Demo Update Tomorrow!

It's real! It's happening! It's releasing tomorrow!

Drumroll

It's the Vengeance Ending! Which is way overdue, but finally fully cooked.

Also releasing tomorrow is the second half of Chapter 15, which happens if you reject Shard (instead of Chapter 15's heist, Button instead gets put in an interrogation room with either Isaiah or Caleb. The different interrogation scenes alone are over 80 pages of text on Microsoft Word, so y'all have a lot of reading ahead.)

Double Also: Mind Blind is finished. Finished-finished. As in, the only scenes left for me to write are the ones that I accidentally skipped over and that I'm still discovering during my many (God, so many) replays. No more major changes, though. No more last-minute-plot-ideas-turned-two-weeks-worth-of-labor alterations. (It's still a lot of words, though, so please be patient. Truthfully, I should've released Mind Blind as two separate books.)

Triple Also: the 2nd and 3rd ending branches will be out in Oct/November, with December for beta trial. Because I simply do not have it in me to keep editing things until the new year. I am edited out.

Quadruple Also: I want to apologize for being such a noncommunicative hermit during this final push. I've been open with the fact that Mind Blind is partially inspired by my past agoraphobia, and while I'm not relapsing (I go outside! . . . Sometimes!), I've been dealing with some social media-induced panic attacks, made worse by the fact that while I'm great at beginning stories, endings have never been easy for me. There's no more painful phrase in the English language for me to internally process than the words 'good enough'. I'm staying with my mom for moral support until Mind Blind gets submitted to Hosted Games, though, so things are looking up!

(Bonus Update: my mom is currently training to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Suck it, cancer.)

Things to know in advance about the Vengeance Ending:

-Whereas most of Mind Blind's endings have a total of 18 Chapters plus an epilogue (with the exception of one route that has 19 chapters), the Vengeance-allied path only has 17 chapters. It originally had 18 chapters, with the other endings having 19 or 20, but I've spent most this month condensing Chapters 16-20 for a tighter narrative with less repetitive scenes on the different branches. For perspective, Chapters 16-19 have more files (and thus, completely unique scenes versus minor variations) than do Chapters 1 - 15 combined.

-Unlike that Death Cab For Cutie song, none of the ROs will follow you into the dark during the Vengeance ending. You can, however, get some smexy star-crossed lover vibes. Or a kissable minion, should Button play their cards right.

-Shard's identity is NOT revealed in the main Vengeance story pathway, because Shard has too much self-preservation to go near Vengeance Buttons. (There is, however, a different opportunity to align with Vengeance in Main Branch #3 should certain plot reveals break your Button and make them turn evil. Shard also shows up in Vengeance's unique epilogue, provided Button picks up a certain amount of clues.)

-Regular requirements for joining Vengeance rely on two hidden stats: your Vengeance score must over 80 (which you raise by agreeing with Vengeance's philosophy), and your Unity score under 50 (which you lower by criticizing Unity). However, you can lessen this requirement if your Resentment Stat is over 98, because who needs politics when Button has RAGE. In this case, the only other requirement is that your Vengeance stat be above 50.

For tomorrow's demo update, these requirements won't be in place. Everyone, regardless of their stats, will be able to ally with Vengeance, but characters will all treat your Button as if they've always behaved like Anakin Skywalker.