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Stone Fox Studios - Firebreak and Chasing Sunsets Roadmap
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About This Title
With Firebreak's launch in the rear view, I thought I'd take a moment to talk about what comes next and in what order.
Firebreak is a much more ambitious project than Chasing Sunsets, and the story itself has a lot more ground to cover. That said, Chasing Sunsets is not being abandoned. With our current-gen VN framework largely finalized, we can now begin the process of migrating the Chasing Sunsets story into it, updating some of the older art, and cleaning up some of the mistakes, branching issues, and sanding over the myriad small issues that arose from my spaghetti code.
Complete Firebreak Storyboard and build chapter map. (Complete)
Identify what went wrong with link distribution on launch day and fix. (Complete)
Finalize Chasing Sunsets Remaster (YOU ARE HERE)
Begin Firebreak Chapter 2 (Pending)
First, I want to address some misconceptions that have reached us. The first is that Firebreak does have an Image and Replay gallery, just not on the main menu. To reach this, go to Character Info > Select Character. From there, you can view the vital statistics of any unlocked character, and the photo and scene galleries are visible at the top.
Secondly, I will be updating the Guided Mode to disable only Achievements. As of 0.1b, Gallery and Photo unlocks will continue to function. The penalty was overly punitive in hindsight.
As of version 0.1a, we are offering a 1080P version and a 4K version to patrons so you can choose which meets your system capabilities and download patience better.
Also, as of 0.1a, the music files are unpackaged so patrons can listen to any of the tracks that ship with the game without decompiling the project. This will continue as our music inventory expands with each new chapter.
As for Firebreak's trajectory, I currently have 14 chapters and at least six full-game endings storyboarded.
Most chapters will also have one or more early, or bad endings. They will generally follow the same pattern as the bad ending in Chapter 1: They'll be more than a few lines of narration with an abrupt Game Over. We'll generally strive to show the player WHY their game ended early as a story beat, before giving them the option to return to the fatal branch choice.
The next four chapters will focus on two of the unconscious crew first. We get to that number using simple math: There are nine crew, and one of them is definitely not in the same state as the other eight. Throughout these chapters we'll also see interactions with love interests who are not in the Mesh. After Chapter 5, the cast will be larger and the game will shift into the second act, which I will not spoil here.
The number of love interests isn't a flex to say "more is better." Each of the crew serves a role in the story that goes beyond being simple prey for a horny program manager.
There was a lot of world building and exposition in Chapter 1, and unfortunately that didn't leave a tremendous amount of time for players to get to know the crew outside of Angel. I look forward to changing that as the story moves forward.
We'll keep an eye on interest and reception. Obviously, if the story fails to resonate with fans, we won't throw good dev time after bad, but we also knew we made a number of tonal and scope shifts with Firebreak that might feel jarring to people who were expecting a smaller story more akin to Chasing Sunsets.
A larger story shouldn't mean a character traffic jam, however. For those who are worried that their girl will get lost in the clutter, I can only say that we love them each for different reasons, and we intend to give each of them not only their time time shine, but also to legitimately fall in love with.
Unlike Chasing Sunsets, where a number of girls were introduced as the game progressed, all of our cards are on the table with Firebreak on day one. The cast will not be expanding, at least from a love interest perspective.
Still, no matter how diligent we are about giving each girl her due, that comes with a trade-off and a legitimate concern: There may be chapters where the girl you like the most is less present just by virtue of us being two dudes part-timing this.
With that said, we will do our level best to make those waits worth it.
Best,
Kent and Stoya
With Firebreak's launch in the rear view, I thought I'd take a moment to talk about what comes next and in what order.
Firebreak is a much more ambitious project than Chasing Sunsets, and the story itself has a lot more ground to cover. That said, Chasing Sunsets is not being abandoned. With our current-gen VN framework largely finalized, we can now begin the process of migrating the Chasing Sunsets story into it, updating some of the older art, and cleaning up some of the mistakes, branching issues, and sanding over the myriad small issues that arose from my spaghetti code.
Complete Firebreak Storyboard and build chapter map. (Complete)
Identify what went wrong with link distribution on launch day and fix. (Complete)
Finalize Chasing Sunsets Remaster (YOU ARE HERE)
Begin Firebreak Chapter 2 (Pending)
First, I want to address some misconceptions that have reached us. The first is that Firebreak does have an Image and Replay gallery, just not on the main menu. To reach this, go to Character Info > Select Character. From there, you can view the vital statistics of any unlocked character, and the photo and scene galleries are visible at the top.
Secondly, I will be updating the Guided Mode to disable only Achievements. As of 0.1b, Gallery and Photo unlocks will continue to function. The penalty was overly punitive in hindsight.
As of version 0.1a, we are offering a 1080P version and a 4K version to patrons so you can choose which meets your system capabilities and download patience better.
Also, as of 0.1a, the music files are unpackaged so patrons can listen to any of the tracks that ship with the game without decompiling the project. This will continue as our music inventory expands with each new chapter.
As for Firebreak's trajectory, I currently have 14 chapters and at least six full-game endings storyboarded.
Most chapters will also have one or more early, or bad endings. They will generally follow the same pattern as the bad ending in Chapter 1: They'll be more than a few lines of narration with an abrupt Game Over. We'll generally strive to show the player WHY their game ended early as a story beat, before giving them the option to return to the fatal branch choice.
The next four chapters will focus on two of the unconscious crew first. We get to that number using simple math: There are nine crew, and one of them is definitely not in the same state as the other eight. Throughout these chapters we'll also see interactions with love interests who are not in the Mesh. After Chapter 5, the cast will be larger and the game will shift into the second act, which I will not spoil here.
The number of love interests isn't a flex to say "more is better." Each of the crew serves a role in the story that goes beyond being simple prey for a horny program manager.
There was a lot of world building and exposition in Chapter 1, and unfortunately that didn't leave a tremendous amount of time for players to get to know the crew outside of Angel. I look forward to changing that as the story moves forward.
We'll keep an eye on interest and reception. Obviously, if the story fails to resonate with fans, we won't throw good dev time after bad, but we also knew we made a number of tonal and scope shifts with Firebreak that might feel jarring to people who were expecting a smaller story more akin to Chasing Sunsets.
A larger story shouldn't mean a character traffic jam, however. For those who are worried that their girl will get lost in the clutter, I can only say that we love them each for different reasons, and we intend to give each of them not only their time time shine, but also to legitimately fall in love with.
Unlike Chasing Sunsets, where a number of girls were introduced as the game progressed, all of our cards are on the table with Firebreak on day one. The cast will not be expanding, at least from a love interest perspective.
Still, no matter how diligent we are about giving each girl her due, that comes with a trade-off and a legitimate concern: There may be chapters where the girl you like the most is less present just by virtue of us being two dudes part-timing this.
With that said, we will do our level best to make those waits worth it.
Best,
Kent and Stoya
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