Sadie Gets a Life 0.3.1 Dev Log, 2026-04-16
0.3.0 and the Damage Done
I might need a t-shirt that reads "I survived the 0.3.0 release." There were a couple of catastrophic bugs that made it into the release.
New game took you to the wrong map. This is one I'm still kicking myself over because it's even in my checklist of things to do before a release. And I did run through the checklist and Sadie's starting point was correct. But then, right before release, I had to check some behavior, swapped the starting location, and forgot to change it back. This was a big enough bug that I re-uploaded the game, so the 0.3.0 release link has the fixed version.
The first goblin fight is now too easy. Up to this point, it wasn't practically possible to defeat the initial goblin with Isekai Hero(ine) Sadie using the walking stick. But it turns out that the rebalancing efforts in 0.3.0 actually made the goblin a bit too easy and I didn't catch it because in none of my runs did I actually kill the goblin. But enough people did, so I've also got a proper fix coming in 0.3.1. In the meantime, if you run into the issue, just guard a few times in the first battle and it'll resolve itself.
In addition, there were some annoyances and I still have another bug to troubleshoot. If you're on the Discord, drop those bug reports in the #bug-reports channel, please. I try to have an absurdly quick turnaround time on bug fixes, but until I know about them, I can't fix them.
All that said, I'm much happier with Acts I and II now. They're certainly not perfect, and I probably need to do more combat balancing, especially for the enemies near the end of Act II. But, at least in my incredibly biased eyes, I think it's shaping up into a pretty decent game.
With that said, let's recap some of the stuff in place right now for eventual release in 0.3.1.
What's Coming in 0.3.1 -- Tiers and Quests
As anyone who has played through Act II knows, Sadie is going to be in Freistadt Harmonia for much of Act III. 0.3.0 provided the barest-bones introduction. 0.3.1 is going to flesh that out considerably. As of right now, I plan to have 7 of the 16 Tiers available. Several of them will have some inaccessible buildings, and there will be additional details that I plan to add to them in subsequent releases. But I eventually want each Tier to be approximately as busy and full of life as a district in Svetlanda.
Additionally, starting in 0.3.1, we'll see Sadie's personal quests in the quest tracker. This is something I chose not to do very often in Act I and Act II, but because of the level of complexity for some of these tasks, I think they belong in the tracker. This should make it easier to keep track of what is necessary to advance the plot, especially as some of the quests will span multiple point releases.
Depending on how these go, I might return to Act II add some more quests for some of the "I woke up and want to do something" things that Sadie had in Svetlanda, like how she kept running out of lotion (don't ask how).
Changing Clothes
There will also be a new scene where Sadie can change her clothes. This will first appear in the Diplomatic Quarters in Act II, and will continue in the Bottom Rung Hotel in Act III. Sadie won't be able to change her clothes in Flenzwald or Arksvardt. Right now, clothing changes are strictly cosmetic, though I did have fun going back and changing every Sadie face picture to use whatever she's wearing right now. That way, for example, when she's in the green dress, you'll see the face picture in which Sadie has green earrings.
For the people who want to change clothes at any time, that's coming, but there's a plot point that needs to happen first.
Indoor Movement
One other thing that merits mention is doors and scene transfers. The way the game has worked up to this point, whenever Sadie enters a door, I perform a transfer operation that forcibly moves her to wherever she's going on the map. That works well when transitioning between maps, but it can get annoying when moving from one side of a door to the other in a building. Most of the time, it's not a big deal, but it can become annoying on some maps. The worst of these is the demon hunting mission in the Academic District, a building with an inordinate number of doors.
What I'm doing now for indoor transitions that stay on the same map is smoothly moving the player character through the door. That means no fading to black and no transition. It's a small thing but I think it's good for quality of life.
More Back-End Work in 0.3.1
The first several days of this sprint, I worked on some back-end stuff to make life a bit easier. Ideally, you won't see a difference because the game plays the same as before. But on my end, I've taken some of the most complex events (Shelley and Allison in their respective Adventurers' Guilds, Sadie's bed in the Diplomatic Quarters, and the Ready Room in the Diplomatic Quarters) and split out selection logic from story beats. This should help with troubleshooting those events in the case of a future bug report. There is also a reduced risk of bugs sneaking in if I make future changes.
It also makes development of Act III's big, complex events more linear. What I mean by that is, it took a bit more time upfront for me to put together the structure for Harmonia's Adventurers' Guild, as well as Sadie's bed in the Bottom Rung Hotel and the Bottom Rung Hotel Ready Room. But with that structure in place, adding new events is a lot simpler and less prone to erroneously slipping a new event in the wrong spot.