I wonder what Heather next weight milestone will be, on a side note for replayability purposes i found out the PAGE DOWN key allows you to skip chunks of text, still a nice expericence.
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An thoughtful debate from you both! Always happy to see them.
Shevlander you bring up many fair points against LIly, and never to fear her actions won’t ever be just ‘swept’ under the rug. She will have to address them sooner or later down the line. Though I’m sorry if she’s a complete no-fun character for you. As she ‘hopefully’ does have her good points! Her attempts to make Sophia and Veronica happier are 100% real, she truly wants to love and support them. As she does for pretty much everyone in town.
Altair123, love reading your thoughts on this! Glad so many people see Lily as more than a sexy minx (even though she is!) she does have a heart as well! And unlike Cynthia she does put some people before her own pleasures.
Happy “Gallahad”" is still remembered! While we haven’t shown her for a long bit, she has not been forgotten by me, and her role in the story will come into focus in later updates! Surprised to hear her compared to Simon, but I guess I can see it. She just needs to start getting her harem together.
Though one area I will comment on, don’t be so sure about the origin of Lily’s parent’s state! While a part of it has shown, there’s still more to the story yet to be told!
One area you both mentioned was the tea scene where LIly had the girls drink the special sauce to go to Acedia happy dream land forever. In full honesty, while I wouldn’t ‘cut’ the scene, I would probably change up bits of the scene and pace it better if I were to write it now. Make it less of Lily ramming the tea down their throats before they had a chance to make up their minds.
That scene came from update 0.1, and is one of the MANY things I wish I could have done differently. The tea scene is the most notable, but whenever I play the early days of Apostles I often see lines from Sebastian/Gretel and think “Oh, that doesn’t quite fit their character”.
Part of that is that I didn’t have the full story of Apostles quite planned out yet. I mean in Apostles 0.1 I was pretty much making EVERYTHING up as I went along. I made characters at complete random with no real inkling of what they would do in the future. Case in point, the 4 adventurers at the inn were never meant to last. When I made them, I planned to capture them in update 0.1, fatten them up to insane proportions update 0.2, and then never hear from them again by update 0.3. Obviously, that didn’t quite end up happening!
Another part of it is that it took actually writing the characters and story to get a better feel for it. Which I think is somewhat common in this sort of thing. Looking at shows like “Star Trek TNG” “The Office” or “Always Sunny” compare their seasons 1’s with their season 5’s. While the season 1’s of those shows might be good, the pacing and characters aren’t ‘quite’ right, and it takes a bit for the story to find its footing, getting into the pacing and the personalities of the characters.
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So far the new update has been absolutely fantastic! But by the time I beat the 5 flowers in the dream 1.0 will be out
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Well that’s one thing I do admire about this game, it’s always adapting and changing to find the best path forward. A lot of games like this wouldn’t take the time to double back and alter what could be made better.
As I said before, I was sure I would hate Sebastian originally; but he slowly turned around to being my favorite (Mainly due to his character growth with Heather) so I have full confidence now that you can do something similar with L.
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Admittedly I did presume the girl with mind affecting powers affected her parents mentally 
, and I still think very few characters have truly crossed that “moral event horizon” (Besides Cynthia definitely and Dina and her mom possibly) so I still enjoy the Apostles as the granters of sauce that they are, here’s hoping .10 knocks it out of the park 
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In the Cook & Magic section, it is possible to slip horizontally between the trees in the “hub forest” near the spikes and venture into the other connected maps. I kind of thought it was going to be a joke on proper caution in tilemapping until I accidentally tried going to the “town” and got softlocked. Fortunately, I had the foresight to save before doing any boundary breaking shenanigans.
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@Montresor Sorry about that, uploaded a new version that hopefully fixes that bug, among a few others.
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Wait, so we aren’t supposed to go through the trees? bc in my game thats really the only thing i can do after i clear the snow area
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I just finished the update and I liked the content (aside from the dream novel mini RPG, which I feel was slightly subpar despite not finding any bugs), but I think that the story structure was bad. In the previous update we got to see the fortunes of Auburnwoods turn for the better, Gretel begin to have a change of heart, L do positive things that didn’t involve sex (namely setting up the carnival), Sebastian gave a large and interesting lore dump involving himself, and the world at large, Heather called out Sebastian on his shit, and we got to see Vinny take a bit of a dive. In addition, we got a teaser of things to come with the (temporary) reunion of Greg and Pamela, Sebastian was pulled away from the festival for an emergency, and we heard that Penny must be planning something specific with Ed and Al.
This update had Sebastian give a lore dump, Heather call him out on his shit, and not much else. The lore is interesting and I can definitely tell the effort that was put into it, but there was ultimately not much forward progress with the story, just added complexity with the fake apostles plot point. I do like it and think that it’s an interesting direction to take the story, but without anything else to push the plot forward it doesn’t feel like there was any progression.
It certainly didn’t help that a lot of Heather’s activities ended with a long text box, which then transitioned to a long text box. Once that is done you would go to another activity and potentially another long text box. The pacing of text to visuals seemed off and made the experience start to drag for me at parts.
One other point of contention that I have with this update has to do the the skippable scenes. There should have been a warning about what kind of content would be in them. The Heather slob scene had no indication of what it would be nor how far it would go. I heavily enjoyed it myself, but not everyone does and without a way to know it is very easy to get into something disturbing. I would have preferred that you put an Extreme Slob warning in front and actually showed us the turd. The same thing applies with the Sebastian backstory. I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but the scenario that Mrs. Pupper Kuppers was fattened up in is inherently erotic to some (child torture excepted, of course), so I think that a furry warning should have been given due to how divisive it is. Plus, you said in the sprite room that you regretted giving a choice that only served to remove content because people would almost always choose more content, and I’m sure that it is the case in this update. The only indication that they would be so far beyond the pale was a forum post that will be buried years from now, so anyone who plays through this portion of the game later on may be easily blindsided by them.
Overall, I think that I wouldn’t change any of the content (other than the mini RPG), but I would have interspersed it with other content that wasn’t a teaser, such as Sam and Steph’s fight, or rehashed what happened last update, such as Maya and Jacob’s new relationship with fat.
With that done, I’d like to give my perspective on L. I think that she’s a phenomenal character, possibly the best in the game, but that she’s been poorly executed. What we can reasonably put together from what we know is that she is still young, and received her Apostle powers recently; probably around six years ago. Her powers were definitely involved with messing up her parents, although we don’t know that she was using them at the time, especially since her home is full of maids that share at least a portion of her power. Assuming that she is a fully formed Apostle, then she was almost certainly forged by Lady Cynthia.
Since she is now contained by Sebastian, that means that he, and maybe Gretel, must have arrived around the time that L became the Apostle of Lust. Cynthia was contained, and Sebastian put some form of lock on her mind that prevents her from questioning things. How much she knows about the overall picture is up in the air for now, but what is clear is that she only knows about what Sebastion and Gretel are doing, and not the why. She saw them helping good people and punishing bad people and was told about the Niss, so she copied them because why else would she be given those powers? What else could possibly be the reason for this?
She isn’t stupid though. She knows that there are things going on behind the scenes seeing as she is left out of a lot the issues that both Gretel and Sebastian have. Since she doesn’t have any real experience, she doesn’t understand the nuance of holding back. She has these powers, why not use them? Doing things the slow way isn’t fun, it just prolongs the suffering. What do the methods matter when the end is the same? If she believes that her powers exist to bring good into the world, why have any restraint in using them?
The reason that she pushes Mauve so hard is that she isn’t told to hold back or stop. It’s a way to flex her muscles and use her power the way that it was meant to. Since she obviously needs to do it to recharge, why not use it on someone who deserves it? Her powers are literally divine as far as she knows, so she has to be in the right. The same logic also applies to Heather.
When it comes to Dina, you have too realize that she is so awful that not even L power can stop her from being a rotten bitch. It is such an uphill struggle to get Dina to not be completely awful that I can’t blame L for being so hard on her. If L didn’t already have Mauve, she would have taken Dina in a heartbeat and broken her more directly.
While this makes for a compelling character that is ripe for exploration, the simple fact is that in a lot of scenes she is annoying. Her one track mind and complete lack of patience undermine her in far too many scenes. All Apostles of Lust might be unstable, but that fact doesn’t help any of the scenes that L has already made worse. When she works she works well, but when she doesn’t she really doesn’t and there are unfortunately more scenes where she doesn’t work than there are where she does. I hope that she gets more attention story wise sooner rather than later. She is the only Apostle of Niss that hasn’t had a deep dive into her backstory, and it is very much to her detriment.
As for her being rapey, that kind of comes with the territory of Apostles. Every character with power is grey as shit, and the theme of the game seems to be that people do shitty things and the main characters aren’t exempt from that. Plus, it isn’t fair to call out L for being rapey without calling out Sebastian as well. He only needs his victims to be lazy, the fat is simply him forcing his fetish on to them. L literally has to have sex and explore her kinks, Sebastian doesn’t.
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@Mad_Innit You should be able to go through the trees and go to the fire area. Before however there was a way to pass through the tops of the trees and wander off the map.
@Purplgr Whew! Thank you for the long and honest thoughts!
Sorry to hear you did not quite enjoy the formatting of this update, though you aren’t the only one to have said it. I think in update 0.2 (the update in the memory room where we got a few minutes with everyone in town) suffered from showing too many characters for too short of a time, and this update 0.9 suffered from focusing on too few characters for too long a time. A learning expereince! Hopefully next time the update will find that sweet spot of enough characters for the proper time.
Though on the point of not much foward progress in the story, that is just the nature of Apostles. We aren’t rushing towards a finish any time soon, this game is a slow burn. Some updates will focus on the plot of the present timeline, while other updates will focus on showing the audience what has already happened, like the flashbacks with Sebastian.
On the skipable scenes, I suppose I just have an aversion to too many “4th wall breaks” to tell the player what is about happen, as I think it can in a way spoil the reveal or surprise. If for example before the Mrs. Pupper’s Kuppers scene I gave the warning “weight gain, and stomach bursting ahead” then you’ll know what’s bound to happen in the next 5 minutes, and all tension will be lost.
Onto the matters of L! While I won’t give any spoilers, I will say you are somewhat wrong on several of your assumption on Lily’s past, so stay tuned and get ready for the real story to come out!
Sorry you find L annoying at times, but that’s just how she rolls! In all seriousness though some of that in intentional as you can’t have character growth without there being a ‘reason’ for growth. So hopefully you stay tuned and see how dear L develops in the future.
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Don’t worry about the slow burn aspect of the game, it works very well in it. The overall structure of the game is great, this update felt like it accomplished less than the last one despite being longer while hitting the same notes. If there was even one update in between I’d be less critical of it. Focusing on a smaller cast of characters can definitely work, but I feel like it would be better to have a couple more characters get focus, or experiment with the plot progression during it. Of course, you know more about making a story then I do so my advice should be taken with a grain of salt.
I’d like to give an example to illustrate my complaints with how L is written. In the game Xenoblade Chronicles there is a character named Riki. He is a goofy character who has been noted to be an annoyance that detracts from the game because there are many scenes where he interjects with talk about how hungry he is or making fun of someone who does something stupid in a way that tonally clashes with the scene. There is an optional conversation where he explains that he knows that he isn’t as strong or as useful as the others, so he intentionally acts goofy whenever everyone else gets down to cheer them up. That is great for his character, but it doesn’t change the fact that what he does still clashes tonally in a bad way.
I perfectly understand where you’re coming from with the spoilers thing. I don’t mind Mrs. Pupper’s Kuppers ultimate fate being hidden, especially since this game has done arguably worse things before. The thing is that fetishes, at least to me, are distinct from plot developments. I like not knowing where a story will lead, but I also like knowing what type of content I’m supposed to be fapping to. Full on animal fattening and scat are at the extreme ends of the fetish spectrum, and some people can be perfectly happy masturbating to someone who is being corrupted into a food stained slob, some of them will have their good time ruined by Heather taking a shit. I certainly enjoyed the whole sequence, and I enjoyed the way that Mrs. Pupper Kupper was fattened (the way Cynthia corrupted him with sweet praise into gorging on endless magical treats despite it being harmful to her health). Not everyone will enjoy those scenes because they are deeply opposed to them in a way that they aren’t opposed to non sexual adult content.
In a similar way, L can get a great backstory that enriches her character, but that doesn’t change the fact that in many scenes she detracts from them. She defaults to extremes whenever she can, which might be an important part of her character, but I can’t sympathize with her when she asks for constructive criticism on her muffin story and gets offended when she gets it despite reassuring Sebastian that she won’t. Or when she starts screaming because she has to wait for a few minutes. Or when constantly puts down the other Apostles for having a different approach in life than go go go. Those scenes will still be bad because of how often they happen in a row even though she might get redemption later, which I’m confident she will.
I’m not trying to complain, I just wanted to further clarify my points. Whatever happens, I’m still looking forward to the next update!
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@theworsteverdev
On the matter of what kind of warnings to give players, that I think is just a case where everyone can’t be pleased. Without a warning players might stumble into content they’d rather not, but with a warning the reveal of a scene might be lost.
While I do want to, and try to follow player feedback as much as I can, I do have to disagree in the matter with L. While I fully respect you or anyone not finding her to your liking, or seeing her as annoying, it is not something I would be willing to change. Yes at times she can immature, loud, and completely unreserved unlike her two companions. But those are the aspects I like about her, (with of course there being other parts about her I like!) While there are some aspects of her character that will grow and mature a bit, I think she’ll be yelling “When you say Pussy, I say potato” from the rooftops from many updates to come.
All the same, I hope you still enjoy them, and hope that Lily will grow on you!
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Thanks for hearing me out even if we ultimately disagree about certain aspects of the game. And who knows, maybe my opinions about some of her less desirable scenes will change. I was beginning to get annoyed by the fishes bit but the payoff was definitely worth it!
Something more concrete to note is that you can use the mouse to move around and when you do, it has the arrow icon from Heather’s chicken minigame even when starting a new game.
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How different are the two routes of each other?
I have always chosen the romance route with Heather´s, but i want to know if the differences are really big or just some small details (and that´s fine by me btw, i i don´t want to discredit the work you have put into the routes, just asking).
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@theworsteverdev And thank you for the conversation and for being understanding! While I won’t change lily 100% over night, I will keep what you said in mind, and try to avoid her going too overboard with her antics too much of the time. Hopefully you will find her more fun in the future as she grows on you like a sexy fungus!
For the arrow icon, that’s actually been in the game for a bit! The way the Heather mini game works is that while we see Heather sitting in the chair, the ‘player’ is invisible and running around interacting with the chickens.
Though you do bring up a good point of perhaps it’d look better if Heather’s mini game had its own unique arrow icon? Not sure if that is something I can set, but I"ll look into it!
@Uncausedwaif So the romance and friendship routes on the blue path are pretty in line with one another, with the only difference of course being the sex scenes, and a few bits of conversation here and there.
Red path is pretty different as it has a much angrier Heather who refuses to play any of Sebastian’s minigames.
Red path Heather actually doesn’t have a route this update, and I’ll be making a patch soon for it.
First progress report for the next update, update 0.10! (I know that’s not how decimales work, sue me)
We’ll head back into Auburnwoods proper for this one, and catch up on all the characters we haven’t seen in a bit. Gretel will be joining Pamela’s husband as he tours the town that has ‘grown’ a bit since he was last around, and Lily will be up to her usual unusual antics at the inn with Sophia and Veronica.
Hope everyone enjoys what’s the come! And if there’s a particular concept you want to see in game (be it story or fetish) let me know! I can’t always say yes, but some of the best ideas in the game have been fan submitted, and I’m always happy to add one more fetish to the list on Apostles!
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Your version number is correct. It’s not a decimal, it is the number 10.
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female sumo wrestling, that fat clown girl, and more heather, maybe dressed up as a nun
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