Weekly News #171

Version 0.970a is already available for download for subscribers of the Best Friend tier ($10). To view the post with this version, follow this link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/released-0-970a-140490246

It's been a little less than a week and a half since the last full update—time for a new weekly news update, where we'll cover what's been done, what's to come, and some highlights of this short period. Although we've been primarily focused on game stability, bug fixes, and code refactoring, we still have a lot to share with you. Let's start from the beginning.

First, randomized NPCs. Well, we'll probably start with the most interesting new feature here—a new scene. We hadn't presented it before, but now it's ready and in-game, ready for you to touch and explore. Sunbathing scene:

This scene appears when your character approaches a female NPC who is sunbathing—in this case, a mini-event is triggered—and also when using the new interaction with a randomized NPC—the option to sunbathe together. This scene will slightly expand the overall scene pool and make learning interactions more interesting for new players.

So, in addition to this rather large interaction, we've also introduced the ability to engage in group interactions with NPCs. This is a rather interesting mechanic that allows you to communicate with a group of NPCs at once, invite someone to a dialogue, and improve relationships with a large group of people at once.

Currently, you can only talk about various topics, which in their own way affects the relationships between the characters involved, but this number will increase in the future. Your character will also be able to engage in various activities: play volleyball, hang out on the street, or simply rob other NPCs in a group, provided, of course, the NPCs in your group don't mind. This will significantly diversify interactions with NPCs and also increase the relevance of making new acquaintances—including for personal gain, if your character is playing as a hooligan.

Well, the most basic addition to this section is new hairstyles for male RNPC. There are four in total, each one different and can be either generated on a male RNPC or selected in the editor for your character/RNPC. Some of them can be seen below:

Secondly, the story. So, Yuki Oota's sprite has been redrawn—it's time to redraw the scenes as well. We're actively working on this, and you can see one completed scene here:

Also, a sketch of another scene we're actively working on:

In addition, some work is currently underway to continue the storylines of Yuki Oota and Ayano Yoshida, providing a logical conclusion to their respective plots. We'll go into more detail about this in the next news release, but for now, just know that we're working on it. Don't forget, and you'll see them in new versions soon. Most likely, in the full version, 971.

Third, systemic innovations. More specifically, two new interfaces and refined mechanics. We're gradually replacing placeholders that stood in for specific features with fully-fledged interfaces and systems. This time, we came across the martial arts gym location, along with its "Boxing" interaction.

Instead of a typical location-based action, there's now a full-fledged minigame that allows you to level up your stamina and agility attributes more quickly than simply spamming a single location-based interaction. This was done, among other things, to update secondary locations, like the martial arts gym, and at the same time, another location—the Hotel—is becoming more relevant.

As you can see, some work has been done here, instead of the usual choices. Now you can not only restore energy there, but also your hunger, which can be useful if you've been kicked out of your apartment for non-payment on a difficult difficulty level. Apart from this, here you can get some exclusive buffs and improvements to your character.

Fourth, bug and error fixes. Code refactoring. This is where the bulk of the work has been over the past week and a half – we've fixed a huge number of bugs and errors, and done significant work to improve the game's stability. However, for now, we'll limit ourselves to a simple changelog, which is also relevant to the recently released 970a version of the game:

New content:

A new interface and group activity system have been added to the interaction interface with randomized NPCs. There, you can gather your group of NPCs to do something together: three interactions are currently available, all consisting of conversations. If this group activity is successful, you'll earn relationship points with each NPC, and they'll also experience some relationship boosts with each other. The number of possible conversation partners is unlimited, and this interface can be accessed through the corresponding new interaction, "Group Activity...".

A new sunbathing scene has been added to the game for female NPCs. You can view it when a randomized female NPC displays the "Sunbathing" location activity. There's also a small new mini-event featuring a female NPC. Furthermore, in addition to displaying this scene through the NPC's activity, it can also be viewed through a new interaction, "Sunbathing Together," available through the corresponding interaction menu.

A new interface has been added for the "Boxing" location interaction in the corresponding location of the "Martial Arts Hall." There, you can more clearly level up your agility and stamina attributes. The interface itself matches the corresponding in-game design and offers slightly more options for leveling up attributes overall.

A new interface for overnight stays at the hotel has been added to the game to further update this location: in addition to the actual overnight stay, you can now choose various services there. Different pillows, food for bed, a shower, which provide various buffs, restore more energy/satiety, increase attractiveness, and other options, making the hotel a more useful location.

Four new hairstyles for male NPCs have been added to the game. These can be generated for them or selected in the appropriate editors: for your character or the NPC.

The "Holding Hands" scene for female NPCs has been improved. Now, all hairstyles are displayed properly on the male character/your character, without unnecessary changes, as they were previously unfinished, as are all clothing sets and other details of the male appearance.

The game's size has been slightly reduced by compressing certain files, removing rudimentary files, and making other adjustments.

Some exclusive events have been added for the female protagonist, affecting the NPC and providing variety in female gameplay.

The systems responsible for asynchronous translation have been refactored: the system now stalls less unnecessarily, and has eliminated issues with exceptions and other similar gameplay issues.

Minor refactoring of the NPC interaction system has been made to make the system itself less problematic, reduce device load at certain points in gameplay, and generally operate more reliably.

A minor refactoring of the systems responsible for RNPC movement across game locations has been performed: this now has a much wider range of conditions, RNPC movements from place to place appear more logical, and the system itself has become less problematic and more stable.

The systems responsible for using items from your character's inventory have been refactored, significantly reducing the number of possible exceptions from the corresponding interface, confusing moments, and similar issues.

A minor refactoring of the systems responsible for initializing RNPC saved data files in the character library has been performed: the system itself has been slightly modified, adjusted to support each platform, and overall work has been done to ensure a more stable operation.

Some recalculation of interaction success for RNPC has been performed to bring the simulation closer to a more realistic form: more diverse factors, statistics, attributes, and even the memory of RNPC events can now influence the success of an interaction.

A minor refactoring of the club system and related components was carried out: inaccurate calculations in statistics were corrected, the code itself was improved to reduce system load, and overall, everything became much more stable than before.

The conditions for triggering events with RNPC were improved: they take into account more personal qualities and influence statistics, are less problematic than before, and this also fixes bugs where the wrong RNPC was present in an event (different gender, attributes, etc.).

Fixed bugs:

Fixed a bug that could cause parts of the female NPC's body to disappear in 18+ content scenes, along with exception issues and other issues that interfered with the use of these features.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to create a game session if the session itself was created on a MAC or other similar device.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw an error when the player interacted with an NPC and their relationship status changed to "in love."

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to display an incorrect and irrelevant relationship status with an NPC if it had just recently changed.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash after a long game session, with a slight chance of occurring, even on low-end Android devices, when entering the NPC interaction menu.

Fixed a bug that could prevent some story events with Ayano Yoshida from appearing to be unlocked, despite the player seemingly fulfilling the requirements.

Fixed an issue where a NPC event involving a female NPC could have a low probability of having a male NPC.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw an exception when attempting to initialize game saves when entering the corresponding load/save menu in certain exceptional scenarios.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to display incorrect NPC influence statistics at certain points in gameplay when the player opened the corresponding biographical interface.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw an exception when creating an NPC cache in certain gameplay situations when the device was running low on persistent memory.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to access the modifications menu from the main game settings without any apparent reason. Additionally, minor code refactoring has been performed in several places to prevent further exceptions within this entire interface.

Fixed a bug that could cause exceptions to be thrown when attempting to load saves transferred from older versions of the game to the new one, with a small chance, directly in your character's room.

Fixed a bug that could cause exceptions to be thrown when playing in English and completing the event with the story NPC "Azumi Yoshida," where she talked about her family.

Fixed a bug that could cause exceptions to be thrown in certain rare gameplay situations when opening the diary interface in the corresponding perk selection category.

Fixed a bug that could cause exceptions to be thrown when attempting to create a RNPC using the RNPC generator after a game session has already begun, with a small chance.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to save a NPC to the character library, with a rare chance.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions in some rare gameplay situations when opening the Occultism Club management interface.

Fixed an issue where some NPC data used for moving from location to location could contain incorrect data, causing the movement itself to appear illogical.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions in certain gameplay situations when opening the grocery store purchase interface.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to load a save made on the same version, with a low chance.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions without any apparent reason during the minigame involving earning in-game funds through the grocery store location.

Fixed an issue where event text could appear in Russian when playing in English in certain story areas, as well as in game systems/mechanics.

Fixed an issue where, when playing in Chinese, question mark symbols could appear instead of some text due to the font not supporting certain characters.

Fixed a bug where using asynchronous translation could cause exceptions in certain gameplay moments and events involving NPCs/story characters.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash when attempting to navigate between locations due to event conditions and other gameplay issues that could overload a low-powered Android device with low RAM.

Fixed a bug that caused certain activities to require excessive amounts of power without any apparent reason, making them simply pointless.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash in some rare situations on MAC devices after a short period of time.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to change your character's appearance too radically from their initial version in the character editor.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when entering the character clothing interface, with a small chance of occurring.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to lag when attempting to navigate between locations, even after loading all necessary data about the location and its occupants.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to freeze completely when attempting to create a game session and/or load a save with a large number of RNPC, due to the caching system.

Fixed an issue that could cause the game to run very slowly, with freezes and micro-freezes in the Occult Club management interfaces, if the club itself had a large number of members.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions in some rare gameplay scenarios when engaging in combat with a NPC of either gender. This occurred rarely and in cases where internal data necessary for the combat itself was corrupted.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to create a cache of NPCs after an event in an attempt to save all necessary data.

Fixed a bug that could cause certain issues with displaying the randomized NPC sprite and triggering exceptions when using this system with other related systems, such as the Occult Club management interface, etc.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when importing/exporting NPCs of either gender, with a small chance, through the corresponding character library interface.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to crash without any apparent reason immediately after opening the character library interface from the NPC editor/character editor if the number of saved characters was large.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions in certain rare situations during the Yuki Oota storyline, during the storyline selection event during the meeting.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to open the Journalism Club management interface, with a small chance of happening.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when opening the NPC message menu and attempting to send messages to AI.

Fixed a bug that could cause the game to throw exceptions when attempting to create an autosave, which could cause exceptions to appear seemingly "out of nowhere."

Fixed a bug that could cause an attribute to not change in the corresponding tabs of the diary/phone after leveling up. Fixed an issue where the NPC/character attribute value could display a fractional value instead of an integer.

Fixed an issue where, if you initially played in Russian and then changed it to English, the NPC's first and last names would remain in Russian. In this case, the game will now transliterate the NPC's names, and the entire game will be in English, as intended from the start.

Fixed a bug where, after engaging in 18+ sexual encounters, relationships with randomized NPCs could change incorrectly. This resulted in the encounter being with one NPC, but the relationship rewards for engaging in vulgarity, sexual experience, etc., would be given to another NPC.

Fixed a bug where the game could throw exceptions in the relevant interfaces for scenes involving randomized NPCs when they were wearing cat ears as an accessory from the NPC editor. Fixed a bug where the game could throw exceptions during missionary position interactions with randomized NPCs in some cases when your character was engaging in petting with a female NPC.

Fixed an issue where the corresponding interface for breast/appearance settings for your story characters might not have a background behind the interface before the start of a game session, causing it to look strange and incorrect in perspective.

Fixed a bug where, when interacting with Ayano Yoshida while she was living in your house, you might be kicked out of the academy by a security guard on weekends instead of the normal menu, even though you weren't actually at the academy at the time.

As you can see, quite a bit of work has been accomplished. During this time, we've added a major mechanic in the form of group interaction, a new scene for the RNPC, and many other things that will improve the gaming experience. We're currently gradually preparing for the game's release, which is getting closer and closer with each new update, though it's still quite far off. The next news, which will obviously bring a bit more content than this, will be on October 15th, but for now all that remains is to wait. Fortunately, 10 days isn't that long.