"Coming soon" means that this game is in the Alpha/demo stage and not in the "Early Access"/mostly playable stage! Those downloading it should consider it as a "preview" of a game that may be worth looking into! For more information, see here.
That might not necessarily be true. Itch.io and Steam have different standards and use different scales for different release phases of a game. It may be that Itch.io has already released a full, final version of the game while another version (Alpha, Early Acesss or even full, final) might be released on Steam. Only time will tell. The same applies with other game stores.
Just like a DRM (eg. - SteamWorks or a custom hybrid of SteamWorks and another DRM) protected game already released on Steam might also have updates already available to fix bugs with that game, the DRM-free GOG version of the same game may still await its release or already have been released but still not have the latest updates made available to fix bugs (Steam is faster with releasing updates but the games there may have DRM that either needs Steam Client emulation or a proper crack in order to make the game playable while GOG releases all of the games on their store DRM-free but is slow to release updates).
Just because a release state of a game is so in one store doesn't necessarily mean that the release state of the same game is also going to be the same in another store.
I agree with the gist of what you said; in that, Steam with all its bells and whistles, shoddy DRM and other restrictions is only the devs' first choice out of necessity, especially if they're releasing an adult game. So, if they're doing a multi-platform release, it's natural for the Steam version to pass through more hoops.
In case of this game in particular, I fail to understand what you mean. The game is released on itch, fully playable from start to finish, and has even be updated once, while it is absent on Steam. This part "is necessarily true" 😄 And those downloading this file here are getting, for all intents and purposes, the full game.
As a side note, and based on personal experience (which is admittedly subjective) I would take itch or GoG releases over Steam's any day. Steam's advantage is its publicity. The price of that however is more censorship and overhead. In terms of speed of updates, I haven't noticed a marked difference. And in terms of quality control ... well ... Steam let that go years ago when they buried their Greenlight system.
I can appreciate and somewhat agree with what you wrote in your first paragraph of your second reply but I never specifically said those things explicitly or implicitly. There are other stores for H-games devs to choose first other than Steam to "sell their wares" like DLSite English, Nutaku and even Itch.io (Not every dev starts to attempt to sell their games with the same skill level at making games and it's also a fact that many games on Itch.io are created by many yet unpublished, amateur devs looking to make their "break" into the business). And yes, Steam seems to have more bureaucratic "red tape" for devs to go through before he or she can try to sell a game on Steam.
I know that you deserve a detailed explanation of what I meant in my OP but if you wish, you can read my reply to Blue Bomber down below to try to get the gist of what I was trying to convey. I'm too tired to repeat all of what I had already wrote down below.
I agree completely with what you wrote in your last paragraph of your second reply, though I would prefer that a game be sold first on GOG because of the lack of DRM (No cracks that may or may not work to apply as sometimes cracks need to be made proper with a crackfix), the uniform GOG retail installer (I do collect games and having a uniform installer does appeal to me) and the extras (aka "Goodies" like OSTs, artbooks) that are offered, followed by the same game being sold on Steam (Sometimes having the latest updates are a plus over the lack of DRM. For example, I have been following "Immortality", a FMV game on GOG that has a still unfixed bug near the end whereby tapping the keys or clicking the mouse during the endgame could stop the credits from appearing but which a fix for that bug had already been released in Steam on December 19, 2022! The game on GOG is still on the August 30, 2022 version without the fix! There are other games on GOG that have not been updated while their Steam counterparts have been updated. I'm not the only one who has noticed this fact!) and then finally Itch.io (Judging by the latest crop of donated games from Itch.io that are on this site - That's not to say that there aren't possibly any good games on Itch.io. I liked the freely downloadable "Attack on Titan: Reborn" and wished that the dev would've developed it more).
Yes, I agree that it's best that we move on with other matters as we've both already created enough drama for those who crave it!
Thanks for letting us know, did you by any chance happen to play through the game yourself? If so would you mind telling me if this has some happy endings as well or is it the type of story where the protagonist (and their potential LIs) get screwed over by the story no matter what?
I haven't finished it and I don't think I will in a while. This is your typical detective novel in kinetic form through and through. And It is a slow burn.
The art is cute and the writing is passable. However, there's nothing groundbreaking here. It's something you read in bed to help you fall asleep faster. Imagine Disco Elysium, but without the Disco and without the Elysium! It's just a detective story.
Oh, and the only "nudity" involving this game that I have witnessed so far was me taking off my T-shirt from summer's heat. The rest of the cast are pretty well-dressed and like to keep it that way. I think this is tagged as an adult game predominantly based on the nature of story which revolves around a murder.
Yes it did, thank you, so this is probably safe to play even if I'm not into overly grim stories because it is mostly just a little VN to get through and not some super deep, dark lovecraftian shit or japanese horror novel.
It's an Alpha version of the game. See my post above. It might be a while before the full, final version is available but you can still try out the game in its current form. Much of the background artwork has a nice "painterly" style that may appeal to many.
Yes, I do understand the big flap over Steam not wanting to take any legal chances by allowing a game in question of possibly being made using AI generated resources (ie. - The artwork, the music, etc), and I do support, indirectly, artists and their original artwork (I'm the one who has requested and gotten granted, many of the exotic, original, finely illustrated, IR Studio puzzle and memory H-games that are on this site which IGG, the administrator of this site, has purchased on Steam! So people need to stop these recent, disturbing, mob driven "witch hunts" for AI supporters on this site!) but the burden of proof for showing, without a shadow of doubt, that a game is indeed made from AI generated resources should fall upon Steam rather than for them to just simply accuse a dev of doing so and just simply ban his or her game from being sold on Steam.
It's easier for Steam to just simply cover the game over with a legal "blanket" instead of carrying out any thorough investigations into the game's resources and then just ban the game outright from their store in order to save money (After all, investigations do cost money). Though, in fact, perhaps that is what is actually happening right now. Perhaps Steam ordered the dev to post the "Coming soon" banner while it is conducting such an investigation. Perhaps the dev is being given ample time to prove that his or her game was not actually made from AI generated resources.
BTW - This all supports the fact that different stores have standards, as it was pointed out that this game is now being sold on Itch.io, so it appears that Itch.io doesn't have the same opinions about the matter like Steam does! Also, perhaps if some parts of the game were found to be AI generated, I believe that the dev would still be allowed to sell it on Steam if he made some revisions to the content so that the supposedly proven AI generated portions are omitted and replaced with genuine assets thus making the resulting end product on Steam a version of the game that is different from the one that is being sold currently on Itch.io and thus the ambiguous "Coming soon" banner that has no definite timeframe specified, could then represent an Alpha, an Early Access or even a final, full newly revised product if and when it is actually released on Steam. Again, only time will tell if and when this game will be released and in what form if it will be released.
Unless anyone has a working "Crystal ball" (If you believe in such a thing) and can reveal to us right now what the future may hold, it's all too soon to say!
Yes.
And yes, it is not yet released on Steam.
Just like a DRM (eg. - SteamWorks or a custom hybrid of SteamWorks and another DRM) protected game already released on Steam might also have updates already available to fix bugs with that game, the DRM-free GOG version of the same game may still await its release or already have been released but still not have the latest updates made available to fix bugs (Steam is faster with releasing updates but the games there may have DRM that either needs Steam Client emulation or a proper crack in order to make the game playable while GOG releases all of the games on their store DRM-free but is slow to release updates).
Just because a release state of a game is so in one store doesn't necessarily mean that the release state of the same game is also going to be the same in another store.
So, if they're doing a multi-platform release, it's natural for the Steam version to pass through more hoops.
In case of this game in particular, I fail to understand what you mean.
The game is released on itch, fully playable from start to finish, and has even be updated once, while it is absent on Steam. This part "is necessarily true" 😄 And those downloading this file here are getting, for all intents and purposes, the full game.
As a side note, and based on personal experience (which is admittedly subjective) I would take itch or GoG releases over Steam's any day.
Steam's advantage is its publicity. The price of that however is more censorship and overhead. In terms of speed of updates, I haven't noticed a marked difference. And in terms of quality control ... well ... Steam let that go years ago when they buried their Greenlight system.
Regardless, I think it's best if we moved on 😊
I know that you deserve a detailed explanation of what I meant in my OP but if you wish, you can read my reply to Blue Bomber down below to try to get the gist of what I was trying to convey. I'm too tired to repeat all of what I had already wrote down below.
I agree completely with what you wrote in your last paragraph of your second reply, though I would prefer that a game be sold first on GOG because of the lack of DRM (No cracks that may or may not work to apply as sometimes cracks need to be made proper with a crackfix), the uniform GOG retail installer (I do collect games and having a uniform installer does appeal to me) and the extras (aka "Goodies" like OSTs, artbooks) that are offered, followed by the same game being sold on Steam (Sometimes having the latest updates are a plus over the lack of DRM. For example, I have been following "Immortality", a FMV game on GOG that has a still unfixed bug near the end whereby tapping the keys or clicking the mouse during the endgame could stop the credits from appearing but which a fix for that bug had already been released in Steam on December 19, 2022! The game on GOG is still on the August 30, 2022 version without the fix! There are other games on GOG that have not been updated while their Steam counterparts have been updated. I'm not the only one who has noticed this fact!) and then finally Itch.io (Judging by the latest crop of donated games from Itch.io that are on this site - That's not to say that there aren't possibly any good games on Itch.io. I liked the freely downloadable "Attack on Titan: Reborn" and wished that the dev would've developed it more).
Yes, I agree that it's best that we move on with other matters as we've both already created enough drama for those who crave it!
I haven't finished it and I don't think I will in a while. This is your typical detective novel in kinetic form through and through. And It is a slow burn.
The art is cute and the writing is passable. However, there's nothing groundbreaking here. It's something you read in bed to help you fall asleep faster.
Imagine Disco Elysium, but without the Disco and without the Elysium! It's just a detective story.
Oh, and the only "nudity" involving this game that I have witnessed so far was me taking off my T-shirt from summer's heat. The rest of the cast are pretty well-dressed and like to keep it that way.
I think this is tagged as an adult game predominantly based on the nature of story which revolves around a murder.
Hope this helped.
It's easier for Steam to just simply cover the game over with a legal "blanket" instead of carrying out any thorough investigations into the game's resources and then just ban the game outright from their store in order to save money (After all, investigations do cost money). Though, in fact, perhaps that is what is actually happening right now. Perhaps Steam ordered the dev to post the "Coming soon" banner while it is conducting such an investigation. Perhaps the dev is being given ample time to prove that his or her game was not actually made from AI generated resources.
BTW - This all supports the fact that different stores have standards, as it was pointed out that this game is now being sold on Itch.io, so it appears that Itch.io doesn't have the same opinions about the matter like Steam does! Also, perhaps if some parts of the game were found to be AI generated, I believe that the dev would still be allowed to sell it on Steam if he made some revisions to the content so that the supposedly proven AI generated portions are omitted and replaced with genuine assets thus making the resulting end product on Steam a version of the game that is different from the one that is being sold currently on Itch.io and thus the ambiguous "Coming soon" banner that has no definite timeframe specified, could then represent an Alpha, an Early Access or even a final, full newly revised product if and when it is actually released on Steam. Again, only time will tell if and when this game will be released and in what form if it will be released.
Unless anyone has a working "Crystal ball" (If you believe in such a thing) and can reveal to us right now what the future may hold, it's all too soon to say!