itch.io

Some of the porters are fine letting the dev handle the distribution of the port, so it wouldn't interfere with your revenue stream here on itch or elsewhere

Im sorry I wasn't clearer. What I was suggesting was that you contact them, ask them to stop distributing your work for free and say that if they really want to help you wouldnt mind a hand in porting the android version, making clear that the android version would only be released by you via itch.io etc. I would expect the first request to not cause a problem and the second request might be achievable.

I only suggest it because you were talking about problems with the android version and I try to help where I can.

Many of the games that get ported are released for free at some point, the main porters usually try not to release a port before that happens. If you asked them to stop porting your game, I wouldnt be surprised if estrada777 did so. They generally seem to be fairly reasonable people who have more than enough to do. 

Alternatively, I believe that some of them are willing to do the work and let the dev control the distribution, depends how the dev wants to handle it.

Either way, I don't really see that you lose a lot by having a word. Hope it works out for you.

Ask one of the usual porters to make an 'official port' for you, instead.

I dont know how busy they are, if they will do it or not, etc, but estrada777 has already ported v0.6.3. I dont know how well It works, but the potentisl for some kind of arrangement would seem to be there

You can download the official guide/walkthrough if you pay $5 or more as a single payment I believe. By which I mean if you paid $3 already, you still need to pay $5, you cant just pay the $2 difference.

I would suggest having a word with estrada777 or wills747 about doing an official port, both have been doing ports for larger games over the last few months, ie downloading a 1.5gb apk to install, and a 4gb rpa download to copy into the specified game directory on tale of one city. Or Dark Assassin as he has already ported the game, chapter 6 came out to just under 600mb.

I know you have tried to come up with a way to make an android build for book 2 & 3 in the past. I dont know if you were aware or not but a couple of the people doing android ports now seem to be capable of porting large PC ren'py games to android. Wills747 was I think the first and currently has a large build of the game Sweet Affection for download on their discord channel. Might be worth having a word to get more details of how they did it.

Android version?

Fingers crossed for you. Sounds like its going to take a lot of work.

Congratulations on completing the story for Book 2.

I know you had issues with the size of the install for Android, how is that looking now?

I would also expect top class lawyers to be able to write a contract that mimics the way a marriage works. Like a prenup without the actual wedding. Name change to give a family name, covering asset protection/divorce/inheritance to protect the rest of the family, most of all the children. Also, there is nothing to stop the MC giving rings to people without a traditional wedding.

Not sure who would officiate at the wedding though, perhaps Noahs mum to officiate and her boyfriend to give the bride(s) away. Yui might also be a good choice, but the problem there is that she might want to be part of the Strong family too.

I could see the MC asking Q&A to arrange this as a surprise for Tina, and then having a second arrangement with whoever is officiating to ensure that rings are available for eveyone so they could all get 'married' right after on the same day. (No need to change to wedding dresses, naked ceremony, like Star Trek.)

I got the link to the matrix, but missed the 1, so I missed the overall point there. Just glad it was intentional.

As for the work in general, I can only say that I like where the story appears to be going. Whilst Im not a fan of the overuse of Bi chracters, I accept that it makes setting up a poly relationship a lot easier. I also like the idea of including other pairings/subgroups in the overall group as Im sure that group members with benefits is the only realistic way for a larger group to function, a large harem simply couldnt work with only one focus, too many of the group members would be getting too little attention.

Something that I thought of in the last reading, I would imagine that the group would require a current STD checkup before someone can join the group, prefereably before having sex with anyone outside the group.

Melissa photoshoot, Brittany refers to MC twice as Jerry, (even though I had changed his name,) once while Melissa is posing and once to invite MC to back room after the shoot. Android version.

Would like to know what happened to Nurse Lane, everyone else from the hospital has appeared again in some capacity. Also, Alice has only appeared once, which is fine but I don't think a reason was given.

Also think you might need to add a few extra scenes, even just static images, to help build the relationship between Tina and MC, up to and including Ibiza. At the moment its kind of they like each other and next thing you know she's his soulmate. I accept these things can happen quickly especially when people are in fragile circumstances, ie bad breakup and life altering medical emergency, but I think there still needs to be a bit more bonding time between them, to justify it being more than a few dates and then move on.

I know you've gone back and tinkered with some of the earlier scenes, (I like the changes,) but I hope that the first threesome scene and the first sex scene with Apple are still on the list, at least for android. In the threesome scene the two girls are ok, but the mc looks like he's pale green, and the way Apples hair moves really doesnt work that well when she's riding the MC.

Also phone conversation between MC and Judge Nishimura, the word 'friendh' is misspelled, and later during their date I believe '0racle' needs an O not a 0.

If its any help, looking at it again, given that the three android screen/app controls from the bottom of the screen flip to the top as well, it would seem that for some reason launching love of magic makes android think the screen has flipped. (I have autorotate turned on.)

I also apologise for my poor phrasing.

Yes, Its not a common error, but I have seen it happen in one other VN (its been a while though, possibly on my last tablet,) out of the last couple hundred so it may be an obscure thing. Strictly speaking its playable because I can turn the tablet upside down without it flipping again, but it is a little jarring when you launch the game and the screen flips upside down. Lol. :)
(Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 tablet running in Landscape orientation, Android 11)

Had a quick look at the new patch, for some reason it thinks my screen is upside down.

I would be ok with that, and Im probably a bit more old fashioned than most about not wanting to be connected all the time. Provided its made clear up front that its a one time download to get around the apk limit I would have thought there would be little cause for complaint.

Not surprised, but a shame nonetheless. You were talking about Book 2 needing to be conected to the net, is that a one time only connection, or every time?

Looks like you got the size down quite a bit for book1, I will try the file from discord.

Thinking about book2, I have no idea how apk's work as an install process, but if you use an apk to upgrade an existing installation are all the files from the original version (other then the saves) automatically removed? Or could you use a second apk to add more files to the installation?

Thank you for the reply. Have you looked at how Rebirth (by LikesBlondes) is trying to handle it perhaps? Broken into smaller chapters, import the save file at the start of each chapter? Its OK when it works, different people porting the VN can mess that up though since they all try to store things in different places. The two other approaches I've come across (my apologies for repeating what must be familiar to you already, I only hope to help in some small way,) 'My New Family' is broken into two parts, play and complete part1, then install part2 which overwrites part1, but leaves the saves intact to continue on, and secondly reducing the image quality,  the compressed version of a 2Gb PC release is often compressed down to something like 700Mb for people on limited bandwidth, this version is usually the one that gets ported to android,, the phone and tablet screens are so much smaller that most people are not really going to notice the lower resolutions. 

Firstly, you might want to check the osx 1.1.9 file, I know nothing about apple stuff, but I suspect that 22bytes is too small to be anything useful.

-> love_of_magic_1_1_9_osx.zip 22 bytes

Next, any idea how long before the android version will be available?

Finally, my preference for the 2gb limit problem is to not have it stored online, I tend to read offline, (away from home sometimes if I can get the privacy,) so I would prefer to download it once and have done. 

As I understand it, the google play store has a limit of 100Mb for the apk and allows 2 expansion files of 2Gb each, making a limit of 4Gb total. I dont know how that works or how it would apply to your VN, but I do know there are a couple of games that ask you to download a .obb file as well as the apk and stick that in a specific location in the android/obb folder in Internal Shared Storage. Maybe something similar might work for you?

Installation for these games usually involves creating the android/obb folder first, copying the .obb file over, then installing the apk. (I don't know whether the order is actually important or not.) Provided you give clear instructions about what name to give the android/obb folder its fairly straight forward.

Other than that, a greater level of image compression is the only way Im aware of, with the smaller screens, even on a larger tablet, most people wont be able to tell the difference anyway.

Thank you for making an excellent VN and taking the trouble to go back and update it.

If you uninstall the old version the save files will be removed with it. Try to install the new version over the current one, it should give you a message saying that it will update the current installation and keep the save files.

My apologies but I would appreciate a bit more info on which setting you mean.

Ive been having problems with installing the Android version. Ive seen posts indicating that the maximum safe size for an apk is 2gb and yours is bigger than that. 

Any chance you could compress the images slightly to bring the size down?

From f95zone forum thanks to user cebs:

Internal Storage > Android > obb

Creat an folder called cfn3.w3 and put obb inside

Enjoyed the Update. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing more of the characters.

To be fair, most Visual Novels are from the male perspective.
And the ones that offer a female point of view tend not to have the option of a male protagonist either. Even fewer games offer the option of a trans protagonist.

I guess it makes the storytelling quite a bit harder to leave the gender options open.

Panacea (https://bcg.itch.io/panacea) offers a female protagonist with a scifi (ish) storyline, if you are interested.

There are a few others that offer a female perspective on the more traditional dating game, but they tend to be less popular with the male audience which probably makes up the majority of the player-base.

Fantasy Dating, (https://alboe-interactive.itch.io/fantasy-dating) is another, although the protagonist quite quickly switches to futa.

Ive only played two games recently that offered a gender option for the protagonist. Bad Memories (https://bm-rec.itch.io/bad-memories)
is one that genuinely offers the same story (with minor differences) to both genders and Life Changes For Keeley is the other.

I don't think LCFK is on Itch.io, so you would need to get it elsewhere, ie Patreon or F95zone. Its also worth noting that the female and male protagonists are actually two completely seperate characters in LCFK, so its really two completely different versions of the same story.

Anyway, if you find other VN's that suit you better, please do list them here, a different point of view is always good.

Sometimes they care and sometimes they dont, Ive certainly come across posts within the last couple of months indicating that different creators have had files removed from mega download, been kicked off Patreon, been contacted by Patreon staff and asked to change game content to comply with the rules etc. So I have no doubt that its a real risk, even if every infraction isnt punished immediately.

If its your only form of income then how willing would you be to risk it?

Try to not let it get you down. I know you want it done and out of the way, (so do we,) but you will only regret it if you rush it.

Best of luck.

Latest devlog says they are hoping for it to be out before the end of August.

First sex scene with Apple, you might want to consider a slightly different POV so that her hair doesnt interfere with the scene quite so much.

Its probably already been mentioned, but the threesome scene (evening after the will reading) the protaganist looks positively green. (Android tablet, version 7.)

I think a lot depends on how close you are to finishing My New Family.

If its not that close to finishing then I would say that alternating updates is probably the more sustainable long term strategy, with the proviso that if you are really in the mood for one update more than the other then you should follow that feeling.

Ive always felt the best way to avoid burn out is to avoid forcing it. If you are enjoying it, that will show in the story.

Very, very well done so far. Life with Mary was very good, this is looking to be even better in many respects.

I agree its jarring, but its because most platforms have strict rules forbidding anything to do with incest. If they get caught then they get kicked off the site and can earn no more money.

Just wanted to say, love the game, loved the update.

Think I may have the shape of the rest of the story figured out, but so looking forward to finding out the details, with (hopefully) lots of little surprises along the way. (Ms Gilmour sipping wine while listening to the MC and Darci fight/argue. Loved it.)

Superb. Only complaint is the obvious one that it isnt finished yet.

Looking forward to the next update.

Ive enjoyed what Ive seen of ihe story so far, but I do hope we will find out what happened with Audrey at some point.

No problem, happy to help.