Monthly Report: August 2022 (Patreon)

Good timezones, everyone, Andy here! It's time for monthly report that no one really reads. August has been a very strange month for me since I'd been trying to juggle between moving out, working, taking care of babies, and playing FFXIV (have you heard of the critically acclaimed MMORPG Final F--) I have actually moved out, now I'm just making sure that I have moved what I need in this new house, haha.

Anyway! With this monthly report, here's what you can expect in the new update that's dropping very soon, also, there's going to be some acronyms that I'll use from now on:

A, G, M, L, P: Anders, Gil, Mark, Lars, Parker. | AE1 refers to Anders Episode 1 | M9 refers to Mark day 9.

There's also a special case: W and C for Wilfred and Andrew, respectively.

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• Updated game to 0.9.30p and 0.9.30i:

IMPORTANT: PLEASE START A NEW GAME FILE OR THERE WILL BE A LOT OF ERRORS FOR NEXT M9 UPDATE.

With this update, it brings us to Mark Day 3 overhaul (for Patrons and itch.io) and Lars Day 9 update (for itch.io). I tried to finish both M3 overhaul and M9 at the same time, but it wasn't just happening with this month's schedule, and I'm sorry for that.
Update - Polished version brings some changes, and it's worth to check it out if you played the unpolished version.

• Mark's route overhaul and ME1 (Mark's Episode 1) deletion:

Since there are more plans to expand the lore of this game, Mark's route needed to be overhauled. It doesn't really change the overall current story, but it changes a LOT of things that you need to see yourself. Because Mark's Episode 1 is tied to Mark's main route, it's disabled for now and will be brought back next update along with M9 or G9 update.

• M4 Game over screen has been temporarily removed:

There's a section in M4 where players can either go after Mark or leave him be, and choosing the latter will cause a joke game over screen to happen. Since there's going to be a story for that branch later (triggering something new to the game), it's been disabled until I write more of it.

• Adding temporary side images:

While I'm going to replace the side images with new artworks sometime in the future, I'll keep adding temporary ones so the textbox won't look empty. I've added Rai, Anders (work attire), and Rook in this update.

Hehe, pun intended.

• New backgrounds:

We've gotten two new backgrounds from Vui, it'll be added in polished update.

• Text log length has been reduced to 75 blocks:

Previously sitting at 500 blocks. Meaning now you're only able to read previous 75 lines instead of 500. The reason for this implementation is mostly performance issues. Using variable height for text log causes major performance drop for the game when it calls the screen, so reducing it to 75 makes the screen works properly...and easier to navigate in general.

• Removed one character from character screen:

In M2, you'll be introduced to a classmate called Clay. Since the character doesn't exist anymore, it has been removed from the screen and will be replaced by Brock from M5 and other routes.

• File size reduction:

While it's more or less the same size as the previous update, we have added a few more items into the game files. I still plan on making the game size smaller in the future, and hopefully we'll be able to hit less than 1GB by the time this project finishes.

• Same changelog screen now available for all platforms:

I've changed how the game manages changelog, allowing the same screen to be accessed by players with different platform, mainly Android users. 

• Added two new screens:

Since the game is getting bigger and gaining more recognition, I've decided to remove License and Patron list in About screen. License and Patron list now have their own screen, and it can be accessed in main menu.

While Patron List screen is now working as expected, License screen is still disabled, and the content will be added from time to time.

• Patron List updated (23-11-2021 - 18-08-2022): 

It's so tiring to do this part, so it's something I've been neglecting. But it's time to put this to end, so I have updated it, along with the new screen. There are more details you can see by yourself in the screen.

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What's planned for September?
Initially, I planned to pause next month's billing cycle since I have a scheduled hospital visit(s) related to previous surgeries. But as of now, I literally am in a tight spot financially, so I got no choice but keep working during September, and I'd feel bad just grabbing money without giving anything in return LOL. So there we have it.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish M3 overhaul (and route adjustments in general) in time, so instead of getting G9 next month, we'll have M9 and ME1 instead. 

We'll also get one of three CGs for P9, so I hope you'll enjoy it when it's out!

Other than that, things are progressing nicely. We're at least 40% done with the story (we'll still have more than 14 in-game days), and I know the story reveals nothing as of now, but trust me, it'll make sense once it's all done.

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That's all I have for now, I'll go back to editing a few things before making the update live. Download link will be available later.

             Download link: Public | Playful Lion + Quiet Bulls | Cuddly Bears + 

Thanks for reading!