For anyone wondering where the update post is, it is in a separate post. This post is just so everyone can see the changelog.
I want to reiterate:
The game has restarted from Episode 1 with a whole new opening.
Full Episodes 1-6 are not implemented.
Your saves will not transfer from Ren'Py.
We restarted because we felt very limited by our old game engine and that the story needed a redo now that we knew where we wanted it to go. I don't wanna go into too much detail since I've talked about it so much over the past year.
Changelog
New Content
7,467 words added. (19,732 total)
Average Reading Time: 30 Minutes.
Introduction to Hazel.
Animated Sprite for Hazel.
4 New Locations.
Cafe Estro Exterior
Cafe Estro Interior
Cafe Estro Counter
Cafe Estro Bathroom
1 Animated Lewd Scene.
3 Static Special Moments.
4 New Music Tracks.
New Features
Added a fast-forward skip button.
Added on-screen buttons for navigating the game:
Autoplay, fast-forward, hide UI, Options Menu, Save menu (shortcut), and History menu (shortcut)
The buttons right now are place-holders.
Confirmation box when saving over an existing slot (in case you missclick)
Mouse and keyboard users can right-click to open the save menu, press the escape key to toggle the options menu, and use the middle mouse button to toggle UI elements.
Added a changelog to the main menu, so you can see what’s been going on. Click the version number to open the changelog list.
Changes & Fixes
The player character’s face is back for dialogue choices!
Replaced the existing preview general romance track by Lolurio with the complete version.
Changes to the structure of the in-game menu to accommodate the addition of on-screen buttons. Shouldn’t really have much of an impact on performance.
Changed the script surrounding displaying dialogue: we now have a short fade-in time (linked to the player's face sliding in again), and until the fade is done, you can’t make a dialogue choice. This will prevent accidental selection when clicking forward.
Changed some audio files to be streamed instead of decompressed on load. Might reduce some memory use.
(Android) The system bar is now being hidden while playing the game
(Android) Display settings in the settings menu are now hidden when playing on an Android device
Contents of the Build
We announced it previously, but since we are now trying to push out a build a month, not all builds will be created equal. Our goal is to bounce back and forth between big and small builds. The last build was small, so this one is larger.
This build is Hazel's new introduction! The original episode 1, redux, in a new engine with new writing and a better focus on what we want to achieve.
Some stuff will be the same, some stuff will be different! This is the first scene where we are really redoing old stuff, so expect changes. I'm sure people will have thoughts on the changes, so try to keep spoilers to the post with the new build or to the Discord channels.
We recreated Cafe Estro with Pamika doing an incredible job of preserving the cafe's spirit while adapting it to the game's needs. We also have the cafe looking different to better serve the narrative.
We have 1 (one) animated lewd scene for this build. I know in the past, this section of the game had 3 animated lewd scenes. We felt that with this telling of the story, Hazel wouldn't do all that. Those scenes will still happen, just later on and in a different context. We did not "cut" or "remove" them. Things are just rearranged.
What is Missing
Gallery
SFW Mode
Backer Guided Mode
Player Cellphone
Roll Back
Going to be a pain to do, if we can even do it.
"H" to hide UI
More Save Slots
Clickable environments
To add to this, we want you to eventually be able to click on things as we had in Ren'Py; we were very busy fixing the experience for Android users this past month, so we didn't work on this. This is why there is no clicking around Estro, clicking on Hazel, or entering a door code.
Known Bugs
Changing text speed doesn’t update until you restart the game (seems to be a problem with Yarn 3.1 since it worked on Yarn 2.5)
When starting the game, the audio master will set volumes to the game's default values, but when opening the settings menu, it will restore the volume settings to whatever they were in the last play session. This should have happened when the game started already.
Still have some occasional issues with animations where the character's arms pass through the animated person. Also, Max's animation for throwing away the cigarette doesn't complete correctly.
The shortcut button to the save menu was causing issues, so it is temporarily disabled.
Clicking on menu UI sometimes advances dialogue. Trying to resolve what causes it.
(Android) The left and right columns of the screen currently don't reset back to black when nothing is rendered there. Will be fixes as part of the Android UI redesign in a coming update.
Release Schedule
$20 - May 5th, 8 AM Pacific
$10 - May 12th, 8 AM Pacific
$5 - May 19st, 8 AM Pacific
$3 - May 26th, 8 AM Pacific
Where do I report bugs and feedback?
Either in the comments of the update post, on our Discord, or in our Google Form linked in the update post.
Wrap Up
Another wild month of this monthly release schedule! I think this has been really good for us! Obviously, the ball will roll faster once three of our team members finish school, but we're still making good progress!
We're finally entering "familiar" territory, so it will be fun from here on out seeing what has changed.
This past month had us going a bit crazy trying to get the Android build to play nice on everyone's phone. It was pretty hit-or-miss, but hopefully we've figured out the problem. If not, I'm sure y'all will let us know!
I apologize that the Android builds were not working perfectly. It is tough to build for Android since every phone is different. Even though we have a couple of phones to test on, we can't cover all the bases. You'd think there would be some way to figure out which phones your game can run on, but all the research I've done comes back with the same result. "Yeah, you gotta just get a bunch of phones and guess." The game industry is a beautiful place.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy v0.15.2 when it drops!
Remember, this isn't the end of Ep 1 ;)
Stay Rad!