Shale Hill Secrets Alpha 1 for macOS
Added 2021-04-22 20:11:01 +0000 UTCHello all!
It’s Ricky here. First of all I’d like to start off by saying sorry. I know the Mac build of Shale Hill Secrets has taken a lot of time, meaning many passionate supporters have been patiently waiting for it. Please, allow me to elaborate and explain what's been happening behind the scenes.
Apple Bureaucracy
The first issue is that Apple has made it incredibly difficult for my company to join the developer program (my business account was finally approved a couple of days ago after months of fighting them). As you all know, Apple doesn’t allow any kind of explicit adult content on their App Store, and they are very picky to approve entities - I had to go through a few phone interviews and they wanted to know what my company was developing… So I had to be bold enough to convince them I’m a legit dev without showing my portfolio. That took some time. I think they were suspecting something was off… After all, luckily, they finally gave the green light.
Bugs
A few bugs in the tool we use to develop the game (that only affect the Mac build) has proven very difficult to fix. I had to wait for the tool to be updated to address issues that were out of my control, and even now it is still not 100%. I've been working with the developers to get those issues addressed ASAP, but unfortunately time passes quickly and Mac-only bugs don't seem to be high on their priority list…
Requirements
Technically, any Mac running Mojave (10.14) or newer should be able to run the game, but we’re currently unable to confirm this as the machines we have access to are both running Big Sur.
If you have an old Mac and the framerate isn’t consistent, please go to 'Game Settings', 'Video Options' and then disable 'V-Sync'. Disabling 'Camera Follows Cursor' in the gameplay options should also help a bit. You can also tweak 'Text Speed' and 'Transitions' settings to improve the performance (the quicker the animations, the less the game has to compute since it has a cache system in place).
How To Play
- v0.2.1 is now available! Please download this one.
- Download Shale Hill Secrets for macOS here.
The current build is not at 100%, but it is playable if you follow a few instructions:
Using Terminal
If you don’t know how to use the Terminal, jump to the “Moving the app” section instead.
If you know how to use your Mac Terminal app, you can easily "unquarantine" the game by running:
xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine Shale_Hill_Secrets.app
- Download the ZIP to your “Downloads” folder. After downloading it, double click it to unzip the package and open the Shale Hill Secrets folder (DO NOT RUN THE APP YET).
- Open the Terminal app.
- Type xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine
- Drag and drop Shale_Hill_Secrets.app to the Terminal window.
- Press Enter to run the command. Close the Terminal afterwards.
- Double click Shale_Hill_Secrets.app.
If you did everything right, the command in Terminal should look like this:
xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Users/your_user_name/Downloads/Shale\ Hill\ Secrets\ 0.2.1\ macOS/Shale_Hill_Secrets.app
Moving the app
- Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > “Click the lock to make changes”.
- Allow apps downloaded from: select “App Store and identified developers”.
- Download the ZIP to your “Downloads” folder. After downloading it, double click it to unzip the package and open the Shale Hill Secrets folder (DO NOT RUN THE APP YET).
- Drag and drop the app (Shale_Hill_Secrets.app) to your Applications folder (move the app only, not the whole folder). This is the most important step. If you try to run the app directly from the folder you downloaded it or if you move the whole folder to “Applications” it’ll give you an error.
- Go to the Applications folder and run the game from there (right click > “Open”).
Known Issues
- The first obvious known issue is that the app refuses to run directly from the directory it was downloaded from. This problem seems related to Mac’s Gatekeeper quarantining the game and we’re investigating if there exists a solution (yes, the app is already code signed and notarized by Apple so the issue is most likely a bug in the tool we use to build the game).
- If you play in windowed mode, closing the window might lead to a crash. To close the game, please lead to the main menu and use the “Quit game” button.
If you encounter any issue that is not covered in this post, please do not post it here on Patreon (it’s buggy and hard to track). Get in touch with us through our Discord server (#game-help or #bugs-reports) or email us at support@love-joint.com.
Stay safe,
The Love-Joint Team.
Comments
Yes. We are still waiting for the engine to be updated and the problems listed are out of our reach. However, we are 100% sure the game is playable if the instructions are followed. We've confirmed it on several Macs with different macOS versions.
Love-Joint
2021-06-02 21:34:09 +0000 UTCIs still an issue now?
Bernard
2021-06-02 06:40:09 +0000 UTCThanks for your insight! I'm not a US resident but I have a company there, which I think was what caused some confusion and made my application took a lot of time to get approved. In in case, the dev account is now operative and from now on is just a matter of renewal so I don't expect to encounter more issues on that regard.
Love-Joint
2021-05-05 20:31:49 +0000 UTCYea, moving the game to the applications directory worked perfectly. I think this boils down to exactly what version of macOS people are running as well as what kind of permissions they've allowed the game to have as far as access to the download folder. When I first tried to launch the game from the unzipped folder in the downloads it said "couldn't find game" which sounds to me like gatekeeper wasn't allowing it to access the downloads folder. You'd have to either drag the app into the full disk access window (or to just the downloads folder) or move the actual app to the Applications folder which is universally accessible. Also, as far as apple not giving you a developer account, I have no idea what that is about. I've been an apple developer for while and have signed up for multiple developer accounts over the years and never needed any kind of authorization or approval. I've signed many apps, though none distributed through the App Store, that would for sure require a review. It can be confusing though, and if you're not based in the US that might make it all the more difficult, idk. I hope you're able to figure it out and if there's anything I can do to help don't hesitate to ask.
Zetas
2021-05-05 00:00:21 +0000 UTCI wasn't able to get the app working through terminal on Mojave 10.14.6 (I have experience with terminal, and am confident I followed the directions). But I was able to get it running with the "moving the app" instructions. Glad you guys figured it out for mac (even if it took a while). Can't wait to play more! Thanks!
Killian
2021-04-23 15:39:37 +0000 UTCThe thing is that the app is signed and notarized... Very puzzling.
Love-Joint
2021-04-23 11:12:11 +0000 UTCThank you for the update! I am sincerely chomping at the bit to play this. :)
Brett Bernard
2021-04-23 07:51:25 +0000 UTCUsually to get around the Mac gatekeeper you just try to launch the app and when the box pops up that says it's not signed or not allowed you just hit "ok" then go into system preferences -> security -> general and click the "open" button that has now shown up to override the gatekeeper. No terminal commands are usually required.
Zetas
2021-04-23 06:26:30 +0000 UTCI've been also working on it. The plan is to release it next week before the end of the month.
Love-Joint
2021-04-23 01:50:20 +0000 UTCSo, when exactly will it be ready for Android OS?
Brett Bernard
2021-04-23 00:56:22 +0000 UTCokay after about a million tries, my trash has about a dozen copies of the folder now, it seems like its working, thank you for the help
2021-04-22 23:31:29 +0000 UTCI will reply to my comment if I can get it working, my Mac gets temperamental and just flat out won’t run things, to be clear I don’t see that as you guys fault just hoping that in future some of the issues can be fixed so that I can get this thing running
2021-04-22 23:19:38 +0000 UTCPlease try again (starting from unzipping it, delete what you already unzipped). If you follow the instructions carefully it'll work. We confirmed it works on many Macs if done correctly.
Love-Joint
2021-04-22 23:17:29 +0000 UTC
