Hopepunk City Alpha 0.5 for PC and Mac (fixed)
Added 2021-07-23 21:01:01 +0000 UTC
So here it is in less than a month after 0.4, with none of the things I promised, but I guarantee you will like it anyways.
The good stuff:
* At least 95% of the pictures re-rendered in Poser 12 Superfly which are vast improvements over previous renders, making the game look a lot more modern and artistic.
* Updated scoring system. More points available after week 1, game is better balanced.
* Updated story pathing: Optional earned dialogues will appear more random to add variety, changed the order of dialogs in month 2.
* More choices: Every dialog scene has at least one player choice in it.
* Scoreboard will color code stats you need to pay attention to before the next checkpoint, and failures will point out where you failed.
* Spell checked!
The not so good stuff:
* Saved games made on the older alpha versions will likely result in failures at checkpoints. You will need to start over and create new saves.
* New internal game rule limiting dialogs to three per week (with exceptions made to career visits to keep career advancement going) means that some dialogs that were possible in month 2 will no longer be possible.
* I know I promised a way to "upgrade", but the graphic changes were too substantial, it is just easier to download a new game (and compare side by side if you want to).
The old scoring system had a lot of randomness to it. It still has some randomness, but it is not as reliant on it. There are more earned points available. This made the old checkpoint goals too easy, so I had to balance. Where 9 like points per character got you past month 1, it has been updated to 12, and a total of 40. On month 2 at least one character must be at 30, and a total of 80 must be met.
These goals are very reachable if you start from the beginning, also you get to see all the cool new art by starting over. I'm hoping the balance feels right enough that I don't have to adjust it again, but if you have problems reaching these goals, tell me so I can adjust.
Game balancing is hard for one person, because I know all the answers, but failure is supposed to happen, so that success feels more rewarding. Month 3, which you haven't seen yet, is even harder to balance. I put a lot of effort in making the "bad ending" interesting, and I want players to see it, but of course the good ending needs to be reachable too.
Love feedback, good or bad.
Fixed a major bug!! It was tough to find because it felt like the game was playing as intended. There is a dialog between a shopkeeper and a police drone. In the bugged version this is immediately followed by the first day of your job. What is supposed to happen is you go to the market. I accidentally disabled some code that I thought wasn't relevant to month 1 and 2, and caused the bug in the alpha version.
Also fixed issues describing why you lost when you lose and a bug that showed up the first time you play the game.
Comments
I see you've figured it out. Nice job on fixing this issue so fast.
Anonymous
2021-07-25 21:39:50 +0000 UTCAll right, I finally was able to replicate the issue, but I replicated it on my android phone where I can't look at the code. Now that I know what I am looking for, I will go through the code and see if I can find the issue. As far as I can tell, the dialogs and such are working fine, but you stop going to the market and the job introduction keeps repeating. Both are related to "week advancement" which is part of the new game code. I'll post a fix as soon as I find it.
Ariane Barnes
2021-07-25 08:22:52 +0000 UTCIt's pretty much impossible to get passed month 2 now. For some reason the game never takes me back to the market after the first time going. Is this just me?
Will
2021-07-25 03:25:36 +0000 UTCI just downloaded the latest version (0.5), removed save-files and the persistent file from both the game and the AppData-directory and even though I did not get fired, everyday on the job was like the first day and I didn't get to go to the market after the first week.
Gambam
2021-07-25 02:58:43 +0000 UTCI could not replicate the problem even after erasing all old settings, playing 0.4 alpha to the cookie scene, then playing the 0.5 to the same scene. Got the market every week, and the job advanced. Best guess: either old saves, or old persistent files are the problem. My fix: Force the game to use a new save directory. I just uploaded a new version that uses a new save directory. To be on the safe side delete any saves from the game/saves directory before running. If this does not fix the issue, tell me. ETA: There is a known issue with the game immediately crashing with a "NoneType" error. Known Renpy issue incompatibility with my code, Just "Ignore" and it should pass through OK.
Ariane Barnes
2021-07-25 01:45:51 +0000 UTCThanks for your patience nows, I think I know what happened, but I'm still working on finding the actual bug. I got three versions going: the demo, the alpha, and the internal development. I might have moved a file from internal development to alpha that is causing unforseen issues in alpha. Shouldn't take long to pin down.
Ariane Barnes
2021-07-24 23:43:32 +0000 UTCThanks for the info. I'm still investigating this. I'm trying to replicate the problem.
Ariane Barnes
2021-07-24 23:35:06 +0000 UTCI have deleted the hopepunk save folder and the demo version as well, just for good measure, but I'm still experiencing the same problem. Every work day is the first day again and by the third week, I end up unemployed regardless of if I take a new job or keep the first one, which is especially strange since they fire me the day after they hire me. I had reached the ending of the content for the last update so I know how it's supposed to work. I have no idea what could be causing this to happen, but I'll try other options in game to see if they change anything.
Mytilene
2021-07-24 23:16:24 +0000 UTCThat very well could be the issue. To test the game for first time users, I flushed the old saves. Saved games are stored in two places: 1. in the game/saves directory and 2. in the C:\Users\(username)\AppData\Roaming\RenPy\HopepunkCity directory. You need to erase both to start completely new.
Ariane Barnes
2021-07-24 17:30:10 +0000 UTCI am hitting the same bug of not being able to go back to the market. I also have the issue of every time I go to work is treated like my first day. My save games from 0.4 also show up even though I didn't extract over that directory. Where are the saves/data stored? I am wondering if the issue is old bad settings.
castrophany
2021-07-24 17:26:10 +0000 UTCThat's odd. I have not gotten that bug in testing. Usually what happens with losing your job is you get sent a new lower level job. Maybe I haven't done enough testing on that front.
Ariane Barnes
2021-07-24 05:52:00 +0000 UTCIt seems like you never go back to the market to buy things after the first time, also when you lose your job I don't think there's a way to get a new one. This is on the PC version.
Anonymous
2021-07-24 03:04:31 +0000 UTC