Sadie Gets a Life 0.2.0 Dev Log, 2025-07-24
Hello, Patreon followers! This is the second in a series of dev logs. My initial intent is to release these on a weekly cadence, though most of them won't be as long as this one. Most of these dev logs will be public, though spoiler-heavy ones will be for paid members only.
Initial Feedback and Bugs (Dumb and Otherwise)
First up, thank you to anybody who has provided feedback thus far. And thank you in advance if you provide feedback later. I'm making this game to scratch my own creative itch and get to know the RPG Maker platform, but I have blind spots and I appreciate the thoughtful comments I've received so far.
Unfortunately, I also have bugs in code. The promo image introduces Roof Cat, a character I didn't intend to introduce. Long story short, before releasing 0.1.5, I expanded the size of Hope Springs. I thought I had fixed all of the player transfer points, but if you play the tavern game, you end up getting stuck on the roof. Which is something I should have caught, making it a dumb bug. There's a manual fix out and I'll have it properly fixed in the next release.
The second major bug has happened to a few people and involves a segment that automatically runs when you learn enough about Operation Fireball. For some players, this is triggering a black screen because the auto-run segment thinks it ran already and flipped an internal switch too early. I have a fix in for this that will go out in 0.2.0 as well, but I haven't quite figured out how to trigger the bug to ensure it never happens again.
And because bugs travel in threes, I had to fix another dumb bug. This one happens if you did not take Neemar the goblin into your party. Then, when entering the schoolhouse at night, the action stops when it should continue. This is because I put the flag to keep going in the IF block that assumes you have Neemar. Second dumb bug, and there's a quick fix on the 0.1.5 release page for it as well.
One of the major lessons I've learned is that I needed to set up feature branching for my source code prior earlier than I did. Going forward, starting with version 0.2.0, I'll have a separate feature branch per release. This way, I can have a stable release branch and apply hotfixes to it (and to my active feature branch). That will make fixing bugs easier. I'm also going to spend a bit more time before each release play-testing and trying out different paths. There's no way for me to cover every possible set of actions a player could take, but I can take a more structured approach to testing than "I played through the game a couple of times and fixed the stuff that broke for me along the way."
Quality of Life Plans for 0.2.0
I have a few quality of life updates for version 0.2.0, thanks to feedback from people.
The first battles will be shorter and I'll make the Goblin Cave a bit less maze-y and more cavern-y. Admittedly, this was the first battle map I've created and I used a maze designer in RPG Maker to generate this, then removed some of the maze branches. That's why it has a "babby's first RPGM map" feel to it. I'll also reduce the number of battles and increase the XP per battle to keep total XP earned around the same.
I am adding location names over buildings. You can even see how it looks in the screenshot at the top. This isn't very important for Hope Springs, which is a fairly small town. But it will matter a lot in Act II and I figured I'd push those changes to Act I as a bonus.
I'll do a run-through of the dialog and tighten it up. I'm too prone to info dumping and exposition bombing, so I'll try to get the story across without quite as many long-winded conversations. But the bureaucracy stays strictly for the macabre factor.
The enemy AI will get a bit smarter during combat. I've already implemented this in Act II, where they will chase after Sadie once she gets close enough, and I will backport this to Act I as well.
There may be a bit more that sneaks in, but these are the biggest quality of life improvements, some of which comes via feedback from people like you.
Act II Updates
I'm expecting that Act II will be the primary focus for the next 4-6 releases given its size and scope. My goal is to make Act II somewhere around 10-12 hours of play time once it's complete. There are two new team members you can recruit and a massive city with several districts. Not all of the city will be available in 0.2.0, but you'll gain access to a few different locations and I'll keep expanding as we continue through the Act.
I'm also going to tighten up some of the dialog in preparation for 0.2.0 release. But as this update shows, give me a chance to start writing and I'll give you a wall of text.