Hello everyone!

A lot has happened since the last development log and, one thing in advance, this will be the last development log for 0.4!

Over the past roughly two weeks, I have been rendering all the scenes, post-editing, fixing code, adjusting existing code, fixing bugs, and playing the actual game for the first time. During this, I adjusted all the transitions between the renders, as I have done for all the previous versions as well.

I noticed that during my playtesting, the rollback functionality of Ren'Py was unusually slow. Turns out, there was a bug in my code which stored an unnecessary amount of calendar entries in the save file! :D In the future, this could have developed into a ticking time bomb. Luckily, I managed to fix it retroactively. When you load your old 0.3.3 saves in version 0.4, I'm automatically removing the unnecessary entries. I'm unsure if this will lead to any performance gains or anything similar, but I think in the long term, this can definitely turn out as a lifesaver!

Version 0.4 will have a version check function to automatically notify you if a new version is out. This happens by displaying something special in the main menu. If you don't have an internet connection, it will simply not check for new versions and you'll have to do that yourself. I've made sure that it won't crash randomly because no connection could be established.

The new version will also have a photosensitivity setting in the options. Not sure how useful it is but it wasn't hard to implement and certain image transformations in 0.4 will flicker less if you turn it on. If you have feedback on what else I should reduce when this is turned on, feel free to reach out!

I'm currently working on a lot of small code-related things and also adding the animations into the game. This isn't as easy as it sounds, since I need to make sure they're rendered in a way that the video matches the color format of the in-game renders. Small things nobody actually knows about before you start comparing animations with still renders.

Another thing I'm happy to mention! I'm finally back on itch, the game got indexed again (it can be found via search & browse) and my views and everything went back up to their old heights! Very happy about it, this has been bugging me for two months now!

Regarding the potential release date in September, since I have to give proofreaders and beta testers time to work on the game and the audio is also still missing at this point, I don't want to rush a release in September, but I'm looking at an early October release. I try my best to get this out ASAP, and don't worry, the monthly render will also be coming this month, just late.

This is it for this last development log of version 0.4. It took me quite some time to produce version 0.4 but I'm glad we're here and the release is finally on the horizon!

Have a great weekend ahead and stay awesome!

Your Panda

PS: I'll be holding a public render lottery on the Discord server either next weekend (26th/27th) or the first weekend of October. This is basically a sneak peek at Chapter 4, where everyone can vote for their favorite render numbers, and the winning renders will be shown publicly! Feel free to join in!