TaH: Episode 3 [v1.03] Release!

Episode 3 - Painful Memories: The spring carnival provided a glimmer of hope on the fractured relationship with Kayla, but some wounds never truly heal. And when your friend begins digging into resurfaced memories, you may discover just how connected you all are.

The third episode is now complete! Here's a quick summary of changes and what to expect. You can find more details at the bottom if you're interested.

• The largest episode yet: 55k+ words & 2100+ images

• Custom save names

• Small dialogue corrections throughout the game

• Reworked/new content from the first half of the episode: Scene 8 (new renders), 20 (additional flashback content with Jess), 28 (reworked scene with Allison), and 29 (reworked scene with Taylor)

• Fixed bug (Ren'py update) that would flicker a random character speech icon

• Fixed bug from Ep2 carnival that caused you to purchase both game bundles (and use up all your money)

• Fixed missing relationship points for interactions at Allison's dorm in Ep3

• Bonus Content: Additional extended scenes featuring Emily, Kayla, Jess, Stacy, Kim, and Carla. (Fun Fling+ members)

(Warning: This episode explores some dark topics around violence, abuse and depression.)

Game Download for Best Bud tier

Game + Bonus Download for Fun Fling+ tiers

(Note: Mac version is experimental - waiting on confirmation that the new downloads work)

EDIT: [v1.01] Update includes fix for Ep2 carnival error

EDIT: [v1.02] Fixed Mac version downloads (incorrect file structure)

EDIT: [v1.03] Fixed texted photo error from Allison, and incorrect dialogue in Jess's flashback scene.

Thank you to all TaH supporters, both long-term and new! You're the reason why this game continues and why I strive for ways to improve it. Reaching a larger audience helps make this easier on me, so please don't be shy spreading what you like about TaH and making it more visible in the gaming community.

Enjoy :)

-ckr

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Now for those who want a little more explanation of what happened this development cycle.

I've made a previous statement about some IRL issues recently that caused the release to be delayed. I apologize once again for that, but I hope the wait was worth it.

This episode was massive. Like WAY bigger than I ever wanted. What's crazy is I didn't have enough time to fit in everything I wanted and had to make some cuts and compromises. With the entire game sitting at 130k words, that means I've officially written a 400-page story of dialogue.

There were a few things from the first half of Ep3 that needed some fixes. Primarily a small addition to the MC's flashback scenes while walking with Emily, and reworked dorm scenes with Allison and Taylor. If you remember when I released it back in October I had issues with some animations and had to improvise. Now these scenes are much closer to what I intended.

Normally I try to use renders for as many lines of text as possible (3 or 4 lines if the dialogue allows it). But I started noticing there were more instances that needed additional images to convey the scene. This episode more frequently uses an image for only 1 line, or sometimes with no dialogue associated with it. This was the main reason for the increased render count than the previous episodes.

So what didn't make it into this release? The image gallery. I spent more time working on improving visuals for this chapter, and did not devote time towards other upgrades. I also haven't settled on the right "look" I want for the gallery yet, either. But I'll talk more on that with my next Progress Report.

There was also an annoying bug in the last release where a random character speech icon would flash between transitions. A Ren'py update finally addressed this, but it apparently changed some core files which meant I couldn't do my easy update patches. So this time around you'll have to download the full game, and hopefully in the future I can provide smaller patches.