Hiya! It's been a long time, but 0.17 is here now!

This is an update to the Reject - Ted route. For anyone confused about how routes work, reject/accept refers to whether or not you've accepted Caijoru's deal.

This update is around 22,000 words, which I've only just realized is I think my biggest update yet. I'm a little nervous since I had no proofreader for the first time ever, so that basically means there's no quality test other than myself, whoops. Granted, that's because usually I get my husband to proofread but he's currently away. This was also my first update using my new laptop, so hopefully there weren't any major issues when compiling the builds. I had a few issues with saves breaking like usual, but I think I've fixed those? At least I hope so.

I wound up changing my mind multiple times on how this route will play out, but I'm happy with the direction it's going. I did rework the second half of Day 6, so if you have a save past that point, it'll rewind you back to the start of Day 6. There'll be a message when it happens. There is a scene that got teased in a previous devlog that I have since removed. Or rather, it's going to be in a later update rather than this one.

In previous builds, both Ted's Accept and Reject routes converged on Night 6, but that felt lazy. So because of that, I just redid Night 6 from scratch, which also means new NSFW scenes for those of you playing the 18+ version!

There are some things I was wanting to do that I didn't have ready for this build, and I didn't want to keep pushing back the release date when it's been so long. I plan to make a menu at some point to let you know which endings you've gotten so far. I'll probably go back through this route and add more variations in the writing based on previous choices because that's fun to do. I made a small graphic to show which side stories you have and haven't read yet, but then I forgot to add in the coding for it when compiling the builds. I'm a dumb dumb.

Lastly, because it's fun to do, here's favorites/least favorites from the survey from 0.16

Surprisingly, with 44 responses, not a single person picked Ted as their least favorite character this time around. And he had the most votes for favorite character again. I'm really curious what's going to happen next time since the new update is for Ted's route.

Also, I somehow never thought about doing it before, but I can respond to some of the constructive criticism here here.

This is something I've thought about for a long time. I'm wanting to go in and potentially add more flashback scenes or at least have characters talk about them more. You are right that it's hard to care about them when they aren't shown much.

Funny enough, the only character who has an actual friendship point system is Daren. If I was smart, I'd use them for everyone, but I was not smart early on when coding. Whoops. But maybe for the major things that get affected, I can go back and make things more apparent.

Unfortunately, I don't have the money for something like that. Sorry.

There was a lot more but I'm not wanting to post anything with spoilers. What I can say is that I do appreciate the constructive criticism I get. Even if some of it is stuff I can't change now, it's still useful for anything else I may write in the future! Whether positive or negative, I enjoy seeing everyone's thoughts and opinions, and it's good to have a nice mix.

The last one I will mention, which I can't post a screenshot of or go into specifics about due to heavy spoilers. There have been quite a few times where people have said that certain parts of the story are plotholes. I can say that everything is actually intentional, and if you notice something with the plot that seems off, or that a character is acting in a way that doesn't make sense for who they are, that means you're probably on the right track to figuring stuff out ;)

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy! And let me know if there are any bugs or issues and I'll see if I can sort them out.