Chasing Sunsets
Chasing Sunsets Chapter 9 (v1.0) Released!
Well, here we are near the end of a journey that began three years ago.
Tonight, we release Chasing Sunsets Chapter 9, which brings the main story arc to a conclusion.
There remain several updates before we move on, however.
The next update will be an effort to stomp out any bugs or other inconsistencies in earlier chapters, eliminate duplication of any assets, and settle on a compression method that Kent agrees is a fair balance between visual fidelity and file size.
Chapter 9 will lock in the player's ending, which will be explored in greater detail in the final content update hopefully by the end of this year.
There are still some story lines left to wrap up in the next update, as well as some exposition on how things will evolve for characters as the ripple effects of their decisions expand both through family, friendships, and even the world.
As of today, Chasing Sunsets contains just shy of 16000 renders, 200K words of story and dialogue, nearly 150 pieces of music, and nearly 300 different sound effects.
Our game contains nearly 100 different characters with speaking roles, and has 204 achievements.
Chapter 9 explores a world that has grown smaller for our protagonists after returning from the island. Against the continued threats from the usual suspects, Mallory wants to return to the fun she and the main character had the first time they met: Outdoors with no labels on their relationship.
Needless to say, Mallory is well aware of Jaye's bungalow adventure with the main character, so she knows the bar has been set pretty high. Will she be up to the challenge?
Meanwhile, Jaye is wrestling with the specter of her medical school dreams evaporating, and all of this while the pressure is still on from their government and corporate enemies to nip the threat posed by Mallory's existence in the bud.
We will see some new faces as well as revisit a few from earlier chapters as events converge on a trajectory that, unsurprisingly, ends where it began.
There are changes beyond the content addition. You'll notice a new main menu with updates to dated animation, and improvements throughout the UI.
Additionally, Kent added his first animations to replace the slideshow lewd psuedo-animations scenes in the Prologue and Ch1.
Where do we go from here? Chasing Sunsets moved on from Early Access on purchase platforms today. While we will add one more content update, and modernize the oldest parts, our focus will begin moving toward our next project, Firebreak.
We hope you enjoy Chapter 9 as much as we enjoyed making it. We hope you laugh a little, maybe get a little bit of the feels, and, of course, enjoy our ladies doing what they do best.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us on this project. We couldn't do it without you, and we hope what we do next only raises the bar.
You'll find the Mega and Gofile links posted on the pinned message above.
Comments
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iv already purchased the game. do i have to pay for chapter 9 on top of my previous purchase as there is no option to just update to chapter 9
I am asking the same question, do i have to pay again? where is the update?
The latest links are all of the chapters including 9. There should be no need to repurchase. Just redownload.
Love this game , but the big question now is whats next ?
From Patreon:
"next project, tentatively called "Firebreak."
Here's what I can share about it so far:
This is where we take some of the lessons we learned from Chasing Sunsets and apply them in a way that makes the long wait between updates more bearable.
We also recognize that while slow burns have their place, (we will certainly include them in Firebreak), these are called Adult Visual Novels for a reason. We thought a lot about a story vehicle to deliver more of that kind of content convincingly earlier in the game without cheapening or overcomplicating the relationships with ladies you may like, but find less interesting."
I have been awaiting this update with eagerness as Chasing Sunsets is a top three AVN for me - truly outstanding overall. But despite its many strengths, I was disappointed with the update in one regard. My one, significant, gripe is that the open relationship track leads to Mallory withdrawing from the love relationship with the MC (right after a flaming hot play date that she arranges!). She and Jaye are "getting closer", they both know about each other's relationship with the MC and both deeply love and trust him. The MC has just saved Mallory's (and Jaye's) life and has reconnected her with her lost puppy, on top of helping her with her other childhood traumas and the health of her childhood friend! Why don't the three of them ever sit down together and discuss the issue? Maybe work it out? As you write the story, tthey all, and especially the MC, lack the emotional intelligence to talk it out and make it work. I realize that this track would have required extra work for a story that has taken 3 years to date, but I was very disappointed at you closing out this possibility - especially based on a decision made several chapters earlier.
I was similarly disappointed. One of my secondary playthroughs is open relationships with both Jaye and Mallory but otherwise no cheating (i.e. reject Bianca and Lisa, etc.), and although Jaye seems open to the idea of getting Mallory involved, Mallory seemingly "dumps" MC in the scene after the log cabin.
Confusingly, in the chapter summary at the end of Chapter 9, it says that "I have chose Mallory as the love of my life", which seems a bit odd.
We'll have to see what happens in the epilogue.
For what it's worth, I realized after release that once the player embarks on the casual path, he is not given an opportunity to change course recover from that poor choice.
One pitfall of development is that you understand the pathing so well, it's easy to fall into the trap of assuming everyone else does too.
While I think both girls' displeasure was adequately telegraphed, it does seem unfair to punish the player in Chapter 9 for a single choice made in Chapter 6.
The result will be the v1.01 patch, which will add an additional scene. This scene will provide the MC an option to be proactive about making things right before decisions are made for him.
While it will not add new endings, or provide a casual route for both LI's, it will be far more fair for player agency.
This will not protect the MC from the consequences of cheating (while in a committed relationship) however.
I hope this helps.
I expect this patch version to be ready sometime tomorrow.
Fantastic update! Chasing Sunsets is in my top 3, and I've played far too many of these games! Every character is pitch perfect, and the MC isn't a rapey douchebag!
However, I have a problem: When using the default Renpy renderer (which I think is GL2), I get these weird glitchy flashes during transitions and animations. I get these on every game. So I normally just switch to the ANGLE2 renderer (Shift+G) and that fixes it. But using the ANGLE2 renderer with Chasing Sunsets causes an error in some of your transitions at chapter end/start and some other points. Here's an example traceback:
Full traceback: File "game/scripts/story/chapter4.rpy", line 5070, in script call screen chaptersummary with dreamyzoom File "E:\Games\ChasingSunsets-1.0-pc\renpy\ast.py", line 2232, in execute self.call("execute") File "E:\Games\ChasingSunsets-1.0-pc\renpy\ast.py", line 2220, in call return renpy.statements.call(method, parsed, *args, **kwargs) File "E:\Games\ChasingSunsets-1.0-pc\renpy\statements.py", line 281, in call return method(parsed, *args, **kwargs) File "renpy/common/000statements.rpy", line 609, in execute_call_screen store._return = renpy.call_screen(name, *args, **kwargs) File "E:\Games\ChasingSunsets-1.0-pc\renpy\exports.py", line 3181, in call_screen rv = renpy.ui.interact(mouse="screen", type="screen", roll_forward=roll_forward) File "E:\Games\ChasingSunsets-1.0-pc\renpy\ui.py", line 299, in interact rv = renpy.game.interface.interact(roll_forward=roll_forward, **kwargs) File "E:\Games\ChasingSunsets-1.0-pc\renpy\display\core.py", line 3377, in interact repeat, rv = self.interact_core(preloads=preloads, trans_pause=trans_pause, pause=pause, pause_start=pause_start, pause_modal=pause_modal, **kwargs) # type: ignore File "E:\Games\ChasingSunsets-1.0-pc\renpy\display\core.py", line 3912, in interact_core self.draw_screen(root_widget, fullscreen_video, (not fullscreen_video) or video_frame_drawn) File "E:\Games\ChasingSunsets-1.0-pc\renpy\display\core.py", line 2609, in draw_screen renpy.display.draw.draw_screen(surftree) File "gl2draw.pyx", line 839, in renpy.gl2.gl2draw.GL2Draw.draw_screen File "gl2draw.pyx", line 1341, in renpy.gl2.gl2draw.GL2DrawingContext.draw File "gl2draw.pyx", line 1322, in renpy.gl2.gl2draw.GL2DrawingContext.draw_one File "gl2draw.pyx", line 1322, in renpy.gl2.gl2draw.GL2DrawingContext.draw_one File "gl2draw.pyx", line 1236, in renpy.gl2.gl2draw.GL2DrawingContext.draw_one File "gl2draw.pyx", line 1191, in renpy.gl2.gl2draw.GL2DrawingContext.draw_model File "E:\Games\ChasingSunsets-1.0-pc\renpy\gl2\gl2shadercache.py", line 278, in get rv.load() File "gl2shader.pyx", line 230, in renpy.gl2.gl2shader.Program.load File "gl2shader.pyx", line 213, in renpy.gl2.gl2shader.Program.load_shader ShaderError: ERROR: 0:45: '*' : wrong operand types - no operation '*' exists that takes a left-hand operand of type 'const float' and a right operand of type 'const int' (or there is no acceptable conversion) ERROR: 0:47: '*' : wrong operand types - no operation '*' exists that takes a left-hand operand of type 'const float' and a right operand of type 'const int' (or there is no acceptable conversion)If I switch back to the default renderer, these errors don't occur but I have to suffer with flashy glitchy transitions.
I'm using a GeForce 3080 on WIndows 10 64-bit.
Hopefully that's enough information to figure out the problem!
EDIT: Added the full stacktrace since that seems to have lots more useful info.
It doesn't tell me which transition is causing the issue, unfortunately. I'll be posting a patch (v1.0a) in the next day or two. I'll see if I can track this down and eliminate the problem transition between now and then. Do you remember precisely where you got this error?
Thanks!
It looks like it's the "dreamyzoom" transition? It happened in multiple places, so I'd guess that it's not just one specific instance of the transition which is problematic but the way the transition is coded.
One instance is at the end of chapter 2 in the transition from the ending scene to the chapter summary.
If you're using the Skip function (Ctrl or Tab), it doesn't trigger because I believe that skips transitions, so you have to get to that point and click through normally to trigger the bug.
I'll remove the dreamyzoom transition from use. When Ren'Py updated their video renderer, something about that bit of code always behaved a little wonky. It's not so important to the game that it's worth keeping.
Thank you for the bug report!
The beta for 1.01 that is undergoing review right now has all "dreamyzoom" transitions removed.
It's been a blast - I enjoyed the game, will enjoy the coming release, but I ALSO very much enjoyed both your work ethics. You delivered what you promised and very much on time. Thank you and kudos for that as well. And the story was good fun !
Thank you kindly, that means a lot!
Bittersweet to be so near the end, but I'm pleased to see that there is another game to come. I've loved the writing and art. Looking forward to playing this!