Special Delivery v0.1d Pre-Release! (Patreon)

Hello all!

Sorry for the period of silence x.x I have been working essentially non-stop on this new SD build to try to get it out before the end of the month, sadly I came down ill several days ago and it has really made it hard to get the last bits of work done Dx

Enough about that though, the new build is here and playable, so here are the patch notes!

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SPECIAL DELIVERY v0.1D CHANGELOG:

!! This update features many re-built systems and changes to core functionality of previous builds, as such old saves will not work with v0.1d !!

!! The Gallery has been temporarily disabled to undergo huge functionality and quality renovations !!

!! If you played any of the previous builds of Special Delivery, in order to get the achievements system to function properly with this new build you will need to clear your persistent data for SD! Essentially you just need to delete the file named 'persistent' usually found in "C:/Users/Username/AppData/Roaming/Renpy/SpecialDelivery-#########/", as well as the persistent file inside your game install directory, in the game/saves/ folder !!

New features:

- The Phone Texting system is now implemented! Contacts can be conversed with whenever a conversation is available.

- The Exploration System is now implemented! Once unlocked, it can be used to explore the current location for extra events and encounters.

- The Rations / Energy Recovery System is now implemented! All future food and drink items will be added to the ration inventory, and can be consumed to restore stamina for events that require it.

- The Active Notes section of the journal is now functional! It will track non-quest related points of interest and reminders.

- Menu icons are now implemented (partially)! In order to help with choice and contextual clarity, icons have been added to certain menu options! More will be added in future patches.

- New hotspot-specific cursors have been implemented! Custom cursor icons will hopefully work to give the game more of a personality, plus some extra readability for actions. Side note: game performance takes a hit with these, in future I may add an option to disable them for those who struggle with performance issues when playing.

Menu/UI:

- New HUD elements for the phone + exploration systems have been enabled.

- The Save / Load screens have had multiple page functionality re-enabled. It's still a little archaic, but at least for now there are more than 6 save slots.

- Multiple alignment issues with certain elements have been resolved.

- Issues with multiple page functionality for the quest tracker have been resolved.

- The Gallery section of the Extras menu has been temporarily disabled - there's nothing wrong with it, but it has terrible functionality on account of it being one of the very first things I did for SD back in 2021. I will be re-doing the entire gallery with proper scene playback and much better functionality, probably with the full release of Chapter One.

Story/Quest Content:

- All exploration content that will be present for chapter one has been implemented.

- Two new quests have been added; both available via phone texting conversations.

- The job at Fae'lyen Trideu is now available in a WIP-state.

- Once again weeded out as many typos and misnomers as I could whilst proof-reading.

Art/Visuals:

- Slight tweaks to some HUD and screen elements to fix marginal clipping and misalignment issue.

- Added new renders for the Juniper Outskirts and back room of Trideu.

- Many new renders have been implemented for specific encounters in both the outskirts and the streets.

- Altered and re-rendered a couple of renders that weren't entirely up-to-snuff.

- Rendered a few extra sprites for characters Effie and Ishura.

- A few smaller lewd renders have been added as part of one of the new quests.

Under the hood:

- I've completely uprooted the inventory system and replaced it with a much more robust implementation. Old saves will be killed, but it is much better for future-proofing and will allow me to add any functionality needed for future updates without pulling my hair out.

- Cleaned up some mistakes I made when instancing system classes by chapter; it'll be much easier to manage with singular persistent instances that don't change chapter to chapter. Thanks past me, for creating the extra work with your stupid decisions.

- Replaced a lot of the code using default renpy statements with their raw python counterparts, because Renpy is, broadly speaking, a disaster of a game engine and it's a miracle that it works at all. Regardless, these should fix and improve functionality specifically related to label calls, jumps, and scene returns + transitions.

- Essentially hotwired some cooperative functionality between the phone and time of day systems so that they can work off of eachother. Necessary because of the ability to accept quests at essentially any time of day by accessing their respective texts, which in-turn often creates specific time goals for deadlines or quest progression based on when the quest was accepted. Basically without this it would theoretically be possible to stretch events meant to take 30 minutes to be several years long, and that would not be very cash money.

Known bugs/errors:

- Exiting the codex from the main menu doesn't resume the main menu music

- Reloading saves then manipulating certain screens can lead to scene animations failing to loop - it's an engine level bug, I probably can't fix this one

- Notification screens for things like journal updates / money changes / achievement unlocks can become stuck if the game is saved or loaded during them being shown. It's the result of limitations with on-demand screen calling in renpy; I need to be able to call these screens at-will, and therefore it is necessary for me to bake auto-hide functionality into them so they don't persist indefinitely. The stuck bug happens when the timer for auto-hiding them is interrupted by a save/load or rollback action. Presently I do not have any way of fixing it as it's an error brought about by user input. Saving and loading then waiting out the 3-5 second timer should fix any hard-stuck screens though, but it will not prevent it from happening again in future.

- Entering and exiting the codex during a part of the game that has background music resets the current music track, minor but still not preferable

- Rolling back too quickly may produce an 'out of range' error, it's another engine level bug afaik, just click the 'Rollback' button in the corner and it should go away without issue

- Very rarely an error revolving around transitions can be had whilst using certain in-game menus, usually in the format of "x does not have attribute 'slow'" or similar. Genuinely I have no idea why this error happens or how to even begin to diagnose it; it shows up and goes away at complete random, and the error report always points toward a completely innocuous part of the code. I believe this is just the result of God gradually imparting entropy onto every aspect of the universe, and SD's game code has not been left exempt.

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DOWNLOADS:

PC/Linux: https://mega.nz/file/MypDhIra#6li9lvIaTcVDRk3lI5r8gfBt4fapTY7c9NfuRB7vXbw 

Mac: https://mega.nz/file/8rIX1RpT#DtWtX_gqI-EFwrZs-lziax9Gz0vI6g04s9TOsHGr3uM

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Thank you all for continuing to support me and my creative endeavours! I hope you enjoy playing the new build! Please don't be afraid to let me know about errors/bugs/typos you find! That's the main point of these pre-release builds, they have had minimal testing until you all play them, so if you do spot anything done in error, comment it below or bring it up in the discord server, it's greatly appreciated!

Also yes, tier 1 patrons now also have access to this build! I am easing my way toward doing public releases for these builds anyway, since as soon as chapter 1 is finished the whole game will go public and free for everyone ^^ so I am allowing all my supporters to try this new build <3

A few other things to note: there are no new codex entries for this update, I have been focusing on other things and will update the codex when higher priorities have been taken care of x.x there is also one missing encounter that I was unable to finish because of the aforementioned illness I am currently struggling through, that will be finished and added for the next patch. The next update to SD after this will conclude the chapter 1 story, and then after that I will just focus on improvements and re-doing parts that need touch-ups before launching the project on Itchio <3

Oh, also you may notice that some renders are now using Yshel's new model, I am going to be slowing re-doing all the old renders with her new look, so for now just forgive the inconsistency, paha

Anyways, thank you again for all your support, enjoy the build, and have a lovely week!