Update - Shizu dropped her phone and it took a picture up her skirt! (Patreon)

tl;dr - I'm delaying the next release until March (details below!) and I've made progress, with help, on the "NOW LOADING" bug. The two points are related.

This week's image

This is another text message image you can receive in the new texts system! This is one you wouldn't have been able to see yet, because it requires that you've unlocked Shizu's sex scene, which is not in the game yet. I've upsized it here with Gigapixel to give you a better view. ;)

Next release delayed to March

The first thing that I need to talk about is the February release. I hope nobody pledged this month specifically expecting a new February update to come out soon. That's certainly what I planned to do, but the "NOW LOADING" bug and my subsequent quest to discover the problem and solve it has got in the way of that. It's been taking a lot of time and I still don't think I can get the next release done really soon. (I'll update you on the details below, if you're interested - there's some good news.)

Now, if we get the bug fixed very soon then maybe I could crunch time it and get the release done before the month expires, but then I've got the problem that I'll be a little exhausted and suddenly the clock is ticking on the next release, which I'll probably have to do late in the month, too. I'd much rather just delay it slightly longer and release it at a more sensible, early part of March.

I don't specifically promise a monthly release, but I do try to get them done every time. If you've followed me for a while you'll know that I don't often do this - actually, I only did it once, last year, when I had to build the dating system for the game. I assume that it would be more of a problem if I did this regularly, but hopefully it's not that big a deal since I don't.

Still, if you pledged this month for a specifically new February release and you're not happy with the January one, get in touch with me and I'll refund your February pledge, no problem.

 Bug hunting 

I spoke last week about the bug hunt I've been on. Well, I think this week I found it. I didn't really end up getting any testers from my posts asking for them, but I ran into a couple of people at the right time who had the bug, so I was able to test at least a couple of versions.

By doing some sleuth work and some trial and error testing, I found that the bug seems to be coming from the way the VNM engine decodes audio files. It's a high-memory use way to do it, but it still should usually work. It's just that some people's systems (unpredictably) will get an enormous memory load when I'm trying to play the music playlist in the apartment. It's not just a matter of how powerful the computer is, because if the system has a problem decoding the audio it's likely to crash no matter how good your system is.

So is this an easy fix? No, not really. The only easy way to fix it would be to remove all music from the apartment, at the very least. I really don't want to do that, because it's an important part of constructing the atmosphere of the game. I found this a pretty grim situation for a little while, and even though I tried to get help from the VNM forums and Discord, I basically got no responses while I was looking for even basic information.

Then I spoke to some other developers about the situation because I thought maybe I could temporarily hire a coder proficient in JavaScript to help me out. Lo and behold, my friend NoMoshing who makes Harem Collector suggested I could bring on his scripter, 2095Conash, to help fix it up, because Harem Collector doesn't need him full time. Conash knows JavaScript and has also been working with similar engine design, because he works with RPGMaker. Naturally, he quickly got a handle on the problem and since then we've been working together (I'm just assisting him, of course) to come up with a new way to decode the audio in PAT that won't cause the crash any more.

So yes, I've brought in a ringer and hopefully that will mean we can work out something to fix this for the people who have a problem with it. It's a lot of work, but this should more or less solve the problem forever, once we get it done. Incidentally, go check out Harem Collector if you haven't before!

Please let me know whether you're okay with the delay, or not okay with it, in the comments below. I'll listen to what you have to say!