Weekly News #195

Version 0.982a is already available for download for subscribers of the Super Best Friend tier ($25). To view the post with this version, follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/school123/posts/released-0-982a-171453334

Another week and a half has passed since the last full update, so it is time to go through what got done in that short span. There is a lot to cover, and we are starting with something a bit unusual for this column.

First, the translation. The most common problem with the English version was not just the constant confusion over the gender of the person you are talking to, but also how literal the translation from the original was. That has changed. It is not only the gender mix-ups: the translation as a whole is being brought up to native level. A huge part of the text, over 500,000 words and 150,000 lines, was rewritten from scratch. The English was fully reworked, including the opening tutorial, Ayano Yoshida's entire storyline, half of Suzuki Matsui's storyline, part of Yuki Oota's storyline, location activities, and randomized NPCs: events with them, interactions with them, messages, related systems, and UI. Everything tied to those sections was reread and corrected. In those parts the translation now actually reads properly, and gender is handled throughout, especially in text related to RNPCs. A gender-aware system was added specifically for the English build, so he/she no longer breaks in the text or the interface. A lot of work was also done in other areas, so the translation is no longer as rough as it used to be. Dozens of hours went into making the English native. You can see the result in 982a, and in part of the video attached to this post.

Second, randomized NPCs. Dialogues with RNPCs have been completely rebuilt. Instead of the usual summary of how the conversation went, you now get the dialogue itself. It stays on the topic you picked, it can branch in different ways, and it is different every time — it does not repeat. There are thousands of ways it can go, and the differences depend on the NPC's mood, personality, your relationship, their interest in the talk, the weather, and a long list of other conditions. Even turning a topic down changes how things go later: the NPC remembers the refusal, those topics stay locked for a while, you are told about it, and dialogue fatigue now affects the conversation much more than it used to. On top of that, common interactions with RNPCs got real variation: hugs, eye contact, arm wrestling, requests such as picking a title or a nickname, and walks in the park. A large set of variants for each of these is fully in, so the same activity plays out differently depending on the RNPC you are with. Some of this was already visible in 982, but since then it has been tightened into something genuinely interesting, interactive, and, most importantly, fully working. You can see the result in 982a, and part of it in the video in this post.

Another major addition for NPCs is a new, large, global multi-variant scene: your character lying with their head in an NPC's lap, a woman sitting on a bench or bed, and a male NPC lying on a bench or bed, or asleep. The scene supports clothing, different NPC states, about half a dozen ways it can appear, and MILF body types. A male NPC sleeping or lying down was also added to the Sleep on a Bench interaction in the park, for your character. The sleep UI was adjusted slightly, and you can see your character asleep from behind. A couple of these variants are below.

A global birthday gift system for your character is in. Depending on your relationship with the NPC, their personality, and many other factors, the NPC may give your character a gift. The gift can be money or an item, which also depends directly on their personality. The amount, or the item's value, depends on how much money that NPC has. After your birthday, every NPC who wants to give something leaves it at your door, and you can see who gave you a gift, how much, and the total.

When you invite an NPC over, you can now put on background music: music they like, the TV, and other things. If you pick the right music, you get a lasting bonus to your chances of interacting with them for as long as they stay. Otherwise you get debuffs. You can also play nothing, ignore the new option, and just sit together in silence.

Nipple color in the NPC editor for female NPCs lets you make fully custom nipples.

Sex with RNPCs is improved. Each NPC now has preferences for positions and acts, and those preferences affect how much they enjoy them. The preferences shift toward whatever you use most. The arousal system for both partners in the sex UI was also reworked. During foreplay, arousal no longer falls to the minimum and can rise to a cap, as intended. For her, that cap depends on promiscuity: the higher it is, the higher the cap and the less restrained she is. The bar fills at half the rate of penetration, and it does not drop once it hits that cap. The same applies to your character, but in their case it depends on physical condition: the higher it is, the better arousal holds without stimulation. Last change on the sex side: the Settings button is back on the RNPC sex screen, in a different format. It is smaller, and it opens How to Cum Fast first, since the other settings are already on screen.

Third, story. A large continuation of Suzuki Matsui's route is in progress for 982b. In the meantime we finished a few other systems tied to her. While living with Suzuki Matsui you can now talk about household chores. You can also ask her for money once a week, or get food in the fridge every day, so cohabitation actually pays off. In her route, after you take over the club and leave Kolibri as manager, you can clean the place yourself instead of hiring extra staff, if you want to.

Fourth, systems. The biggest one: the way your character's mood is shown and opened has been completely rebuilt. The mood tab now opens not only on hover, but also when you click your portrait. Instead of the leveling menu, which is still available through the diary, a full screen opens. On it you see the current mood, what that mood means, any debuffs or buffs tied to it, and, most importantly, what caused it. Whether it was a bad dream, an event, or a conversation, the screen lists when the mood started, why, and which character triggered it if an NPC was involved.

The page buttons in the Developer Menu are now obvious: they are visible even without hovering. This was done because people simply did not know the buttons were there, and so could not use most of the cheats.

Fifth, bug fixes and refactoring. The full list of changes for 982a is below, so the weekly post stays short.

New content

Dialogues with RNPCs have been completely rebuilt. Instead of the usual summary of how the conversation went, you now get the dialogue itself. It can be about anything tied to the topic you picked, it can branch in different ways, and it is completely different every time — it never repeats. There are thousands of ways it can go, and the differences depend on the NPC's mood, personality, your relationship, their interest in the talk, the weather, and a thousand other conditions. Even turning a topic down changes how things go later: the NPC remembers the refusal, you will not be able to discuss those topics for a while, you are told about it, and dialogue fatigue now affects the conversation much more than it used to. Common interactions also got real variation: hugs, eye contact, arm wrestling, requests such as picking a title or a nickname, and walks in the park. A large set of variants for each of these is fully in, so the same activity plays out differently depending on the NPC you are with.

The mood display was completely rebuilt. The mood tab now opens not only on hover, but also when you click your portrait. Instead of the leveling menu, which is still available through the diary, a full screen opens. On it you see the current mood, what that mood means, any debuffs or buffs tied to it, and, most importantly, what caused it. Whether it was a bad dream, an event, or a conversation, the screen lists when the mood started, why, and which character triggered it if an NPC was involved.

The English translation was comprehensively reworked: the opening tutorial, Ayano Yoshida's entire storyline, half of Suzuki Matsui's, part of Yuki Oota's, and RNPCs — events with them, interactions with them, messages, related systems, and UI. Everything tied to those sections was reread and corrected. In those parts the translation now actually reads properly. Over 150,000 lines were reread and rewritten from scratch, about 500,000 words, with gender handled throughout, especially in NPC-related text. A gender-aware system was added specifically for the English build, so he/she no longer breaks in the text or the interface. Enough work was also done in other areas that the translation is no longer as rough as it used to be, and all of this is dozens of hours spent making the English native.

A new, large, global multi-variant scene tied to NPCs was added: your character lying with their head in an NPC's lap, a girl sitting on a bench or bed, and a male NPC lying on a bench or bed, or asleep. The scene supports clothing, different NPC states, about half a dozen ways it can appear, and MILF body types. A male NPC sleeping or lying down was added to the Sleep on a Bench interaction in the park, for your character. The sleep UI was adjusted slightly, and you can see your character asleep from behind.

A global birthday gift system was added. Depending on your relationship with the NPC, their personality, and a number of other factors, the NPC may give your character a gift. The gift can be money or an item, which also depends directly on their personality. The amount, or the item's value, depends on how much money the NPC has overall. After your birthday, every NPC who wants to give something leaves it at your door, and you can see who gave you gifts, how much, and the total.

Each NPC now has their own sexual preferences, and your character can shape them. They may enjoy some positions and acts and dislike others. All of this affects how fast the NPC's orgasm meter fills. Every time an NPC orgasms from a particular position, they enjoy that position or act more, so the player fully takes part in shaping that NPC's preferences.

When you invite an NPC over, you can put on background music: music they like, the TV, or something else. If you pick their favorite music, you get a lasting bonus to your chances of interacting with them for as long as they stay. Otherwise you get debuffs. You can also turn on nothing, ignore the new option, and just sit together in silence.

A new interaction, available when you visit an NPC or when she visits you: Look at Her Thighs. It can lead to sex, and it has varied reactions to what you do, so it holds up on repeat use.

A new interaction, available when you visit an NPC or when she visits you: Lie on Her Thighs. Your character uses the new scene and lies with their head on the NPC's thighs.

The new scene is also used in a new event where a girl notices that your character is depressed, if they are. The event fires in locations, outside the NPC interaction menu, and shifts your character's mood from depressed to a lasting positive one. Also, during the park-bench interaction with an RNPC (park only), she has a small chance to pull your character into her lap, or your character can suggest it.

Arousal in the sex UI was reworked for both partners. During foreplay, arousal no longer falls to the minimum and can rise to a cap, as intended. For her, that cap depends on promiscuity: the higher it is, the higher the cap and the less restrained she is. The bar fills at half the rate of penetration, and it does not drop once it hits that cap. The same applies to your character, but in their case it depends on physical condition: the higher it is, the better arousal holds without stimulation.

When satiety is low, the character reminds you that they are hungry: they can be unable to do anything for thirty minutes because of stomach pain. The chance is dynamic. The hungrier they are in that state, the more often these events fire, so you have to watch the stat more often. This does not apply on Easy.

When energy is low, the character blacks out and falls asleep while walking. To avoid it, keep energy above 30.

The page buttons in the Developer Menu are now obvious: they are visible even without hovering. This was done because people simply did not know the buttons were there, and so could not use most of the cheats.

Nipple color in the RNPC editor for female NPCs. Fully custom nipples.

A new mechanic: a character can become depressed for half an hour and do nothing, with no player-facing cause. Once a day, and only in city and academy locations.

In the Suzuki Matsui route, after you take over the club and leave Kolibri as manager, you can clean the place yourself instead of hiring extra staff, if you want to.

A new option while living with Suzuki Matsui: talking about household chores. You can also ask her for money once a week, or get food in the fridge every day, so cohabitation brings you something.

Thumbnails from the NPC editor now show only when you pick a relationship with an RNPC, to avoid performance issues on low-end PC and Android.

The Settings button is back on the RNPC sex screen, in a different format: it is smaller, and it opens How to Cum Fast first, since the other settings are already on screen.

Chinese was updated. More sections are translated, bugs that kept some sections from being translated at all were fixed, and areas that used to be rough were improved.

Fixed bugs

Fixed a bug where female NPCs could confess their love far too often at a very high relationship. She could confess in every single dialogue, which got genuinely annoying.

Fixed a bug where some dialogue with RNPCs, in languages other than Russian, was missing text or a translation. This also affected some romantic interactions.

Fixed a bug where the game could throw an exception after the day changed. Rare.

Fixed a bug where, in the NPC editor, hovering other NPCs to get their thumbnails would change parts of the edited NPC's face for no reason, every time you hovered them. Separately, the same hover could change the shape of the edited NPC's ears and collarbones, again for no reason, every time you hovered them in the editor.

Fixed a bug where a changed face, eye, ear, or collarbone shape would sometimes not save when you changed it in the NPC editor or on your character. Small chance.

Fixed a bug where the game would throw an exception in some rare cases when crafting a potion through the dedicated UI. Small chance.

Fixed a bug where, in a hug scene with female RNPCs, the girl on the right used the same skin tone on parts of her arms as the girl she was hugging.

Fixed a bug where changing a piercing on a male character sprite would not show at all in the character editor or the male NPC editor.

Fixed a bug where the game could throw an exception when opening the message menu with RNPCs, in some rare situations and when certain messages were present.

Fixed a bug where the game could throw an exception during sex between two female characters under certain conditions.

Fixed a bug where the Underground Club would sometimes not appear on the city map at all, even if the diary route led there and it should have been open.

Fixed a bug where the yandere event, the thank-you event for helping against the bullies, and the library event would simply never trigger, because they were not in the pool of available events.

Fixed an issue where the final character customization screen could float in the text, and the text itself could draw outside the frame for no reason, so the screen did not look the way it should.

Fixed a bug where the game would fire the event of an NPC confessing their love to your character far too often, which got genuinely annoying. This is separate from the dialogue-line spam above, and it could also get in the way of talking to that NPC through the interaction menu.

Fixed a bug that could put the "This image is missing" message across half the screen and get in the way of play.

Fixed a bug that could make the game throw an exception when showing the 18+ Jerk Me scene with a female NPC. Rare.

Fixed a bug that made female MILF RNPCs get the wrong breast size in scenes, which could cause minor graphical glitches at rare moments.

Fixed a bug that made chubby female RNPCs on the beach render broken and deformed: clothing stripped, breasts removed entirely, and so on. Also fixed a bug that could make the game throw an exception when showing 18+ scenes or regular scenes, because it failed to initialize the nipple type of a female RNPC. Low chance.

Fixed a bug that applied the wrong waist type to the body sprite of a female RNPC, so the game broke when showing any nude female sprite if the waist was not the default.

Fixed a bug that kept swimsuits for female MILF RNPCs from scaling to bust size, so they always looked larger than the default bust.

Fixed a bug that initialized swimsuits in scenes wrong, so the game threw an exception for no clear reason because it could not find the data it needed.

Fixed a bug that could make scenes with two RNPCs draw wrong, because one of them lacked the data needed to display them.

Fixed a bug that left the left girl's hairstyle missing in the scene where two girls hug, so she always appeared bald even when the hair was on the sprite.

Fixed a bug where, in the scene where two girls hug, the right girl's hairstyle overlapped the left girl's body and face and distorted how the left girl looked.

Fixed a bug where, in the scene where two girls hug, the swimsuit on the right or left girl would draw wrong or be missing entirely if the scene was on the beach and the swimsuit was variant 14 or higher.

Fixed a bug where, in the scene where two girls hug, the girls in the scene had a different hair color than their sprites.

Fixed a bug where, in the Grope Breasts scene, the swimsuit a female NPC was wearing would not show on her sprite when the scene was opened from the special interaction menu at the beach.

Fixed a bug where, in the Grope Breasts scene, a modified rib type on a female NPC would not show at all.

Fixed a bug where, in the Grope Breasts scene, the female NPC's swimsuit would sometimes show the sleeves of her clothing, so she could look like she was wearing a swimsuit with sleeves, or even show sleeves from an outfit she was not wearing.

Fixed an issue where, in the story-quest hint in the diary, the short introduction to Ayano Yoshida said she was the head of the Journalism Club instead of the Occultism Club.

Fixed an issue where, if you were dating a female NPC and opened the biography menu, the Relationships category showed her as single.

Fixed a bug where the game could throw an exception when peeking at a female RNPC in the shower, during rare moments.

Fixed a bug that could make the game throw an exception when hovering certain characters in the NPC editor at certain points.

Fixed a bug where, after you selected a Chubby NPC in the NPC editor, the game could throw an exception in some situations when you then selected a female MILF NPC.

Fixed a bug where hovering a MILF NPC with the cursor, or a finger on touch, in the NPC editor could change your custom NPC into that same MILF NPC.

Fixed a bug that made the outfit shown on a thumbnail in the NPC editor differ from the outfit on the sprite after you picked it through those thumbnails.

Fixed a fundamental issue where changing your role on Patreon and buying a more expensive tier did not update it in the game database, so you stayed on the lower role and did not get the perks. This now works, with no issues.

Fixed a bug where changing the body type of a female NPC in the NPC editor would not work if you switched it from chubby, MILF, or normal.

Fixed a bug where the sprite of a female RNPC with the MILF type could have trouble showing arms and other parts. They could draw in the wrong layer, so the shoulder sat above the clothing and the arms clipped into it.

Fixed a bug where forced clothing changes for female RNPC thumbnails did not work at all. They wore whatever they wanted, not the forced outfit. This could also break some screens, such as the full list of RNPC clothing.

Fixed an issue with the wrong type check on currency and debt value when repaying a debt.

Fixed an issue where, in English, some system notifications were simply not translated, so the text in play was blank.

Fixed an issue with the wrong phone-number validation in the ask-for-number action in the RNPC interaction menu.

Fixed a bug with RNPC selection, last name, and self-selection checks failing in the Chat with... and Don't chat with... actions.

Fixed an issue with an RNPC showing the wrong gender during a volleyball match in the Beach location.

Fixed an issue with the order of upper and lower clothing in the fallback display of some RNPC scenes.

Fixed an issue with the background and the location title when visiting an RNPC.

Fixed a bug where, during the event in which a female RNPC asks if your character is okay, her sprite covered everything else for no reason.

Fixed a bug where, in English, the game would sometimes not show the description, name, or other information in the inventory, or when selecting an item. This happened because some items had no translation.

Fixed a bug where, when you tried to abandon the story character Yuki Oota, the lines were completely blank, so the action did nothing and the script never ran.

Fixed a bug where your character could become permanently depressed for no reason if they went without energy for a very long time.

Fixed a bug where, in English, some recipes and names in the cooking UI were simply not translated and did not show at all.

Fixed a bug where, in English, the text about your character being promoted would not show at all, so there was no way to tell it had happened.

Fixed a bug where, when you tried to get a phone number from an RNPC, the text did not give the number. It only said they had been added to your contacts.

Fixed a bug that could make the game throw an exception when you tried to save after editing your character. Rare.

Fixed a bug that could make long sleeves fail to draw on the arms during a fight with a female RNPC if she was wearing long-sleeved clothing.

As you can see, a lot of work went into this, from retranslating a huge part of the game — about half of it was essentially redone in English — to new content and reworks. We are saving even more for October 15. That update is planned as the largest in the history of game, 0.983.

A new dialogue system for RNPСы (YouTube)