset inventory to build our scenes right away.

While this was happening, we broke a threshold we never thought possible.   Between Patreon and SubscribeStar, our little game has over 300 patrons now, and we are still in a state of shock.   We are consistently blown away by the support we get from each of you and from our friends in the development community.

With that said, and because (as is our habit) we ended on another cliffhanger of sorts, lots of questions have flooded in about when we will release the next installment and if we'll support other platforms.

I'll address the second question first:   We released the PC version without a Linux distro by mistake.   Here is how we will correct that:

In the next few days, I will release Chapter 1 v0.2a.   Here are the release notes:

• Correct all identified spelling and grammar issues present in 0.2
• Restore the "S" key to the Ren'Py default Screenshot function
• Restore the "About" page to the main menu with keybinds clearly identified
• Restore the autosave to the end of Chapter 1 (Page 9, Slot 2)
• Linux distribution included

We have been asked if we will begin to natively provide an Android version, and my answer right now is an unequivocal "maybe."   I'm looking into what it will take to do so and what (if any) UI elements would have to be re-engineered to do so.   So, in short...We'll see if the juice is worth the squeeze and update you in the next post on our decision.

Our third Stone Fox Developer Livestream will be held on February 20th at 16:00 UTC on our Discord server in the #dev-livestream channel.   As usual we will not spoil story beats, but we will answer questions about our development process, philosophy, design choices, and future plans, as well as share insider details on challenges and successes we had while developing Chapter 1!   While the voice channel allows only developers and moderators to speak, drop your questions into the #questions-for-dev-streams or #voice-chat channels in Discord.   We will do our best to answer questions posed in advance during the Livestream and post the recording later, so if you can't attend, you can hopefully still have your question answered.

Right now, we are working to add a few new major features into Chapter 2:

• Achievement System
• End of Chapter Summary
• Scene UI Enhancement

The Achievement System is envisioned to be exactly what it sounds like if you've ever played a Steam game.   We expect to unlock achievements both through completing the game on a certain path or by unlocking images or scenes that showcase a specific kink.

The End of Chapter Summary is still going through an iterative process to determine what adds value and what does not.   Right now, at a minimum we would like to show your current points (out of a maximum) and make a note of any major decisions you've made during the chapter which can influence either the ending, or the relationships you cultivate along the way.   More to come on this.

The Scene UI Enhancement is something I'm not going to go into detail with here, however there is a scene planned for Chapter 2 that will allow for a somewhat different means of interactivity.   This will be our effort to skin that particular cat, and will likely be necessary for some future scenes as well.

As to when we plan to release Chapter 2, once again we are not sure.   We are definitely a lot further along with it than we were with Chapter 1 a week after the Prologue released, so if we keep the momentum without PC failures, illness, or family interventions, it seems highly likely to me that the wait for Chapter 2 will be somewhat shorter than the wait for Chapter 1.    We will do our best to set expectations as early as possible and be transparent about anything that sets us back.

In celebration of 300 Patrons, Kent has made a special commemorative render, which you will find at the top of this post.  Another version without Chasing Sunsets badging is attached to the bottom of the post in case you want to use it as a wallpaper.   

We are reviewing ways we can reward our most loyal patrons with benefits that recognize their contribution to the game.   We'll put some thought into how we can say thank you appropriately to our fans.   We know that not everyone has a lot of spare income, and we want to make sure we recognize our most loyal supporters, not just the ones with the most spare change.   

For those of you who have little to spare, but really enjoy our game, there are countless other ways you can help us out.   Whether it's boosting the Discord server, using your world-of-mouth to share us with others, giving us constructive feedback, or reviewing us on sites that carry our game, being part of the team doesn't necessarily mean opening your wallet!

We are also considering a staggered release schedule to provide patrons a bit more exclusivity after content releases before it leaks to other sites.   We'll obviously listen to our patrons, and evaluate any changes for effectiveness before adopting any permanent policy.

Update:   Chapter 1 v0.2a is here:   

PC (Windows/Linux) 

Mac 

Chapter 2 Plans and Dev Livestream 2/20

This week, Kent and I are going to take a bit of a rest before we dive into Chapter 2, which will be entitled "Truth and Consequences."

Remember, it has been five years since our MC left home, and he's been largely disconnected from the events that took place in Boston while he was away.   By the same token, much of what the MC has experienced in those five years is a mystery to others in his circle as well.

The upcoming chapter will deal with how the player chooses to approach the mutual misunderstandings between himself and Jaye, and the secrets surrounding Mallory.

Simultaneously, MC will begin learning how to think beyond himself as the prospect of taking over Polygene Biotech from his parents looms, and where his sister will fit into the equation.

We have a few fun and interesting characters we're looking forward to introducing as well!

Kentyrr and I will host a LiveStream on February 20th.   I will update this post with the time once we've selected one.   Please bring your questions with you, or post them in advance on our Discord #questions-for-dev-stream channel so our emcee can get them in the pipeline.

Chasing Sunsets 0.2 (Chapter 1) Available to Patrons!

Chapter 1 has arrived!   Thank you all for your patience as Kentyrr and I refined our workflow and fed our Cyberpunk addiction.

Below, you will find the Mega links to the PC and MAC versions of Chasing Sunsets.  Here are a list of feature improvements you can expect in this episode that opens up the main story branches we'll begin to explore in Chapter 2:

• Discord Rich Presence
• Scene Gallery
• Image Gallery
• 1400 new renders (Well over twice as many as the Prologue)
• Improved, cleaner UI with hotkey show/hide
• Four custom assets/environments you won't see anywhere else!

Save game compatibility with 0.1a has been regression tested, and we opted to release on Ren'Py 7.3.5 due to performance and rendering issues on Mac platforms.

Thank you for your patience and investment in us!   We hope to continue to live up not only your standards, but our own with this and coming installments!

Special thanks to our beta team for helping us identify and squash (hopefully) any nasty release day bugs.   

Eagle-eyed VN players may spot cameos or callouts from other popular VNs.

Windows 

MacOS 

-Stoya and Kentyrr 

The Last Push - Chapter 1 Is Imminent!

Our release date is rapidly approaching, and Kent and I are as tired as Alex is in the preview image above.

I promised a date on the last update, so our goal is Sunday February 7th.   It may be sooner, but we want to be sure we have a little cushion in case beta finds something we can't fix super quick.

Kentyrr has two scenes left to pose art for, and there are a few last tweaks to implement before releasing Beta 0.2e to our testers.

So, here's what to expect:  We've upped our game in production values, and we've delivered a significantly denser package with Chapter 1 than with the Prologue in terms of art and complexity.

From a feature perspective, there is now a phone interface, scene gallery, and image gallery. 

From an art perspective, it's looking like we'll fall just short of three times as many renders (forecasting 1500!) as we delivered in the prologue.

Feedback from beta testers indicate there is somewhere between 45-90 minutes of gameplay here, with the chapter wrapping up on the cusp of one the first major branch in the storyline.

As always, easter eggs abound, so look for callouts to fellow devs, members of the AVN community, other games, and pop culture in general.

We're both working more hours on this project right now than our day jobs, so we're both ready for a week off when the Patron release drops.

I am posting a rough credits video on the Discord preview channel so Patrons can review their name in the credits crawl and request removal or modification before the game hits the open web.  Anyone who did not request removal directly, but had what appeared to be a "real name" on their Patreon account are represented only by their initials to protect their privacy.

Hopefully you'll all agree it's been worth the wait!

Stay with Ren'Py 7.3.5 or move to 7.4.1?

All,

The vast majority of Ren'Py VN's launch on the tried and true Ren'Py 7.3.5 framework.   On the last day of 2020, Ren'Py 7.4.1 launched with significant improvements, including a model-based renderer and the correction of a number of bugs that can cause development headaches.

That said, 7.4.1 does come at a cost:  It no longer supports Windows XP and requires a minimum MacOS version of 10.10.

Before making a decision on a framework change like this, we figured we'd poll our patrons on whether this change would impact them or not.

We'll make a decision once have had a chance to weigh the feedback we receive here.

Dev Bits - Weekly Highlights

COVID strikes Stone Fox.   Kentyrr was introduced to the pandemic a short while ago, they hit it off, and now they're a couple!

While this may seem like bad news, it's a mild case, and he's been quarantined.  With his art rig,   This means he's been tearing through scenes at a faster pace, though we try to make sure he doesn't overdo it and gets plenty of rest.

Beta 1 feedback was very positive, and we've incorporated a few changes based on feedback, but nothing that adds significantly to the remaining work.

We did find an issue with the Erica model that forced us to adjust and re-render almost 300 images, but thankfully it took longer to make the adjustments than it did to actually cook them.  That's in the rearview mirror now.

With the release of the Genesis 8.1 female models, we have updated all major female characters to the new assets, and they will be rendered as such through the last few scenes of Chapter 1.   Thankfully, the differences aren't so noticeable that this will be jarring.

Once again, the script called for something existing assets could not provide, so we had to enlist Puggy again to give us a Snowmobile with two seats (see above.)

Sound is mostly complete now, and the phone system is fully-implemented and should look (and sound) pretty familiar to those partial to a specific brand.  ("Parody", trademark lawyers!)

Once we see how much of the remaining art Kentyrr is able to knock out while he's in Quarantine, we'll be able to project a specific release day.   Look for that in the next update!

Stay safe, healthy, and warm!

Chapter 1 Credits - Opt Out/Customization

As Chapter 1 approaches release, the current plan is to add all Patron names to the closing credits crawl.   I typically do this by scraping the Patron list and adding the names I see there.

We will NOT add names which appear to be personally identifying - Meaning, a real name or some other detail by which you could potentially be identified.

If you do not want your name in the credits, or wish to have it appear differently than your Patreon name, either send us a message or post your preference below.  

Thanks again for making Chasing Sunsets a reality! 

Beta 0.2b Out to Testers - Other Notes

As Kentyrr and I barrel into the home stretch for Chapter 1, I just wanted to announce that the fully-scripted beta is out to select testers for feedback and focus testing.

The story is somewhat denser than the average Adult Visual Novel, and we've seen from previous feedback that this is somewhat polarizing, particularly for people who feel let down that there's as much story as sex.  As such, we do try to walk the line and we view the feedback phase as our last chance to modify the narrative if we've sailed off the map.

Kent is averaging 25 scenes a night in the run-up to release, with a significantly higher delivery rate on weekends.   

One thing we are particularly proud of is that we have put 100% of every sheckel donated by our patrons to date back into our project.  Every last penny has been absorbed by render hardware or software and music licensing, and that will be the case for the foreseeable future.  In short, our work is only possible because of you.

We have used three custom assets in the game to date.   What that means is that we've commissioned models, buildings, and locations that you will not see in any other game.

Here are a few examples:

This cabin was made especially for Chasing Sunsets by our 3D Modeling friend Puggy.

In addition, we commissioned a pair of iRay Arch Nazares for Chapter 2.

As always, we're grateful for your continued support, and based on the feedback we've received from our beta team, we're well on our way to delivering on the promise made by our Prologue with Chapter 1.

We'll keep you updated as release date nears.

The Big Happy New Year Dev Update

Wew, what a marathon!

Chapter 1 is now playable beginning to end with all choices, consequences, point tabulations, and dialogue fully scripted.

Kentyrr's been going nuts on the art, and upped his quality game by an order of magnitude.  Seeing the art in screenshots is one thing, but seeing it play out in context with dialogue is a whole other experience.

So, for those of you patiently waiting, this is where we stand as of today:  As stated, the game plays completely through Chapter 1 from beginning to end, with several scenes waiting on art.  Several scenes are also pending music assignment.  This is what I dread most, because music is the most difficult thing to get right.  Even with as much care as I put into it, I still feel like I hit the mark maybe 50% of the time.  

I will have the art to date fully integrated tonight, and all sound effects completed.  

That said, some of the most impactful art is still pending.  We went a little nuts on a lewd scene that ended up hugely exceeding our projected render count and time budget, but we think it was worth it.

What can you expect in Chapter 1?  This is the launching pad for the main plot, and Chapter 1 ends with all of the pieces in place for story to come.  Entitled "Arrivals and Departures," Alex and Jaye will either begin moving toward reconciliation in the wake of the events of the Prologue, or double-down on conflict.  Of course, it wouldn't be Jaye and Alex if dumb shit didn't sabotage their relationship in spite of their best efforts from time to time.

In general, you can expect less Walter and bar chatter, less Jaye (this time), more humor, and (of course) more beautiful ladies crossing paths with our protagonist.  

Chapter 1 introduces several new characters, some of whom will have a presence to the story's conclusion.

As promised, we do not end on a sad note this time, though I won't lie:  Kentyrr got a bit choked up at one point during our full playthrough last night.  If I select the music right, maybe it'll even strike a nerve with some of you jaded bastards that aren't as in touch with your feminine side as he is.  (KIDDING, bruh!)

As of right now, our art inventory already exceeds the prologue, and we expect that by release, it will do so significantly.  

As a writer and developer, I always feel the pressure to meet or exceed our previous effort with our encore.  I expect any dev who says otherwise is lying.  In this case, I think we've met our own bar, and I couldn't be more excited.   Thanks to all of our patrons who have stuck with us through the PC build and holiday delays.  We hope (and believe) it will have been worth the wait!

Holiday Update

Well, Cyberpunk 2077 came and went.   When Kent and I started this project, we figured we'd take a month off for development to play a game we've both really looked forward to.   The good news for all of you patiently waiting for Chapter 1 is that we only took a week.  

Even with the "time off," Kent has generated another 150+ renders for Chapter 1, and I'm cooking off another 20 or so tonight.

The story is moving forward briskly, but we have a major event left to build art for before the chapter is complete.

One of the events we expected to be fairly short and to the point ended up taking on a life of its own, and will be vastly extended in the next installment.

Development so far already exceeds the prologue in size, and we still have a bit to go.

For those of you who are curious about our release schedule, our original hope was to drop it before Christmas as a holiday gift to all of our patrons.  With system builds and the short distraction Cyberpunk provided, we now hope to release by the end of January.

As always, it's important to us to get this right, so we'll keep you all posted as development continues.

Happy holidays, everyone!  

We are looking forward to kicking off the new year right with more of our story!

While we are on Cyberpunk, here's Night City Jaye in front of Afterlife.

Chasing Sunsets Holiday Render Series

Quick Update

This last weekend, Kentyrr was prolific, generating almost 80 renders for Chapter 1!   I'll be folding these into the game tonight and looking for image gaps that would require supplemental art.   Then we'll start working on the first of this episode's "big scenes."

My intent is to have to chapter playable up to the current art either tonight or tomorrow AM so we can release our first beta after this next scene is complete.

While the DAZ Studio bug that is causing us some issues with certain scenes has not been resolved, we've identified a few workarounds so we are not waiting on the software to catch up to our new hardware.

Shortly after Chapter 1 release, we will look at hosting another livestream as well, as we're sure there will be a lot of questions.

We're grateful for your continued support as we tear into the back 40 of this episode!

Your patience will hopefully pay off, as we're already nearing the total art count for the Prologue and we're only 2/3rd of the way done with the chapter.   This is going to more content by all accounts than the last epsiode!

One other quick note...We've taken steps to reduce the image size with no visible loss of quality in the upcoming chapter, so in spite of the greater playtime, the overall file size may actually be smaller than the original prologue which used lossless .webp.

Chapter 1 Dev Check-In

Happy Sunday everyone!

Work is proceeding apace on the chapter 1 update.   Kentyrr and I have been focused on the middle section of the update with a ton of progress, especially in art as our render factories have begun kicking out images at an amazing rate.

We have two more scenes to complete before our beta 1 is released to testers!

There does remain a bug in the current version of DAZ which is causing us some headaches with specific scenes:   In short, iRay crashes if a plane intersects another object.   We use planes for billboard crowd assets and weather effects, and some Chapter 1 scenes absolutely require them.   We're hoping the bugfix arrives in relatively short order.

Right now, Chapter 1 sits about about 66% of the Prologue images and with the remaining scenes, we expect it to be somewhat larger than 0.1.

EviteGames has been kind enough to work out a gallery feature which we plan to implement in 0.2 as well!

Thanks everyone for your patience as we work to bring the new episode to life!

Our new rigs are up and running, and integrated into our workflows now.   Kentyrr is posing about 3-4x faster than before, and I'm rendering the finished work at about the same improved rate.   This means good things for our production cycles going forward.

This did, unfortunately, come at some short-term cost to our development cycle this time:   We probably lost two weeks synchronizing libraries again and getting many gigabytes of assets and development material transferred properly between systems.

In other news, we see there already ports of the prologue that fans have made for the Android Platform and even a Russian translation!

We'll make another dev update after we receive feedback from our beta testers in in the next week or two. 

Those of you who were left a little cold with the prologue ending with a loss will be happy to learn that Chapter 1 will end on a very different note.   :)

In the meantime, happy holidays everyone!   We'll post another update soon!

Chapter 1 Development Update

Happy November everyone!

It's been an eventful month for Kentyrr and I as we drive forward on delivering Chapter 1.  This has been a very different experience for us since when we were developing the Prologue, we were doing so without a deadline.

On that front, we've had a series of setbacks and victories which have kind of balanced each other out.

• Lack of certain assets:  Commissioned customs
• Issues with synchronized DAZ settings after update to beta:  Fixed
• Long render times in one environment:   Added additional lighting

Additionally, I'm now rendering on a 3090 + 2080ti, which has tripled render speed, and Kent has a 3090 expected to arrive next week, which should help him accelerate posing significantly.

We plan to supplement these with an additional RTX 3090 each as they become available, but even one has had a huge impact on our ability to cook scenes.

Without further ado, this here is a snapshot of our current progress in Chapter 1:

Our current focus is on getting art caught up with the script and dialogue so we can get a beta version out to our testers.

For those of you didn't make our Livestream, the focus of this chapter is on the events following the news about James and Sarah that our MC received at the end of the prologue.    This chapter will also really begin laying the groundwork for the plot that ties the entire game together as well as introducing some new characters, some of whom will be with us  for the rest of the game.

We'll try to make sure we hold ourselves to a formal dev update once a week until we drop the Chapter 1 release.   

I'm also locking these updates down to Patrons Only since they get cut/pasted onto pirate sites the same night I make them otherwise.

Now that we're starting to develop a rhythm, Kent and I are also looking at what benefits we can offer the higher patron tiers to say thank you for your additional support.   More on that soon.

Additionally, we have sorted out our SubscribeStar issues if you prefer to support us on that medium, feel free to do so!

Thanks as always for your patience while we work to meet the standards we set for ourselves in the prologue with the next chapter.   We might not always be super chatty in the Discord, but rest assured we're working around the clock to try to get this update out as quickly as possible.

Chapter 1 is shaping up nicely and we can't wait to share it with all of you!

Dev Update: Chapter 1 Progress

First of all, Ken and I would like to thank everyone who attended our Livestream last Saturday!  We had some really good questions, a few really bad ones, and a few we just can't answer without spoiling some plot elements.

That said, the pressure's on now!   At 180 patrons and growing, Ken and I feel like we've made a little ripple in a very big pond with the Prologue.   We're pushing each other every day to deliver even more of what you loved about 0.01 and to streamline around the things that didn't resonate as well.

As stated during the Livestream, we expect Chapter 1 to contain 11 scenes, which is the the same number of scenes as the Prologue.

Here is where development stands:

• Dialogue Complete:   3/11 Scenes
• Art Complete:   2/11 Scenes
• New Character Creation 7/7
• Asset Inventory:  Complete

From our perspective, we're a little ahead of where we planned to be right now, and for the first time since development began, I'm not in the UI tweaking, or playing with custom screens in Ren'Py every free moment while art is rendering.   That doesn't mean we don't have some cool new features planned though!

Just like developers everywhere, we are getting blueballed on our RTX 3090 orders, with zero luck between Kentyrr and I.   We have four on backorder, but those are tentatively expected to ship in December.   Given the horror stories we're hearing about supply vs. demand on these, however, I don't think anyone knows when availability will catch up.  That said, we'll keep trying and we refresh our suppliers every day in hopes of scoring a lucky card.

Most of Kentyrr's new render rig has arrived and he's just waiting on GPU to build that beast!

As for Chapter 1, the art we've rendered so far is looking amazing, and Ken has really pulled out all of the stops to deliver content in some environments we don't see a lot of in DAZ3D-rendered visual novels.   We have some scenes ahead in this chapter that will test our abilities even further, with one location requiring custom models provided by Puggy.

We have gotten tons of feedback from players and other devs alike, and we look forward to bringing some of the improvements and lessons learned from that into our next installment.

While I can't spoil specific story elements, I will say that Chapter 1 focuses on a character other than Jaye.   Our favorite redhead hellcat will still be very much present, but won't be center stage again until Chapter 2.   Don't worry, she's on the splash screen for a reason!

Thanks again everyone for supporting our passion for this story.   Kent and I work what amounts to a second full-time job each week to make sure we live up to our own standards with what comes next, and to do it in a time frame that respects your investment in us.   

Look for another update next week!

Stone Fox Studios Livestream - 10/10/20 @ 3:00PM UTC

Happy October, everyone!   

Here we are nearly two weeks after the release of 0.1 and Stone Fox is already hard at work on Chapter 1.

Please join us this Saturday for a Livestream where the developers will answer any non-spoilery questions you may have, as well as briefly introduce some new characters and discuss development progress on the next update!

Speaking of introductions, please take a moment to welcome our new Discord admin and Livestream host -- Xor from our friends at Thunderline Studios!

Also say hello to our new (and first) Discord moderator and occasional foley for sound effects Hank Rockwell!

We've tried to schedule the event for a time that works for most people internationally.  It's pretty early in the morning on the US west coast, but it's pretty late for our friends down under.

Hope to see you there!

Location:  Stone Fox Studios Discord - #dev-livestream channel.   75 slots.

Chasing Sunsets v0.1a

This is a bugfix build.

All, since the game has released, there have been a number of issues identified.   v0.1a addresses the following:

• Typos in script corrected, some awkward dialogue cleaned up.
• Custom mouse pointer removed.   It was causing mouse lag on some platforms.
• Approximately 20 images were somehow compressed to a lower quality than the rest.   These have been re-inserted at full quality.
• Stat bar customized to match textbox style.

There is no new content here, so if you didn't find the above to be problematic, then wait for 0.2 which will incorporate these fixes as well.

Any further typos identified will be addressed in the next chapter release.

Thanks!

PC Version

Mac Version 

Leak of Legends

It's been a pretty crazy weekend for Ken and I.   Thursday night we released the Patron build of 0.1, and three hours later it had leaked to the pirate sites.

Ken and I apologize that the patron period of exclusivity was so short.  We believe we understand how this happened and how to prevent it from happening next time.

It seems like reaction to our initial release was generally positive, and as they say in marketing, all publicity is good publicity.

Much more importantly, it seems like patron reaction was generally positive, and that gives Kentyrr and I a lot of motivation to kick off Chapter 1.

The upcoming chapter is the last "linear" chapter before the main plot and it's branches become accessible to the player.

The next chapter will deal with the fallout from the events at the end of the Prologue as well as introduce Mallory and set up the main game.  

Forecast calls for tropical warm weather this winter in the Northern Hemisphere!

On October 10th, Ken and I will also host another Livestream Q&A about Chasing Sunsets, our development process, and plans for the future.   Once we've settled on a time, we'll post the Livestream announcement here.

So, what does Public Release mean?  It means we're on F95 and a number of other pirate sites, though the bugfix version with corrected geography and typos remains a patron exclusive.   It means we got such a huge influx of new visitors, we had to segregate the public and patron #general Discord channels.   It means less than a week after launch, we are closing in on 100 patrons, up from 34 pre-launch.   

But none of that matters.   What matters to us is that at first glance, it looks like the story we want to tell is a story most people want to hear.   That there IS a market for thoughtful adult storytelling.

And so that's what we're going to keep doing.   We will continue to improve our processes and hardware, and work our butts off to bring you stories that draw you in.   We won't stop trying to out-do ourselves.

Having so much activity from our initial offering could not have happened without the word-of-mouth and support you've given to us when talking to your friends.   

We offer our sincerest thanks for the faith and support we needed to get our foot in the door.  Now it's time to knock it wide open! 

Chapter 1 is officially green-lit!

Today IS the Day!

Enjoy!   and don't forget to use the #bug-reports channel on discord to report anything that isn't working properly.

PC Version

Mac Version

Well, to say that we underestimated the amount of work a 0.1 release would require is an huge understatement.   As we moved forward, we just kept seeing things we wanted to do, and so we did them.

At about 3:30AM PST I burned our release candidate beta and our beta testers have been providing feedback throughout the day.   There were a few minor bugs identified, which have been mostly corrected, and Kentyrr wants to make a few image edits when he gets home from work.  Otherwise, we so no reason why we wouldn't do our Patron release tonight, with the general release expected a week from today.   

A quick note on file size:  We have been saving files as "lossless .webp" which are significantly more efficient than .png, however the file sizes are still going to be ultimately unscalable.   After talking with other devs, we are looking into a quality 10 .webp as an alternative.  That way, users with slow or metered internet connections can still obtain the game in a reasonable period of time.   The current beta is over 1.6GB in size, and we know that becomes a bit of a problem for some of you.

So, if all goes well in the art department tonight, and our Mac beta tester does not identify any game breaking bugs on that version, we will do two things:

• We will post the download link here for all patron tiers so you can see we what we've been up to.
• Discord will segregate into patron-only and non-patron sections.   Non-patrons in general will no longer be able to chat in patron-general.

A final word:  We realize that every one of you has pledged to us sight unseen.   You know Ken does good artwork, and you know I can use my words.   That said, we realize many of you will be seeing what our project is really about for the first time tonight.

We know you have a limited amount of patron sheckels to spare, and there is absolutely no hard feelings if you decide our story just isn't for you.

One final request:  We'd be grateful if you treated this early release as if you were beta testers.  We'd ask that you hold on to your copy until we go public next week.  Please understand that four months of work showing up on pirate sites tomorrow would be a bitter pill for us.  

I will update this post with download links as soon as Ken and I are in agreement that we have moved from Beta into Production.

Also, take a moment to review the credits to ensure your name is reflected in them as you prefer it.   If I need to make any adjustments, I will do so before the public release.

Thank you all once again for your encouragement, support, and patronage.

What Day is It? Release News and What's Next

Kentyrr and I been burning the midnight oil daily to hit our September deliverable on schedule, and things are lining up well!   

If all goes well, we will have two scenes left to complete before the end of the month:  One of them is relatively short and already partially rendered, and the other is somewhat longer, but critically important to the story and may require up to 60 renders on its own.

Since the last post, we have finalized nearly 100 new renders, completed the script and dialogue, and folded sound and music into the build where art is complete.

Additionally, we broke our own rule and allowed a little scope creep by expanding a scene significantly in a way that we think you will all enjoy.

I've spent some time working on a few quality-of-life widgets in the code, such as first-run volume suppression and custom transforms for certain image transitions.

As we head into the final weeks before release, we may be fairly quiet in the Discord as we are 100% focused on making sure we not only hit our target, but that we stick the landing.

We have opened the new Patreon tiers in anticipation of launch.  We have also opened Itch.io and Subscribestar pages for visibility when we launch.   We'll work on maturing these sites and getting them integrated into Discord after public release.

We're struggling with offering anything with the VIP Tier that will cost development time, such as personalized renders.   We've limited it to 10 for now just in case we can't figure out an alternative.  Ultimately it's more important to us that our update quality is consistent and our timelines are met.  

So, what's the plan after release?   Kentyrr and I will take a week off from development to spend with our families and catch up on sleep.   

We will do a post-release Live Stream in early-to-mid October, and then work on the next exciting chapter of CS right up until the release of CyberPunk 2077.

In the interest of full transparency here, anyone with a GPU above "potato" level will take some time off to play that, so we will likely pause Patreon for one cycle to get it out of our systems, and then we'll be right back in development mode.  

Not only can we see the light at the end of the tunnel now, we can can smell the outside air!

Thank you all for your continued patience and support.  We are humbled by the interest so many taken in our project!

If everything remains on track, my next post will be to share release timing and details our patrons!

Dev Update: Beta 0.1h Complete - Final Sprint!

Great news!   Last week, as promised Beta 0.1h was released to beta testers, and the response has been very positive!

Kentyrr and I are working diligently on the final content update for the 0.1 release with one of three scenes fully rendered and dialogue written through to the end.

Music and sound has been layered in through the existing content, and that's surprisingly proven to be the most challenging aspect of development for me yet.

Sound and music files are usually far too loud by default to be used in Ren'Py, even with the volume slider at the player's disposal.   

Not only that, calibrating sound effects against the background music is an entirely subjective process, and sound setups vary so wildly among players, even Kentyrr and I have differences of opinion on what the appropriate levels for different effects should be since we have different speakers and headphones.  

That said even as the writer, I have found myself shocked on occasion at how much more emotion music can pack into a scene.

As the story has progressed, we see (above) our MC and Jaye are older now, and all of our future artwork depicts them both as adults.   Read into that what you will.

Remaining work centers on the climax of the intro, along with our first full-blown lewd scene.   We continue to aim for a late September 0.1 release.

Thank you all once again for your early patronage.   While we never dared to hope we'd have believers before we had a product out the door, the outpouring of support from all of you has absolutely given Kentyrr and I the confidence to continue.

While we both spend a minimum of 10 hours a day on this project, my GPU spends significantly more.   Toward the end of September, we hope to have 4x 3090 GPUs between us, for a grand total of 41,984 rendering CUDA cores for iRay.   That is literally 10x our current rendering power.  

Hopefully this will mean that posing becomes our single biggest time investment after the intro.

We're very excited to show you all what we've done.   Our current beta testers are:

Ugulugulu

PandaDrummer

Hank Rockwell

King4Bear

Xor

Feel free to ask them anything you like about what they've seen so far, but they won't be sharing spoilers.

One other note:  Every current patron, regardless of tier, will always have an honored spot in the credits as a "Pre-Release" patron, which will scroll before high-tier patrons post-release.   

Continue to check the Previews channel on Discord for sneak peeks of imagery and music from our game!

Version 0.1 Progress Update

I try to make a daily update in the Discord #general channel, but will likely limit Patreon update posts to once every week or two to spare you email spam.

Work is moving ahead on schedule, with no setbacks (knock on wood) in the past two weeks.

We are still shooting to launch in September, barring any surprises.

As of September 1st, Patreon will be set to "Bill Ahead" mode.   No current patrons should get double-billed, but if you do, please message us and we'll process a refund.

As a special "thank you" to our early backers, Stone Fox will release v0.1 to all patrons two days ahead of general release.

We're getting very close to the end of the 0.1 development cycle, and we are very excited for you all to see what we've accomplished.

Hopefully you'll agree that our story is the beginning of something you'll want to see through to the end!