22/09/2024 Patreon Devlog (Patreon)

Helloooo~o everyone! Time for this week's update! 👀

Let's jump in!

Summary

• Finished Asher playtest

• Finished the remaining CGs

• Sent limited beta version to a couple of people

• Bug smooshing

Art 

This week I mostly finished up working on the remaining CGs and got them coded in.

Features

I mentioned last week that the flowcharts take a bit to load because they are so big. But that we were having issues creating a loading screen because of Renpy quirks.

We did come up with a workaround for the loading screen. It's not perfect but it does indicate to the player that something is happening while the flowcharts load in vs the game sitting there doing nothing while it loads in (which makes it seem like it froze).

It's not perfect but it is functional.

Testing

After finishing up Asher's playtest I created a beta build to give to a couple of people to make sure there weren't any big bugs. 

This is helpful to keep initial beta from being a disaster with everyone reporting the same huge issues. Ha ha.

Spoiler: We found a huge issue! ┗( T﹏T )┛

It wasn't too awful but there were some issues with how the flowcharts were interacting with saving. It was just causing it to not update properly and show the correct flowchart in some situations (such as loading the game, then loading a different save while playing).

This appears to be fixed now but the flowchart is a big plug in and brand new. It was built for me specifically but kind of expanded beyond my initial requests, so there may still be some lurking bugs. 

But this big one, anyway, seems to be fixed. ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

Upcoming Week

The Patreon Episode1 Beta was released to the Black Tea tier members. 

I am not sure how long the beta will be out before it's ready to go into early access for Yellow Tea and above.

Probably at least a month.

And then early access for Episode 1 is likely to last another month.

So right now, the schedule is looking like:

Episode 1 Beta (out now)

Episode 1 Patreon/Early access (out late Oct/early Nov)

Episode 1 Public release (out late Nov/early December)

But what about Episode 2, you ask?

I probably won't be able to focus on Episode 2 whole heartedly until it's clear the beta doesn't have any huge problems. 

It would be nice to stagger releases so that by the time Episode 1 is heading into public release, Episode 2 is getting ready for beta and early access...BUT. This is my first time releasing an episodic game with multiple versions released to multiple people so it might be a bit of a learning experience for now. 

Hopefully we smooth out the schedule and process as the game goes on.

Additionally, you know, right now all the features need testing. Recap, bonus scenes, flowchart - everything has to be tested to make sure it works on a more functional and foundational level. And that may take a little more time, which won't be the case later on.

Anyway, that is for this week.