Phoenixes [Nomeme] [v1.01 Talismans]

v10 is the biggest update of PHOENIXES so far, even bigger than v9, with 1100+ new images and animated scenes. It is double the content of many previous updates. I don’t think we will ever make a bigger update in the future. In future update cycles, we will strive to keep the volume of updates and development time within a more reasonable and rational range.

Now let’s take a brief look at what we have in v10:

– Improved the clock UI:

The old clock was not even a real circle but rather a rough polygon that looked like a circle. Now we’ve made it more circular and added more lighting effects to it.

– Reworked the album system:

Now there won’t be any lagging issue when viewing images in the album.

– Implemented the biography system:

The Records screen has always been relatively unimportant since it is entirely unrelated to gameplay. Your gaming experience wouldn’t be affected even if you never viewed this screen. But it must exist because there has to be a place to record a dozen girls’ information.

However, this unimportant screen has become almost entirely useless since v2. Due to coding issues, the girls’ information could not be updated in time, for example, Cassy’s description still says ‘I don’t know much about her yet’ even if she has been your maid for so long. This obviously needed improvement.

In v10, we replaced the previous character introductions with a biography system. Every time your relationship with a girl progresses to a new significant stage, a new segment of textual content about her will be unlocked in her record. We believe this improvement will at least restore this screen from ‘completely useless’ to ‘unimportant’ again.

– Numerous bugs fixed:

– Fixed the issue that caused the game unable to return to the subplot screen after skipping a subplot to its end.
– Fixed the issue in the PC version where the first text triggered after opening the game does not pop up a dialogue box.
– Fixed a display bug that occurs when opening the Status screen for the first time in each time period.
– Fixed the issue that caused the game to only display thumbnails for the latest 15 saves.

– New girl’s debut: Enyora

In v10, a new villain girl will make her debut. She is a high-IQ schemer and politician, using explosive high-tech playing cards as weapons. Her appearance signifies a new phase in the main story. The city is getting more chaotic every day as the mayoral election approaches, and soon there will be more new girls coming on the stage.

– New sexable girl: Osonia

In v10, you will be able to have sex with Osonia for the first time, but please note that you will have to reach a certain level of intimacy with Sorring first. Unlike other girls, Osonia and Sorring’s stories are highly interconnected. Osonia won’t be too intimate with a man until her sister has a boyfriend.

– Alnilam, Kemuri, Sorring, and Osonia will have new personal plots

• Fixed a bug that caused MC name and club name to be unable to change
• Now saves that had the v9 submissiveness bug will be automatically fixed.

• Fixed a bug that caused overwriting a save would delete it instead
• Fixed a bug that caused saves to fail to load MC’s name
• Fixed an issue where new saves on devices without any existing saves would always be named “saves0”
• Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when rollback under rare circumstances
• Fixed a bug that caused the game unable to spawn new short repetitive events if passing the previous time period through events
• Fixed an error about the “spank” sound effect in the PC version
• Fixed an issue that caused the first sentence of events to display the wrong name in the Android version.

V9 update marks a new milestone in the development of PHOENIXES. The independent storylines of the girls are now beginning to weave together. Your harem fantasies are starting to become a reality.

And now let’s take a look at what we have for you in this update:

The system part (v9):
– New stat for girls: Harem acceptance level

It might sound familiar if you’ve played VIRTUES before. This stat represents my understanding and philosophy of the harem. I believe a harem is all about honesty. All the girls in your harem should know that they are not your only love. Otherwise you’d be deceiving them, and I don’t like that.

As the story progresses, your girls will become more accepting of the fact that they are sharing you with other girls, and they will have bolder actions as their Harem acceptance level gets higher.

In this update, you can increase the harem acceptance level for Heather, Cassy, Osonia, and Sorring. And you can unlock their initial harem stories once their acceptances reach 5.

– New short event type: Harem playlet

After raising certain girls’ love points to a specific level, there will be some repetitive harem playlet about them showing on map randomly. Experiencing one of such events will increase certain girls’ harem acceptance levels.

In v9, you will see the harem playlets for “Heather & Cassy” and “Osonia & Sorring.”

– New Textbox UI
We’ve redesigned the UI of the textbox and used unique colors for each girl’s name. Hopefully this will enhance your gaming experience.

Old:

New:

– Improved game guidance
Now you will be informed when there is an unlockable club upgrade.

– Some small optimizations
– After watching an event in the gallery, you will now return to the gallery screen instead of the main menu.

– More short repetitive events will now show on the map at the same time. It will help you raise the stats of the girls quicker and easier.

The system part (v8.1):
– Rewrote save system
To enhance the stability of the save system, we’ve rewritten it completely in v8.1. You might find that the thumbnails of your old saves are no longer visible, but don’t worry, you should still be able to load your old saves.

– Significantly Improved the loading speed on mid-to-low-end Android devices.
It used to take my old phone over 20s to get to the main menu after opening the game, and now it only takes 8.

The story part:
– New harem scenes for “Heather & Cassy”, “Heather & Sorring”, “Osonia & Sorring”
– New personal scenes for Alnilam, Osonia, Sorring, and Molly
– Sorring will become your girlfriend
– 900+ new images & animated scenes.
– Reworked 50+ old images with poor performance.

The System part:
– The Autoplay mode
The autoplay mode is undoubtedly one of the crucial features in a visual novel, but we’ve overlooked it for a long time because honestly, we’ve never used it when we played other visual novels.
After being informed by some patrons about their needs, we realized our oversight and immediately started working on it. Thank god we finished the job within this update cycle.
So now we have an Autoplay mode available in v8. You can freely adjust its speed and it won’t turn off itself when you pass the dialogue actively.
We even made a timer to remind you when the text will switch to the next line. There are two different timer styles for you to choose from.

– The free script editing tool (test version)
As you know, I’m not really a good writer. The game’s text is riddled with many grammar errors and typos, both the English and the Chinese version. Many lovely people have been so kind to point out issues in the text with numerous screenshots after every update, and I really appreciate that. I’m sorry for not being able to provide you with a better reading experience, and I feel that we need to at least create a more convenient way for people who care to give feedback on text issues and even manually correct the issues that are unbearable to them.

I will upload the scripts tomorrow, after I wake up and finish the tutorial document. Right now I just need to sleep so bad, haven’t closed my eyes for 30 hours.

* We eventually decided not to include the scripts in the PC version of the game. Because doing so will significantly slow down the unzip speed.

– Greatly improved the hints in the Story Progress screen
The previous hints were not clear enough, sometimes they basically forced you to guess if a requirement of a plot was achieved or not, which must be annoying. We are very sorry about the trouble it has caused.

But it will no longer be a problem in v8, we’ve redesigned the screen and reworked the whole system. Now the hints should be much clearer.

– Implemented a HUGE number of animation effects and sound effects.
It’s hard to describe here, you will know what I’m talking about as soon as you enter the game.
I’m not sure if all the new animation effects will work perfectly on low-end phones, please let me know if you experience any frame-dropping issues during animations.

– Improved the game’s loading speed.
For some reason this improvement didn’t go as significant as we thought. Right now the speed of loading the main menu on mid-to-low-end phones should be 10-20% faster, and 30-50% faster on high-end phones in theory.

The speed of loading the gallery will be a lot faster on all devices, in theory.

– Small stuff:
– You can now adjust the textbox transparency and the text speed
– Implemented ‘slapping’ sound effect
– New icon for the Support Missions
– Improved the look of the event bubbles

The Story part:
– New girl: Fuying
Fuying is a mysterious time mage who had her first appearance in VIRTUES. She was also literally the first girl you saw in PHOENIXES.

Like most girls in the game, Fuying also comes with a pretty complex backstory, no, in fact she has THE MOST complex backstory. Creating her was a challenge, an attempt to step out of our comfort zone. I’m not sure if everyone will like this girl and her plots in this update, but I promise she’s going to have a very very romantic storyline.

– New interrogation target: Alnilam
The story of v8 continues to focus on Alnilam. This evil queen didn’t seem to change much after your last night with her on her island. Every crime she committed was still built upon extreme selfishness without concerning anything or any others. But this time, her goal was not to torture you, but to be tortured by you… …

– New club level & New functional room in the club
You can now raise club level to 4 and unlock the massage room. Our new girl Fuying will be the masseur.

– Alnilam, Heather, Cassy, and Fuying will have new personal plots.