Alpha Preview Update (April) (Patreon)

Hello everyone, as promised, about 30,000 new words of content has been added to the Shepherds of Haven Alpha Preview! Click the link to play! <3

Warning: as stated last time, this chapter's (Chapter 4) content touches on topics of plague, sickness, and quarantine. This is not deliberate and is a result of very unfortunate timing; if you would like to refrain from reading such content, please do not click the link. 

Developer notes (READ AFTER PLAYING IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS):

1) This might be one of the most ambitious branching chapters I've done so far. There are a LOT of different scenarios that can play out depending on the MC's 1) reactions and choices and 2) their ability to pass stat checks while in the cave. 

Most notably, I actually think failing a certain stat check in this chapter is actually more interesting narratively than succeeding it is! I won't say too much more, but I have mixed feelings about this: in a way, I'm almost rewarding failure in this one particular moment, which is a really interesting thing to grapple with when working with interactive fiction and game design. You'll probably see what I mean if you're not a very beefy Mage... 

2) If you are a Diviner, something interesting happens in this chapter that doesn't happen for any other specialization! These scenes are very rough drafts, however, and will be expanded upon and refined when I have the time, as I didn't have much time to flesh them out this time. 

(Briony, Lavinet, Caine, and Prihine's scenes in this part are also not written yet, period.)

3) As always, certain routes may be blocked out from you, not because you fail to meet their requirements, but because I haven't written them yet. These are:

• Choosing to use a Word of Power to leave the cave early. 
• Stopping in time to not fall off the cliff (while using a lantern).

Pretty much anything else that's greyed out is a result of not meeting a certain stat or choice requirement, but if I think of any more that are the result of incomplete sections, I'll update these notes!

4) I'm mixed on Mekduk: it was hard to write her quirky language without having her come off as... Gollum-y. Originally it was going to be a whole thing that Ghasts can't conceive of themselves as single individuals, rather only as part of a collective (similar to the Endarkened hivemind), but this resulted in Mekduk only using the pronoun "we" rather than "I" and that was really Gollum-y, so here she is for now: she may change a bit through the drafts!

5) There is a big Easter egg/side-mystery that can be solved in this chapter regarding Vivek's master and the old Archmage of the Shepherds' HQ, Tangriel, who you learn about in Shery's routes! Did you find him? 

6) If the descent into the cave feels similar to the nightmare realm/the Phantom Shore, that's deliberate!

7) I've been aware that the website Dashingdon has been experiencing some slowness and freezing over the last few weeks. Hopefully this is resolved, but I've noticed some comments throughout the forum about freezing and bugginess, so if this occurs, it could likely be a site issue rather than a bug!

(This iteration of the game passed Randomtest and Quicktest, so there shouldn't be that many bugs, but I was not able to read through everything for continuity or typos, so please be aware the material is very very raw!)

8) In total, ShoH is now at 265,000 words, adding 30,000 words since the last update! I was able to add so much in these past few days thanks to your support, so I have to say it again: THANK YOU SO MUCH! It's thanks to your patience and support here on Patreon that we're able to move along at such a steady clip! I can't express how grateful I am to you!

I'll be waiting to hear any thoughts or feedback you might have; I hope you like this update, and enjoy!