I'm not totally sure where I should start with this. Mostly because I'm exhausted. Friends have made it home safely and I have the time to work again, but my social battery is more than empty and v0.13 has apparently released in a much messier state than I thought it was in.
Let's start there. Progression through the story for v0.13 seems entirely unaffected, but there are a few bugs that are pretty egregious that I'm kinda embarrassed I missed that stop you from exploring the Bancroft Estate and Magach after completing the Bancroft Estate segment. The changelog for v0.14 is already about a dozen items long. The good news is that all of the worst bugs can be fixed using this patch. If you're playing v0.13, you can apply the patch by extracting the .rar into the main game folder and overwriting files when prompted. If you're playing v0.12, none of these bugs affect you. Don't apply the patch to v0.12, it may cause more errors instead of fixing them.
Speaking of more errors and v0.13, I was hoping I'd never have to talk about this, but I've encountered some evidence that v0.13 leaked onto a pirate site. Now, pirates gonna pirate. That's a fact of life. I'm not about to say "don't pirate."
However, there is evidence that the leaked build was modified. There's an error caused by a plugin searching for database information that it can't find. I never tell the game to go looking for this information, nor have I modified the database to be missing the information the game claims to be looking for.
I don't want to risk getting a virus myself, so I haven't downloaded the leaked v0.13 to investigate further, but the error was only reported by one person who had access to the official v0.13. While that person may have been the one who leaked the build, their reported error may be due to trying to get the game to run on a mobile device and be entirely unrelated.
All the other reports came from people playing the leaked build. I've had zero reports of this issue on itch, and no non-mobile reports of the error. I've had another Patron tell me he never encountered the described error despite recently starting a new game. While I was able to recreate the error using a save provided by someone who encountered it, I've never encountered the error myself. Altogether, this points toward game files being modified by someone other than me.
Obviously this isn't good for a whole host of reasons. I can't say for certain that whoever leaked the build did this maliciously, or that the leaked build actually includes a virus, or that they even modified the game deliberately - they may have just been trying to troubleshoot on their own and changed something they shouldn't have. If you think you know who leaked the build, please do not harass them. That isn't going to help anyone.
However, I do want to call out how harmful leaks can be to small developers like myself.
Even though it happened on a pirate site, that's how a lot of people learn about my game. It's also how I get a lot of feedback and bug reports. I have nothing against pirates. But if they see that they don't need to support me in order to get the early access version, they won't. That means a huge portion of my audience is significantly less likely to support me. This wouldn't be a problem if I was a large dev, but I'm not.
Leaks - especially ones like this, that seem to indicate malicious software - can kill a small dev. Even if I don't lose active supporters, it makes people question if I'm worth supporting. Even several updates down the line.
I work very hard to avoid that end (both as a game developer and in real life) because I love doing this for a job. And yes, for those of you who aren't aware, this is my full time job. If this was only a leak, I probably wouldn't be talking about it here at all, because it was bound to happen eventually.
All I ask is that if you've ever considered leaking anything, I ask you to consider what you're leaking, why you're leaking it, and any unforeseen harm you might cause before you actually do it.
Unless you're actively inserting viruses into other people's hard work. Stop that immediately.
Hopefully this is the last time I have to deal with something like this. If you're (understandably) a little freaked out about a game like mine potentially containing viruses, that's what places like Patreon and itch are for. The most recent public version is always available for free on itch. I can promise you I'm not trying to give you anything except my game, so if you get it straight from me, viruses or other malicious software aren't a concern. If you already support me and have access to the official v0.13, please let me know if you're encountering an error that reads "Cannot read property 'expParams' of null." The reported instance happens immediately upon entering Emily's shop for the first time, after she pushes you out to fix it up. If the error exists in the official build, I want to take it as seriously as possible. It's bad enough this happened at all, it'd be even worse if I'm falsely accusing someone of trying to distribute malicious software when that wasn't their intention.
That's more than enough about that. I'm going to go back to addressing bug reports as they come in. Hopefully there won't be too many more of those. If you're a Patron, you can look forward to the v0.14 dev poll going up this Friday. If you're not a Patron and want to participate, consider supporting me on Patreon. You get a whole boat load of benefits (like getting to vote in development polls, behind-the-scenes bonuses you don't see here, and not needing to worry about viruses in your game files) and I'll be very grateful for your support.
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