0.9.3 Progress and Save Poll (Patreon)

Greetings! 0.9.3 isn't quite ready yet, but I wanted to share what I've been doing on it and get your input on something! The poll question is at the bottom, so if you're just here for that, feel free to skip ahead.

0.9.3 

Although 0.9.3 is numbered as a bugfix release, it's really more than that. It's meant to be a clean base for the game to move forward from - it has an upgraded game engine, a huge number of bug and typo fixes, and a number of improvements to many parts and features of the game. Here are some of the more important things I've fixed/changed in the past week:

Tal'thelas Dungeon

I still get a fair number of complaints about the Tal'thelas dungeon - specifically the part where you have to sneak past the minions. The complaint is that because the minions move so fast and have such a long range, it seems like they just come out of nowhere and grab you. Well, since I'm using a lighting plugin now, I gave the minions a 'flashlight' that warns you where they are and when they're coming. Though a small change, I think it makes this piece much more tolerable. If the lighting plugin doesn't work on your system you won't see it, but it should work for the vast majority of players.

I also made it possible to save the game in Tal's room and fixed various problems with this part of them game.

Flame Spirit Boss Fight

I made a number of subtle improvements to the Flame Spirit boss fight. First, when his shield is up, he's now visibly engulfed in flames (and you'll get damaged if you try to touch him.) The fairy's ice crystal is now blue (instead of yellow, which was hard to see) and she now throws it from the doorway to wherever it lands. I also fixed a few bugs in the encounter and added a little bit of dialogue here and there. A bunch of small changes, but the fight feels much better overall, I think.

Hiding Nameplates

Did you know that you can hide text boxes in game by pressing the 'h' key? This has been in place for a long time; it was intended to help with your *ahem* enjoyment of the H-scenes. You may notice that, unlike every other part of the game, most H-scenes don't have name boxes when people are speaking. This is because the plugin that hid text boxes didn't hide nameplates, and so, for your viewing enjoyment I left them out. Well, I've now modified that plugin so that it will hide nameplates. I'll probably go back at some point and add nameplates to all the H-scenes, but I'm not sure if it's something I'll be doing in 0.9.3.

Oh, and another small (but maybe significant) change: I changed the Bunnies' theme song. I thought the old one was a little annoying; the new one's more pleasant, I think :)

What's Left

The list looks like this:

• Fix a few problems with the Stone King fight
• Re-enable some older H-scenes when Emily is in the party (currently, her being there locks you out of some)
• Let player get the Ned Danger books in any order
• Fix some problems with guild hall nighttime H-scenes
• Troubleshoot some Linux issues (like: how do I get it to not crash?)
• Add some lighting effects to nighttime Cape Hope
• Edit 0.9 dialogue

I'm working on the 'edit dialogue' part right now. There are some extremely long conversations in 0.9, particularly in the nightclub, and I'm trying to do something about it. I like a lot of the writing that's there, so I don't want to get rid of much, but I also don't want the player to get sucked into a ten-minute monologue just because they decided to poke around and talk to people.

I'm trying to address the problem by making some of the longer conversations more interactive. Add choices at certain parts, have all the same dialogue there, just inside different branches. That way, if someone wants the full Wall of Text experience they can click through all the choices, but if they don't, they'll reach the end much quicker.

Poll Question

The poll question this time is about where the game's save files are stored. For Windows users, they're in the game folder (specifically {game folder}/www/save). For Mac users, they're stored in the player's user library - the equivalent in Windows would be your personal app data folder (C:/Users/YourName/AppData/Local, which is usually hidden.) I made some changes to the plugin that controls where save files are stored to fix a recurring problem, and in doing so made it possible to give Windows and Mac (and Linux) versions their own distinct save locations. It occurred to me that Windows and Linux folks might like to have saves stored in their app data folder, too, so I thought I'd ask you guys about it.

The big advantage of storing them in your app data is that, once they're in place, you don't really have to think about them anymore. As soon as you get a new build, you can simply open it up and play it; the game will find your saves automatically. It doesn't matter if you accidentally delete the game or whatever, as long as you haven't switched computers or wiped your hard drive, your saves will still be there and the game will be able to find them. It's a much more seamless experience for the player. The biggest disadvantage I can think of is that if you get a new computer it could be very easy to forget to transfer your saves over, since they're buried in a hidden folder, and thus you could lose them.

The big advantage of keeping Windows/Linux saves the way they are is portability. You can move your game folder to whichever computer you like and your saves will be right there. The big disadvantages are that you can easily lose them, for example by deleting the game folder, and that you need to go through the trouble of moving saves over every time you get a new build.

So, Windows and Linux users, which would you prefer? Please let me know. Also, if you guys want, I can probably expand the number of save slots in the game - it's currently 20, but maybe you'd like more?

0.9.3 really should be done soon, and I think you'll really enjoy it. Thank you for your support!