Alpha Preview Update (August) (Patreon)

Strap in, everyone, I've got a doozy of an update/devlog for you this month!

First thing's first! These last few weeks suddenly got unexpectedly hectic for me, though in mostly minor and inconvenient ways: my car broke down, then my computer, then a few other necessary but unexpected expenses hit, which started to pile on and feel overwhelming! Everything's okay, it's just one of those periods where you're like "welp at least nothing else can go wrong... -next thing goes wrong- ...why" 

We've also been traveling a lot amidst all of that chaos (and are going out of town for yet another wedding tomorrow), so it's been a lot of hustle and bustle without much personal downtime. I've been super productive (imo) with writing Shepherds and work in general, but slowed down by things like realizing my new-ish laptop is damaged, and I think I'm going to need the time and space to mentally declutter soon... once my deadlines for this month are met! Still need to write the short story for this month, mail off the next tarot cards, and take care of some other business, so I've just been juggling things like that! 

For now, I'm using my partner's clunky old computer to work and write while I await assessments and eventual repairs on my own... So if I'm a bit slow or hard to reach, now you know why! Trying to remember passwords and login things for computers that aren't your own is such a pain... 😭

Important side note: If you're a content creator of any kind, I highly recommend investing in some way to back up your files constantly and automatically, especially online via Dropbox or OneCloud or Google Drive or something like that! After seeing so many horror stories of CS writers losing all of their work suddenly, I started syncing my entire computer to a Dropbox account so that everything I do is saved in the cloud instantaneously, and by God did that save my life when it came to this broken computer! I would have had FULL-BLOWN PANIC in that scenario if I couldn't access my files; thankfully, I've been doing the automatic sync and backup thing for months, so Shepherds is safe and sound and we can all rest easy! 😂Otherwise I would literally cry! 😐

Anyway, I have a lot to say about the progress I've made on ShoH this month, so read on for my important dev notes! (Please look in What's New, because a lot of important bug fixes have occurred in this update!)

Play the alpha here 

Password: remembertohydrate

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What's New:

• 20,000 words to Chapter 7
• Added achievements to Chapter 6
• Changed the names of several existing achievements throughout the build (for the ✨aesthetic✨)
• Created new bug report system for ease of tracking bugs: please only use this form to report bugs from now on! (You can read here for more details!) 
• Created new bug report status repository so users can see what bugs have been reported and which I've fixed recently. Please refer to this repository before submitting a bug report to see if your problem already been reported or solved! Many of my comments have solutions to the bugs or glitches you may be experiencing!
• Bug solutions to quest and recruit training sequences are in the above repository
• Fixed the reunion scene in Chapter 7 so that your best friend and highest romance option (if different people) will greet you rather than only one
• New newspaper articles
• Fixed a bug where plants and fish were selectable from Chandry's shop despite not having enough gold
• Fixed a bug that caused players to lose to Nathe regardless of their stats in Chapter 5
• Fixed a bug where using a non-legendary bow during the gladiator fight had no effect against the wyvern
• Made the wyvern fight significantly easier in terms of stat checks and unlocked magic options so that they're not solely tied to specializations (though specializing still makes options easier)
• Training on days off now gives much bigger boosts to magic and strength, and the boosts scale up as time goes on to accommodate for fairmath and decreasing returns. In other words, training at the beginning of the game gives a 10% boost to magic. (10% of your existing magic stat: so if you have 40 magic and train, you'd get +4 magic.) If you've been training consistently, over time, that boost will eventually increase to 15% and 20% per training session, in order to keep training in pace with increasing magic or strength scores. This should make a lot of magic or strength checks in battles easier for players to pass. E.G. you should have a more balanced fight in the gladiator arena.
• This should also help with falling off the cliff in the Reach, though this will have to be tweaked as target numbers are found through player feedback. I'd prefer to keep it about even (without special preparation or foreknowledge, 50% of players end up falling off the cliff, 50% don't.)

Developer Notes:

I ran into a massive problem while writing this chapter. (Okay, it's really not that massive, but it did stop me in my tracks for a bit.) Don't read this part if you haven't gotten a chance to read the latest update yet!

My original plan for Chapter 7 was this: you would attend the Ascendancy Festival with either a close friend (if not romancing anyone) or your chosen romance option, and the festival will consist of several different activities for each person (typically carnival games/food, the "Ember Island Players"-style play with Chandry, and other activities). If attending the festival with an RO, about 50% of them would culminate the festival date with either a first kiss or an explicit confession of their feelings, shifting to official dating relationship for several characters.

HOWEVER, when I started writing this chapter, I forgot that the Ascendancy Festival was going to happen at this point--for some reason in my head, it took place in Chapter 8. So because I was under that impression, I had a bunch of angsty/pining/jealousy/extreme romantic tension moments for the guy squad once they head off on their mission to the swamp later in the chapter. Like cuddling for warmth to stave off hypothermia, here MC let me give you my jacket or give you a piggyback and no I definitely don’t like you type of romantic bullshit!!! 

I could still technically go through with these moments, but they read very differently post-confession versus pre-confession; I imagine them as still in the "pining/courtship/pre-dating stage", but if I go through with having the Ascendancy Festival in this chapter, many of them will actually be "new relationship" moments rather than the uncertainty of "wait do we like each other or..." So they would read very differently either way, and I'm sort of attached to having them still be "pre-relationship" right now! But that may not work for the timeline of things that have to happen in the game... 

It also doesn’t help that I haven’t written the day off interludes leading to these moments yet, so I can’t get a good read on whether this is even a good place to put any confessions, or if it would be too abrupt, or vice-versa, if it would seem way too long to still be in the pining/romantic tension stage at this point... since some of these ROs would have like 6 or 7 day off interludes at this stage in the story!

I could just move the Ascendancy Festival to the next chapter to maximize Swamp Tension and then have the planned confessions take place once they get back, but, uh, that will mean there are three big celebrations in a row in the coming chapters: Ascendancy Festival, Lovelace Day, and [spoilers] MC’s birthday, all one after another. Part of the reason why the holidays were spaced out like this was so that characters who joined later in the story (Briony, Lavinet) would have organic growth to their relationships and courtships before confessing in later holidays, such as Lovelace Day, and not the Ascendancy Festival (which would be virtually right after they first joined). 

Urghhh! So basically, I still don't know what I'm doing: whether I'm moving the festival to Chapter 8 (and making readers wait to find out who the new Autarch is until then?? but then... the inspection...) or just keeping things as they are now and altering the interactions in the swamp down the road. I have no idea! So I opted to skip the festival for now and possibly return when I have a better handle on timing and the day off interludes... or just cry, whichever gets me to the solution fastest!

I hope that all makes sense and isn't just inane rambling!

Conclusion: be prepared for the festival to move chapters at any moment, and consider this your sneak peek for now!

Total wordcount: 638,287 words without code

What's Next: 

SWAAAAAAAAAAAMP

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy playing the update and the various QOL improvements and bug fixes that will hopefully make the playing experience better! If you spy any new bugs, please use the form above to report them, and I apologize for any delays in my response: along with going out of town this week, I am still using someone else's computer, so I'm making things work as I go! Thanks for your patience and support as always, and happy playing!