Maids & Masters v0.9.1 Release

This weekend got here quick! Still managed to get basically everything done that I wanted to, though. Now all that's left is addressing the Love Shack, which is likely to be the last straw that pushes the game's total size over 1GB.

Another reminder that this is the first update that won't go public until the next release. If you can't (or simply don't want to) wait, please consider supporting me either through Patreon or itch.

And if you aren't already aware - I'm remastering the game in RPG Maker MZ. I'll be opening things up to the public to ask what you'd like to see in the remaster, but feedback I receive from my Patrons is much more likely to be included. If that sounds like something you want to be a part of, again, please consider supporting me through Patreon. You'll get access to all those polls, my invite-only Discord server, early access to game builds, and more.

With that out of the way, here's your changelog:

v0.9.1

Added the dinner event to end the Freeze.

Added a “recover all” to the start of the Freeze so the Maids aren’t at half health all season.

Added a repeatable version of Willow’s event in the Cumhaill cemetery.

Added multiple small events and special interactions for all of the Maids in Cumhaill.

Added new events for trophies 5, 7, 8, and 20 to Big Dick’s Estate.

Added a time manipulation feature to the post-game after the Freeze.

Added five new books to the library for Trophy 9’s additional library functionality.

Updated the frozen pool to stop the walking animation while skating across it.

Updated Quinn’s Freeze event to respect how you choose to dress yourself.

Updated Teely’s Freeze event for consistency and to fit the new map if not already completed.

Updated Deirlinn/Torgill in Cumhaill to recognize Deirlinn’s child being born.

Updated the stuffed bear in the guest house so the new Maids react to it.

Updated the costume check to prevent potential bugs if a costume hasn’t been unlocked.

Updated the steps to getting trophy 14 to detect if Bianca was refused during her Freeze event.

Updated Deirlinn’s nursery instance to make her scene repeatable after some time has passed.

Updated the temporary Deep Wilds fast travel choice to recognize which quest step you’re on.

Updated the README to include the second Freeze in the walkthrough and newer change logs.

Fixed a bug that sent the player to the wrong instance of the Estate during Quinn’s Freeze event.

Fixed a bug that sent the player to the wrong instance of the Estate during Teely’s Freeze event.

Fixed a bug where the Estate yard statues may not have matched what they were set to.

Fixed a bug where Phoebe didn’t have chat dialogue with Quinn after Quinn’s Freeze event.

Fixed a bug that could cause issues with trying to withdraw Scrap Metal from storage.

Fixed a bug in Bianca’s Freeze event that incorrectly referenced Odette’s Freeze event.

Fixed a bug that caused the exterior door of the Tower Hold to appear prematurely.

Various minor dialogue, sprite, and event fixes and updates.

Maids & Masters (& A v0.9.1 Release Date)

January is going by much more quickly than I'd really like it to be, but things are still progressing pretty well from a development standpoint. I still haven't had nearly as much time as I'd like to work on REM Cycle, but I've gotten everything I wanted to get done for v0.9.1 done... I think.

The big things, like the dinner event, making sure the new trophy is present and the associated costume system works correctly, and adding in the extra Freeze content that wasn't finished in time for the main Freeze release are all done, as is all of the "follow up consequences" type stuff (most notably refusing Bianca).

There are still a few things that need doing, but v0.9.1 is mostly ready to move into it's final testing stages and then it'll be ready to publish, so that build should be coming out for supporters this Friday.

As an additional note for non-supporters - as stated a few months ago, releases will now be monthly across the board. What this means in practice is that supporters will get access to v0.9.1 on Friday, and v0.9.1 will go public when v0.9.2 launches. v0.9.2 will become public when v0.10 launches, and so on. Doing this will make "release days" a little easier for me to manage, since I tend to lose my entire day to making sure I did everything anyway. Doing things this way means I'm less likely to miss things, and I only lose a day or two once a month rather than losing a day or two every two weeks. That means more time for development and bugfixing and managing deadlines for other projects.

Speaking of, I've started polling Patrons on what they'd like to see as part of the remaster as the game gets ported into MZ. If you'd like to be a part of that process, consider becoming a Patron. I will eventually create threads for the community at large to participate, because I do want to know what you think regardless of whether or not you support me financially, but that will be a much broader "what do you want to see?" where suggestions might not get included. The Patron polls are much smaller, more directed questions that are much more likely to result in changes or additions being made.

Maids & Masters (& Progress on v0.9.1)

It's slow going getting back into the swing of things after the holidays, but as time marches on, so too do I.

The content that was missing from the Freeze update due to time constraints has been finished, as have a few other bits and pieces that I wanted to include. I'm not sure I'm happy with the dinner event, but if nothing else, everything is in place to end the Freeze.

The other part of the update - adding possible missed trophies to Big Dick's - is about half done. It wasn't really my original plan, but I think I'm going to try to get all of those done for v0.9.1. Whether or not I actually manage this has more to do with how well I can manage my time while meeting other deadlines, but with no real deadline for v0.9.1, I've got a little more flexibility on that front.

Something that will help with that time management is going to the public releases being a month behind. This means that once v0.9.1 goes out to supporters, it won't be available for free until v0.9.2 goes out to supporters. This lets me put all of my release and promotional work into a single day, rather than spreading it out over a day or two every two weeks. I don't think there are too many of you clamoring for the next release, so it should be a relatively smooth transition.

I'm hoping that freeing up that time will give me room to work on getting REM Cycle done in between taking steps towards getting the MZ version of things started, but we'll see what the future holds.

Another Grain Through The Hourglass - 2022 Year In Review

Like last year, instead of talking about progress on development, I want to take this as an opportunity to look back on the year and celebrate the good that came. Like any year, there's plenty of bad, and plenty of things that could've gone better, but I think it's way more fun to look back at the good and forget about the bad (at least for a little while). I also like to do this without doing any more editing beyond checking for spelling mistakes. I've spent a lot of time on the internet, and a lot of my working life in customer service, so I'm all too familiar with how easy it is to forget that there's a person behind these words - both for me, and for you.

On that note, I'd like to start there. The people. You. 2022 brought lots of new people into my life, even if they are on the other side of whatever connection we have through work, and the vast majority of you have been very welcome additions. I still can't quite get over that double digit mark for Patrons and stay there, but my Patreon has continued to grow, and I'm exceedingly grateful for that. The same goes for those of you who support me through itch.io - it's not a lot of money, but it means the world to me that you want me to succeed enough to send that support my way.

Aside from the people who support me financially, there are still a lot of you that I'm glad to have met, even though it's only through the internet. The community of developers I'm not a part of have been constantly helpful, the people commenting on my game(s) either asking for help or reporting bugs, the people following me on Twitter, and an extra shout out to my first volunteer playtester who has been nothing short of absolutely phenomenal - thank you for being here.

Moving on to my outside projects... While The Rising Son has still seen very little progress, it has still seen some progress. If all goes well, something might actually release in 2023. I've also taken a role in two other teams, which has allowed me to bring in some actual income and ensure my bills are paid. Working the equivalent of four jobs is exhausting, to put it lightly, but having even a small amount of financial freedom again feels amazing. If I can continue to grow both my projects and the other projects I've joined, I should actually be able to reach this dream I have of doing game development as a full time job indefinitely, which makes me happy beyond words.

For my personal projects - Maids & Masters has finally reached the conclusion of Act 1. There's still so, so much work to be done to get the game done, but now that I have all of this experience under my belt, that seems less like this impossible daunting mountain of a task and more like an achievable goal. It won't be long now before I start reaching out to various communities for some in-depth feedback so I can remaster the existing game in RPG Maker MZ and eventually move into development on Act 2, following turning Arrival into a proper prequel rather than a janky tech demo.

And in addition to Maids & Masters, I've finished not one, but two new demos for potential future projects: Love/Loss and Redemption Harem. Following a vote from the beautiful, generous people that are my Patrons, Love/Loss's demo recently released to the public to (admittedly a small amount of) some very positive feedback. While the demo for Redemption Harem is a lot rougher around the edges, I'm excited to see what people will think of that when it goes out this weekend.

 

Taking one last look at the past - specifically, last year's Year In Review post - I think I mostly got where I wanted to be, even if the road was a little rocky. I didn't end up joining the team I had talked about initially, but I am working with them now, and like I said above, that financial freedom feels amazing. The stress that comes with doing this as a job has finally started to catch up with me, but it's still true that I love what I do, and there's nothing else I'd rather be doing. I'm still working the occasional 60 hour week, but I've also started taking steps to take better care of myself instead. All in all, the me from last year is overjoyed that present me is writing another Year In Review post instead of admitting defeat and looking for a regular 9-5 to crawl back to.

Looking into the future, specifically as it pertains to REM Cycle and Maids & Masters Act 2, I admit I'm a little nervous. REM Cycle really needs a dedicated artist to work the way I want it to work, which I can't currently afford to hire. I'm doing my best to at least get the general idea across, and I'm happy with what I've got so far, but despite being much more mechanically simple than Redemption Harem, it's taking a lot longer to develop because I need to figure out how to create all of these custom assets and work on them until I'm happy with them. MnM Act 2 I also want to be a little less linear than Act 1, and I'm still not quite sure how to reconcile giving those options to the player in the midst of active development. That said, the only way to do it is to do it, so I'll be jumping in and charging forward regardless. It's not like I've never made a mistake before, right? If I do it wrong, I can always go back and fix it. That's the beauty of feedback.

For the rest of what the future might bring, I hope I see the same kind of growth and success in 2023 that 2022 brought. Growing a business is definitely not the easiest thing in the world to do, but I'm making progress, and that's all I ever asked for. I get to keep doing this for at least a little longer, and with a little luck, I'll be reading this post in a year (hello 2024 me!) and quietly smiling to myself as I marvel at how far I've managed to come from that first decision to re-download that old copy of VX Ace, just like I'm doing now. And I hope I've managed to share at least a little bit of that happiness with you, dear reader. I wouldn't be here without you.

Happy New Year from The Mithril Hourglass.

Maids & Masters v0.9 Public Release

Things are (finally) starting to cool off between all the holiday business and other deadlines to meet. Probably a good thing, because my head has been trying really hard to split at the seams from the way it's felt the past few days.

Anyway, development on v0.9.1 will (hopefully) hit the ground running over the weekend, that'll go out during the second or third week in January, and then I'll put as much energy as I can spare into v0.9.2 and getting the Love Shack wrapped up and creating a sort of "post game" for the "end" of the VX Ace version of Maids & Masters. After that, getting the MZ version going will be up next.

For now, v0.9 is available. You can find it on my itch page, my Patreon, or on the downloads tab above. If you want the change log, you can scroll down or click here.

One known issue to call out (which at this point has already been fixed and is ready for v0.9.1) is that the optional Maids - Quinn and Teely - have events that don't behave correctly in the second Freeze. If you've already done their events, or you haven't recruited them, or you skip their events for the second Freeze, there won't be an issue. If you do go through their events in the second Freeze, there is a bugfix feature in place that should prevent the game from locking up on you, but things might be a little buggy. 

I hope you're staying warm out there, I hope you had a Merry Christmas, and I wish you a Happy New Year!

Maids & Masters (& REM Cycle & The Holidays)

The holidays have been extremely hectic for me, so I haven't had more than an hour or two in any given day to get much in the way of work done, and what work I have been able to get done has had to go into other projects, so there isn't much to say in terms of the progress I've made.

What I can say is that Maids & Masters does already have a number of updates complete. No real new content like what I've been wanting to put together, but a number of issues have been addressed and a few bugs have been found and fixed.

REM Cycle has seen even less progress, but I'm realizing that all of the custom assets that the main project will require can't all be put off until development starts on it. As I'm not an artist, creating these assets has been a bit of a trial. I'm doing what I can to change things around so I can get this demo/prequel thing out to you and off my back burners, but it's becoming a much slower process than I'd like it to be.

Since most of my time has been spent with friends and family and/or working on other projects, that's all there really is to say this week. Next week will be the year in review to celebrate both the new year and the year we just passed. After that, we should be back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Maids & Masters (& Act 2 & 2023)

This should've been up last night, but I've been busier with family than usual this year.

Well, I'm here now. Let's lay out my current plan for Maids & Masters as we go into the next year. I'll probably talk a bit more about specific things as I get closer to getting them done, and dates might need to move around a bit, but on the whole this is more or less what things should look like.

First, going to monthly releases. I'm doing this for a number of reasons, but the big one is that it condenses all of the work I need to do to publish a release into two days (one day to review/publish everything, one day to follow up and do customer service type things) every month instead of 4-5 days every month. That means more development time, which I'm going to need. v0.9 will still be coming out after a two week time period (which is the 30th), but v0.9.1 will not - it'll be releasing to the public in February after its January paid release.

For an update on non-MnM things, REM Cycle is still on the back burner. The way I want to do things and the way things are ending up still aren't quite meshing the way I want, which has further slowed development. I'm still hoping to get it done sometime in January, because I don't want to have this half-finished demo just floating around. It may get pushed to February depending on my other teams and how much work they require of me, but it's on my mind, and I want to get it done.

The current iteration of Maids & Masters will soon become Maids & Masters: Act 1. With the interlude complete (story-wise) there's just a closing event to end the Freeze, the Love Shack, getting trophies from Big Dick's, and a few other small things here and there to do. That's a lot for one update, so it's likely the January release will be v0.9.1 and feature the end of the Freeze and a few trophies for Big Dick's. Then we'll have a February release for the Love Shack and the rest of the trophies for Big Dick's. This release will be Act 1's v1.0. I'm aiming for any other updates and bug fixes to be unnecessary, as I don't plan to have a v1.0.1. More on that below.

March's release will be a remastered version of Maids & Masters: Arrival, made in RPG Maker MZ. I'll be getting rid of all the placeholder assets, updating events to give slightly more realistic rewards, rewriting the dialogue to better fit the characters and tell a more coherent story of the prequel events, and adjusting anything else that needs adjusting to fit both the story and allow you to bring saves forward from Arrival. 

That brings us to April. It may end up needing to be delayed, but I'm going to try my damnedest to have Act 1 remastered in RPGM MZ by the end of the month. This is where v0.10 will pick up, and I'm planning on starting this process alongside development of Arrival's remaster. It's likely that v0.10 will only be Act 1 and the Interlude content, but I'm planning to have new features built in from the start (like a quest log and key rebinds) that I'll need to find and set up plugins for, as well as making sure the new native features (like text skip and mouse support) don't break anything. There are also a few parts I need to rewrite (mostly around Viridius and Griselda) so that the game properly remembers certain actions and so certain story points don't get neglected. I'd also like to include more side quests, though I don't have any planned at the moment. So there will be new content within the Act 1 portion of the game.

I'm also likely to go looking for feedback more actively once development starts on Act 2. I want to try to involve some communities and get a wider array of perspectives than I have been so far. I won't implement everything I get a suggestion for, but I have made quite a few improvements based on feedback already, and MnM is a better game for it. There are still a number of things that aren't as intuitive as I'd like, and other things that are plain under-served, and I want to dig into that more.

I hope you're looking forward to all of this as much as I am. It's a lot, which makes part of me nervous, but it's also exciting.

Maids & Masters v0.9 Release

Nearly all of the work for this update went exclusively into new content, so the changelog is pretty tiny this time around. That said, there is still about 2 hours of new content depending on your reading speed and whether or not you count all the optional/repeatable stuff, and nearly 100 new renders.

 

Sorry in advance if there are any bugs, but hopefully any bugs in here will be less egregious than some of the bugs last year's Freeze update had.

The build is currently available to Patrons, and since by some miracle of compression I'm still just below the 1GB mark, also available on itch.io.

Anyway, here's your tiny changelog:

v0.9
The second interlude story release, and the second Freeze update.
- Includes a new trophy, an updated winter version of the Estate, and 7 new scenes.
Updated Melissa’s repeatable Freeze event to be clearer about leaving with her.
Updated certain Freeze events to prevent activation while the player is on the mansion’s balcony.
Updated Katrina’s status screen ‘nickname’ for consistency.
Fixed a bug where Quinn’s Freeze dialogue with Alice may not occur correctly.
Various minor dialogue and map fixes and updates.

Maids & Masters (& A Release Date For v0.9)

I'm saying this with a pretty healthy dose of optimism, but I think I'm going to go ahead and solidify v0.9 going out to Patrons this Friday, December 16th. There's about a character and a half left to finish (one character needs their extra event and the associated renders, and another needs their main event, extra event, and associated renders), and then the main meat of the update is done. Even if the rest of the character I'm currently working on takes me an entire day to finish and the last character takes me two days to finish (which is an incredibly generous time frame), that still has be getting done with everything with Friday left to test the build. That wouldn't be ideal, but I've pushed out builds in worse condition.

Like last year, I think it'll be necessary to split this up into two chunks. v0.9 will be the majority of content, with all the character events, extra interactions, adding in everything to let you earn the new trophy, and so on. v0.9.1 will be adding in the smaller things that I don't have time to do right now - things like being able to take Maids to their rooms to have them comment on what the MC says, taking them into Cumhaill and any special interactions they might have there, add in the beginnings of the third tier of equipment, and a dinner event to end the Freeze and open the rest of the game back up. Some of these are already partially implemented, but I definitely won't have time to do everything before Friday.

I also want to try to fit in some random Estate events in v0.9.1. I doubt I'll have a lot of these, but they're still something I wanted to try to add, since the Freeze update takes place almost entirely within the Estate, and it's the best time to introduce something like that to make the Estate feel like something besides a collection of giant rooms.

As a note for the itch.io release - that is likely to be delayed a little. I haven't created a deployable build to check the final number yet, but I'm certain the game is now larger than their 1GB upload limit. Most of the game's size comes from images, I've been hovering around 900MB for a while now, and the Freeze updates add a lot of new images. If the game does end up being larger than 1GB, I'll need to contact them to increase that limit before I can upload the new build there.

Maids & Masters (& Progress on v0.9)

So, for those of you who didn't read my last post, REM Cycle is on hold until I can get v0.9 done. There are a few reasons for this (general holiday business being one of them), but the big reason is that I want to try to get v0.9 out to Patrons on the 16th. I'm not sure if I'll manage that, but I'm going to try.

 

This year's Freeze update is turning out to be a lot larger than the last one. Almost all of my development time has been spent getting just the chat options done. With each character having their own unique chat with each other character, plus another for if you don't have anyone with you, plus a few others (like the snowman, or Deirlinn, if she's in the nursery), there's something in the realm of 200 different chat options. There's also a new mechanic for the frozen pool now that it's not covered in plants that each character also has a unique reaction to. 

 

Thankfully I'm down to just one character left for dialogue. The Maids you had last year don't have any new events (just new dialogue), but I do still need 8 new events for the 8 new Maids. Of those, only one is tested, but three are complete, and one more is rendered (though not written or implemented yet). There will also be a new cosmetic trophy to unlock, same as last year - complete all the bonus objectives and you'll get a new suit. Now that the costume system is actually implemented, that'll also need an asset, rather than me being able to stop after getting all of the bonus objectives done (and I'm about halfway through those).

And that's before I get to Cumhaill. I wanted to go through Cumhaill and give all the Folk their own unique interactions based on who you had with you, but I may not have time for that, so it'll probably be more or less what it currently is, with the exception of any special events like the bonus objectives. Maybe I'll have time, but I know the first Freeze had so many new and unique mechanics that a number of things would hard lock the game, but I'd like to put more effort into playtesting this one so that isn't an issue.

Speaking of, special shout out to my playtester. They put a lot of work in for me, which I greatly appreciate. Hopefully I can get this done without the deadline being too tight for either of us.

Maids & Masters v0.8.1 Public Release

This year's Freeze update is turning out to be a big one. More on that on Tuesday, so I won't say a whole lot here.

What I will say is that development on REM Cycle will have to go on pause until after I get v0.9 done. Just like the last one, there are a few events that use unique mechanics, and I want to have time to test things without needing to delay the release, so something had to move.

Hopefully the delay won't be long and the rest of v0.9 will go quick and easy, but let's not jinx things, eh?

You can find v0.8.1 on my downloads page (or just go straight to my itch.io page), where you can now also find the demo for Love/Loss.

If you want to check the change log, you can find that here.