Maids & Masters (& A Release Date For v0.14)

The update isn't entirely done, but it's close enough to done that I'm plenty comfortable fully committing to this Friday, the 19th, being the early access release date for v0.14, which means v0.13 is going public the same day.

Based on the feedback coming in from playtesting, this update does seem to be a lot more bug-free than the last one. Part of that probably has to do with the update being on the shorter side, but I'm taking it as good news. Some less good news is that there may need to be some rewriting done. Even with the segment being as short as it is, it feels like it treads water a little in some places. There's also not a lot of places where the drunkenness mechanic has much of an effect, which I'd like to change. Or maybe it's fine and nothing will change; if it comes down to it, I'm not going to delay the release for rewrites.

I've also got the rest of the actual build to make. Depending on time, there might still be a few minor things missing (like the new Maids not appearing in the love shack invite screen because they don't have any content yet), but before I get to the cult segment, I want to be sure all the follow-up content - like the new Maids actually being in the Estate after completing the new segment - is done ahead of time. It's nothing that will take a ton of time by itself, but these things tend to stack up.

Then I think it'll be time to put a little work into Precious Kouhai. I still need to make a few more assets and get some things set up for the itch page so I can make the preview build properly public. If I can figure it out, I might even keep the preview build as a web version teaser if I can figure out how to do a web version. I do want to focus on v0.15 once v0.14 has gone out, but with the Winter Games Bundle having ended, keeping PK behind the walls it's currently behind doesn't make a ton of sense to me. I haven't even made a proper announcement post for it yet, I just keep tacking it on to posts about MnM. It probably deserves a little attention of its own. Look forward to that before news about v0.15 starts to roll in.

Maids & Masters (& Progress on v0.14 & A Special Announcement)

Been a little while since we've talked about this, huh? Luckily all the news I have to share is good news. Things aren't quite back to the normal semi-permanent flow state that development work was for the first two years of Maids & Masters, but I've at least found a good deal of some sorely missed momentum, so development has been going a lot smoother than it did in December, even putting aside that I spent most of December sick.

v0.14 is very nearly done. Everything except the final step of the quest is done, then it's just the cult segment and making sure all of the side content is implemented - repeatable versions of the new scenes, the new characters appearing as they're supposed to, and so on. I'd like to say it'll be done and ready in time for this Friday, but given the growing list of things I need to do before I can call a build complete plus the number of bugs in each build seeming to grow ever larger, I'd rather give a little extra time to play testing to make these builds more stable. I'll announce the release date next week.

On that note, there are a handful of things I want to address since there's all kinds of side content that hasn't been making it's way into these builds the way it should be. The big ones being the love shack and affection quests. If Act 2 has felt a little light on content, it's because the side content was meant to be affection quests, which I haven't gotten around to implementing for a few different reasons. Once v0.14 is done, the segment for v0.15 is already decided on and can start right away (since it's the only option left in the Patreon polls that were happening). So, v0.16 (Act 2's halfway point) will probably be delayed so I can use v0.15.1 to add all of that content in. In may not end up being all of that content (because not a lot of the affection quests are designed yet), but at the very least, the missing love shack content and a few affection quests will be available.

Now for that special announcement. I've been thinking over this problem of my dev cycle slowing down for months now, and trying to find a solution for a handful of weeks. Over the last year, I've taken on a number of writing jobs out of necessity - I do this full time, my bills won't pay themselves, and as much as I greatly appreciate the support I already receive it isn't enough to pay my mortgage. Since the job that took up the majority of my non-MnM development time ended roughly four months ago, my development cycle slowed way down. If memory serves, I got two releases out in four months. When I began work on a couple of new demos, both demos were done in a month without development slowing on MnM any further. So, after a great deal of consideration, I've decided to start working on a secondary project - Precious Kouhai. PK is a short nukige-style visual novel made in Ren'Py, and should be between one and two hours long by the time it's done. 

 

There's even a preview build available for this new project for free as part of the "bonus episode" rewards for the Winter Games Bundle. If you want to check that out, go find a link to the bundle - the rewards are available on the bundle page, even now that the bundle has ended. The preview build will be public eventually, but the itch.io page is still under construction, so it'll be a little longer before that happens. Part of me is still a little apprehensive about putting more on my own plate, but with PK being as short as it is, it should give me enough time to find out if it's an improvement on my workflow or not, and if it isn't, it won't take long to finish and development will return to MnM as my sole project. If it works out great, I have more visual novels I can make. Either way, you get another game out of the deal.

Another Grain Through The Hourglass - 2023 Year In Review

Happy New Year!

If you're new here and have no idea what this post is, at the turn of the new year I like to take a moment to look back at the past year and celebrate all the good things that happened over the course of the year. Despite my development cycle slowing down, there's been a lot that happened in 2023, most of it good things. 

Starting with my Patrons. From those of you that just dropped a dollar or three and left to the V.I.P.s that form the backbone of my funding, I am well and truly humbled by your generosity. The year started with over a year of barely making enough money to pay for a meal or two, and support has grown all the way to the point of being able to pay a bill or two. I still have a long way to go before I can be considered to be making a living off of the work I do full time, but all of this support still makes a huge difference. All of you have my utmost gratitude.

Speaking of making a huge difference, Maids & Masters joined a number of bundles this year, all of which I am quite comfortable in saying were very successful. I continue to be blown away by the generosity of people. While I only saw a small percentage of the money the bundles made, the one I want to call out is one that I didn't see a single cent of and happens to be the very first bundle I've ever joined - a bundle for the Turkey/Syria earthquake that raised nearly $2000, all of which went to charity. As exciting as it is to see the other bundles I've participated in reach even higher heights, it was really fantastic to see me and my little game make a tangible difference somewhere in the world.

On top of all those warm and fuzzy feelings, I feel I've done a lot of growing as a developer. At the start of the year, Redemption Harem's demo went public, which was a project that I felt was highly ambitious in terms of creating crafting and management systems almost entirely without the assistance of plugins. It's a little buggier than I'd like it to be, but I learned a lot in building it and have the knowledge to iron out those bugs given some time. More than that, it laid the groundwork for me to build the demo for Saccharine Soil. Saccharine Soil by itself is easily the most mechanically complex game I've ever made, using a plugin set that doesn't have a lot of documentation about how to use or modify it to turn RPG Maker into a real-time action game. Having that demo out in the world feels like a huge accomplishment, because it represents a lot of ideas that I'd been wondering if I had the skill to implement for a long time.

If that wasn't enough, there's also Precious Kouhai. That isn't quite fully public yet - only Patrons have access to the preview right now (though it will be available through the Winter Games Bundle soon) - but I've been meaning to learn Ren'Py for a long time. Now I've got a project in that engine, too, which opens up a whole new set of options and opportunities. I'm not totally committed to the idea yet, but I may start developing Precious Kouhai as a second project alongside Maids & Masters just for the sake of diversifying my work, but that's a topic for another day.

Back on the topic of opportunities, I had the immense pleasure of working with Bear in the Night (if you're not familiar, look up Lust Academy) on Lust Element as a member of the Night Icons team, and now I can say that I have work published on Steam. It still trips me out a little that I saw something that I worked on featured on the pages of Steam's VN Fest. If that wasn't enough, I've also joined Burst Out Games as a writer, and worked with Berkili to remaster the first chapter of his AVN, Companion of Darkness. And that's just the paying work - the number of other developers, writers, and artists I've gotten to known over the last year approaches triple digits, and it's been great getting to know them all.

I still have a long way to go to reach the point I'm trying to reach, but 2023 felt like a couple big steps in the right direction, and I can't wait to see what 2024 has in store.

Maids & Masters (& The Rest of 2023)

Let's start with a little bit of a progress report. There has unfortunately not been a lot of progress made on v0.14 - largely due to this cold - but as I recover from the last dregs of sickness, I should get back into the swing of things pretty quickly. I've managed to get the introduction done, as well as a bit of side content that lets me test out the drunkenness mechanic, and a couple of new scenes for the new girls. 

 

It's not nearly as much progress as I'd like, but there's only so much working through I can do when I get sick. I did have some of the next bit done, but my cold-addled brain had a hard time linking things together so it was... well, boring. Thankfully I'm more or less over the cold at this point, so development should be more or less back to normal. I don't have an ETA on the update yet, but I should have a release date by the next time I post about MnM.

I put it that way because it's going to be a while before I post about MnM specifically. Next Tuesday I won't be posting since it's the day after Christmas, and I'll be busy with family. The Tuesday after that is when I'll be making my year in review post, where I look back and take the time to appreciate and celebrate my successes over the past year. Despite some of the lows, 2023 came with plenty of highs, too, so I'm looking forward to that. 

My Patreon posting schedule should go unaffected. I've got more Christmas to post about on Friday, a little bit of a late Christmas present for everyone the week after, and hopefully I can find the time and energy to get an extra something put together for Patrons on one of those two weeks. Of all the holiday related things I wanted to do this year, the Patron-only thing is the only one I haven't been able to get done yet, and the last thing I want to do is neglect my Patrons.

There may also be another extra little surprise coming, but that depends on whether the Winter Games Bundle hits that 5k stretch goal. 

That's all for now. See you next year.

Winter Games Bundle

After four years of not getting sick once, I've gotten very sick for a second time this winter (hence this post going up a day late - I was basically dead yesterday). So, to take it as an excuse to bundle up and play some games, I've been going through the Winter Games Bundle. You should, too - it's over 30 games from over 30 devs, entirely for free. Someone even made a trailer for it.

Want to know what you'll be getting in the bundle before you click on the link? There's a graphic for that, too!

Now go play some games while I try to get less sick. https://itch.io/b/2188/winter-games-bundle-18

Maids & Masters (& Starting on v0.14)

With the demo for Saccharine Soil out to Patrons (if you want to play it, that post is here), I have escaped my nefarious captor and my brain is now free to start working on the next Estate segment for Maids & Masters.

To that end, the maps are already done and mostly populated with interactions, most of the NPCs have been made and placed, and the introduction is already done. I'm still a little unsure of how to utilize this "drunkenness" mechanic that I've started implementing, but it is partially implemented, so that's a start. It will almost assuredly take a little tweaking to get it right, but getting it in there in the first place is the hard part, and that's already done.

After the Read Estate, I'm a little hesitant to make two or more versions of each negotiation segment, especially with the drunkenness mechanic. That really wants to be on more of a sliding scale, but I also don't really want to need to write out three or more different versions of each conversation. I have a few ideas of how to handle this, but it'll mostly come down to testing and reworking it until I'm happy with it.

That leaves the actual story.

If you're good at connecting dots, you might have already drawn some conclusions about where the story is going to go here. I've been avoiding being too open about that aside from it going into Phoebe's past, but suffice to say there's more than just the inner workings of trade economics and the business of running a winery at play here.

I've likened this section to being similar to dealing with Griselda before, and aside from it being less gloomy, that's the general vibe you can expect. However, the stakes are a little different this time around, and not just because you stand to gain a new pair of Maids.

Saccharine Soil - Setting and Story

Remember how I wasn't sure I liked the logo? I changed it. Here's the new title screen.

This still isn't exactly how I want it to look, but this thing is going to be stuffed full of placeholder assets anyway. I got them working as intended, but don't have the assets for things like readying weapons or aiming, so to stop this project from taking another three weeks, I'm just accepting that a lot of things won't look the way I want them to. Some things don't work quite how I want them to, either. It does all work, though. That alone is a huge step compared to all the struggling I've been doing until now. But enough of that - the demo has very few things left to do before it enters final testing. Onto the good stuff.

I mentioned in last week's post that this is heavily inspired by Sweet Home. If you're familiar with that, a lot of what I'm about to say might sound familiar. The setting for the game is vaguely contemporary and in a haunted mansion deep in the countryside. There's not much more to say about the setting than that - it's pretty standard horror genre fare. So, let's talk about the story.

The mansion was built by a wealthy businessman who had recently married for himself and his wife. While they did throw a few lavish parties - they certainly had the space for it - the two slowly became more and more withdrawn. Over a couple decades, it became normal that no one would see either the husband or the wife for months at a time. There wasn't much to think about it - his wife was beautiful, and they had more than enough money and space to spend the rest of their lives together without either of them working a single day.

Then, the husband started to reappear. Not at work - he was effectively retired - but he was seen in the city again. Usually with new women. He never said why, but when he was asked, he'd say his wife was in good health and waiting for him back at home. Was he bored? Had the marriage become stale? Was it something else? Maybe he was bringing them home for his wife. No one knew, but he'd keep finding new women to take home.

Until that suddenly stopped, too. A few weeks went by, and a jealous boyfriend found out his girlfriend was one of the women the husband had brought home. They fought for a week before she went silent. He thought she went back to him. He wasn't having it. The husband was once a high-profile man, so the house wasn't hard to find. When he got there, the door was already open. Walking in, there was no one to be found. Determined to confront the man who destroyed his relationship, he kept looking until he stumbled into the couple's marital bedroom, finding the wife laying seemingly peacefully with her throat slit, the sheets dyed red.

The man fled the house and informed the authorities. It turns out the wife knew about the husband's affairs, but didn't approve. The husband had died under "mysterious circumstances" which was later ruled to be a murder. The wife had played the grieving widow and quietly built a crypt on the property, burying her husband inside. One by one, she lured in her husband's mistresses, informed them of his death, and kept them in the crypt with him. When she was done, she went to the bed that only she and her husband were meant to share, and ended her own life.

That was roughly 50 years ago.

In the time since, the mansion has become a typical local legend. The occasional homeless person used it to keep a roof over their head, and groups of teenagers dared themselves to spend the night. What made it less typical is that people kept going missing. Of course, it's hard for the authorities to do much about one homeless person saying another disappeared, or some kid going somewhere they weren't supposed to and not coming back. They'd check the house when they were pressured to, but it was always unsettling. Furniture seemed to move after going from one room to the next. Odd noises were heard that weren't just the bones of the old house settling. Loose diary pages from the dead wife showing up with vaguely threatening prose penned onto them. Never any evidence of the missing people.

The game starts with a movie crew arriving with the intention of proving the supernatural really exists. They each have their own reasons for being there, but a handful have already been through an experience of their own that has them committed to proving the truth to the world. With all the rumors, this house seems to be the best place to do it. With a moving company having already brought all their equipment there, all that's left to do is to make their movie, find their evidence, and leave. 

Unfortunately for them, it's that last step that's the hardest.

The demo for Saccharine Soil will be available exclusively to Patrons this Friday, December 1st.

Saccharine Soil

So I don't forget, here's a quick reminder up top that the v0.14 development poll is running until this Friday. Some of my Patrons seem to be a little unsure of themselves, because I've seen the votes go from one winning by one vote, to them being tied, to one winning 7 to 3, and only three new people voted over the course of all those changes. If you want to see for yourself (and maybe cast a vote of your own), you can do that by supporting me on Patreon.

With that done, I think it's time I come clean about something. See, as much as I like working on Maids & Masters, there's still a lot that I want to try to do within the confines of RPG Maker, and some of those ideas just don't fit within Maids & Masters. These ideas tend to just build up, usually as loose "idea" documents that I keep for myself. Sometimes I even go back through those docs and fiddle with the ideas a little more. That's how things like Love/Loss and Redemption Harem happen; eventually an idea crystalizes and I turn it into something. But recently, all these disparate ideas haven't been doing much. Just bouncing around in my skull, making me wish I had the time and resources to be able to do something with them. Then a roommate put an idea in my head, and a new idea crystalized.

Saccharine Soil is a survival horror action RPG that draws heavy inspiration from Sweet Home, the game that inspired Resident Evil. Combat will be in real time, unlike the RPGs I've been making, and the RPG elements will also be very light, really only coming into play for things like weapon and character upgrades.

There's still a lot I'm unsure of with this thing, though. As much as I love the idea, and all of the mechanics I wanted to build for it function, and it is technically playable, this thing is incredibly mechanically complex. If you were around for my post about Love Life!, you might remember that I had to step away from turning that into a full demo because there were artistic representations that I just couldn't get to a point I was happy with. While I still want to make that into a game, I don't think it's something I'll be able to realize without an artist. Saccharine Soil is quickly running into a similar issue, but from a mechanical aspect. Lucky for me, I actually studied programming in the past, so it's less of a stopping block.

 

The demo I currently have is technically playable, but things like item storage, limited inventory, even reloading a gun either doesn't work or is so far from what you'd be used to in a similar game that I can't help but question if I shouldn't look for a new way to realize these mechanics. While I could give up on having a limited inventory (which would then also remove the need for an item storage mechanic), that feels like it removes an integral part of the genre, and would result in an inherently inferior experience. In that same vein, part of me is content requiring you to use the ammo items to reload your gun instead of having a dedicated reload button, but it's so counter-intuitive to literally every other game with a shooting mechanic (indie games and otherwise) that I know it'll result in complaints and little else. At this point, even the title above feels off - too cartoony and scattered - but I'd already spent close to 7 hours on different versions of it and wanted to present this as a project I've been working on while these development polls run.

Now, this might sound a little defeatist, or like I'm complaining about not being able to get something I used to be excited about to work, but that's not entirely the case. I'm absolutely complaining about not being able to get these mechanics to function the way I want them to, but it's only frustrating because I'm so excited about the project. I desperately want to get this working well enough that it's something I want to present. Even just taking the time to do things in new ways is giving me ideas of how to try new things in MnM or other future projects. Even if this does end up being something that's ruled by jank, I'll be doing everything in my power to get Saccharine Soil ready enough to share with my Patrons this Friday, alongside the public announcement of the results of the v0.14 development poll.

And if it doesn't happen by then, maybe I'll just share what I have as-is with VIPs as an alpha gameplay preview anyway. Or maybe keep working on it alongside MnM until I'm happy with it. Saccharine Soil is something I'd really like to hire an artist or two to create the final version of, but getting it working as a game is a challenge I've been enjoying. Maybe a little too much.

Maids & Masters (& Following Up On v0.13)

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.

Maids & Masters v0.13 Release

Okay! Cult segment from last time is done, the next one for this update is done, we've got the full Estate segment, an extra trophy, getting the Roich Accord after completing Farquhar's segment is now as intended, plus a few other bits and bobs. It's still not everything - Act 2 is still missing affection quests and another trophy that involves more content at Uncle Gil's Estate - but v0.13 is a lot more complete than v0.12 was, and I'm very happy with how the story for Montague's segment turned out. I hope you find it was worth the wait, too (and that I can get v0.14 and v0.15 done a little faster). 

Links will go up to v0.12 now that it's public as well, and as usual, everything goes up on Patreon first, then itch, then everywhere else. Everywhere else may not fully happen today, either, as I'm hosting a good amount of company. See the previous post if you care about that. For now, have a changelog:

v0.13
Added the next main story segment - a murder mystery at the Bancroft Estate. Including:
- Two new areas to explore - the Bancroft Estate and the village of Magach.
- Five new scenes for a new mother available as part of the story.
- A new trophy, awarded for correctly solving the mystery without Phoebe’s help.
- The first two cult investigation segments, infiltrating the cult you suspect killed your parents.
Added an “adult” disclaimer to the start of the game and the README.
Added a hidden area where Trophy 30 can be found, which unlocks more hidden areas.
Added fast travel options to Farquhar’s Estate, available after his segment is complete.
Added Lalita’s hidden attic, accessible after her Estate has been cleared out.
Added a new version of Jack’s house in Cumhaill to mirror progress at the Bancroft Estate.
Added new Estate events for the new mother available in Magach.
Fixed a bug where Iris’s images may not display correctly in Lalita’s mansion after the first time.
Fixed a bug where Alice would duplicate herself to make snow angels during the second Freeze.
Fixed a bug where the player may not be able to return to the Deep Wilds during Repairs Part 1.
Fixed a bug that caused the player to remain transparent after using Griselda’s secret chair.
Fixed a bug that may cause a missing image error viewing the baths from the Master Bedroom.
Fixed a handful of minor bugs concerning Panela’s behavior during the Freeze.
Fixed a bug that duplicated the “H” key in the input config settings.
Fixed a bug that sold Bulter’s Belt Contracts instead of Butler’s Boots Contracts.
Fixed a bug that may move the player to the wrong Folk caravan if Weighted Rolls is on.
Updated the Trophy Codex to open the README when the number 99 is entered.
Updated the “Commune” option for Trophy 12 to have content for Act 2.
Updated Emily to have new shop Contracts after completing both of the first two Act 2 Estates.
Updated acquiring Trophy 24 after completing the Read Estate to have intended requirements.
Updated the last step of Lalita’s segment to hide an additional objective to prevent text cutoff.
Various other minor map and event updates.

Maids & Masters (& A Release Date for v0.13)

It has been a very busy work week, and it'll continue to be very busy, but for different reasons.

First, the Maids & Masters news I put up there in the title. There's still some time to give feedback on it for VIP Patrons (and if you happen to be a VIP Patron and haven't played it yet, the final conclusion is excluded, so you have a chance to solve the mystery yourself before the answer appears as a requirement of progression), but as has been the trend so far, the test build went out last Friday, so the full release will be this Friday, November 10th. Having playtested the different endings (one where Phoebe does all the work if you've asked her to do all the work, and two more based on whether you collected the majority of the clues or not), I find the ending quite satisfying, especially if you paid attention and are able to make all the right choices in the "low clues" ending.

The update was actually story-complete a couple days ago,  but these Act 2 updates are taking a little extra background work that makes having an update ready to release take a lot more time than it used to. For example, as of writing this, Vicky still doesn't have her Love Shack content, and neither she or the new mother may have it ready in time for Friday. I only just finished (and still have to test) the new shop content, there's the cult segments to worry about now (though that was finished for this update yesterday), adding in the ways to obtain the new trophies after the segment is complete is much more complicated (and that still needs doing for Roich, even though it should still be possible to obtain the trophy), and that's still before all the usual playtesting and bugfixing. Development did go much more smoothly than it has in recent months, which has made a huge difference in the amount of work I've been able to do, but there's still a lot left. I'm doing my best to avoid needing to do another v0.X.1 update so I can get the main story done faster, but it might be necessary eventually anyway (because I really need to find time to design and implement the affection quests, and there's still lots of little random Estate events I want to make). We'll find out as we get closer to v0.16.

For now, I have different reasons to be busy in that I'll be hosting some friends from out of town for about a week. This actually starts before Friday, so some parts of the release schedule may not happen entirely on schedule, but I'll be doing my best to find time to make it all happen as it usually does. This hopefully won't affect my posting schedule, either, but since I won't have a lot of time to work while they're here, I may not have much to share next week. Though if all goes well, I may have a nice surprise to share next week. That has not been going so well, so I have my doubts, but a friend put an idea in my head and now I can't stop myself from working on it once I've hit the end of my work day for MnM. I love the idea and it incorporates a lot of mechanics I've been wanting to try to make work, but it's also very different from the RPGs I've been making and learning to make all of that function is difficult. Regardless, the dev poll for v0.14 will still go up the following Friday, with the results going up the Friday after that.

I do also have some outside work that I really need to check in on. That's gone neglected for a lot longer than I'd have liked it to, so I need to find some time to give to that. I think we'll wrap things up there, though. I don't want to give away all of my secrets.