Steamberry Studio
patreon
13/04/2025
🕑 Added 2025-04-13 02:57:51 +0000 UTCHello everyone! Time for this week's update!
Summary
Published Episode 3 to the public
Mostly have been focused on some bug fixes
Improving accessibility features
Coding and Other Stuff
So this week I published Episode 3 publicly. It was a few days early but I'd wrapped up all the art I wanted to add and decided to go ahead and publish the build instead of waiting.
I've had to push three small bug fixes since then for really minor code issues that were causing significant visual issues. Ha ha. And one that was breaking the game because a file was misnamed.
I also got a polite request to make the game a little more accessible as the self-voicing feature was not playing nicely with some of the UI (namely the customisation screen but there are a few other places I forgot to add alt text).
I've been working on that but unfortunately it's not always as easy as adding alt text. For instance, the customisation screen is tricky because it has to figure out which features are showing so it can say them outloud. And then it has to not just say EVERYTHING OUT LOUD ALL AT ONCE.
This means you can't just add alt text the way you normally do in Renpy.
Another thing I've learned is that self-voicing and tooltips don't really play nice together in Renpy. Which is a problem because the flowchart uses tooltips instead of labels on the flowchart boxes.
I spent all day with a couple of friends trying to make the self voicing read the flowchart tooltips correctly.
I think we finally found a workaround but that was excruciating LoL.
Upcoming Week
I have a few more accessibility things to work on related to self voicing and then I will probably push another update to the current build.
Beyond that, I will start working on the non-asset-driven aspects of the next episode. As always, I will not be adding any new visuals or content for a while yet but will be focusing on things that don't require new stuff (like sprite expressions).
I will also probably start writing the POV scenes that will go out with Chapter 6.
Chapter 6 will not have CGs but it will have POV scenes for the events of Chapter 5 and it does require at least two new sprites as a couple of new characters show up. It's a bit shorter than Chapter 5 so hopefully sprite expressions don't take quite as long.
At this point I do not have an ETA on when the next beta version will go out. Typically I like to have all the major things like expressions and such done by the time beta releases so doing corrections doesn't distract too much from that.
Chapter 6 is a sort of transition chapter where the focus is actually laying plot foundation for heading into Chapter 7. I think there are fewer group scenes in this one so I'm hoping I can do the sprite expressions a little faster than normal.
We'll see. I always say that and then they still take forever. π
Comments
Steamberry Studio
Yay! Raif was so much fine to write and I just love Yren because he's such a gentle sweetheart. ππ
hidefreak
I did the same, was staying up way to late and playing the Game :) , I Love the Yren and Raif Routes , the others too but this two are my Fav <3
Steamberry Studio
Kav is a complex cookie. You haven't seen all there is to him yet but upcoming chapters will reveal more. Specifically Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 reveal a lot more of his back story.
ayshela
I squeed so hard when I got the announcement from itch.io that chapter 5 was live! I spent the whole night up running through all the routes and setting up my save files, and squeeeeeeeee omg it's so awesome! Kav... oof. That... that makes sense of why trying to figure out which choice was the right one for him was so hard at first. He got into my dreams when I finally fell asleep. Lol! I could gush for hours, I hope you know.
