Hopepunk City Beta 0.8 Available

I've done enough tinkering, I need to stop!  Time to finally release a beta!

A lot has changed since the alpha version back in July.  I was supposed to finish the story, release a 3 month alpha, then work on audio and achievements, and release a beta.  Well I did things out of order and now there is a beta, complete with audio and achievements ready to go!

Is there stuff still to work on?  Yes. I think I quashed all the bugs, feel free to tell me otherwise. (I'm sure there are bugs I haven't found yet), but there are some graphics I am not satisfied with yet that need to be redone, a scene I need to add for completeness sake and a few balancing things I want to play with, but none of that keeps the beta from being enjoyed.

You can access it here PC, Mac, and Android available:  https://arianeb.itch.io/hopepunk-city/patreon-access

You will need a free itch.io account if you do not have one, and your patreon login if you haven't linked the two yet.  Tell me if this doesn't work, this is the first time I am distributing an unpublished beta this way, and I cannot test to see if it works or not.

I attempted to create a "patch" to the alpha released in july, but the differences are too big, the patch was 300MB, and the game is only 400MB, so just download the whole game again.  Save files made with the july alpha should work, but may not count towards achievements. 

Notes:

*  I'm sure some of you will find portions of the text a little weird.  I made most of the game gender neutral.  Every character uses they / them pronouns.  Most of the game you will not even notice this, but from time to time it will read a little odd.  If you see a "your" instead of a "you're" or a glaring misspelling, point it out, but if I use a "they" instead of a "she", or a "their" instead of a "her", it was intentional.

* Some settings in preferences to be aware of:  There is an "easy (censored)" mode designed to make the game playable on you tube and twitch, or at work.  If you see black bars where nudity should be, you might have this turned on.  The status section of the screen has three settings "show", "hide", and "inventory".  Default is "show", I use inventory if I load up an old save game and forgot what the character owns or is trained in.

* All achievements are reachable regardless of your character's gender or origin.  What will block achievements are what interests you select in game.  Early on you select between "art", "science", "outdoors", and "community" main interest.  This affects access to certain dialogs and achievements.  Getting all achievements means playing through 4 times, once per interest.  There is also a point where your character can select their sexual preference.  Picking gay male, hetero female, or asexual, pretty much blocks access to all sex scenes and romance scenarios, but you can still finish the game without it, but not the achievements.

* The rules regarding first and second month checkpoints are documented in the game, but stuff that happens in month 3 or the date Ariane scenes are not so well documented. 

List of things I will be doing (besides the usual bug fixes, and the above mentioned tweaks):

- Make a demo of the first month of the game, complete with audio, achievements and trailer.
- Make an optimized android version.  The current version is a PC port, cuts off text, and runs really slow on my samsung phone.
- Make hints and walkthrough pages for all achievements and undocumented rules.
- Make bonus content for completing all 70 achievements.  Sorry, this beta currently has no reward for that, but it will be done before game is final.  (BTW, the planned bonus content will involve "shout outs" to Patreon supporters of all levels, if you want to make sure you are included, or would rather not be included, tell me here or on discord.)

Enjoy!  Constructive criticism welcome and encouraged!