Alpha Preview Update (November) (Patreon)

Hi everybody, the alpha update for November is here!

I'm actually very proud of the amount of work I got done this month: while I've been working on learning Twine (as well as CSS and HTML and Javascript...) on the side, I still got the same amount of writing done on ShoH that I normally do! So there's the full amount of words for the update this time, plus all of the other stuff I had to do this month (like traveling cross-country for a reading/award ceremony, the holiday weekend, commissioning a bunch of things and keeping track of those and pingponging back and forth--really exciting stuff on that horizon!--and doing a whole bunch of radio, podcast, and class interviews)! I'm not ashamed to say that I killed it this month!! We'll just see if I can squeak Riel and Trouble's short story in before the 30th, and then I'll have gotten everything done, plus accomplished a lot more than I usually do... 🥲🥲🥲 It's taken a lot of sleepless nights this month to get here, though! 😅

There's some nice romance and cute stuff in this update if you're romancing one (or more) of the four boys, because all of the swamp and Wallmire and murder shenanigans was getting me down and I needed a break from all of the awfulness... but if you're not romancing any of them, it's going to be some more awful, creepy stuff, lol! Hopefully the mystery surrounding Wallmire can start to ramp up now! I wonder if it's obvious what's going on... 👀 Definitely channeling some horror game swamp village vibes for this chapter, like Resident Evil 7!

Play the alpha here 

❗️➡ Password: cellardoor ⬅ ❗️

Report bugs here

View bug reports here

What's New:

• 15,000 words of new content 
• New content for Chapter 7
• Conversation with Aerin added after confronting Ebert in Chapter 2
• Question or Command game in Chapter 7 finished ("Question" route added)
• Several bugs and typos fixed in previous chapters

Developer Notes:

Sadly, I wasn't able to finish any of the boys' routes for sharing a room, which I know will cause some people disappointment, but there was so much branching involved that I didn't want to make it a rush job (or only have some options available and others not--I just ran out of time this month)! Hopefully those scenes will be done in the next update, though! And in the meantime, there's plenty of other opportunities to flirt in this update! 

What's currently there is, as always, a rough draft, and I plan on adding more personality-based flavor text (like a few more shy or what-have-you options) down the road; but right now, the general skeleton should give you a good idea of what to expect, and I hope you enjoy it!

Total wordcount: 679,933 words without code

What's Next:

More Chapter 7, including finishing up those room-sharing routes! We'll see if I can keep this pace up for next month! Have a great rest of your weekend, I hope you enjoy this update, and I also hope you have a wonderful time gearing up for the holiday season! Remember to rest and hydrate! 💪✨ And keep an eye out for more news, updates, and polls soon!