The focus for this month's update was features which required code reworks that were too extensive to fit into prior updates. Each individual addition is minor, but I'm pretty sure that most players will find something to be happy about in this changelog.
This first added feature is a refactor to the clothing customization system which now allows Forsaken outfits to be edited as well. As part of this refactor, clothing sets can now also be saved, loaded, and exported and imported as separate files. So, if you want your servants to all wear matching uniforms, you can do it easily now. The resulting "closet" files will also make it convenient to keep your clothing sets even if you like to start a fresh save file with each release.
A very minor feature attached to the clothing system is that I've reworked the custom clothing menu to pad itself with dummy buttons so that the buttons keep their position even while scrolling between pages. I'd appreciate feedback on how this feels - if people don't hate it, then I might do something similar for other paging menus just to make them a bit easier to navigate. Players who play at unusual resolutions might also now notice that the game will now organize the buttons into a second row when necessary, so let me know if this breaks anything for anybody.
The other main customization feature is that it's now possible to designate groups of campaign custom Chosen as always appearing alongside each other in the same team. Chosen who have been assigned to a group like this should never appear alone under any circumstances. This is a powerful tool if you want to guarantee that two of your custom Chosen interact, but it shouldn't be used lightly. When two Chosen who couldn't otherwise appear together are set as part of the same group, relationship scenes will be disabled for that loop because the game won't be able to find the usual Core/Minor Vulnerability interactions. And if the player never enters a loop where the custom Chosen's species are grouped together, then the custom Chosen won't be able to appear. There might be room to add more flexible options here, but I want to make sure that the base system is working without bugs first.
When it comes to new content, this release just adds two new vignettes, but they're pretty special ones. This is a continuation of the Negotiation vignette chain commissioned by Kalloi for Core Morality Chosen, which now extends into their time as Forsaken. The two vignettes fire on the same day, and they can trigger when a Forsaken who experienced the Descent of Guilt vignette as Chosen is set as your Favorite. The vignettes can fire every loop, and they have a large number of variants (based both on the Favorite Forsaken and on the Chosen of the current loop) so that they don't get boring. They also introduce an experimental system where the player can make a choice during the first vignette, changing some of the flavor text of the second vignette. I'm curious to see whether players enjoy this as a way to get a bit more immersed in vignette scenes.
Next month will be the long-awaited introduction of the fifth Distortion path, Megalomania. Because of the species and bosses that have been added to the game, there's a lot more work to add a new Distortion than there was when the first four were added. But I've spent the last few days of this month doing some preliminary work, so I'm confident that it should all be ready for Release 53.
Click here to download. Mirror.
- Content: Added a large compound vignette to the Negotiation vignette chain.
- Content: Added customization for Forsaken outfits.
- Interface: Chosen customization options can now be accessed even before buying Psychic Reading.
- Interface: Clothing sets may now be saved and exported.
- Interface: Window resizing is now more flexible.
- Bugfix: Resolved some issues with boss loops having incorrect species or showing up when not picked.
- Bugfix: Changing the species of a customized campaign Chosen will no longer crash the game.
- Bugfix: Fixed some bugs that could happen when the game gets confused about two Forsaken sharing the same ID.
- Other: Groups of campaign custom Chosen can now be designated as guaranteed to appear in a team together.
- Other: Chosen text colors may now be changed during play from the Information menu.
- Other: In single play mode, Forsaken now have some special interactions with their Chosen selves from other save files.
- Bugfix: The game will no longer crash when trying to start a campaign loop with non-custom Chosen.
