Alpha Preview Update (November)

Play the alpha here

Password: turkeytrots ⬅ ❗️

Report bugs here

View bug reports here

Incomplete routes guide ⬅ ❗️please check if you suspect your game ended early :)

What's New:

• 15,000 words of new content!

• New Riel character interlude

• New Shery character interlude

• Make potions with Shery and hang out with some little-seen Mages like Neon!

• Help poor Aerin and convince Riel to go on a constitutional instead of rotting behind his desk under a pile of work (it's harder than you think)

• Sparks fly and much progress is made for those slow-burning Riel and Sherymancers...

Developer's Notes:

Hello, everyone! I hope you're having a wonderful end to your November, and happy early Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate in the US! 🦃

I had a lot of fun with the interludes this month: Riel and Shery continue to unveil their individual quirks and hidden sides, which I think is very rewarding for players who are persistent and patient with forming relationships with them! Both of them have their own particular shells and facades that one has to break through to see the deeper currents that run beneath, and each of their interludes this month show them being less "careful" with their inner thoughts. I also always think getting the perspective of the Order's non-combatants is a markedly different look at Shepherd life than the carousing with your fellow Lunar Corps agents can be, and it also provides more insight into the day-to-day operations that keep the Order running!

I actually intended to do Chase's next interlude instead of Shery's this month, but because it's so heavy--though really, when are his not?...--I couldn't muster the emotional fortitude to tackle it this time LOL it's in the pipeline now, though!

Speaking candidly, this month was a bit of a rough one. I hit a wall and ran full-tilt into the point where my mind and body went, Yeahhh, you realize we can't keep this up forever, right? I've mentioned in the last few months that I've been spinning a lot of plates: on top of everyday life stuff (which we all must keep a handle on to survive), I've recently taken on more wedding-planning stuff and then decided now was a good time to ramp up work on my second novel (which is at 80,000 words now since starting the zero draft a few months ago, woo!), along with the massive Twine conversion project, updating the game every month, writing a hefty short story every month, keeping on top of messages, commissions, collaboration for various parts of the game like art and music, handling professional author stuff like marketing, speaking events, blurbs, meetings with various agents and producers, future game stuff like website design and legal/business practices, doing all of the Patreon goodies, planning for future goodies, staying on top of a healthy social calendar, and trying to Not Look At or doomscroll about certain things about the state of the world right now, and... LOL. My initial solution for doing all of this was introducing more discipline into my regimen, adding more tasks relating to cooking, exercising, and eating well, and cutting out "time-wasting"/unproductive activities like social media and video games (mostly so I could use the nights to write my book)... but it turns out the brain needs time to decompress from things instead of overclocking itself with creative output 24/7! Who knew! I do not recommend responding to an overburdened workload by simply taking away the things that are fun and not work, lmao!

I say all of this because hitting the wall made me have to sit back and really examine the sustainability of my current routine this month. Some of this stuff is temporary--I think when the Twine conversion is finally done, things will lighten up considerably, though I also worry it will open up new avenues of work in other ways--but the long and short of it is that I probably have to tweak some things in the future. This is a very hard pill for me to swallow: my psychological "final boss" has definitely always been finding it difficult to accept that I have limitations and that I can't simply push through and do all of the things I want to do. That's the catch of it, too: I want to do all of this stuff! It's fun for me! I just don't have enough time and energy to do all of it at the pace and timeline I've set for myself anymore. I also have a hard time feeling like I'm letting people down. It's such an honor to share this world with you all and have people enjoy the content that I create for it that I hate to feel like I'm squandering any opportunity to thank you all for your support and patronage. But the hard fact of it is this: when I first started this Patreon back in 2019, I was in a very different stage in life. I was in my mid-twenties, my book hadn't been published or even sold yet, and I had all the time in the world to answer asks and stay on top of Tumblr and Discord and load up on fun Patreon goodies every month!

My career and the workload have changed now, all in promising and exciting ways, but that means too that my priorities have also shifted. For both the sake of my mental health and creative output, I feel like I need to loosen the reins of my own expectations on myself, as difficult as that feels. This is no reflection on the community, because you all have been so patient, understanding, and encouraging when it comes to me putting my health and wellbeing first. You remind me to take breaks more often than I remind myself! I feel no pressure from fans and it's all something I impose on myself; but as I consider the balance between having the time to create the content you follow me for and the bonus, supplemental goodies that I began offering in 2019, I feel like it's time to start confronting that final boss in my mind. I'd like a bit more time and mental clarity to work on the actual Shepherds game and push it ever closer to release, as well as my book, which I'm very excited to share with the world! I think you'll love it! And in order to focus more on those projects, I feel I have to ease off the pedal on some of the other things that take up my schedule in crucial ways every month.

Realistically, what does all of this mean?

1) I'm going to keep holding off on the monthly Q&As: I simply don't have time or mental vigor to tackle them right now. Maybe things will change when the Twine conversion is done, or maybe they'll have to scale back to a "4 times a year" thing someday, or maybe we'll do something with the new Shepherds' Corner instead, but for now, I unfortunately don't have the bandwidth to be able to commit to any more Q&As right now. The good news is that there's over a half-a-decade archive of them here on Patreon (that's, what, something like over 1000 questions?), as well as the asks I still manage to get to on Tumblr, so hopefully this isn't too big of a blow!

(The other aspect to this is that, after so many questions answered--and even more after 6 years over on the forums and Tumblr--that there has to be a finite number of never-been-asked-before questions as well as novel, non-predictable ways to answer them now, right? It feels that way, anyway! I don't want to post Q&As that are largely me pointing to past Q&As, so I think taking a hiatus will help replenish the well as more time goes on!)

2) I'm going to eventually stop welding myself to delivering the short story exactly on time every single month. Similar to the Q&A, after 5 years, it's starting to feel as if I'm tapping that well a bit dry at present moment: we've explored each characters' important backstories, done AUs and even stories for side characters like the recruits and Prihine, and at this point, trying to come up with new serial stories and long-form mysteries/missions (each of which is equivalent to an entire novel or novella on its own) feels like it could be reserved for content in the actual game itself! Even potential romance shorts or alternate POVs, which have been suggested before, are either beyond what my overclocked mind can produce right now, or I think they'd be more interesting as game content in the future, if ever. So I'd rather put that creative energy towards adding more story to the game or its future DLC at this point, which I think you all would enjoy even more!

This doesn't mean I'm stopping the short stories entirely, mind you--I'm just resolving to get more comfortable with taking breaks from them until I feel truly inspired to write something for the story's sake, rather than just to have something new to post every month out of a sense of obligation. Hopefully that makes sense? Right now it sort of feels like when you're at the last little dribble of shampoo in the bottle and you have to squeeze reallllly hard to get it out and make it last just a bit longer... But if I can give myself to permission to update a short story every other month, or "as inspiration strikes," whenever that may be, and however irregular, I think that will take a pressure off of my schedule and creativity a lot. I also want to give myself permission to take time off for the holidays instead of worrying about using the last few days of the month to eke out something I'm feeling a bit tepid on at the moment!

(To that end, this may apply to this month: with Thanksgiving being the day after tomorrow, I'm not entirely sure if I'll be able to finish the next update to Prihine's short story by then. I'd like to spend some time relaxing with my family this weekend, so if it comes to pass that I'm not able to finish by Thursday, I may have to skip the short story this month. Even typing that out is very daunting for me, but I'm going to do my best to feel okay with that!)

So there's that. Ironically, I'm excited for the next short story after Prihine's is finished, though it's a bit hazy to me at the moment, but the TL;DR is that I'm giving myself permission to not post a new short story exactly every single month from now on, and just to work on it when I truly have the time and inspiration, however sporadically that may end up being. Hopefully that all makes sense!

Phew! Thanks for reading all of that, if you've made it this far! This has gotten so long that I figure it's best to sign off for now. On all fronts, everything else has been bustling briskly along, and there's nothing very new to report other than the fact that I've been churning along on everything as best I can! I'm thinking the Twine conversion will be complete within Q1 next year! 🫡 Ah, and also keep an eye out for some very special events that will be taking place starting in December! There will be sales, discounts, and a giveaway for an exclusive Halek holiday mug starting December 1st!

As the year draws to a close and we turn our eyes to thanksgiving this week (at least here in the US), I just want to say again, as ever: THANK YOU for everything you do! Every comment, every kind message, every piece of fanart or fanfiction or enthusiastic thought or noticed easter egg or piece of feedback or reblog or recommendation to a friend means more to me than words could ever express. I'm not always able to reply to everyone right away, but please know that every compliment, light-hearted joke, or heartfelt message that I see or receive touches me from the bottom of my heart. I feel whole-hearted gratitude every single day for being able to do what I love for a living, and that is in very large part thanks to all of you. So thank you, everyone! I appreciate you more than I can say! 🙇🏻‍♀️💖

Total wordcount: 1,234,723 words without code

What's Next:

Someone's character interludes--I haven't thought who yet! Maybe Chase, maybe Halek, maybe Blade, maybe Red, I'm not sure... It'll be a fun little surprise for next month! We now have 11 interludes to go until we're ready for the Ascendancy Festival: 1 each for Blade, Trouble, Shery, Riel, Chase, Red, Ayla, and Halek, and 3 for Tallys! We're inching closer and closer! 🎉

Until next time!