itch.io

I hope that, should controversial fetishes ever be added, they will be an option I can turn off before they turn ME off.

Don't. All russian "VN translation groups" are chucking out crappy AI-translated slop to make money off other people's works with zero effort. Don't encourage them, don't make any deals.

I'll tell you how to tell them apart. They have a boosty - they are scammers as described. All good russian translations of VNs and especially FVNs were made by enthusiasts for no profit.

DO NOT FALL FOR THE SCAM.

I love the animations and movement, but I'd really love for the damned twerking to be replaced with something else, please...

It's from Luke's love route. Agree with him and support him more. Pick the "Kiss him" option on the beach.

"Too bad this VN with actually competent writing, a breathtaking story, and good humor has NO PORN ART in it! 0/10, won't recommend" - Furries, I guess.

On a more serious note, this VN is receiving way less attention than it should.

I'm not going to pretend it's the best thing ever - there are some minor caveats, but all downsides are greatly out-weighted by the upsides.

The writing style is actually good - it's easy to read, it's not wasting your time, the humor is light and funny, the characters are interesting, the erotic scenes are genuinely well-written, you get plenty of choices on how to play through the story, and there's a whole bunch of endings that are not decided in the last 3 minutes of the plot.

Easy recommendation, do check it out!

Hey, no sweat, it's the only bug I ran into, so it's not that big of a deal even if you just let it be.

Also you don't need to justify height control, it's just a QoL feature, so please don't make the protagonist a robot - I love the relationship dynamic with the husband.

Sure, the husband is nameless, and yes, you can only express yourself to him through sexual acts and slices of stale pizza, but it's still a very sweet dynamic thanks to all his quips and reactions. This dynamic, together with the premise, really gives the game a personality, as opposed to the thousands of simulators of taking things apart. 

And I really think you should consider eventually making this into a proper game you could sell for more than two bucks. You are seriously onto something here - the premise is eye-catching, the process is relaxing, the humor is good. Just improve on it a little and it will gain traction.

Do you really need so many characters? I know the urge to populate the world, but it's starting to look like you're adding a new character for each singular function in the story, or sometimes even without one, just pointless background characters. Is that really necessary? 

The main cast was already more than enough to tell plenty of stories.

I think you might be getting carried away and bloating the project beyond reasonable for yourself.

Most people won't care if a character who only appears once will be just a silhouette, don't waste time and effort drawing extras. 

Not a single project has ever came out exactly as envisioned, every single developer had to cut corners and settle for the best available option instead of their dream option.

Sorry if this is a bit rude, but I want to see your game finished, not stuck in eternal limbo of development hell.

I'll be honest. This is awesome.

I hope you'll make a second game, or maybe work on this one more - would be cool to have more interactivity with the husband, like maybe being able to make him hold something while you work, or have him comment on more things than pizza.

Also would love it if the game required a bit more thought process and effort on the player's part - like there being a correct sequence in which details must be disconnected and disposed of on level 2, and more terminals getting disassembled prompting you to have to pull progressively more and more levers and punch in  more complicated commands around the room regularly on level 3.

Also please increase player's control over speed and height. If the player was always moving faster and could slow down by holding down a key - it would be lovely. Also it would be great to be able to control height, maybe with mouse wheel, since the sitting and crouching positions do not always make it easy to each some places.

(also please squash the bug that reverts you to standing stance when you walk over things, it's annoying)

Anyway, great game, please make more - it was fun and smart, we need more games like this! :D

I love this project, but I don't know what to make of it.

The artwork is great, the writing is decent - the characters, the banter, the jokes, it's all competently written, a whole head above the average furry VN level. 

Of course, a lot of it, particularly the worldbuilding, doesn't make sense, but you think: "well, it's a goofy porn comedy game, it doesn't need to make  much sense".

And then the game suddenly shifts gears, completely changes the tone, and tries to tell you a serious story where people suffer and get hurt, get messed up, used, abused, and even murdered. The same goofy porn comedy characters in the same goofy porn comedy world.

It's going for the dramedy genre I guess, but the drama part just doesn't feel to me like it fits in that same world.

Maybe it's just me. 

I still recommend everyone to try it - it's a good project well worth your time.

A letter to Keo

Dear Keo, grow up already and address the issue like an adult.

Enough lying that you listened and addressed the concerns, while making changes to something that was never at the forefront of the discussion.

Stop pretending this is about how thin the lines got or how shading changed.

Quit hiding from your own community and just talk to us.

Admit that there was a change to the visual direction of the game. You are not helping the issue when you say this is just an all around improvement and nothing has changed. We're neither blind nor stupid, so quit treating us as such.

Make a statement that the change to the visual direction is final. That's what your actions have been saying so far anyway, so make it official already - you won't listen to any calls to changing the style, it's time to quit giving people false hope you might listen if they politely call to your reason long enough.

And finally, apologize to everyone unhappy with the changes in VN's visual direction. We've been supporting you for quite a while, you owe us that much. Your silence has been disheartening and just plain rude.

========================

A letter to everyone unhappy as I am

I'd like to thank all of you for being a pain in Keo's ass together with me. 

Thank you for not letting them pretend like they have an overwhelming support of the community on the unnecessarily drastic and sudden changes to the visual direction of the game.

Keo has been acting in bad faith, attempting to swipe the issue under the rug and you did not let them. I'm proud of you all. Game developers must be always called out on their bad actions and that's exactly what you've done.

Maybe I've lost faith, or maybe I am finally seeing the situation clearly, either way I've grown completely disenchanted with the project. Those who remain and want to keep up the fight - give them hell! I am with you in spirit, if not in presence.

========================

A letter to everyone supporting the changes

You have been incredibly tone-deaf to the situation, self-indulgently praising a change towards a visual style more appealing to your fetishes, CELEBRATING other fans getting backstabbed and robbed of something they loved by the very developer they have shown nothing but kindness and veneration for years and years before you even came around.

I genuinely wish you to end up in our place at some point in your life. Might even happen with Dawn Chorus - that would be ironic.

========================

Thank you everyone for lending me your attention. I'll see you around in discussions of games not made by people acting like children. 

Play only good games. 

Peace!

I appreciate what you're trying to do, but I think I'll refrain myself from playing that VN. It doesn't seem like my kind of VN and I would neither enjoy it nor be able to say anything good about it afterward. So I better not.

Sorry, I don't have the energy to argue about this. I am completely devastated by these changes and it pains me to discuss them at all. I just thought you would be interested to know about the update on the sprites, that's all.

Keo updated Broken Harbours with the new sprites of Rune and Devon, go check them out! :D

See, I said you were evil! Why would you even put it there if it wasn't meant to be opened? I replayed the game on hard just hoping to get that door opened - it's even shown as a pathway on the map!..

Great game though, I'm really glad you keep making them, you have a real knack for it, will replay again. Maybe not twice a year like EHF, but I will.

p.s. What's the official name for Melinda's pony-wolf hybrid? Is it Polf? Hopefully not Wony.

Completed on normal, got to the final boss on hard and still don't know how to open this door in the basement. 

Hopefully not by 100%ing the yellow orbs!

Oddwarg, I love your games ever since EHF, but I want to put your balls in a meat grinder for how evil is your code for the behavior of those flying snitches. They check if you're cutting them off, they detect you from way too far away, they turn around instantly, and they SPEED UP when approached, and OF COURSE they are making the most annoying sound in the world the entire time they are around - I was only able to catch any of them with sound turned off, because otherwise it's literally torture.

I collected several of these flying self-inflicted torture devices, each taking WAY TOO LONG, and gave up on the rest, it's just not worth it to hunt them down with how ridiculously annoying it is.

I said what I said and I'm pretty sure it's not a ship I'll have to go down with.

Looking forward to discussing this with you after you see the sprites for yourself.

Though I really think that after everything you've heard about them, you should be asking Keo to show them already, not just be sitting on your hands till the controversial sprites go live. 

The cat is out of the bag anyway, and Patreon subscribers have known for a while now.

Sure, if by "great" you meant they will have a "generic furry porn vn where everyone is buff" look.

I mean... The new sprites are not horrible, but to have them replace already established looks is just a travesty.

While following Mikko's route, on day 2, after the lecture, don't pick option "Tag along". That's enough to fail his route and get you to the worse ending.

He isn't just losing hands, he is losing everything below that point, you just can't see it because his shorts and shirt are different sprites layered above his body sprite. You can try to cause the bug when Torulf is naked and you will see it.

Have you updated your video driver? If you did and the game still does that - upload your log somewhere and link it here. It's generally considered VN developer's responsibility to report to Tom all the Renpy bugs found in their VNs.

Or you can report it to the Renpy github yourself, if you have a git account or don't mind making one. https://github.com/renpy/renpy/issues

That's the thing, the new sprites look generally good, they could be put into any other VN and feel right at home! But they are a bad fit for the project.

We're not an anti-everything-new mob of luddites, the old sprites could be improved, of course. But after so many people got used to the old designs, it must be done with respect for said original designs!

Dawn Chorus is a fascinating passionate project, telling intimate down-to-earth stories of interpersonal relationships with incredible nuance. It really doesn't need to look like a generic furry porn game...

Fair enough, that was a bit too much, and I'm sorry. 

I overreacted, so it's for the best you deleted that comment. 

But you really should share the news about the upcoming sprites rework with itch/twitter/bsky users yourself.

It's big news and it worries me you are not only keeping it secret to anyone outside patreon, but are also ignoring any criticism even patreon subscribers are giving.

I apologize for being rude in my original comment, but it was passion for your project that commanded my actions. I am very concerned that the original sprites are being treated with such disregard for what made them good.

Yes, the old sprites aren't perfect, but they have their charm and they have been the official look of the characters we all grew to love. People love these characters the way they are, warts and all. You can't just discard their old looks and expect everyone to get on board with such drastic changes in design.

I don't believe there's malice in your actions, I know how game development, in its messy process, often makes things fall in place just perfectly to make for a disaster. 

But you need to be more open about this and keep the community more involved in the process of this change. You own the game, but you don't own the community, however there's no reason for us to antagonize each other. We can work together to make this change a true upgrade everyone will be happy about.

I understand you are a small team and your resources are not endless to keep remaking things, but I hope you can see this is a big change and it really needs more attention than this fire-and-forget approach.

Please don't be a stranger to your own fans.

Update your video card drivers and see if it helps. 

Older drivers have been having various issues with RenPy for a while now and there are no plans to fix that, since the user is supposed to keep their video drivers up to date anyway.

p.s. When reporting a renpy VN bug - you should, at the very least, provide log.txt from the game's main directory, as well as a screenshot of the problem, in case of a visual bug. More often than not, it's very hard to help using only a short description of the problem.

Thank you again for your replies - I wish more developers were this active and open with the community.

Oh hell, I know the struggles of being a jack of all trades on your own project only too well, so I get it, I really do. You did what was right for you and the project at the time and I'm not going to argue with that -  you certainly have a clearer picture of which scenes for which routes need releasing first. I should not have tried to advise you on that. Not only was it not my place to do so, it was a wrong approach to the problem.

And thank you for apologizing. I regret initially being so harsh now, there was no need for that attitude, I 'm sorry. 

And I want to be helpful here, not just nagging. So here's a thought - why not add menus for the choices that aren't implemented yet? Sure, one or more buttons would say  "(NOT IMPLEMENTED YET)", but that would still warn the player where they are going and give them some semblance of choice - "either leave and wait till your desired route releases, or check out this route that's already here, you might like it". Seems like that approach would keep everyone happy, or at least safe from becoming unhappy the way I did, wouldn't it?

Either way, thank you for your time, I took enough of it already. I'm sure we both already got what we could from this particular discussion anyway. I'll be back to check on your progress sometime in the future(I might even be lucky to have some control over whom the MC gets intimate with this time around, ha)

Guess who's the only itch.io-bound maniac butchering Dawn Chorus' gamefiles.

Okay, the variable is called "nhia_beer" and it's only semi-important in Torulf's route. All other changes are small and happen during the fireplace party, here's a full list:

(spoiler)

During the fireplace party, changes numerous inconsequential lines like whether or not Lake gives Arvo another bottle, and who chugs soda during "Never Have I Ever".

During "Spin the bottle", if you are on Rune's, Bjorn's, or Torulf's route, sober Arvo can ask "What makes you happy?", while drunk Arvo can instead ask "What do you think of me?". 

During "Spin the bottle", on Rune's route, when Lake dares Rune to kiss Arvo, sober Arvo tries to protest. Drunk Arvo decides he is "in no state to protest" and is pretty much anticipating it.

During "Never Have I Ever", if NSFW is enabled, drunk Arvo can wreak havoc at the table by saying he never thought about drinking his own piss. Chaos ensues when he scores some points.

In Torulf's route:

During "Spin the bottle", if they haven't slept on day 1, drunk Arvo asks why Torulf has been avoiding him. Sober Arvo gets normal questions.

Changes what Arvo asks Torulf after the fireplace party, if they haven't slept on day 1 - drunk Arvo once again asks why Torulf has been avoiding him, and sober asks what's between Torulf and Lake.

Sorry to break it to you, but the target of your delusional para-social "relationship" does not need your protection - never did, never will.

Thank you for your reply and your support on this, but no, I'm not interested in any human VNs right now.

Furry VNs have major advantage over human VNs because they start with a generally higher suspense of disbelief just because they are not about humans. So it's easier to enjoy them even when they are not perfect. And I already have a list of furry VNs I need to have a look at, which I am slowly but surely going through already.

You're welcome! 

Devon's route is probably the most realistic one in what's already a very down to earth VN. It's how most young people's first serious romance goes - they just get bothered about it and keep seeking the company of their crush afraid to make a move.

I personally love all of them, except maybe Bjorn's, but that's because it has events that feel like they should be a choice, yet they are not.

Still, I recommend you to play all of them(and don't forget the Klaus route like I did!), as each is very interesting in its own way. Though I definitely recommend you play Lake's last, as it's soul bleach because of how sweet it is, and you're going to need that after some routes.

Huh... Thanks for replying - despite the situation, it's nice to see a developer being active and patient with the community. With how angry I was, I was half-expecting to come back to a report or a ban.

But still, you can see where I'm coming from with this, right? It's just... I just got invested and then... Boom, suck a dick, player. And it's literally with the least attractive person in the entire game to me - both physically and personally, some bara fish dudebro who can't speak like an adult. I get it's a fetish, but it's not my fetish and I didn't enjoy being forced into it.

After I wrote that comment I kept pacing the room, seething, wondering if you did this just to insult the players who chose Dom or Axel - punish them for not choosing any of the bara men in your VN with mostly bara men. Not going to point fingers, but I've seen VN authors do this sort of thing before. I see now that's not the case here, but that's the mind space your VN put me in - I was seriously suspecting malicious intent, and I'm sure it's not how you want to make your players feel.

Why would you even first implement the route of doing something, instead of starting with the route of not doing it? No, I get it, you wanted to put out sex content before sfw content, because that's what many vocal players like,  but In a game where player's choice is supposed to matter, where the player gets invested in the story, you basically locked players who decided against pursuing any of the huge men into a sex scene with one of them.

Yes, it's WIP, and it's going to be different in the final version, or even in the very next update. But many, MANY players are playing the VN as it's being developed and this is going to be their experience. Sorry, but you should have anticipated this! For many players, myself included, this is forever going to be a bad memory. 

Yes, I know, it's a free VN, and you owe me nothing. and you put a lot of effort into it, and it's great that I could just download and play it! But! Could you please show some consideration in the future when choosing which routes to release first? Because this was Bad with capital B. And I'm sure you can do better.

The game gives you a choice every step of the way, until it doesn't and you just randomly suck a dick of some stupendously idiotic dudebro you just met at a bar.

And that's after the protagonist has been very safe and sound about his actions and very judgmental of people slutting out. He just... Goes and sucks a dick, and the player gets kicked to the back seat, helpless to change anything. 

The writer just gives the player a huge middle finger, out of the blue, RIGHT AFTER MAKING YOU CHOOSE WHO YOU WANT TO PURSUE. 

Nope, fuck you, [player_name], fuck your agenda, fuck your preferences, fuck your decisions, and fuck your investment in the story - you suck idiot's dick because what are you going to do about it?

Very disappointing... smh 

Mikko endings:

(spoiler)

The Bad One, aka Knocking On The Door

The Worse One, aka Happy Fun Time With Kinky Accessories <== You are here

THE WORST ONE, aka Flower Field

But hey, at least you saw it after it got changed a little. Initially, it was very ambiguous whether Arvo even survives it. I personally think Keo shouldn't have changed that and should have leaned heavily into the unintended but entertaining maniacal Mikko Route - would have made for a fun Halloween update.

To get a slightly less horrible ending, make sure to always pick Mikko events(Only some events are important, but it's easier to play all of them). It's the canon one and the one that's going to have a continuation in further updates, unlike the other two.

To get a much more horrible ending, follow Mikko's route, but go back to your room after you find the key. I warned you though, it's THE WORST ONE.

To avoid copy-pasting replies, here's my answer to the same question:

https://itch.io/post/9075988

Short version  - game still in development, updates every month. A good Mikko ending will come in a couple of years, maybe.

Obviously Keo knows better, but isn't it said in the game the science camp is supposed to be a week long?

It's poetic, in a way - cling together with one person and watch the rest of the world burn.

Remember, ships at the sea - some make it, some don't.

Oh yeah, I remember that one! But that's half a puzzle piece at best. Abandonment alone usually makes people crave attention, not learn to calmly mind their business.

Also, how does that even tie into his whole over-archiever persona?

No, I need to know more, this is decisively not enough information...

I want to learn more about Rune's backstory. There must be a reason why he's so determined to keep to his own devices and never bother anyone unless he has a good justification.

Because he's basically perfect, except he is all too eager to remain in the background and just wait to be discovered.

Isn't everything outside the canon Mikko route non-canon?

Yeah, but he can't have him. That's the whole point. Arvo and Torulf are friends with benefits, without the friends part. That's literally the very blatant summary of the problem - Arvo has an emotional attachment to someone who feels absolutely nothing but lust for him. Torulf drops meetings with Lake for Arvo just as easily as he sidesteps Arvo to go fuck Lake.

Why would you want Arvo to stay any longer in this abusive relationship?

As someone else put it, my headcannon Torulf route is the Lake route, where everyone are happy and Torulf is blueballed. xD

I don't know if I can judge - I don't have ADHD, so my understanding of it is anecdotal at best.

But if YOU feel ADHD vibes from Lake - then you very well might be right. After all, the characters in Dawn Chorus have been impeccably written so far.

Right?  It's a derailment route, which means you must start a different route and then switch to this one. 

To get it...

1. Get a coat on day 1(either talk to Rune before losing the key, or ask Devon for help when you lost it)

2. Do the Klaus event when given chance on the first day. Make sure you talk to him and follow him all the way into the woods.

3. After that  follow...

3.a) the Bjorn route, in which case just wait till you get a chance to chase after Klaus into the woods again.

3.b) the Devon route, in which case don't help him with telescopes and talk to Klaus in the cafeteria.