Alpha Preview Update (April) (Patreon)

ET VOILA! An update for Chapter 7 is here... a little flirtation with Red, a little murder... what more could you ask for? 😉 

Play the alpha here

Password: crabrangoon ⬅ ❗️

Report bugs here

View bug reports here

What's New

• 19,000 words of new content for Chapter 7!
• Red room-sharing scene!
• Keep in mind that there's a new password for the alpha build, if you happen to start the game from scratch: the new password is at the top of this post!
• MURDERRRRRRRR

Developer's Notes: 

EDIT: [04/28/22] I had to reupload the file after realizing that a sequence in romanced!ex-Red's room-sharing scene wasn't firing correctly. If you're his ex, romancing him, and ask him about his family while sharing a room, there will be a tiny bit of new content there now. Sadly, reuploading the file usually resets people's progress to the beginning of Chapter 7, so sorry for that inconvenience! 

The new content for this update is only for visiting the house that Mimir tells you about before returning to Wallmire; choosing to return directly to Wallmire without going to the house first has not been written yet! There are also a few branching outcomes to this particular update, so some people are going to have drastically different conclusions, depending on how their investigations turn out. I hope you have fun exploring and discussing! 

You'll also get the most out of this particular update if you have a high Psionic stat or you're a Diviner, though Elementalists and Wild-Mages get a nice little piece of the pie, too! You can always use the quickstart creator at the beginning of the build in order to play around with this! 

I'm not 100% happy with my writing for this update, but I feel like I rarely am and say that in every update post... I kind of give up trying to be perfectionistic and just learn to live with it by the end of the month! 😂 Like "whatever, I wrote enough even if it's not perfect!" 😅 This month I was dealing with an odd sleep issue where I kept waking up exactly 4 hours after going to bed, leading to some tiredness and brain fog all month, along with general feelings of stress and burnout! This made my writing feel more difficult than usual: for you writers out there, do you ever feel like your mind is being very sluggish, and you have to constantly look at your sentences, finding them oddly simple and having to be like, "...what's another word for energy? What's another word for sign??" And just drawing a total blank and generally feeling befuddled? That's how I felt this time, but I figured out that I was pushing myself too hard (especially considering the lack of sleep) and tried to ease back on my expectations for myself, which helped! I also figured out that I haven't read a book in several weeks and have just been working and playing Fire Emblem or watching TV when I can squeeze in an hour or so of leisure time, which I think contributed to the feeling of strain and sluggishness when it came to my writing! I always write best when I'm also reading, so I bought a few new books and am already feeling better in that regard: it was just a matter of introducing some balance back into my schedule!

Finally, the usual content warnings for Chapter 7 apply here: general horror situations, discussions of murder, violence, and serial killings, and icky creatures like leeches and parasites are present, so play at your own caution!

Total wordcount (without code): 749,905 words

What's Next:

I'm planning to tackle Chase's room scene and continue Chapter 7: hopefully we are drawing closer to ending at least one of the routes, since this thing is a beast at 123,000 words (all for one chapter)! We have some ground to cover still, but I'm very proud of the progress we're making, and I feel Chapter 8 creeping closer and closer on the horizon! 

Thank you, everyone, as always, for your kindness, support, and encouragement! I hope you enjoy the new update, and feel free to hop onto our Discord to discuss or drop a comment below! Enjoy the end of April, and take care of yourselves! 💖