Alpha Preview Update (July)

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Bug Reports

Incomplete Routes

Shepherds of Haven Development Log

Content Added: 

• 28,000 words of new content

• Ascendancy Festival - Blade route

• Blade's confession

• Quickbuild feature added

Changelog:

Critical Fixes

• Added a "redirect" if you fail to stop Thurl's ambush in Chapter 7, which previously led to a "Game Over" incomplete route. You can now choose to "rewind" and pretend that you had succeeded in that encounter instead, allowing you to continue the game. Please note that this shortcut will be removed in the final version of the game (when that incomplete route has been filled out). Ironically, the number of people who will have to use this shortcut will inevitably be reduced by the introduction of the quickbuild feature, lol.

• An "autoname saves" toggle was added to the Settings menu. This should only affect people who are playing the game on the itch.io app: a pop-up dialogue asking how you'd like to name your saves was preventing people on the app from being able to use saves correctly. If you run into this error, use the new "autoname saves" toggle to automatically name your saves, bypassing that dialogue pop-up and avoiding the app throwing an error.

Miscellaneous Fixes

• Trouble's prizes and the souvenir doll from Chandry's play now appear in your room as decor after the Ascendancy Festival.

• Fixed not getting 20 gold (even if you earned it) while working a side job on your days off.

• Changed the background of Chandry's market.

• Fixed a long-standing bug that occurred when talking to Shery the first time she faces off with the recruits, especially if you're on a romance path with her.

• Fixed a bug that occurred when holding your silence with Naolin.

• Fixed a cosmetic bug during Riel's walk in his interludes.

• Fixed a bug that occurred in the last trial of the Crystal Tournament.

• Fixed a bug where the Prologue end screen didn't inform you if you'd unlocked a new achievement (The Wolf Triumphant or A Leashed Dog).

• Fixed a bug that occurred while "intimidating" the little kids who fought with Caine during one of his interludes.

• Fixed a bug that occurred when rejecting Chase during his FWB casino initiation.

• Changed the magic stat check to defeating Thurl without psionic magic in Chapter 7 from 100 to 95 (the maximum cap for that chapter)

• Fixed a bug that had the journal stating that Croelle saved you during the encounter with the Inquisitors in Chapter 1 (if you went with Tallys), even if that didn't happen

To Do: 

• Leaving the play early is still incomplete.

• Blade's souvenir still needs to be added to your room decor.

Notes: 

At the eleventh hour, here it is... the newest update to the alpha build, which brings with it Blade's festival route and his long-awaited confession for all Blademancers! 🎇🎆🫠

This was a crazy month, and possibly the hardest update I've ever had to pull off! Most of it was timing: I know that I said last month that my life was about to get way less stressful and my schedule far more clear because I'm finally finished with converting old ChoiceScript content into the Twine build, but then life came along and humbled me very quickly. Here's how things shook out:

• Releasing the public demo this month required several days of preparation and several days of bug-chasing after. (However, the response has been incredible, and I'm so grateful for everyone's interest and support! Thank you so much for your interest in Shepherds of Haven if you're here now because of the public demo! You all left such nice reviews/ratings (didn't even know that was a thing on itch.io lol) and comments that it was very revitalizing!)

• I hadn't done the Q&A in a while, so that took a bit of time as well

• Some movement on the author side of things required some urgency on my part, which is always exciting, but distracting!

• I had to take a few days to go wedding dress shopping (I found my dress! I wish I could show you all XD) as well as look at suits with my fiance. We also had a tasting and a flurry of things to check off our list--only 7 more months to go...! (That sounds like a lot of time, but it doesn't feel that way 🥲)

• itch.io and Steam kind of imploded...? That didn't actually really have anything to do with me but of course it happened days after I posted the demo, haha

• I wrestled with my first huge writer's block on my novel (vanquished, for now, but it did make me sit in my despair for a bit)

• The coding and programming for the new quickbuild tool ate up a shocking amount of time. (It was such a pain in the ass!)

• I then proceeded to struggle with writer's block for the actual update over the course of several precious days. I just couldn't concentrate, and my mind was oddly scattered, and I started to panic as the days crept by... Then I figured it out. In the latter half of the month, I tend to leave the house and go work in the library or the coffee shop for the full work day, around 6-8 hours, which necessitates finding locations that are open until past 5. I don't really drink caffeine (in fact, I am boring and pretty much always just order water when given the choice) but a new Starbucks opened nearby, and its hours worked for my schedule, so I started going there. My go-to order was a Pink Drink, which I thought was just coconut milk, acai, and strawberry... I did that for something like 8 days, and then I was casually making conversation with the area manager (?) when she dropped in, and she asked why it was my favorite drink (seeing it on the table by my elbow), and I said that I liked that it had no caffeine, and she gave me such a frozen, startled look of guilt that I immediately felt my stomach drop. It turns out it does! All of their refreshers do, which I did not know!!! I thought they were just "refreshing" lmfaoooo, like lemonades. :') That's no one's fault but my own, lol, but I was all scattered and hyper and anxious because I was unknowingly consuming wayyyy more caffeine on a daily basis than I have in years. As soon as I stopped, I was pretty much fine again!

...Anyway, I tell you this whole entirely mundane saga to explain, guiltily, why this update is a few days later than usual. But it's done now, and I'm pleased as punch! Some of you might be surprised by how eloquent Blade ends up being in his confession, but it's because he's been zipping up his emotions for so long that they all came tumbling out in his passion, like water bursting from a dam. He became a yapper suddenly LOLLLLL. Some moments in his romance route definitely took me by surprise, and I had to accommodate accordingly: [spoilers for the update, read after playing the update if you don't want to know] in the original novels, the protagonist is absolutely blindsided when Blade spontaneously tells her he loves her, but part of that is because they're childhood friends, so he's had a lot of practice living with his feelings for many years, and has a better hold on them, because they've been a part of his worldview for so long; he's so good at living with it (and is generally a little more socialized in the novels by dint of having the protagonist as his childhood friend) and concealing it that the highest compliment he pays her appearance up until that point is telling her that the way she looks in a fancy dress "is adequate" LMFAO. So he's not as thrown-off and flustered about his feelings in the novels as he is with the suddenness of MC coming into his life in the game; and of course novel!MC was completely surprised and taken off-guard when he told her he loved her: he kept it on the down-low for many years, whereas this Blade was not able to do that, because of his specific background and also because of the utter panic and dismay he felt when game!MC showed up and knocked him sideways in the game. Hopefully that makes sense? He became kind of deranged lol. I say all of this because I thought Blade's romance route was going to go similarly as in the novels; that when he finally told MC that he loved them, that it would be a total surprise; but the two of them had other ideas. Not only was Blade utterly feral in his pining (so many almost-kisses and touches, the man was so down bad that I literally could not restrain him!!) that I'd have to make MC somewhat of an idiot not to notice after a certain point, but there was also this: I realized that a romance with Blade would go -> utterly confusing because his methods of signifying attraction and interest are completely foreign, subdued, or downright bizarre to most strangers -> but the more you fall in love with him and become close to him, the more you'd be able to read his subtle looks and expressions and gestures and what they really mean (which I hope comes across in these last few interludes) and the more you'd simply come to know him, down to his core, which also means coming to understand the undeniable fact of his love and loyalty. Then the confusion becomes more "is he going to do anything about it" or "is this a good idea to pursue" rather than "does he have feelings for me" (clearly he does after a certain point). I'm just yapping because I've been in this headspace for the last few weeks, but hopefully that all makes sense! [/spoilers]

Also. This update finally adds back in the quickbuild feature, which allows you to quickly build a character and worldstate and jump to specific chapters. I was hoping that Twine's multiple saves would do away with the need for this feature, but for testing purposes, it's probably better to have it, especially for testing alternate routes without having to do the game all over again, or being able to proceed past failed stat checks without having to start over.

However. The quickbuild tool is purely for quickly viewing content. Do not use it with the expectation of building a “perfect” playthrough or run or MC. Things like your journal, codex, discounts, items, relationship statuses, and collectibles will all be messed up and scrambled in comparison to a real, bonafide playthrough, so this tool is best used to jump ahead to view new content or routes you may not have otherwise accessed because you took other choices. Think of it as a “read-only” mode. Do not use it with the idea that it’s a perfect cheat! I will not spend time resolving bugs or continuity errors that arise through use of the quickbuild tool. 

Sorry if all the warnings come off as a bit much, but I want to frontload its use by being VERY VERY CLEAR about its intentions and what’s going to eventually happen to it, because if we get all the way to the game being finished and launched on storefronts, and I get a bunch of messages asking where the quickbuild went or why the game feels harder (because you can't manually set your stats anymore), I will actually cry, haha.

I think that's all I've got for now! Unfortunately, the artist who's working on Shery's room art suffered a medical emergency this month, so they were not able to finish it on time. I've seen the lineart for it, though, and it's sooo cute! 🥹 Let's hope for the artist's speedy recovery; sorry for the wait in the meantime! Cute-tanuki also confirmed that Croelle's character sheet will be started shortly, and I had a lot of fun writing this month's short story, which is a summer horror AU. It's a genre I love and can't get enough of (if you have any of your own recs, feel free to comment!), so I look forward to expanding on that world and story soon.

What’s Next:

I am realizing that the Ascendancy Festival interludes are monstrously beefy, as you can see by the high wordcounts: having 3 activities, Chandry's play, a confession scene, all the choices and all the different platonic/romantic flavor text, is extremely difficult to get done in one sprint, especially because each festival route has almost no overlap with another character's: almost no text gets "reused." So I might have to rethink how to pace these out, or maybe having a better schedule (and no caffeine) will make things easier next month. I'm also really eyeing starting Chapter 10!

I very much hope you enjoy! Feel free to leave your thoughts on Discord, here in the comments on Patreon, the itch.io page, or Tumblr; I've been really enjoying reading through them, and you have no idea how much your enthusiasm and feedback continues to drive and inspire me! Thank you for everything!

Estimated total wordcount: 1,334,000 words