Alpha Preview Update (May) (Patreon)

Play the alpha here

Password: bring_may_flowers ⬅ ❗️

Report bugs here

View bug reports here

Incomplete routes guide ⬅ ❗️please check if you suspect your game ended early :)

What's New:

• 14,000 words of new content 
• More Chapter 8.5! Guard-kun returns!
• Fuck around and make Guard-kun's life infinitely harder. If you kissed him successfully, act even sluttier this time 😔
• New Chase day off interlude
• New Ayla day off interlude

Developer's Notes:

[EDIT: I’m still in Europe but the amount of messages saying Chase’s over 100 relationship is too powerful and breaks the game was stressing me out, so I went through last night and absolutely annihilated any hint of fairmath in the alpha build entirely! 😭 I’ve really come to hate it LOL so now there shouldn’t be any errors involving fairmath ever again 🥲 The only changes this will produce (other than less errors in the future) is that 1) saves were unfortunately probably wiped by this, 2) stat checks will now probably be quite easy to pass, at least temporarily, as they haven’t been adjusted for flat integer changes rather than measuring according to fairmath, and 3) character relationships are temporarily capped at 90 to prevent them from getting too high, which far surpasses any check currently in the alpha build, anyway.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m very much looking forward to rolling out the Twine version of the game, as this will vastly reduce the dangers of saves being wiped (as you can manually download saves to your own device as offline files) as well as eliminate any capping or fairmath issues! Death to fairmath 🥲🔪 Anyway, I hope this creates a better, smoother experience, at least for now, while we wait for the big shift!]

Please let it be known that Chase's new day off interlude features fairly-graphic descriptions of violence. Read at your own discretion!

Also, it's recommended that you use the quickbuild to jump to Chapter 8.5 if you want to have kissed Guard-kun (really, his name is Alec Cross now) successfully in the Prologue. The reason why I say this is because I had to add a new variable during the time since the Prologue was written and now; while a variable was toggled if you kissed Guard-kun (Alec) at all, another one had to be added to differentiate whether he was actually interested or if he flat-out rejected you, so you'll either need to use the quickbuild to toggle this, or play the game from the very start. I'd recommend doing the former, at least just to view the new content for now!

As I noted in my other post, I really had to blaze through this update in order to get it done on time to leave for my trip without any loose ends. I think I wrote this update and the short story in something like 5 days! 😭 Which I'm never going to attempt again, lol. As such, these are just drafts (as usual) that I'll probably go back and fill out more or smooth over in terms of pacing and such; Chapter 8.5, in particular, could use at least another bonding opportunity for the team before getting to the Vice Guard station, but I realized that I've been mentally comparing it to Chapters 5-7 (the witch's bane incident, Rivercross for the girls, truth or dare in the Bleakmoor for the guys), but the thing about having a mission directly in Ashtown like twenty minutes away from HQ is that it would be a bit silly to stop and linger in the same way long-distance missions afforded the companions traveling time to have more team-building. So I'm still brainstorming how I can organically give Tallys, Lavinet, and Halek the same kind of opportunities while not 1) interrupting the flow and focus of the mission and 2) staying true to the current tension between Tallys and Lavinet, without making things overly unpleasant and tedious, lol. Just something I'm still mulling over, but my point is that there are a few gaps I left in the narrative that are going to be filled with new scenes later, especially when I've had more time to let things marinate!

Last thing: I do worry that while I'm out of town, unexpected bugs may arise that I won't be able to address right away. Aside from the incomplete routes guide linked above, which should be valuable when it comes to most concerns, if you get an error message along the lines of "Can't fairAdd," it's just because of ChoiceScript's finickyness when it comes to mixing percentile and integer values. In other words, it arises because some stat is trying to go over 100, and the game engine won't let it. Try using the quickbuild to set that value (could be one of your stats like Nerves of Steel, or it could be a relationship stat like Shery's approval) to something significantly lower, and that should resolve the issue. I'm sorry for the continued inconvenience of this, but we are getting closer and closer to being able to switch to the Twine version of the game, which should solve this issue permanently! 🤞 I thank you for your patience and understanding until then!

Total wordcount: 971,538 words without code

What's Next:

I'm not sure yet if the next update will have more of Chapter 8.5, or if I'll try and do some more character interludes--I'm getting the sense that I ought to let 8.5 rest a bit so I can untangle some things without hitting full-on writer's block, but that may sort itself out while I'm out of the country and idle, so we'll see! Either way, I hope you'll look forward to it!

Thank you, and I hope you enjoy!