Maids & Masters (& A Release Date For Arrival Remastered)

I've said it in the last two posts, so just to get it out of the way - the remastered version of Arrival is coming out this Friday, 3/10. If you're a Mac user, good news: you get a version now, too!

I am exceedingly glad I gave myself (as well as my playtester, who has been an absolute champion in helping me out with this) as much time to playtest as I did. It's mostly little things to make sure Arrival matches the main game, but I've still been making tweaks here and there on Arrival even as I start the process of remastering the main game. Arrival has been "finished" for over a week now and yet I'm still finding things to change.

The best news, at least for me, is that Arrival gave me the opportunity to implement and test most of the plugins I'll be using in Maids & Masters. The process might've made Arrival take an extra 10 days of dev time that I really wanted to put into the main game, but it probably saved me a week's worth of testing, so I think it works out.

If you've played the original Arrival tech demo, this new version of Arrival is probably closer to a remake than it is a remaster. Nearly all of the dialogue has been rewritten, progression has been updated, there's more optional content to find, all of the placeholder stuff has been replaced with official assets from the main game, there's all the plugin features, and still more that is either different or brand new to the new version. I hope you'll have fun finding all of the differences between the original and this one.

The most important addition(s) - you'll be able to bring your save from Arrival forward to the main game now. The Clown Nose (now Trophy No. 0) can only be obtained in Arrival now, with Trophy No. 1 being a brand new item called the Trophy Codex, which will serve as a mobile version of the trophy hint system. Plus, if you get a 100% clear (I'll tell you whether you got it or not in the dev message at the end of Arrival) you get some extra stuff in addition to whatever you found in Arrival.

It's looking like it isn't possible to bring a save from VX Ace forward to MZ, so hopefully the new version of Arrival, being able to bring your save forward from that, and all the new/reworked content in the remaster will soften that blow a little.