On the subject of making backups that cannot fail to occur, you could do something like write in notepad++ and then install notepad++ on a locally mounted cloud drive (far easier to do in linux than windows) using something like rclone’s (free software) mount/vfs features. That way notepad++ was constantly autosaving directly to the cloud (performance might suffer though).
Anyone know of a better way to write text that is backed up with no user action (so that you cannot forget to do it)?
Have the source files be located directly in the cloud? Or write a service that copys the files in a set interval.
Hey - longtime lurker coming out into the open just to say that A) sorry to hear you were in Texas during that storm and B) all hope may not be lost re: Forks. Even a full drive wipe doesn’t actually erase all your data unless you then completely fill the drive with random data. Before you do anything hasty with that external drive, take a look at some free file recovery software. It may be able to reconstruct most of the files on the drive and save you the headache and months of lost time.
If they decide for the nuclear option they already declared they won’t work on it anymore which means it won’t be released in the same state since other people will pick up the scraps, writing it out doesnt change that
Oh come on! I was going to sound so smart suggesting that! But your idea is great. I don’t have a better one but I do have an equivalent one that may be easier to explain.
Ahem. You create a git repository online where you save EVERYTHING! Then, make a simple script, say in GTK, to count a few minutes and then run the terminal commands for pull, add everything, push and commit. Then compile and set that as a start-up application and you’re golden. The reason I suggest git is that it’s got terminal commands and they are trivial to handle programmatically.
And the reason why undelete works for anyone interested, is that computer memory is less like paper and more like a humongous abbacus. It’s meant to be written and rewritten without smearing and losing readability. Also, since computers are properly good at following protocols, any unnecessary space in between info is saved so you have two completely unrelated numbers written right next to one another. The only way you know which is which, is because at the beginning there is a header it reads along the lines of “Hey, for the next 16KB there is an important text file”. If you, or a tool, delete it, the easy and usual way is to just rewrite the header to say “For the next 16KB, there is nothing, overwrites welcome”. But you may still read the rubbish in there and see whether it makes any sense. I hope someone at least finds my lengthy explanation interesting
Adding to what @namad said
I have recovered deleted partitions before, however in my case i only deleted the partition and did not write any data, not sure you could if data was written also.
I have also recovered deleted files. With individual files, assuming the specific bits the file was written to, was not written over, the file will still be there on a hard drive untill such time as they are written over. With the exception of a few programs that specifically write all 1s or 0s over a deleted file most just tell the operating system to mark the space on the hdd as free, and the file as deleted. the recycling bin on windows works by not fully marking space on the hdd where the file is locateded as free to be written over untill you empty the file out of the recycling bin, meaning the files in the recycling bin wont be written over until the recycling bin is emptied.
I guess its also important to note, that unless whatever program your formating a drive with specifically is writing over the entire drive to erase it(most don’t). They simpily are changing the partition table on the drive which tells it sequentially what bit groups go to what partition.
In your case were you formatted the drive then probably about 20gb or less data would have been written to it, most likely the first 20gb or less worth of bits on the drive was written over meaning all files stored not in those first 20gb or less would still be there and recoverable by a drive recovery program. I’d take a stab at drive recovery software to scan the drive and by chance see if the files are still there. Most of the time when i do something boneheaded like this they are(i have done stuff like this multiple times i feel your pain).
Thank you, @zdeerzzz, @MaybeIDontExist, and @namad ! I’ve looked through the drive with NTFS Undelete and it could not find the script file. Found 145 files, mostly photos and nothing important. That may be something Media Create Tool did before creating the 32GB boot partition. I’m just surprised it never asked me which drive to format; I’d expected to see a list like when you’re installing Windows proper. I must have missed something.
The scenes in question were likely only ~10k words, so while it’s not a terrible loss (that’s only a few days’ worth of NaNoWriMo!), it is a major blow to morale. It had taken so long to even get that far, and the thought of immediately starting over isn’t appealing right now 
I’d been so careful until now; I still would’ve taken a break without Aria, but with Aria I at least have something creative and productive to focus my rage on.
@maldy
You bet, here’s a Tier 4 Alex. Alex was supposed to get here towards the end of the planned update (in her 1 focused scene):
Multiple scenes alluded to Alex getting new clothes eventually, starting in Tier 5 she has a new wardrobe.
@Kitsune Nearly all of Forks’s files are already backed up, and I work directly within the cloud. These scenes were from a quick scribble/idea Word document that I kept locally as I never needed it long. The problem this time was that these scribbles turned into full scenes from within that document, unlike every other Forks scene. I should’ve realized what I’d done and moved the scenes elsewhere (likely within the Ren’Py script). Even better, I should’ve just stored my chicken scratches in the cloud too.
@Hello213 We’re using git for Aria! E taught me how to click the pull button and everything 
As much as I enjoy building computers and solving problems, I can be very illiterate when it comes to programming. I do enjoy learning though, so thank you for the explanation!
Depending on the situation you could run something like foremost and carve the whole drive. Photorec does something similar (but is potentially more intutitive). Simply not finding the files listed is not really much of an indicator given how small and unencrypted text data is. If you found 145 files you did not recognize at all, then I agree those would be files deleted after being added to a new partition that overwrote the old partition. If you found 145 files you did recognize that would mean you were looking at the correct partition (and in this case my hope meter would go from about 0.1% to 50%).
But even if the partition data for the files was gone, if the drive has not been used much since the event occurred, and you’re lucky, you could potentially carve the files back. With something like a video or image this can be tough because they are compressed using some sort of codec style system, meaning the file has to have header information in order to be recoverable. Although things like word file format can make this less effective.
If the drive has been turned into random noise or a flat 0 by a formatting tool carving the drive will yield nothing at all (sad, but also simple). If the drive hasn’t been properly formatted and you carve the drive you’ll get an insane number of files and need about as much free space on another drive as the sadness drive has total storage (potentially much more). It might be maddening to look through these files. With say video files this process would be pointless, but if you’re only looking for text. There is some small hope at least.
TL;DR: But based on your word choice above “Found 145 files, mostly photos and nothing important.” My hope levels would be low. However, if those were 145 personal photos that you yourself took or created? My hope level would be much higher. Because it might mean that ntfsundelete found 145 GOOD files. However ntfsundelete can be told to recover BAD files. Like I keep saying, a bad text file might still be almost perfect. So, yeah, IMO, if it were me, if those 145 photos look like stock microsoft image backgrounds? I’d prolly give up, but if they were your own personal photos? I’d try carving the drive, or at very least telling ntfsundelete slash testdisk to recover not just “good” files but also “bad” or “damaged” files.
Sorry about Texas weather and the data.
Question? Will there be a demo for non Patreon users for Aria in the future or is it exclusive for Patreon only until full release or like a beta.
Strangely, every photo I found came from the same directory! There was garbage in there as well, but the pictures it found were clear. I may try going back in using Undelete and see what else it finds. I’ll post about it if I find something good! WG has such helpful people 
@FallenKing107 Thank you, today the high was 71 degrees and it looks like nothing ever happened. 7 inches of snow (the deepest I measured around me) was a lot for us, but it wasn’t just the snow’s fault that things were so bad. It didn’t have to turn into the disaster it was.
More positively, there will be public demos for Aria! There will be Patreon exclusives, possibly including spoiler content (like TF drafts and important story WIPs), voting for new character paths, and more focused demos for testing story routes. Public demos will be fewer but more generalized, but the goal is to still keep content flowing.
My hope is to eventually have it as:
Patrons will get more demos with fewer changes in between, public demos will be fewer but feature more new content with each release. I plan to build public demos off of private ones, instead of like Forks where I had to remove content (like extra portraits) between updates. One should lead directly into the other, which means less bookkeeping! The open-ended nature of Aria means that we could potentially update it for a long time to come.
So, what you’re saying is, if we manage to outsupport other fetish fans on a patreon poll you’ll work on WG content before ear expansion fetish content?
this guy is playing 4D chess here. we should all support the patreon and follow this plan. its the perfect crime
Oh, I’ve thought about that~ 
I’m not sure how far into the story I’ll let patrons vote for at a time. Most TFs have 4-5 total stages, including the WG path. The poll may only be for a stage or two of a path, I’m not yet sure. I’ll likely want to space things out. What I’m thinking of doing is introducing players to a few characters with the first/second demo, then letting players vote for who they want to see more of.
Rest assured, I’m not doing ear expansion . While there will be “exotic” TFs, there won’t be people turning into clothing, bed sheets, 1993 Ford Broncos, or even the Denver Broncos. You’ve seen the way I approach fetish content with Forks, and Aria’s going to be similar.
Edit: On the plus side, you may actually get to see nudity this time. One of Hannah’s future scenes involves Alex sucking on her nipple, as if she were nourishing her to grow even fatter. I never got to write the spicy stuff, and hopefully I’m up to the challenge!
So is there going to be 4-5 stages of transformation for each path total, or is that just what’s currently planned? Also does that mean that a jump from say stage 2 to stage 3 would be a lot more pronounced then in Forks? Finally, can you mix and match different transformations? Like perhaps you can have the characters be fat AND a 1993 Ford Bronco.
I’m interested in Aria and I hope it does well! Transformation isn’t really a fetish of mine but I just find the narrative of a transformation story to be very fun as like a side thing to weight gain, it’s weird lol.
Happy that you’re ok, even if you are angry with yourself. I’ve been in a very similar situation of making a file that’s supposed to be just for temporary ideas, developing too much content in that file, then losing it and just feeling crushed and angry. Working on Aria full time until writing Forks feels good again is a great idea!
Looking forward to all future releases form team Spoon, both Aria and (eventually) Forks!
Losing work like that always sucks, man but I’m happy you’ve at least found some way you can take your mind off it for a bit that’s both fun and productive for you! Looking forward to seeing how both games come along.
First of all, I’m really sorry to hear what happened with forks. I’ve dealt with crashing pcs before, and it sucks (I am now obsessed with saving everything on drive)
I wanted to ask this before, but now, it is a bit more fitting: I’m a writer, and I was looking to see whether help writing for forks would be of any interest to you, since you have now switched to Aria. I’d love to be able to help out with making what I deem to be one of the best, if not the best weight gain-centered VN.
(I originally wanted to send you a message but, sure enough, I did not find how to do so)
In all cases, good day to you.
Agreed. I hope for nothing but success for the dev team, but I am not going to feign interest in Aria, a project in early development that will only lightly explore weight gain, especially when the same team has provided over a year’s worth of updates and hours worth of playtime for Forks, a game wholly dedicated to the weight gain fetish that is seemingly in its final stage of development. As many others have stated, I would be happy and willing to throw some cash towards the team’s Patreon if I knew the funds would contribute to the development of Forks, but of course, we know that is not the case. Writer’s block is hard to shake and data loss is devastating, so I sympathize, but over these last couple of months, we have been told that work on Aria is being prioritized over Forks. With the demo having released only a couple of months ago, it now feels as though the rug has been pulled out from beneath our feet. I used to find myself checking this site for a Forks update every couple of days; at this point, however, I think I’m just going to refrain from checking all together and see if a couple months away yield positive progress.
Yea, I don’t really want to play backseat game developer, but I honestly don’t think Forks OR Aria is sustainable with just Tron as the only writer. I’ve seen a lot of complaints and criticism about Trons writing on this thread, and while I think the intent behind the criticism is legit I think it ultimately is frankly sabotaging to the project because I see a lot of Tron talking about second guessing himself and doing constant rewrites, where honestly, it doesn’t really matter and doesn’t have to be perfect. The intro sequence doesn’t have to be rewritten like a million times, it’s fine.
I think Tron should seriously look into opening up to other writers, maybe ask them to demo out writing a scene to see if their quality enough for the task.
Thank you, both for the kind words and offer to help write 
!
Unfortunately, I’m not sure how well that would work, and not because of you, but because of my own shortcomings. For me to say I did everything I could both for you and everyone waiting patiently, I’d have to:
), it can be extremely difficult for me to articulate myself. I can at least understand my own draft gibberish!
), but rather to make sure I’ve put in all the necessary effort to assist the writer and prove that their work matters.Much as I was (rightly!) worried about sticking to a release schedule, I’m worried that I wouldn’t be able to support an additional writer as well as I’d like. Toro, e, and Ars all have their own jobs beyond my expertise, but writing is something I can do. It’s just not always a smooth ride 
@LisaPage I feel like I’ve done the same, and I’m sorry to you and anyone I’ve disappointed. This whole time I’ve felt like I’ve needed to do something right now to fix this, so I can push this out ASAP. Keeping things in high alert isn’t healthy for me, and though I’ve calmed down from my stupid, self-inflicted setback, I think the best thing I can do to recover from this is take my time and slowly build new scenes up as I can.
This won’t be fixed this week, next week, or even this month. I’d take a break and wait until you can be surprised by an update, that way you can hype yourself and enjoy it at your own pace. One of my biggest mistakes was misjudging how long the polishing phase would take and starting the hype machine early. I don’t want to do that to anyone again.
@ButteredToast25 Thank you, I wish I’d known sooner how quickly I’d burn myself out trying to rewrite the intro. However, that it happened at all speaks to my inexperience, and I need to improve myself as a writer if I’m going to deliver a satisfying conclusion. If I can’t sustainably write Forks or Aria, then I’m a lousy writer and shouldn’t be here . All I’d be then is the “idea guy”, and I can’t do much with that!
Whew, it’s getting late and I hope I’ve helped explain myself. If I’ve left anything out, please say so and I’ll be back!
