MVOL v0.42 is Live: Finale, Part One

This one is a whopper! We took a break from the main storyline to chase side content for a couple updates so that I could really take my time working out exactly what I want The Final Ending of MVOL to be, and it’s changed a ton from my original concepts. I’ll talk more about all that below, but for now, I’ll go over exactly what is in this update.

The good news is that yes, you can finally play all the way to The End of the storyline. The bad news is, you’ll only be able to choose one path for now. This has turned into a pretty extensive and complicated update, and it’s important to me that you experience the big finish of the story in as polished a package as possible, so I had to draw the line somewhere.

Besides that (and maybe partly related to it) I’ve also given the game a small graphical overhaul. I’ve finally completed Lith’s variable portrait with several fresh expressions (and a few other surprises), and I’ve adjusted his color scheme to be a little more of a black cat rather than gray. I’m a little worried it’s harder to read his expression now, so I’ll be keeping an ear out for feedback on that.

That was a real headache to put together, but I don’t feel like it’s enough to count it as an art piece, so there are also two new pieces of art in this update. They’re plenty easy to find in the midgame.

Thanks to the voters on my Patreon, I’ve also added two new scenes for the cupcake. They’re a little more intense than the other scenes, but they’ll only show up if Lith is ready to truly embrace his sexuality…

And that wraps up the new content! I nearly bit off more than I could chew with this one, but I’m happy I managed to hit my amended release date at least. It was looking dicy for a minute there!

Now! I’m gonna talk a little about the game’s ending here. I’m not going to spoil anything, but if you want to go in completely clean of expectations (which I’d probably recommend) then maybe go play it now, then come back to read up after!

Developing this ending from a very rough, distant concept into a reality has been a really strange, almost overwhelming experience for me. I strongly believe that a story’s ending is critical to how it’s remembered. Put in simple terms, we remember most things we experience by how they started and how they ended. Especially with a story, though, the ending is supposed to “give it all meaning,” and I’ve been wildly frustrated with authors that seemed to believe their middle content was so good, it didn’t matter how it ended. So I don’t want to make that mistake here.

But I almost did, going into this. If I followed my usual method, this ending would have been just as disappointing as all the ones I’ve seen out there. I had to step out of my own head and try to really think about what an ending needs to be, what it needs to do, from a lot of different perspectives, to figure out how far it should actually go. It’s been a lot more work, but I’m a lot happier with this than I think I would have been otherwise.

That’s not to say I’m happy with this ending. I almost never revise my work after the first pass over, as part of my (admittedly unusual) method, but I took this back and edited it up after the advance release, and I still feel like I might want to edit it up in the future. I want the ending to “work,” I want it to do its job on every level, and that’s a complicated proposition.

If I’m telling the truth, this has probably been especially challenging for me. I’ve written plenty of stories to post on FA, SF, or even on Amazon, but… I’ve written very few actual endings. Hell, most stories I actually end, I know I could always go back and tell some more of the story after that if I wanted to. But with this…

With My Very Own Lith, I knew I wanted the story to end properly. I don’t know what I’ll be writing about Lith in the future, once MVOL is complete, but I want this game to stand on its own and not need any continuation. And… closing everything up, wrapping it up in a neat bundle, is much harder, I’ve found, than opening a big bag of possibilities in the first place.

I’m still not even sure how I feel about this ending, but I’ve gotten a positive response from my proofing team, and I’m looking forward to the feedback from all of you as you reach your Final Endings. If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to join us on Discord, whether to discuss the game or just to meet other folks that enjoy the company of this gentle feline.

Oh! And speaking of my proofing team: a few members have had responsibilities creep up on them and can no longer help out, and I’m very short on careful readers and playtesters to help keep MVOL polished and playing smoothly. If you enjoy reading my work closely, have a meticulous eye, and are interested in getting a peek at coming content early, please consider becoming a Proofer! I’ve got all the details you could possibly need over here, but the short version is, go through the game as it stands and dig up problems to show me you can do the job! People keep telling me there isn’t a typo to be found anywhere, but I know for a fact there are many, probably hundreds. MVOL still has several updates to go, and I really need help keeping it bug-free and reading smoothly!

Alright. That wraps up everything for this update. I’m hoping to keep working on the Final Endings in the next update, though it might be a litle lighter for content overall since this update ended up eating up some of its development time. I should also start putting up some posts here soon talking about what’s going to happen after MVOL, so keep an eye out for more news to come!

Thanks for reading, and thanks so much for joining me on this long, strange journey!