Now & Then

Now & Then is a visual novel game for adults. The game tells the story of Jack Brooks, who lives with his adopted teenage daughter Carol after the global COVID-19 pandemic. In Now & Then, players will witness a series of events surrounding Jack's adoption of Carol and how they gradually become a complete family before the collapse of civilized society. As players explore the app, the choices they make empower them to shape the story, build relationships, and ultimately embark on their own unique and exciting journey.

Highlights:

Dynamic Choices: The app incorporates a choice system that allows players to determine the direction of the story, influencing relationships and shaping the overall narrative based on their decisions.

Deep Character Development: Now and Then features a cast of minor characters who further enhance the story, adding depth and complexity to the overall experience.

Multiple Scenarios: With a variety of scenarios to choose from, players can tailor their experience to their interests, ensuring a unique and personalized gameplay experience.

Features:

Dual-Timeline Exploration: Players alternate between two distinct timelines. In the present, players manage survival and encounter challenges related to food, shelter, and safety in a dystopian world. In the past, players explore Jack’s life before the collapse, focusing on the process of adopting Carol and how they build their relationship amidst the chaos of the pandemic. These timelines provide both emotional depth and a dynamic gameplay experience.

Resource Management & Survival: The survival aspect is key in the present timeline. Players must gather resources, make tough decisions on who to trust, and fend off threats from both human and environmental dangers. The consequences of these decisions are felt in the relationships between Jack and Carol, as well as with other survivors they may encounter.

Character Growth and Dialogue Choices: As Jack and Carol’s relationship evolves, players influence their emotional growth through choices in dialogue and actions. The dynamic between them is shaped by the player’s decisions—whether Jack becomes a nurturing father figure or struggles to bridge the gap between his grief and fatherhood. These interactions drive the emotional core of the game.

Emotional Storytelling: Now & Then emphasizes emotional depth through its narrative. Players will feel the weight of Jack’s loss and the challenges of raising Carol in a dangerous world. The game weaves personal growth with survival elements, giving players a deeper connection to the characters’ journey.

Immersive Worldbuilding: The game world is richly detailed, from the decaying remnants of civilization to the intimate moments between Jack and Carol. Players will explore abandoned cities, forests, and shelters, scavenging for supplies while uncovering clues about the pandemic and its aftermath. Every corner tells part of the story of a world on the brink of collapse.

Branching Story Paths: Decisions made in both timelines influence the outcome of the story. Whether Jack takes a more protective or distant approach to fatherhood affects how Carol grows as a person, and how they interact with other survivors. The game features multiple endings based on the choices players make, allowing for replayability and different perspectives on the story.

Changelog:

Fixed code in endings that allows you see Sydney pregnant sex scene

Fixed typos where Marshand is misspelled as Marshland

Fixed code issue in CH15 where Sydney is in bad state but still allows sex.

Other typos throughout

Developers:

For those of you who only connect with us here on Itch.io, I want to give you an update on Now & Then FINAL release, which is being worked on in the downtime between The Interim Domain releases.

This build is a full code clean-up with bonus content, including a Chapter Select, Unlock All option for the Gallery, and Outtakes. Currently up to Chapter 7, the FINAL build already has 250+ revised or new shots, including a few new scenes (like the one pictured ).

The FINAL build will also have some readjustments to points (with the possibility of a few new spots to correct someone cough NAOMI cough getting too many points with all the alt content. 4

So, if you see anything in the 0.26.0 build that might need to be tweaked, let us know. We may already be aware, but with 82k lines of script, it never hurts to have a few extra eyes.