Development report 0.31 | SlutCraft (Patreon)

Heeeeey there, everyone! We’ve gone a bit radio silent to completely focus on the latest update. We apologise for this, but we come bearing both good and bad news. Which one would you like to start with?

OK, let's start with the bad and explain why the update still hasn't come out - we think a lot of people care. If you have been following the developments in the world, you are aware of what is going on. The predicament is not a simple one, not at all. We don't often talk about what's going on because we want to do more of what we love and talk about it, not politics. But it is not always possible to isolate oneself completely… Artur, aka the head of the studio, is now, as you might know, in Kyiv and is experiencing both scheduled and emergency blackouts, which have caused... lack of access to a PC for more than half of each day. The power is cut twice a day for four hours, and that's the minimum, sometimes more, but so far no less :D

We will do our best not to slow down our development capacity, but we hope for your understanding. Working from a phone is also not an option, as there is too much load on the mobile network when the power goes out, which makes it difficult to even check social networks, let alone work with such an internet connection...

Quoting him. Unfortunately, this really slows down the progress of the new update. Simply because the work done by others cannot be verified and approved.

But Arthur is not the only one going through hard times. We have a scriptwriter who is also in an unenviable position. She has done all of her work, but there is no way she can send it to us.. Now you must understand exactly how difficult things have been lately. But we are finding ways out of the mess, the aforementioned writer has found someone who travels out of the conflict zone to places where there is network access and through them she sends us the script. We really are doing our best to get the new patch out as quickly as possible so that our valued players can appreciate it. Yes, we care about you very much!

To think that in the year 2022 someone would have trouble sending 50 Kb of text. Could you imagine such a thing?

Now, let's divert our attention to the good news that will really cheer you up. Seriously, be prepared: it's going to be about old saves. Oh yes, we can already feel your anticipation about this, how long have you been asking for this… Saves. This word is the Achilles' heel of our project, our kryptonite. We have been aware of this problem for a long time and many attempts have been made to rectify it. With the arrival of the new coder, we may have come close to solving this problem. In this update we've completely overhauled the trigger system, and literally, rebuilt the entire third chapter. We think this should help solve the save problem, but we can't say for sure. We will need your help to check the stability of the game after using older saves, and we hope that our players can help us with this.

Now to be more specific. Saves made in version 31 and after will work in subsequent updates. That means that when our game is updated to version 32, you will be able to use the savegames from version 31. But this does not apply to saves made in versions before 31 - it's because they have a completely different trigger system, and they're just older, yes.

And the second piece of good news, which stems smoothly from the previous one. Since all of the triggers for scenes, events, dialogue and everything else, has been redesigned from scratch, it will now work exactly as originally intended. For example, the "Pregnancy" event does not work correctly or at all the way we wanted it to, but the tight deadlines did not allow us to implement it in a way that we would have been happy with. Some of the dialogue was not in the right place where it should have been, a number of scenes were not either. All in all, a lot of work was done, which was definitely worth the time. The game will now work as intended.

One last thing. We're going to add some new checkpoints so that players can see the new content faster. Best of all, players no longer need the bonus code to start from chapter three, yes, yes. They now need it to start further in the game.

So, what do we have? The patch is indeed delayed for a short time, but all the problems are fixable and we just need a little more time. To put it bluntly - there is one scene left to be done, the script for it needs to be checked and the art needs to be finalised. A new artist is working on the art, so they're a bit behind on their deadline - that's the negative.

The positives are that starting with the next update we should be able to have saves working for future versions of SlutCraft. Also, the game's logic is now properly structured, and the dialogue scenes won't get mixed up with each other. And in the third chapter, new checkpoints await you, as shown in the picture with the redesigned menu!

We are really sorry about this, but as you can see we are not sitting idly even in this situation. The patch will be out soon, don't worry about it. Wish us all the strength and health - we really need it. You, too, take care of yourself and your loved ones. See you soon, in the new 31st update! ❤️

Yours,
Shadow Portal Team