Beta testing information (Patreon)

Beta testing and proofreading have just started.

As soon as I know a little bit more, I can set a release date.

I'm aiming for a November release for the $25 tier, and that's all I can say at the moment.

If you base your pledge on the release date, please wait until the release date is final.

I know that everyone is excited; you should be, and I am too.

Please, be patient with us during this final phase, and the update will come faster.

Important information regarding patching

I will explain in the section below why I cannot supply a patch for this update.

What this means for v0.8.0 is that everyone will have to download the full game this time.

I haven't forgotten about the $5 patrons waiting for the patch. Anyone who pledges $5 in December 2021 and has pledged at least $15 total on Patreon during this year will get a DM with the links to the full update two weeks after release. 

However, there won't be a post for any patch, and I will temporarily remove the $5 tier patch reward on release. When the first patch of Season 3 becomes available, this tier reward will return.

Detailed information

Now, why won't a patch be available?

To make a long story short, I have upgraded Ren'Py to the latest version to enable 64-bit Windows. The upgrade causes patching to be a nightmare, even for an above-average PC user, so I opted out of it this time.

The Ren'Py upgrade made the game run much smoother and become more responsive than before. When I saw the results, it was worth spending extra time to fix the deprecated functionality and issues that came from upgrading. This upgrade will most likely eliminate all weird out-of-memory bugs and remove most lag from your game.

All in all, you will notice the positive effects of upgrading the Ren'Py version. The only downside to upgrading the game to 64-bit is that 32-bit systems aren't supported anymore. Examples of 32-bit OS that won't be supported are Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows XP. That's the future for all Ren'Py games, not just Being a DIK.

Aside from upgrading Ren'Py, I have tested my save transfer system on Steam and tested a temporary new season 3 binary for Steam as well. It all went smoothly, and I am confident that my chosen way to continue developing the game will be feasible for Patreon and Steam.

So, that's very good news for the Being a DIK development in general.

What will happen now?

Testers and proofreader will get the time they need to test and play. I will fix any bugs and typos they find.

This update is big - something they all commented on after their first playthrough - and it will require several playthroughs to explore fully. When they test, they are also working against a checklist that I provide with tasks that need to be tested.

Testing will also cover earlier episodes to find any bugs from the Ren'Py upgrade.

We are working our hardest, but because of the Ren'Py upgrade and the size of the game, there might be new bugs we missed during testing; as always, I appreciate any bug reports players send my way.

Meanwhile, I will perform additional tests and continue to polish the game.

I will also prepare for the distribution of the Patreon version.

What can you as a player do to prepare?

You can ensure that your saves are up to date and that you have saved at the end of the episode 7 update, where the game tells you to save. Yes, your old saves will work without any issues as long as you did this.

You can make sure that you have enough disk space for the update.

The game will be approximately 19 GB when you extract it, meaning that you will need at least 40 GB of free disk space to download the game and extract it.

If you have any questions regarding all of this, I will do my best to answer you in the comment section below.

I apologize for any confusion; I tried my best to make this long text easy to understand.

Preliminary changelog

Here is the preliminary changelog for v0.8.0. It might change slightly as a result of beta testing.

Added Episode 8 that includes:

• 4158 renders
• 24 2D-art pieces
• 358 animations
• 37 songs
• 31 sound effects
  
• Upgraded Ren'Py version to 7.4.10
• Updated functionality for viewing special renders in the Rewards app.
• Redesigned the game menus.
• Removed the splash screen due to performance issues
• Added a button to manually save persistent data in the Save menu; automatic saving still works as before.
• Fixed a rare bug with Brawler that caused four options that resulted in a miss to show at once.
• Fixed a bug with the math tests that displayed the wrong grade when cheating.
• Fixed a bug with the bar mixing menu in episode 7.
• Fixed a rare bug with the mansion mini-game.
• Fixed cosmetic bugs with the phone.
• Fixed an issue with the "Previously on Being a DIK" section for episode 7.
• Fixed a bug with reaching turn 100 in Triple Tile.
• Fixed an issue where the MC didn't get the right avatar in the Bios app.
• Fixed an issue with Rooster images not being closed with the middle-mouse button on the old phone.
• Fixed an issue where Brandi was named Brian in her dialogue.
• Fixed a Bios issue with Josy.
• Fixed an issue where Madame Rose was misplaced in alphabetical order in the Bios app.
• Fixed an issue where the Madame Rose intro was played after each choice when visiting her using the phone.
• Corrected typos in episode 7

I will post release dates after we have tested the game some more.

DrPinkCake