Finding Miranda: Public Release

Wow guys, that game was really amazing. I really like your style and the way you design the female characters. Especially Miranda nearly blew my brains out. Regards from germany

Thank you for the kind words and support, everyone. I'm glad you folks are enjoying the game. There's a lot of conversation going on about the game on sharks lagoon (<a href="http://the-new-lagoon.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3960)." rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://the-new-lagoon.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3960).</a> The lagoon might be a better place to ask questions, etc, since I can use spoiler tags and such.

It's a shame that this happened. Honestly, I saw this coming, because like you said, there are scum in this world and people will pirate anything nowadays. Give people an opportunity and it won't be long til someone or a small group of people exploit it to the fullest. It's just the evil of the world and it will continue to happen, I'm sorry to say. Long story short, I'm not a patron. I haven't even made an account until now to be completely honest. Mostly wanted to comment and show my love on just how amazing this series has been, from Elsa's story all the way to Miranda's and everything in between. On a lighter note, I just wanted to share my opinions on this game. Needless to say I loved every second of it and Miranda has become my favorite character, and it was hard enough to beat Elsa and Jessika. Her quick wit and independence were extremely captivating. It's even more embracing when I'm able to use my own real relationship fears and insecurities and be able to use Miranda as an actual comfort and security. While I'm still trying to gather the full plot, I got this feeling that Miranda's tale isn't fully complete. I'm gonna leave it at that just to prevent any potential spoilers. Another thing I wanna know about is Chloe and Xara. For the most part Chloe has been a background "creeper" character in every game so far, but is it possible she will receive her own game? Xara too. Xara's design is too cute and her character is too good for it not to receive an individual game. My only complaint is that we didn't get to see more of Xara, but I assume that was for good reason. Like I said, I'm still trying to put the accumulating plot together. :P

Me too, I support not for playing elarly. I just want this project to continue. However I'm really impatient to hear about the next episode :))

Just adding my voice to the choir, Being a paetron, is just the way of showing my appreciation for your work trying in our humble way to help. Playing early isn't what I was looking for in the first place. What happened is sad, yet it's safe to say it won't stop most of us supporting you both.

I am so sorry this has happened to you both, but please know that as a backer I do not in any way feel cheated by moving up the public release date. You do not owe us anything to make it up to us, FM is more than enough of a reward, and I feel happy to have contributed a small amount towards it. Don't let the scum drag you down, keep up the amazing work!

I pledged because I wanted to support the games. The release date for patrons versus non-patrons is really immaterial. Thanks for producing a great game!

If it's any consolation, I didn't pledge in order to play the game early, but because I appreciate your work on its own terms.

Just a quick comment, I got Jessica from a torrent site before, I mainly look for games and the like on torrents to get fan-translated Hentai games and such, and a few patreon creators also release on various torrent sites like Pirate Bay or Pornbay be what it is, the creator of Family Life for example posts updates to Pornbay. After playing Jessica I found it to have so high quality in both art and writing that it really moved me that I decided right away to become a patreon, tracking down this page through info in the torrent. So piracy does not have to be a bad thing is all, especially when you don't really earn anything yourself. The majority of your patreons is supporting you not to get games earlier than others, but because they like your work and would like you to keep at it, and likely would not care otherwise.

I am a patron and I don´t care if other people (whom I don´t know) can play it earlier or have to wait to chrismas. I support you because your work is great and I believe that hard and good work should be paid. So let´s see the facts which interest me - The game is great - the graphic is fantastic - it is one of the best games of this genre which I ever played - I am proud to support you . Now let´s show the rest of the world (the non patron) how great this game is and that they can have it for free - It´s OK with me.

I understand and respect that this bothers you, but honestly, even though it's cathartic, this really isn't something you should be venting about to your user base as it erodes their trust. Sure, a handful of pirates were going to play your game early. (Everything gets pirated after all, the only sure things in life are death, taxes, and piracy.) By sending this out to everyone today though, your $5+ backers may now universally feel a little screwed over because everyone is getting their exclusive window perk now (instead of a few stealthy pirates). The majority of those patrons likely weren't looking for it or were just expecting what was coming to them in due time, and wouldn't have known about what was going on in the dark corners of the internet. If so, this update email showed up in their inbox out of nowhere and ruined their day a little. I'm sure they understand where you're coming from and empathize, but still, it probably stings a bit. Piracy is incredibly difficult to evade for both massive companies and tiny indie creatives alike -- Writers, artists, coders, musicians. Please take it for what it has the potential to be, free publicity. It's not like you are able to advertise on television, or even if that would attract the people interested in your work. Meanwhile sites that would pirate games like yours have a userbase that's entirely within your target demographic, and a percentage of those people will likely enjoy your work so much they'll want to become patrons in order to watch the next one come together or support you. It's telling that people value your work enough to pirate it, that they'd be willing to brave potential trojans and viruses just to play something a few days early that would have been made freely available a short time later anyway. (I'm not excusing the behavior at all. I'm just trying to re-contextualize something unfortunate in a way that doesn't make you want to punch a wall in frustration.) For what it's worth, I will still be waiting until at least 12/24 to play. Both out of respect to you and Mortze's original intention, and the fact that I have almost no free time and haven't played through Redemption for Jessika yet. I'm signed up for this Patreon though because I loved what you did with Elsa and I want to support you two because you do phenomenal work. Don't let a few bad eggs get to you, they're not worth it. Your hundreds of patrons and likely thousands of fans are. You rock.

I've loved and respected your work ever since I found it, even as I'm not usually a big fan of large text based games, but your work I fell in love with, so am upset to see people taking advantage of it as well, though it's something that can't be prevented. Lets hope Karma bites them hard! With that said, I was willing to wait till after Christmas to play this new game, but since you uploaded it now, I will see about making room in my budget to pledge some patronage your way, also to send some positive energy in reaction for what caused the early public release. Stay strong! The fact that people take advantage and piggybag/copy from you, is testament of your art being of good quality. Edit note: Now, some 4 hours later, I found room in my budget and have pledged to be a $5 Patron, might upgrade that later on, but for now I'm just happy to be more supportive than just with words :)

I'm so sorry to hear about this, and especially that it's led to lost sleep (though my "sorry" is empathy, not a confession/apology -- I haven't even had a chance to download it myself yet!). I realize that I may very well be in the minority, but I don't actually care all that much about early access to games -- or put another way, I wouldn't personally be bothered if the public got them at the exact same time as patrons did (but I'm also in the lowest tier, going for long-term consistency rather than short-term rewards). In fact, I often drag my feet before playing games to let others shake the bugs out of them. (The other patron-only perks are great, though!) Assuming that most others didn't feel the same and still wanted early releases, I find myself wondering whether there would be some way to "watermark" the early release downloads with the patron's name so that if someone did put it on a pirate site, you'd know who it was (though it'd also have to be hard to detect/forge because otherwise the pirates are now going to try and pin it on me for suggesting it! :). I realize in suggesting this that you'd probably much prefer to spend your time doing things other than anti-piracy software... I also find myself wondering how reputable the hosting sites themselves are... my understanding is that some free hosting sites inject malware into downloads they host (in fact, Chrome wouldn't let me open a download that Mortze sent me a month or two ago, so I still haven't seen it), and if they were open to doing that, they certainly wouldn't be above grabbing copies for their own gain...

I do not see your acting to prevent your product being used by others, as a fail on your part at all. There is noting to make up. that I can see.

I am so sorry that this happened to you! Although I haven't had much success yet, I think Finding Miranda is an absolutely fantastic achievement!

Hang in there Tlaero, most of us are true supporters and really appreciate the world you're building. Don't let the thieves and trolls dictate your mood or they'll win in the end.