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August 19, 2023: ECA 0.7 Changelog & Release Dates
🕑 Added 2023-08-19 12:04:10 +0000 UTCIt's been a bit of a struggle to get everything put together, mainly due to being extremely busy at the "real work" job. I've never seen an August like this. June and July are usually the busiest times, but this year... it's different. But enough of that. You want the info.
0.7 Changelog
** Depending on how you want to count scenes, there's 43 (or 44) story scenes for 0.7, making it pretty massive in this area. Of those 43 scenes, five of them are an either-or -- more on this in the next part. One of those 43 scenes doesn't count towards the total, which means according to the journal, there will be 40 scenes, bringing the total to 210... I think. Some of the scenes are extremely short simply because they don't have to be long. Extraneous fluff is something I try to stay away from, so sometimes short scenes are the result.
** Those five scenes are part of the Lord of the Hovel thread. Depending on what choices you made before with other characters, and in the order you do them, you will be given different options for the final scene. Because of how other scenes fall, you may not get an option, so save-scumming is recommended. Even if you don't get an option, there's an individual scene with Lerran that happens, so it's not an all-or-nothing thing. It may be rather confusing, so if you have problems with it, let me know. I don't want to ruin too much, but there are two options for Lerran as female (Erranda, Yanwei) and two options with her as futa (Iris, Jasmine). To get the Yanwei/Jasmine options, she will need to be that form as well as having gotten as far as you can with Yanwei or Jasmine prior to engaging this scene.
** Over 1800 images and 48 total animations. Full disclosure, the animations aren't as varied and in-depth as they were in 0.6. Image resolution might be a tad lower as well. I am trying to squeeze the 0.7 under the 2GB limit for Android players in anticipation of figuring out a way for those players to get the rest of the game, perhaps with a "Part 2", so I've tried to be very careful about adding a huge ton of content that doesn't get shown much.
** Finally got around to actually making Genny work in the garden, if you are pursuing her and chose to give her the job. It does cost silver now at a rate of four silver every six days. It would happen at times before, but it's been fixed now so it will actually function as it should. For having her working, you will get one extra ingredient per harvest in the garden.
** Three new options for the girls of Velvet Desires (one each). They each have at least four now, with Artesia having five.
** Fertilizer & Hand Sickle. You can now purchase these items from Horace. Code-wise, it can happen earlier in the game, somewhere around 0.4 or 0.5, but it will be nearly immediately available if you're caught up through 0.6. Just talk to Horace when she comes to trade.
--- Fertilizer will 'enhance' harvesting in your garden, depending on what level of fertilizer you buy. It lasts a set amount of days, and can be re-purchased after it runs out. If you have the highest level of fertilizer AND have Genny working in the garden, you can get up to seven ingredients from a single harvest.
--- The hand sickle will guarantee 100% wild harvesting (willow bark in forest, etc.), and will increase the yield by one. You will get two of whatever you are hunting, and you won't fail in gathering. If you are able to gather seeds from the plant, you will automatically gain one seed, as well.
** A few QOL improvements including warning messages about running out of batteries for your equipment, reducing harvest pause time by 50%, and cleaning up more of the hints, especially in the threads, to make it easier to follow along.
0.7 Release Dates
At the moment, I'm assembling the last parts of the scenes in anticipation of getting a pre-alpha build to fully test today. There's still a lot to put in, and there is writing involved, but I think I can get it done soon. Building and testing, so... if everything goes well...
Alpha 0.7 (for testers): August 25-26
Beta 0.7 (for patrons): August 31, September 1
Public: Sometime between September 8 and September 15, depending on bug reports.
These dates are subject to change for a myriad of reasons, but I've been able to be pretty close with estimations.
Android, After 0.7, and More
I haven't put together the build to see what the size of 0.7 is going to be, so I can't yet determine what the final size will be. It's going to be around 385-390 MB by my best guess, which would push the Android size to right around 1.89-1.90 GB in size, even after compression.
100 MB is not a lot to work with. I also need to consider what my plan is with going back to add more content (especially sandbox) that can be accessed if I do decide to go with a "Part 2" for Android players.
What this means for going past 0.7 is I need to figure out what the total size is and what I want to add for scenes where the player can go back and talk to characters about events that are happening to get their input and, perhaps, help. I'm considering all options because I don't want to alienate the nearly 30-40% of general players that use Android.
Once I get 0.7 fully completed and released, I'll be going through the options I can come up with and make a decision, which will be posted publicly, of course.
You all have my thanks for the continued support. Have a fantastic weekend.
