Alpha Preview Update (April)

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Incomplete Routes

Shepherds of Haven Development Log

Content Added: 

• 10,000 words of new content

• New Trouble interlude

• Chapter 8.5 complete

• Recruit Mode added 

This one's a pretty standard update, to the point where today's Google Doc entry (linked above) is just a copy of this one! A new Trouble interlude was added, and while it may seem a bit short and straightforward in some cases (Trouble isn’t really the type to have long philosophical discussions and debates, unlike some people stares pointedly at Red) it’s important stuff nonetheless, especially for Troublemancers. I’m very pleased with the romance content for this update! Trouble and MC are soooo 🥺! Warning to those who may find it distressing: there is mentions of assault and violence in this interlude. It’s not really anything new (in terms of graphicness) if you’ve already gotten past the Lazu Reen incident, but just thought it was worth mentioning!

All of Chapter 8.5 has also been ported and added–it’s only been lightly and cursorily tested a few times, so there may be a bug or two there, but at least it’s all there! Three new songs have been implemented for this chapter as well! One of the transitions is a bit “mushy” (there’s like a second of overlap between the two songs depending on where the first one fades out), but that’ll be fixed once I put in the intended “half day off” (similar to what MC did in Capra, not a full day off but some extra time to spend with certain companions) that’s supposed to be between in those two scenes at some point.

Speaking of which, we’ve come to a bit of a sticky point with Chapter 8.5. All throughout this alpha development, I’ve been referring to it as Chapter 8.5, as I initially foresaw two shorter missions (the Labyrinth and the Elven Quarter) being in a single formal chapter (partially to contrast the absolute monster and slog of Chapter 7, and to give us a bit of a breather). Unfortunately, I have proven to be incapable of writing short missions, so in the end, Chapter 8.5’s going to actually be Chapter 9 once the game is published, and Sibella de Vespe’s mission at the Sun Court will become Chapter 10. I haven’t really committed to it yet, since I didn’t want the terms and nomenclature we’ve been using to become confusing, so I didn’t put in the formal chapter transition screen that formally declares 8.5 as 9–but it’ll be there in the final version of the game. However, the journal does act as if Chapter 8.5 is Chapter 9. That is intended behavior, so no one need report this as a bug. It’s all a bit confusing, but basically the TL;DR is that Chapter 8.5 is becoming Chapter 9, Chapter 9 is becoming Chapter 10, I haven’t put in the chapter title screen for that yet so I can keep calling it Chapter 8.5 to you all for clarity and testing purposes (I don’t want to be clarifying “wait, do you mean Chapter 9 as in 8.5, or Chapter 9 as in Sibella’s chapter?”) until the game is finalized and ready for publication. I really hope that makes sense!

Finally, it seems some people are still struggling with stat checks at the beginning of the game while others are having a simpler time with it, so rather than lowering the overall difficulty of the game for everybody, I’ve implemented an optional Recruit Mode. When starting a new game, you’ll get to choose between Standard Mode (the default experience) and Recruit Mode (which lets you train magic and strength twice again if you want to, sets Chandry’s relationship to 1 instead of 0 to begin with–which means you get a discount on gifts right away, unless you do something that immediately lowers his relationship back to 0), and gives you a small +5 boost to Nerves of Steel, Silver Tongue, Bright Mind, and Razor Wits on startup. I haven’t tested it extensively, but it should all work, and I don’t believe it will affect people who already have existing files without Recruit Mode as an option. Please note that you can only choose between the difficulty modes at the beginning of a new game–you can’t change it mid-playthrough!

That’s all for me for now! I wasn’t able to address any bug reports yet this month, and I might not be able to get to it, as we’re currently out of town visiting family. But next month, I'm thinking of tackling a Blade or Ayla interlude before I get started on the Ascendancy Festival--finally. I'm pretty sure we're caught up enough with all of the character interludes that even if we start the festival before a few are technically all "even," it will still make way more sense.

I hope you all enjoy this new update, and as always, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments, Discord, or Tumblr! And belated happy Easter or Passover to those who celebrated!

Estimated total wordcount: 1,265,000 words

Edit [04/26/25]: I'm still out for the weekend, but I saw some reports that people aren't able to train when using Standard Mode, which I haven't been able to recreate after extensive testing on my end, making me think it's a caching issue where some people's browsers are pulling from an old cached version of the game where the new "recruit mode" variable doesn't exist. I've uploaded a general fix that should address the issue (which will only take effect if you restart your game from scratch), but in case you're not sure if you're playing on a cached version, or if you're noticing other new weird bugs like display issues (which might either be from pulling an old cached version, or because you happened to be playing the game when I uploaded a new version), please try "hard refreshing" your game. I've done a detailed write-up of how to do it here, but here are the bullet points:

• Windows: Press Ctrl + Shift + R or Ctrl + F5

• Mac: Press Cmd + Shift + R

• Alternative: Type ?v=2 after the alpha build URL, which "tricks" itch.io into thinking you're playing a brand-new URL and breaks its habit of pulling from a cached version of the site

You'll know you're playing the correct version when you see the new version number at the bottom of the title screen! (V. 2.1.0 instead of 2.0.0!)