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 and will not be the same.

• 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. You can read all about it.

Changelog

New Content:

• 6,729 words added. (28,720 total)

  • Average reading time: 27 minutes.

• Reintroduction to a certain character

• Animated Sprite for 1 character

• 1 New Locations w/ 5 Backgrounds

• 2 Static Cinematic Moments

• 1 Animated Cinematic Moment

  • All Hazel CGs are now animated

• 1 Lewd Scene

• New Music

• End of Ep 1

New Features:

• Reimplementation of the Android Adaptive Performance package to try to optimize the performance for a range of Android users

Changes:

• Changed texture import settings to (hopefully) make a lot of textures less blurry

• A huge rework of the code, integrating Spine2d for our characters. This enables us to be more flexible in how we implement our animated characters in the future and helps us address buggy behavior. Performance-wise, it will largely play the same, but you should hopefully witness fewer ‘janky’ animation transitions. Also allowed me to finally fix the notorious issue with Max not properly discarding the cigarette.

• Implemented two (2) missing animated CGs for Hazel at Cafe Estro

  • This was supposed to be in the last update, but there was some miscommunication, and they were not ready yet. Now they are in the game.

Fixes: 

• (android) Fixed a setting to make the intro splash screen disclaimer properly render on smaller Android screen sizes

• (android) Adjusted the loading screen to not bleed out on the sides of wide-screen Android monitors, which left the negative space with the edges painted by the loading screen texture

• Changed the physics settings on Spine2d characters that greatly reduce the impact of sliding on moving parts, so no more hairs and ties flying horizontally as characters move across the screen

• Removed unnecessary shadow casting of certain spine2d models

• Max’s cigarette finally stays gone!

• Issue with Receptionist not coming back rectified - related to scene loading

• Press H to Hide UI is back!

*We are still working on this build at the time of posting this, so it may change a bit.

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 is the final major content update of Episode 1, meaning you will play to the end of the episode.

We have a fairly big scene prepared where Isaac goes to the bookstore that the receptionist recommended. There, you will meet a new character? You can choose to get to know them, and there will even be a lewd scene.

The update has a 6,729-word count and should take the average reader 27 minutes to read, not accounting for going back to check other routes.

There is a pretty complex lewd scene in this that I think Koth knocked out of the park!

We also have a new location, which we hope to use again throughout the game. It has 5 backgrounds in total.

What is Missing

• Gallery

  • Planned for v0.15.5

• SFW Mode

  • Planned for v0.15.5

• Backer Guided Mode

  • Planned for v0.15.5

• Player Cellphone

  • Current plan is to get this done for Ep 3.

• Roll Back

  • Going to be a pain to do, if we can even do it.

• More Save Slots

Known Bugs

• None! Fill out the report if you find some!

Release Schedule

$20 - July 7th, 8 AM Pacific

$10 - July 14th, 8 AM Pacific

$5 - July 21st, 8 AM Pacific

$3 - July 28th, 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

We had a really good month! The team regrouped and developed a solid plan for the future that we will unveil in August.

Episode 1 is finally done! Mostly! We have another Episode 1 build coming in August, where we are adding the gallery and 9k+ words. You can read the Progress Report for more details.

We are so proud to have gotten this far and to not miss a single release date! Let's keep it up ;)

Important things to keep in mind!

This Wednesday, the Episode 1 OST drops!

August 12th, we have a Q&A Livestream!

Stay Rad!