Rogue-Like Update 4/4/2022 (whoa, what the hell was that?) (Patreon)

Ok, yes, that was an April Fools joke. But yeah, like with a lot of April Fools jokes, I use it to fool around with oddball concepts that are a bit risky for a wide release or might need more work to end up in the finished game, so there is legitimate testing to do there.

So what was going on here? I was testing a system that would store your state in the mornings, and then restore that state whenever you died. This was a little iffy in the first builds, but I think I got it reasonably stable. The only remaining bug that I know is related to this is that existing relationships break completely after a death, I can release a version 1.4 that fixes that if people want it.

I don't intend to carry this death mechanic and all that back into the main version of the game, you know me, I'm a softy. I do intend to use the testing on these "save state" features to bring back the Danger Room simulator options, allowing you to replay various story scenes within the same playthrough. This function more or less broke when I made the transition to class-based characters, and I never got around to getting it working again. The one issue I've been encountering with my current method is that I dump a character's stats into a "backup," and then dump them back out into the main version, but then their "identity" no longer matches up with who they were before that, so any lists cataloguing the girls would break on death. I knocked together an ugly workaround by the second build or so, I can do a better one later, but at least now I'm aware of that problem.

As for what else was happening behind the scenes? Well, it was actually pretty lazy. all I did was double any negative stat update (ie if you got a -5 Love it would jump to -10), and then applied that as damage to your "HP." So in some cases it made sense, in others, maybe less so, but it got the job done, I think. The "Jean of death" came because she has a massive stat shift built into her intro that is unavoidable, so I just split it off from the traditional stat update system so that the health system wouldn't notice. :D

So, all that out, how did this go? I've had some reports that people could not swap characters around while in class, anyone else have that problem? Anyone experiencing additional lag/CPU after multiple deaths in a single play through? Any stats that didn't seem to reset properly on death? (outside of the previously mentioned dating status breaking). Any other comments? The next version with more Jubilee content is still a bit out, sorry about that, but I'll get it out as quickly as I can manage.