The Belated v0.013 HoHH[art] Release

Sort of.

This one is more for my benefit. The notebook clue framework for the harlots is pretty much close to done. It's still a bit fiddlier and time consuming to implement for each harlot than I'd like, but it is mostly giving the behaviour I want. I'm hoping it will get quicker as I apply it to more harlots and get all the templates in place.

I do have a lot of templates in place, but there are still some rough edges and pieces that don't quite fit correctly. I was testing today and spotted the Black Rose gift resulted in some strange behaviour where the notebook recorded Sapoonis as having melted the player's hands off, when she hadn't. After last week and several constant days of testing I wanted to scream.

And I think that's the problem. I need to get something out because it's been a while since the last release and I said I would. I think once I've got that monkey off my back, I can take a deep breath, just do some writing for a couple of days and then go back and patiently pick through the awkward corner cases.

So this is that release. It's a little scrappier than I'd like, but I felt I needed to crap something out to get things moving smoothly again.

It's a bit of an iceberg release, as most of the changes are under the surface. There is a reasonably solid framework to handle the various clue types. Some are solved the moment they're experienced. Others require repetition and picking up hints from The Elegant Woman and other places. I wanted it to mimic what the player would be thinking, so it should show the solutions roughly about when the player would have figured them out themselves.

Currently there are 4 harlots that now have autosave and notebook functionality - Morticia Rose, Asphya, Sapoonis and Bebi Ansikt-Sitta. You should see the notebook section update as you play those sections.

I've also updated it to keep track of most harlot's gift preferences.

Now for the bad.

It's still not quite stable, so I've set it to start a fresh save file each time it's started up. This means autosaving will only work within the current play session. This is just a temporary measure to prevent older version data overwriting the new version. I've got some plans for version controls, so that your save data will be useable for new versions (important given how I'll be doing incremental releases with new harlots added). It will be a little rough until I have that implemented.

Some cases might result in odd behaviour. The Black Rose gift continues to be a source of problems and probably the one thing I wouldn't have in the game at all if I did it again.

Currently the notebook updates as the player is reading through the scenario. I'm not convinced this is the behaviour I want. The clue data is mostly stored on the decision points, which often results in the notebook telling the player how they're about to die, before they die, which is not quite what I want. I do have an idea that I think will fix this.

Overall this is an odd release, which is probably appropriate given it's the version number 13 after a very cursed April. Most of the changes are under the hood and not visible to the player. I will keep continue to keep updating the harlots and hopefully it will become less painful and time-consuming as I do more of them.

For now I felt I needed to get something out to clear a jam, and this is it.

Here's to hopefully a better May!

The HoHH website has also already been updated for people with mobile devices. The password is the same as before (Burba1k4).