Hiveswap Friendship Simulator: Volume Six

Hiveswap Friendship Simulator: Volume Six, entitled "Of Text and Envy, Green", is the sixth installment of Hiveswap Friendship Simulator, a series of "loosely-canonical" Hiveswap spinoff visual novels in the style of dating sim games, but termed "friendship simulators" instead due to their focus on platonic friendships instead of romance. The befriendable characters in this installment (first introduced in the Troll Call) are Elwurd, Kuprum Maxlol and Folykl Darane. As with all Friendsim installments, Volume six was developed and programmed by David Turnbull using the Ren'Py game engine.

As with all other volumes, it is sold as $0.99 DLC for Volume One. It was also made available on the Google Play Store for the same amount.

Plot
Fresh from your ordeal(s) with Zebruh Codakk and/or Polypa Goezee, and both fascinated and confused by the elusive nature of troll romance, you decide to eschew the unnecessary complication of love and continue your quest for friendship.

Elwurd
With no idea where to go and hoping you'll bump into someone, you do just that, and slam into a cerulean-blooded troll on the street. Your understanding of the power dynamic within the Hemospectrum leaves you instantly wary, but this troll, Elwurd, is disarmingly nice, and attractive to boot. Immediately identifying you as an alien, she invites you to hang out, leaving you confused as to whether she's hitting on you. Happy for once that you won't have to make any choices, she asks you where you'd like to go.


 * If you ask to go to the closer of the two places she has in mind, she leads you to a dive bar. Noticing an attractive cerulean-blooded girl across the room, she moves in to flirt, brushes you off, and abandons you entirely. GAMEOVER


 * If you ask to go to the farther of the two places, Elwurd will be interrupted by a palmhusk notification—her ex-matesprit (whom you express sympathies about, lying and saying you once had an annoying ex-partner) insists that the two of you go to Elwurd's hive, rendezvous with the ex, and recover her missing sweater. You agree to the change of plans, and Elwurd asks that you pretend to be her new matesprit during the visit, in a bid to knock the ex off her high hoofbeast. You succeeded in turning a false romance into a genuine friendship with Polypa, you suppose, but that was a close call—even so, you consider that maybe that prior experience will give you an edge, and you're slipping too close to a genuine crush to risk saying no.
 * If you agree to —that is to say, agree with hyper-enthusiasm bordering on mania—Elwurd will abandon the plan, worried about leading you on, and blow off her ex so the two of you can hang out one-on-one. She brings you to a coffee shop, which is apparently a girls-only venue, but since no one knows enough about your alien anatomy to determine your gender, it's little matter. You learn that an open-mic bonanza is about to begin, and you sign up, hoping she'll continue to find your enthusiasm charming. You bullshit your way through your slam poetry, sputtering out nonsense laden with Earth pop culture and human anatomy terms for which trolls would have no context, and punctuate your performance by slapping yourself across the face, full-force. Despite a tough crowd, Elwurd compliments you, and coerces you to open up about your supposed recent breakup. You finally confess that you don't have an ex to speak of, and you made it all up in an effort to commiserate. She scolds you for your subterfuge, and tells you it's best if you just leave. GAMEOVER.
 * If you agree to, coolly and without the theatrics, she takes you back to her hive and advises you to wing it. A wrench is thrown into your plans, as the fated ex turns out to be Bronya Ursama, who quickly recognizes you. Before that sweet relief, however, you sit through an argument where Elwurd and Bronya accuse each other of being unprepared to move on from the matespritship, with Elwurd accusing Bronya of falsifying the sweater story to gain access to the hive, and Bronya accusing Elwurd of stowing away the sweater to manufacture a reason for Bronya to invite herself over. Walking on eggshells to be conciliatory to Elwurd but not antagonize Bronya, you survive the interaction with both friendships intact, and Bronya leaves empty-clawed. Elwurd, alone with you again, bursts into giggles and reveals that she indeed does have Bronya's sweater in her hive. You hesitantly agree that Bronya seemed unprepared to move on, and that Elwurd being hung up as well is okay, even if the relationship wasn't worth holding on to. Calling you a good friend, she invites you out again for the drink Bronya interrupted. VICTORY!

Kuprum & Folykl
Your search for friendship leads you to a rougher part of town, strewn with run-down buildings, flickering streetlights and roaming imperial drones. You spy a powwow of blue-blooded nobility nervously roaming the street ahead and you take cover behind some waste bins, where you bump into two gold-blooded trolls laughing at the highbloods' confusion, as though it was their doing. When you inquire about this, they call you and redirect their mockery towards you.
 * If you stick up for yourself, they mock the 's butthurt reaction, and scamper off laughing to themselves. GAMEOVER >it's for the best!
 * If you take their insults lying down (as you curse the sexual undertones of that idiom), the two take a liking to your self-deprecating attitude, and Folykl explains that Kuprum hacked the highbloods' palmhusk GPSes to bring them to the wrong destination. As Kuprum demonstrates his powers, you take notice of Folykl's empty eye sockets. She is revealed to be a victim of a goldblood medical condition called voidrot (something you've entirely missed out on, since your only goldblood friend is missing an eye for unrelated reasons). Her body can't retain energy properly, so she is forced to leech off Kuprum's remarkable psychic energy to stay alive, and acts as a conduit for his energy overloads—as moirails, the two are both physically and emotionally codependent. Kuprum mocks you for your poor understanding of troll society, idly suggesting that Trizza Tethis take you —Trizza is evidently a sore subject and launches the two into a row, and although you're no expert on troll romance, you know this isn't how moiraillegance is supposed to look.
 * If you suggest that their relationship still needs work, Kuprum becomes insecure and accuses you of being out to steal Folykl as your own moirail. The high tension sends a surge of energy through his body, which Folykl visibly (and somewhat lewdly) absorbs into her eye sockets. Folykl and Kuprum bicker briefly before she clambers off his back and over to you, taunting your perceived boldness, and tongue-kisses you (which you rationalize as being platonic, somehow). Suddenly, you feel Kuprum kissing the back of your neck—the two are using you as a conductor, Kuprum flooding energy into you and Folykl absorbing it back out. Folykl waves Kuprum away and drains you completely of your energy, leaving you dazed and effectively immobilized in the street. Fog closes in as you lay helpless. GAMEOVER.
 * If you lie and say that they have a stable, healthy relationship, the two will begrudgingly approve of you. The three of you watch the highbloods quickly evacuate via chartered scuttlebuggy as imperial drones close in on your location. The three of you run for your lives (or, rather, Kuprum levitates you and himself for your lives), only to be cut off by a small drone around the next corner. Kuprum tosses you all to safety, but the psychic blast also separates him from the group, leaving you and Folykl cowering in an alleyway—and to make matters worse, the drone finds you again, and hones in on Folykl. You fuck up some trash cans and make some noise, diverting its attention long enough for Kuprum to arrive and fry the drone's mind with a blast of psychic energy. He shoves you aside, immediately focusing his attention on comforting Folykl, and they share a dorky moment before making sure you're alright too—and, for once, you are, thanks to your new friends. VICTORY!!