It's been a few weeks, and I thought I'd share a little about how Chapter 5 is shaping up.
In short, we have one major scene left, and the lewd scenes and any animations that go along with them to wrap up.
I added a minor scene yesterday when I did a chronology check and realized there was a dot I had failed to connect in the original script. This will add about 60 ...
2022-03-09 20:08:23 +0000 UTC View Post
Kent and I have been going gangbusters on Chapter 5, and I thought I'd take a few minutes to talk about what to expect.
As of today, 2/19, it feels like we're approximately 50% of the way through the update.
The first half of the game was really about setting up the dominoes for how they'll begin falling in the second half. We almost succeeded too! In the in...
2022-02-20 01:42:48 +0000 UTC View Post
Just a quick note for those of you who are interested: CenterWork has been kind enough to create an Android port of Chasing Sunsets and we'd invite any of you who prefer to use that platform for VN play to give it a test drive and provide feedback.
There are some minor UI changes and other accommodations that were necessary for the touch UI and renderer.
If you run into anythi...
2022-02-07 02:56:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Just a few quick updates we wanted to share today, even if most of them don't pertain to Chapter 5 development directly.
First of all, we've begun building an official web host and file server that we hope will make us independent of Mega or other third party file hosting services. This should come as good news to those of you running into file transfer quotas on that platform. &nb...
This is where the rubber meets the road, as we say. Kentyrr has been churning away at artwork while I construct the details of Chapter 5 in parallel. It's sort of the meat-and-potatoes point of the development cycle where we don't have a ton of specifics to provide other than to say "We're on it!"
Our new characters have been created and are integrated into our workflow,...
2022-01-24 02:53:31 +0000 UTC View PostFor those of you who missed the event on Discord, you can listen to the Chapter 4 Post-Release Livestream on our Youtube channel!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FLOLl0qtT4&t=1274s
2022-01-11 00:28:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Just posting a reminder that the Stone Fox post-release livestream is about 13 hours away as of this writing.
Kentyrr and I will talk about the development of Chapter 4, take a look ahead at the second half of the game, and answer questions from the Discord and our online audience. For those of you who are unable to make it, we typically post the recorded livestream to our Youtube w...
2022-01-09 03:16:47 +0000 UTC View Post
UPDATE: We are pushing this back a week to Sunday, January 9th due to illness with Stoya and availability with our emcee. We apologize for the late notice!
Just a quick reminder: Stoya and Kentyrr will be participating in our post-release livestream on January 2nd hosted by our friend Xor of Thunderline Studios! 16:00 UTC ...
It's been a crazy year for many of us, but our supporter community is one constant Kent and I both have come to count on.
We thank each of you who have helped us along this journey from the heart. We never forget to dance with the ones who "brung" us, and we offer a toast to you and your families as we prepare to dive into a new year with fresh hope for a return to normalcy.
P...
2021-12-26 00:18:04 +0000 UTC View Post
A few days have passed, and we've built a pretty solid list of bugs. Kent and I have been on the case and following threads so we could lock down anything that shook out.
Here was our bug tracker as of this morning:
Bug Tracker 0.5
CRITICAL:
Merry Christmas from Stone Fox Studios!
I'll make a longer post tomorrow, but here's the update a little early!
I'll post the changelog after I've gotten some sleep, but Kentyrr and I are pleased to announce the release of Chasing Sunsets Chapter 4 to all tiers.
With this release, have introduced a number of improvements, but the codebase has been completely reorganized,...
2021-12-18 09:14:57 +0000 UTC View Post
It's official...This will be our last update until we release. As promised I can project a release date of 12/19 now. We may be ready sooner, but we're giving ourselves a little wiggle room in case something comes up in the release candidate that's bigger than a breadbox.
Chapter 4 Beta test has been under way while the final art has been rendering in parallel for about ...
2021-12-08 06:48:16 +0000 UTC View Post
The storm has nearly arrived!
The Alpha build is complete, pending some art, and achievements, scene galleries, and feature integration is wrapping up.
I use the term "post production" because the update is 100% playable from beginning to end and no new content needs to be added. The end of chapter summary and points are fully populated and all of the branching is in place. 2021-11-22 21:17:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Last night at about 3:00AM, Chapter 4 hit a major milestone. The final words of the Chapter were committed to the codebase, the playthrough choices were all tested. So far I do not see any plot holes or issues which look like they will require major re-work in our largest chapter to date.
As of today, my best guess is that between 500-600 still images remain to be rendered bef...
2021-11-08 23:51:58 +0000 UTC View Post
Things are coming together now, along with a few surprises we haven't advertised before.
(See the alternate animated splash screen above, courtesy of our friend Puggy!)
As we pose and render through the final scenes, including the mid-story culmination, Kentyrr and I have been working on music selection and integration work for the art that is already completed.
Once art is finished, there remains the achievement, points, and narrative refinement before we can go to beta. 2021-10-30 20:31:35 +0000 UTC View Post
It's that time again, folks! Kent and I have been very busy, and Chapter 4 has seen some hard-won progress! While descriptions are good, we think a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is where we are currently from an art perspective:
*Red-shaded means complete
With...
2021-10-19 17:46:58 +0000 UTC View PostUPDATE: Following feedback on this post, I took the matter to a dev-only Discord for discussion, and did some research, and I am glad I did. I couldn't find any documented cases where an indie dev ran afoul of Steam with Patreon or Subscribestar. I did find conflicts with the Epic Games Store and Itch.io, but to my mind, those are platforms that directly compete with Steam for the sale of a product. With that in m...
2021-10-14 17:40:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Here we are just about a month following the release of Chapter 3, and we've made a lot of headway.
As of today, Chapter 4 is about 45% complete, and Kent is averaging about 25 new images per night.
I've been working on a few items requested by patrons:
It's time to do that thing again!
Most big efforts are really many small ones pulled together, and developing a visual novel is no different. Reflecting back on the lessons learned in previous chapters, we're doing things a little bit differently this time.
Following the traditional week off following release, Kent and I are gearing up for the long weekend (Labor Day in the US) to hit the Chapter 4 development cycle like the fist of an angry god.
For those of you who don't know the process, I typically begin with a chapter flowchart built in Scapple, and a scene list. Before rendering any art, Kent will go searching for the assets he n...
2021-09-03 19:54:21 +0000 UTC View PostWhile Kentyrr and I traditionally take a week off after a release, that doesn't mean we aren't thinking a lot about what happens next in our story.
Chapter 4 will be entitled "The Storm," and as teased in Chapter 3, will reveal Mallory's agenda as well as introduce some new faces on the island against the looming backdrop of Tropical Cyclone Leinani.
We will further flesh out some of the MC and Jaye's childhood history, and take a peek into what's been going on with our favorite b...
2021-08-29 15:24:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Stone Fox Studios is pleased to announce the all-tier availability of Chasing Sunsets Chapter 3 to Patrons on Patreon and SubscribeStar.
Chapter 3 is titled Hide and Seek, and is comparatively heavily-branched compared to previous episodes. Remember, there is no way to max points between all characters going forward.
We prefer the player does what fee...
2021-08-27 21:59:11 +0000 UTC View Post
This is just a short update to let you all know that the last art finished today and has been rolled into the game. We've cut our initial alpha which is in the hands of the beta crew.
There remains some feature, sound, and minor content tweaks in addition to implementation of feedback from the beta team before we can compile our beta release candidate, but this process ty...
2021-08-22 03:10:28 +0000 UTC View Post
For those of you waiting patiently, let me get the bad news out first: Stoya will be spending the next four days on holiday while Kentyrr works to finish up the art for Ch3.
It was our hope that we'd be done before this long-planned trip, and we *almost* made it, but fell just a little short.
As of this morning, there are about 400 lines of code that are pending art. ...
2021-08-12 19:07:53 +0000 UTC View Post
Happy Friday everyone!
I just wanted to take a few moments and give an update on our progress with Chapter 3.
To our frustration, the past two weeks have proven more challenging than hoped. Kentyrr's move has been complicated by helping the rest of his family move as well, and I gave him a scene that has proven significantly more challenging to create art for than anticipated. 2021-07-30 05:54:27 +0000 UTC View Post
All, it's been a couple of weeks since I've made an update, and I apologize for the comparative radio silence.
A scene that seemed pretty straightforward on paper has proven to be much more difficult to execute than expected, so our back is against the wall a little on time (much like Alex's is above!)
While just over three scenes (2 small, and 1 large) remain, they occur in...
2021-07-18 16:24:38 +0000 UTC View Post
It's been a week or two, so I figured I'd let everyone know where Chapter 3 stands as of today.
Art, as always, is the long-pole item for us. We're learning the hard way that the yacht itself is a poorly-designed asset with wayyyy too high of a polygon count to take for granted. We're playing with some scene optimizer tools to reduce render times for future content, but some o...
2021-06-21 19:41:08 +0000 UTC View PostThe latest version of Chasing Sunsets is 0.6b (Chapter 5).
Updated 6/3/2022:
New Patrons: If you ever try to download the the latest build, and find links are invalid, please send us a message so we can get that fixed for you! We are our own file host now, so if there's an issue, we should be able to get it fixed quickly!...
2021-06-08 13:27:18 +0000 UTC View Post
Development is moving full speed ahead on Chapter 3. Kent is cranking out art at his usual prodigious pace.
The first two scenes of Chapter 3 are playable with art in the process of backfilling scene 3.
There is unlikely to be much in the way of new features in Chapter 3. What we are looking into is how best to make the phone accessible at any time, so you ...
2021-05-27 21:17:17 +0000 UTC View Post
Hard to believe, but it's been a week since Chapter 2 launched, and Kentyrr and I would like to welcome our new supporters! Thank you so much for the encouragement and support.
Response to Chapter 2 has been mostly positive, and the story is primed to move into the main conflict. &nbs...
2021-05-14 16:09:32 +0000 UTC View Post