Saw that it had 123 Fonts, and that is not the case. I have corrected the code I use to create the JSON and fixed that. :)

The Visual Novel is currently 2.2 GB (according to Steam). So, I wanted to account what was in there. I will present the counts in this announcement, but I also included it in the application as well. It will be in Credits under stats and it is reading off a json I generated with dev tools I made for this purpose. Here are the stats as of the latest scene I have completed (thus why credits will look different). [table] [tr] [th]AVIF[/th] [th]Count[/th] [/tr] [tr] [th]Total Avif[/th] [td]5496[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Prologue[/th] [td]388[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Day 1[/th] [td]1698[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Day 2[/th] [td]2227[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Day 3[/th] [td]357[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]UI[/th] [td]357[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Gallery[/th] [td]303[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Animation Starts[/th] [td]245[/td] [/tr] [/table] [table] [tr] [th]Webm[/th] [th]Count[/th] [/tr] [tr] [th]Total[/th] [td]245[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Prologue[/th] [td]15[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Day 1[/th] [td]126[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Day 2[/th] [td]80[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Day 3[/th] [td]24[/td] [/tr][/table] [table] [tr] [th]Sound[/th] [th]Count[/th] [/tr] [tr] [th]Total[/th] [td]123[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Music[/th] [td]24[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]SFX[/th] [td]78[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]Ambiance[/th] [td]21[/td] [/tr][/table] [table] [tr] [th]Others[/th] [th]Count[/th] [/tr] [tr] [th]Font[/th] [td]18[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]PNG[/th] [td]84[/td] [/tr] [tr] [th]SVG[/th] [td]20[/td] [/tr][/table]

There was a typo in D2Prepare screen that caused an exception screen because the achievement object as spelled did not exist. This has been fixed.

For Eric's wakeup scene, the wrong videos would play in certain situations. This has been corrected.

The last segment involving Eric and Bria has been released. This will appear on Part 3 in the chapter menu after you play "Elsewhere". Things escalate between Eric and Bria where all doubt has been removed from Eric that something weird is happening. :) I have also implemented a Achievement page within the VN that should match what it shows in Steam. This also includes all the bug fixes from the previous day, and any that cropped up in the last few days when I did a check.

Forgot to do this after spending a few day fixing bugs. :)

Pushed a patch out to resolve quite a few issues:

RenPy 8.3.7

Bug Fixes

Emily Shower Scene

Gallery command errors

Missing Animations in Fangs and Claws

Fixed Divide by Zero error in the Butterfly minigame

Fixed Substitutions

Kimmy and the Werewolves Gym Scene

• One error that would happen all the wolves are remorseless, which would cause an exception screen.
• Also fixed an issue where it would assume all three were involved in the scene instead of just one or two.
• Fixed an action set when it is one werewolf and Kimmy (the maps were colliding among other things).

Tori and Cayla fight scene

For those with the DLC, the tl folder was conflicting with the VN when installed. So I moved it to "src" outside the game folder.

Primary images and story have been completed for Secrets of Fire. Now comes the sound tracking, getting the galleries setup, and the replays working. :) I want to have it released within two weeks. This does conclude Bria and Eric's story for this particular VN and will continue on in another once I finish "New Day" :)

Heads up about the Security of Fire of Life:

Update on the Story

Today I have released the Source Code that can run along with the game itself. It will exist within the game folder as defines, scenes, screens, styles, and tl. You can open the RPY with any text editor to view it (although you can use Visual Studio Code as well :))

Contains None

{if ###} not a valid text tag

Tempposition not defined

If either are set to Ask and certain checks are false, it would try to search a dictionary for 2 (which is not a key in that dictionary). Changed it so it would respond appropriately.

For some reason, I put in something in a way Python couldn't translate it. So I did a mild rewriting, and it now works for when you are asked if you want to skip NSFW or Content Warning scenes or if you are fine with it.

Ren'Py 8.3.6

Story Progress

Other Fixes

Image Settings not responding to Hide NSFW

Bria Accent

Wrong statement playing if successfully completing Butterflies

When you play Day 2 Classes again (not replay), it would carry the same values you had for Bria regardless of what you did in First Year Composition. A function runs after the chapter starts to reset those to default.

[ 2025-02-18 16:00:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

For some reason, there was no call to set this up in Elsewhere. That has been fixed.

Elsewhere (Fire of Life: New Day 0.66) Released!

• Constance post-Eldritch Event.
• Emily and Aida End of Night 2 content
• Lily and Andrei have some fun!
• Alex and Fio have some fun!
• Kei tries chilling out!
• Tony deals with Cait and Katia
• Tori and Matt take a walk.

Bug Fixes:

• Katia and Andrei Night 1 Apartment fixed (it was not behaving as intended).
• Redid Day 2 Classes to work a little better.
• Madison Break has been fixed (it would not play correct on 2nd play through).
• Translations for both Elsewhere and other areas have been updated.

Art and Story for Elsewhere has been completed. I am currently working on Extras, soundtracking, and bug checks. I hope to be done and have it fully released on Sunday.:)

I had changed how the scene was managed a few weeks back. What support to happen is when you play a scene, it will remove itself. However, it was not doing that and if you click on the scene again, it would produce an error. This was happening because I use two lists for display. The main one for available scenes, and another one to stack the scene in a predefined row. Not as visible in Eldritch Effects as it would be in Elsewhere (upcoming segment). Fixed this by recreating the second list after the scene runs. :)

This was for testing. When galleries get processed, it is all set the first time, so it does not need to run everytime the applications runs.:)

Story Update

Gallery

Preparing Replay Bug

Future Proofing

There was an issue when you went into Replays for Kitsune's Torment or Ascent From Hell (or similar segments) where you would get a tuple error. This has been fixed by adding the correct tuple for the contentfilter, and it should play just fine.:)

Lore System

Reorganized Animations

The Sex Gallery replay would cause exceptions, so fixed that. It should now play as intended. :)

Bug Fixes

Fixed Wolves Gym

Fixed Playing different chapters after you just played it

Dees crime scene in Demons and Mage now in the right order

Content Filter issue with Kei and the lockerroom in Prologue

Translations Gaps

Putting more of the previous python functions into classes.

Still working on the Lucia/Dria vs. Constance (and real-life got in the way). However, did some small improvements.

Begin

Quick Settings

Sex Gallery

Gallery

Character List

Bugs

There were a few issues in the name setup.

• Had characternameinfo instead of persistent.characternameinfo for some reason, and that is two different things in Python, so it would throw an error.
• The wrong variable was set for the Long Names, so set it correctly.

Ren'Py 8.3.4

New Quit Menu

Added a small menu near the version on the main menu to allow you to change the clothing level without needing to go to Settings. This allows three places to change this setting.:) I also removed the Renpy updater from the Steam version of the game. All updates should be coming through the Steam Client.:)

If it is the first time launching the VN, what is happening is that lore files are trying to load before persistent.CharacterName was established. So, I changed it so the lore files are loaded after that. :) Sorry about the inconvenience. I also changed the error checking in the previous patch to just add missing names instead of just wiping out the list first.

I might have deleted something, but it is fixed now. ;) It relates to the different input questions.

For some reason, keys in the names dictionary will disappear. So put in an error checking. It will scan the entire dictionary and make sure it has that key. If it does not, it will reset that dictionary with all the keys and values it should have.

Content Filter Bug Fix

Quick Settings

This update puts a block on the "AfterDM" chapter because it is not ready yet. :)

Updated the Main menu to use variable that changes the clothing level in Settings to match other menus.:) Also removed images from the RPA that no longer being used.

If you try to play The council or classes in Replay, it will give a key error. This has been fixed. Seperated screens from scenes to make them the RPA smaller. Overall (outside of avif and webm), scenes is the larger file with defines coming in second. So if I just make an adjustment to screens, I can just upload that RPA and it will make a patch based on that. :)

Gallery items that do not have pagination because there is only one image in them (About 20 of them, such as Katia) were causing an Out of Index error. This has been fixed and those images now display properly.

Gallery

Character Bios

Just letting everyone know I am aware of an issue if you click on a profile picture in the gallery (where it is likely 960x1080 with a black background), it will show to the side and not looking like how it would be in the thumbnail. This problem has been fixed, but I don't have a stable enough internet to upload it at this very moment. The moment I am able to, I will upload and post the build.

Bug Fix

Lore System

This was result of an RPA not being uploaded. I have changed which RPA it is in (defines.rpa because ui.rpa has a lot of images, thus might be a bigger patch size). Should work now.:) Sorry for the inconvenience.

Bug Fixes

Gallery

Where am I with the story

• Sex Screen (what plays the video after going through the narrative) has been checked and made sure all videos there would play what it is supposed to (instead of Rebecca during Neil Michelle scene).
• Fixed Wolves in the Gym during preparing..more or less. Might need to redo the code there. [

In Cayla's Sex Gallery, the one for the Fight scene actually went to Constance Graveyard scene. That has been fixed.

Kei, Kimmy, Kismet, and Lucia were missing on the gallery page. This is now fixed.

If you had not gotten to the first scene for Dee, Emily Gallery would not appear. This was a case of me putting the wrong label to check. This has been resolved and Emily's gallery should appear as normal.:)

This update follows the events after Constance spies on "The Well" in the Darling Moonshine Chapter. Each are affected in their own way. Other changes are more background functions more than something that is shown. For example, CG Gallery should look more or less the same, but the PYthon behind it has changed. :) 6 new stories involving Michelle (if she wasn't sacrificed), Madison and Ryan, Cayla and Lucia (if it wasn't settled in the ring), Bria and Rebecca, Eric and Josh, and Dee and Tobias. :)

This was a result of old behavior. I had changed the behavior to make the "list" it had to check either smaller (or better, nonexistent) since it could check if there are keys. So I changed the issues else, and now it should work for animatedscenes with just continue as well as ones with different angles. :)

1. The first error was due to how the text went into the BetweenScene screen. Since I use dictionaries a lot, it needs to find the key. However, if it is translating the key before it gets there, it causes a problem. This is remains from the initial translation code. This has been fixed. 2. Game Menu would cause a bool renpy.get_screen not subscriptiable. I reconfigured the Game Menu screen to stop that error.

There would be some issue if I did not do this (such as the change the to main menu music ;) The chapter is still not visable, but all I have to do soundtrack it and debug any remaining problems. So in a few days.:)

An exception report had "aida" key not found when using a function meant to get the name. So, the following was done: [olist]

The Replay presentation doesn't look different, but some of the functions in the background did change. In long replays, it will skipping over scenes. There was also content filter issues and more. This fixes that.

This was a typo on my part for the Long Replay (where the replay screen goes to show scenes to start with). This has been fixed by changing it to Preparing (which is the actual name of the segment;)). Also changed how the top of the Replay menu works so that when you exit any replay, it will stay on the replay menu you selected (Prologue, Part 1, Part 2).

The last update showed a redo of how the replays worked. However, something happened between when I tested it (and got it working) and pushed it out. This will fix that.:)

• That has been fixed if you have been getting Unlock exception screens.
• I have updated the gallery code to fix some issues, and now it should work as well if not better.:)
• I have two issues to resolve before releasing Eldritch Effect (segment title). Need to get all scenes properly soundtracked, and replays work as intended.

I have updated Renpy to the latest fixes to remove. I have not run into any errors with these, but..;) Also, removed a Function() from the Content Setting screen since Gallery is updated when it is called. This Function() in the screen was an attempt to get it to refresh based on NSFW and Content Warning settings. :)

Okay, the VN should work as intended now.

Bad Build

Bios/Gallery have been redone.

Bria's Irish Translator

I initially wanted to break up RPYC files into different RPA files. However, somehow, inline_condition is not making it in (useful for when I need to alternate dialogue without a bunch of if-thens of the same thing. Fewer translations as well. :) Hopefully, this fixes some glitches that have been happening.

I...don't know what happened. I was playing the VN on Steam to check if something was just me or if it was in Steam as well, and I was seeing a lot of missing animations on Steam. Apparently, I did not upload animation_part1.rpa somehow. It has been uploaded and this will fix that issue. My apologies for this mess-up.

[olist]

I thought I had fixed this, but apparently it reverted. This would cause a crash when Ben is speaking to Aida. It is now fixed.

There were numerous bug fixes, and I didn't write them down this time. However, I ran through the scenes and addressed any exception screens. The major changes made were script-related:

• Redid Bria's accent translator. Before, I had several dictionaries for each language. I made it one dictionary and used the Ren'py Translation system to replace the strings. I also used this type of thing in another dictionary I used to translate things. The result is the translations end up in the TL folder. Since Fire of Life: New Day uses deferred Translation loading, it will only load one language simultaneously. This makes the visual novel open quicker; the more I let it go based on that, the better. :)
• The other purpose of redoing Bria's accent is to put it in her text as well. You do not see it since I don't currently release the rpy files, but it was bc "[bria.flag]" which is terrible for troubleshooting.;) So BriaSpeak("Ya Ya Ya") tells me what the dialog is. IT also helps with translations because bc "[BriaSpeak('ya ya ya')!t]" has since Renpy 8.1 (I believe) been able to translate Python functions with a return of a value as a string.:)
• Split the defines.rpa up into translations, scenes, and defines. If there is something I need to fix it the defines, that is an 873KB download rather than 10-12MB each time.:)

A style was written as "frmae" rather than frame, which would cause an error in Class. This has been fixed.

There were issues with the build (both new and some that had been there for a while without my notice). So, I sat down, reviewed things, and fixed exception screens and glitches.

• Replays would play once and not again until restart. I changed the code to create a temporary list, so it is not going based on the main list of scenes.
• Andrei Prologue Subway Katia Scene looked weird after exiting the selection screen. There was code in there to address a problem a previous version of Renpy had. After that got updated, it started acting weird, so I removed the code to make it look smoother.
• Bria's Accent translation produced key errors. I have checked these and made sure they work properly.
• Unknown Text Tag: This is a case where I had forgotten to make something a f-string, so it read the {x} and like like a text tag. This has been fixed.
• Madison Kitchen Prologue sex video would flicker. This was due to the color of the start image (what shows while the video prepares to play) being a lighter color than the video. This has been fixed.
• Key error for Replays with Madison Apothecary scenes. There was a typo in the list, and that has been fixed.
• Josh and Eric d2 Sex scene produced an error. This was due to an outdated code I wrote. It has been removed.

There was a case where the variable was not appropriately defined to call the scene. That has been fixed, and I have changed how I have called those items by going from .format() to f-strings (the latter being the currently accepted practice post-Python 3.6 from what I have read). The purpose of me doing that was because: "{} \n {}".format(somevariable,somevariabl2) is less readable than f"{{somevariable} \n {somevariable2}" :) Meaning, it helps me avoid some mistakes.:)

I had redesigned how I did my achievements in the code. The achievement.register was getting long, so I wanted to break it down by sections and loop achievement.register. However, I missed a few in doing that. Those have been added back in and should now work properly.:)

Renpy 8.3.3

Tori combat mini-game

There was a point in the scene where Bria shows up to the Darling Moonshine the first time, A Fire Changelin'? was missing a ? and caused a key error. That has been fixed. Also cleaned upo utdatedcode.

There was a label that was not completely filled in and it would crash during Dealing. That has been fixed.

• The Preparing chapter had an "int, not iterable" bug. That has been fixed. I rewrote that code so it would accomplish the same thing without running into that issue.
• The Replay function has been wonky for a bit, so I went through and fixed it. TLDR: There is only one replay label that it will go to and direct traffic from there. ;)

[olist]

I made some changes to some of the pages so they will look a little more fluid (like two blocks below a row being centered rather than on the left. I also added translations for the Long Replay screen (the label, more specifically).

There were more errors. So I deleted my persistents, and made sure I took care of them.:)

The sex Gallery on the Extra page has been updated (and fixed). It had been accidentally leaked in the previous fix. I thought it looked a bit eh, with only 3 on one page and several on others. So, I went based on the character it is for.:)

Somewhere, got put into a splash screen "screen" to put the relevant information into a persistent. I have changed it to the correct variable, which should go now. This is important for new players because it changes the Over18 variable, so it does not show again after saying Yes. Also corrected a few sentences with Tobias and Dee in the Crime Scene and Parking Lot occurance.

Added sound to the video loops and fixed any issues I ran into when going through them. also updated Renpy to 8.3.1 to fix any engine related issues.

This week, I completed the Madison Night 2 segment. I started on a few scenes, but I felt a disconnect in my head. So, as a mini-break, I am working on adding sounds to the rest of the hot scene animations. In the next couple of days, I will release those updated scenes. I am also testing to ensure my change does not cause weird behavior. Long story short: When I did the first animation with sound on the web, I had to do it a little differently when it got to the screen, where you could change the angles or hear two soundtracks rather than one. Later, I changed it to its own label that can be called to play it correctly. In the next mini-update, I will set all the videos to that label so it plays the video correctly, does not play double sounds (basically, Renpy playing two of the same video at the same time), and works smoothly. However, in one scene, I noticed a glitch that was easily solvable. I just have to make sure other scenes with these videos don't have the same problem.:)

I tried consolidating the "transition" (A little Later). However, it wasn't working when changing languages, so I reverted. :)

Fixed instances where dialogue did not display properly.

Preview of a Scene :)

Bug Fixes

Enhancement

Dev Log

The replay that was broken up into blocks kept going to Fangs and Claws (or something). I added a code to check if a replay is one of the ones that separates into blocks. Now, it works as intended. :) I apologize for the inconvenience.

There were some gaps in the translations that I did. I also cleaned up some obsolete translations and code.

[olist]

I had a typo in the tooltip for the Swimming Mini Game. That had been corrected and should show just fine.

Not a major bug fix, but I did redid how I am doing tooltips for the Story Guide. The method I was using was messy and prone to introduce bugs. I made a change to remove that kind of mess.:)

Same with Gallery and Chapters, I had change the system to add the content without restarting Renpy.

[olist]

In some circumstances, you will get an exception in Darling Moonshine with "no key". Set up a few setdefaults to make sure if you have not run into it, it will set it as false. It will be changed later when you review the related content.:)

Darling Moonshine Released

Renpy 8.3

New Chapter/Replay Windows

Galleries should be updated more frequently.

Added a new font to help with some readability (let me know if this is fine or if you have other suggestions)

[olist]

I finished the images yesterday for the next segment. Now, it is time to translate, make replays, put the gallery up, etc. :) I hope to have it out no later than two weeks.

Bug Fix

Renpy 8.3

"New" Menu

Here is the the Darling Moonshine final main screen (well the SFW version). There are total of 4 stories (Matt, Tori, and Cayla will be combined into the same segment). As I am doing a segment based on location this time, I wanted to break it up somehow so it would not change character every 5 seconds and concentrate on one for a duration. Lucia is involved in this scene, but she will appear in different stories (Constance and Cayla specifically). :) Bria and Eric: Done. Kei: Mostly done, just a few ends to tie up. Constance: I think it is mostly done. Cayla, Tori, and Matt: Doing that right now.:)

Ran through the segments to catch exceptions.

• Corrected Spacing in Text during the Night 1 Vampire "The Dungeon" scene with Kathy.
• Corrected an issue if you do not remove all items from Kathy, it would give an exception.
• Corrected an Image for Emily Punishment selection.
• Corrected an issue in D2 Classes where selecting all three werewolves will cause an key exception of '3'
• Corrected an issue When Bria tells Rebecca what she does (positional argument).

[olist]

Still working on the Darling Moonshine scenes for Night 2. Yes, I am likely going to re-render the room for shadows under their feet once I get all the characters in, but so far I have been working on Bria/Eric, Constance, and Kei. Similar to the classroom scene, you can click on them to play their story. Done for the most part:

• Bria and Eric's scenes for Darling Moonshine.

• Kei scenes
• Constance Scenes (need an aftermath scene for what she sees during the completed portion).

• Matt and Tori scenes.

Some grammar fixes noted in the dialogue have been fixed.

I will be looking for more items that might have "textbox" because the text looks out of alignment 90% of the time. I rarely use the textbox and use a special character called "cap" to get a caption box. ;)

1. There was a bug where 'bio' or 'biology' was not found. Fixed it. 2. If you skipped Bria and Reb sex scene in night one, bria would appear nude. Fixed the typo that caused it, and now Bria appears with her tank top on.

In Bria's prologue, there is an exception screen when she is talking to her mom. I found the cause and fixed it.

I just finished a large scene with Eric and Bria at the Darling Moonshine. :) A few more scenes, and I will then focus on the other characters' scenes at that location. This scene will allow you to see Bria or Rhia (Bria's fae side) and more interaction between Eric and Neil that shapes the story's future. Before this, I had completed a scene for the Vampire story that answers some questions about the "Men of Sin" :) I'm still chugging along with the coding and the rendering. :)

Previously, it would go to biology no matter what. I changed the scenes before, but for some reason, I did not do it in the controller for that sex gallery scene. It is now fixed. If you select Art, Art will play first.

Somehow, that scene got erased from Replays. Added it back in.

There was a problem with how Katia in the Apartment scene in night one animations were working, so recoded them. Also fixed one animation that was flicking a black screen.

A list of few of the bugs fixed:

• SFW images shown instead of NSFW - Now, NSFW and SFW will show appropriately.
• Content Tags weren't applied correctly (the version of the image depending on filter) fixed.
• Steam Achievement Must be a string error fixed.
• "does not accept attribute of idle" fixed.
• Button missing images in Sex Videos fixed.
• D2 Eric Dorm Morning not giving correct achievement fixed.
• Constance and Benni Scene may hit a Key error '6' or something: fixed.

The latest release (0.48s) has some issues in previous chapters. I am going to go through them this week and fix any bugs that occur.

A few bugs:

• Stopped the bio images from squeeshing together by making the container a little wider.
• The bugs that causes an exception after deciding if you want to change Tori's name to a shorter version has been fixed.
• Bug in the hospital where Tony asks Madison what she does and it comes up with an exception screen has been fixed (typo).
• Fixed a bug in the first Madison sex scene in Ascent from Hell where it would always show Facials. It now shows what you choose.

The select for Base Image and Day 1 image was on the left, but it was covered by the navigation bar. So I set it to the right. :)

This was a typo on my part. It has been fixed and should not cause the game to crash. :)

Adjusted the Extra Menu to suit the five languages the visual novel is in.

Upon testing reconfigured things (like the Content filter), I noticed that both the Chinese and Japanese versions of the Extra menu had no navigation. That has been fixed. Also, redid some of the content filter functions so that it does not immediately leave the Settings screen when changing NSFW and Content Warning while in the game. I also made menus for screens to give a more consistent look.

Change a few menus to screens for a better look (similar to what I Have done to other menus). When selecting Long Replay Scene (when you click on a replay and another screen pops up), the hover background now works. Fixed a misspelling and a few translations.

I could've sworn I changed the scene name for some images, but those are now fixed. Also, changed the Aida motel scene (both of them) to fit a tone.

This function allows you to hide the interface within the gallery system (uses the same key as everywhere else). However, I did not include the Translations. Now, this fixes that.

In the process of redoing the gallery, there were some bugs I fixed. I can't remember them off the top of my head at the moment. A few things about the gallery before: In order for me to put a gallery image up, I would need to make a few different entries, and more than once I had gotten "button not found". The allievate that (and other frustrations of the Renpy Gallery system, I made a special screen to do the same job based on dictionaries and such. You may notice that the "count" has gone down and most of the nudes do not appear. That isn't the case. I combined quite a few of them to lower the number of pages since a lot of them were sfw/nsfw variations of the same scene. :) I am planning on taking a Daz Studio break (for a few days anyways) and work on some things in the script to adding additional content a little easier to avoid potential "can't find" bugs.

Version 0.48s has been released:

• "Preparing" Storyline Segment in Part 2.
• Modified the Gallery with pagination.
• Bug Fixes.
• New UI interface with Clothed, Nude, and Sexy as options except for the main menu.

Just a quick update.

• All Principle artwork has been done for "Prepare".
• Translations has been done.
• Replay and Sex Gallery updated.
• Interface work has been done.

• A few more gallery images.
• Add new achievements and images to those.
• Fix a sound issue with two of the videos.

For some reason, the script file didn't save. So, now sync is active. :)

It turns out it was something I did in development (for a split second), and it got caught in my achievement list as None. When Renpy sends the list, both expect strings (the API name of the Achievement), so this caused the problem. However, it was only a problem with my system. I have fixed the issue on my dev copy, so there aren't any issues. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Change where the notification is so it does not dinge every time it is called. In the script, there is the part that checks to ensure you do not have the achievement already and then grants it. However, I originally put the notify where it would sync every time. To avoid bothersome notifies, I put it in the same portion that checks before granting, so it will only play if you do not have the achievement.

I don't know if Renpy or Steam is causing the issue, but it will throw a "no encode" error screen if Fire of Life and Steam Client run simultaneously and try to sync. It has been reported to Renpy developers to see what the issue might be. In the mean time, the sync part has been temporarily disabled. The visual novel will still grant them.

Still working on the story, but: [olist]

Meant to post this yesterday but life caught up. :) A few things:

• 3 more images for Duo, and then I work on the Trio Set (and hope I don't take as long on those ;))
• When I cannot focus on creating new images, I adjust older images (from Source PSD) to match the tone.
• Adjusting some UI elements as well.
• I managed to re-render one series of animations (the Subway Snacktern one) to get the tone and also add sound effects. I did this with a few other animations as well. So when the update does come, it might be a big one because it will be new and updated content.

Progress was slow this week. One part was due to a personal life incident, but another was due to Daz Studio acting erratic. Removed the plugin that was causing it after discovering it, and the pace picked up. However, in between, I did some work for the main menu and came up with this as a final. Went with darker colors for a tone, and the main menu buttons on the bottom were an attempt to make it look cleaner. :) (Don't worry about the 'a' or the 'beta'. I try not to switch branches unless I am working on a bug fix that affects things. :)

I am nearly done with the Duo scene in the gym, and had trouble focusing on the screen coding. So, I decided to do something to give my mind a break. For awhile, I have been considering updating the main menu a little bit. The above image is a draft and subject to change. ;)

Currently working on a scene that involves the three werewolves and Kimmy. It does add some complexity because it will be available if at least one of them do not have remorse for how they acted the day before. :) Right now, I am finishing up the single portion, and then going for duo and trio version of the sex scene. :)

I had not put in a substitution bracket for how labels are called in tori.day1, and had to change the name (and make other suitable changes) to get dev lily 03 to work (as well as 1 and 2)

A bug issued on discord. I typed in end_replay with renpy.end_play(), which caused the "end_replay() not defined".

Day 2 Prepare progress.

The ButterFly Mini-Game

Fae Appearances

Fun with steam

Consolidating some choices into new dictionaries

If you click on the Long Replay button where Madison goes on a lunch break, it will repeat the scene before moving on. Rewrote this Replay section for that chapter so that doesn't occur.

[olist]

• Updating Renpy to the released version of Renpy 8.2. This will help with potential bugs that Renpy may have had, and also took care of some conflicting properties that may cause problems in the future.
• Removed some orphan translations to avoid any potential issues in the future.

I change the JPGs that I used for start images. Basically, FFMPEG (that does the video) can take a bit to decode, so the jpg was able to show something rather than a blank black screen. I change to AVIF to get an accurate count of images without too much issues. ;) However, I also fixed a bug where the last scene for Dee played at certain points during that chapter. This was caused by an if that should have been an elif. That has been changed, and now that should play as normal.

If you play Day 1 Bria replay..it seems to repeat at points. For some reason, I did not delete the Jumps I was using in the previous method. Those jumps have been removed, and now should play as normal. The names on some chapter boxes were not correct. Fixed the issue there.

The part about "Locked Images" in the previous small update...I did not put it in the Steam branch for some reason. Now, that fix in there.

An issue I found while troubleshooting the previous one: Some galleries would show even when "images were added", And since I changed the gallery image listing dictionary, I have changed it to see if a persistent is true. This keeps the "locked" images out of the screen to make it look a little cleaner. Not sure why Lucia (0/7) still shows up at the moment.

What was suppose to happen: 1. Check to see if you saw a label. 2. If True, try to add a missing gallery image. However, this wasn't working. So I change that to changing the related persistent to True. :)

A few changes:

• "Dealing" Storyline. Similar to Classes, this focuses on a particular theme. This focuses on Tony dealing with certain psychological things with his patients, Aida dealing with what happened the previous night and what it means to Emily, and Dee and Tobias working on the Men of Sin crimewave.
• This uses Renpy 8.2.0.
• You will see a number after 0.46s.xxxx, which is the build time. I am expertimenting with this to let it be the minor version (or when I build a version or fix) to avoid forgetting to do it. :)

As noted, I had merged what I was developing for the next segment into Main and pushed it to Steam. However, I had forgotten to add gallery.rpa, so some of those ugly error messages were showing up as thumbnail. That is now fixed. There should be 4 that are locked. and will be unlocked when I release "Dealing" and you play through it.:) Made a backend change to how the Gallery runs. This makes it easier for me to add them on without unnecessary data. :)

In the process of working on the latest segment, there were some fixes I have made: [olist]

If your language is set to None for some reason, it would cause problems with the recent update. So I put a code in there that if your language is not in the known_languages (at least for Fire of Life, and None is excluded from that list), it will switch it to english (not the way the doc preferred me doing it but..). Hopefully, this resolves that issue.

Part of the problems lately has been this variable. I made a default so it always has a value, and not None. ;)

This is attempting to fix init things. Usually if you get an error with "game_menu_ doesn't exist, something else is going on. However, I investigated the code and removed parts of it that not relevant anymore I believe.

When you went to look at a gallery (Bria for instance), an exception screen came up and showed tempCount didn't have count. I took care of this error.

The fixes yesterday we not updating the gallery when an image is added. So, I put it in locked images to help solve that problem.

My solution for some of the items was the default the gallery locks. Unfortunately, I missed one or two. This resolves that.

There were a few errors, and fixed them so it displays correctly. ;)

Ok, there was one more part of code I didn't see. TLDR: I had to reinstall Windows, so I opened Fire of Life as if I had no persistents. Corrected the issue that stopped it at the screen, and should now show the language screen.

In some cases, there is an init that tries to change the language from None to 'english'. Unfortunately, that caused a problem with "none type" so removed it.

I have been relatively quiet for a bit. Sure, there were those small updates, but...:) For the last month or so, I have been experiencing issues (health related) that made it challenging to focus. I am feeling a little better in that regard now (at least my typing doesn't look like I faceplanted on the keyboard, which is the other half of why I didn't write too much before). I am trying to finish this one scene as soon as possible so I can get to the next one. I had been stuck on this scene for a couple of weeks because of the above mentioned reasons. ;) The image above with Bria posing was my attempt to break the "creative" block caused by my health and get the wheels rolling...which more or less it is. :) Thank you for your patience. :)

Somehow in the Content Settings page, I wrote function instead of Function. That has been corrected.

I am still working on content for the next segment, but I have been seeing areas where I can improve the code. The biggest one were the lint errors. For example, there was one where Renpy would not reach a function call because I accidently put it in the wrong place, and it could cause a problem.

Prior to this, you can click on a flag and it will change the language. However, it would go back to the greyscale. Added the necessary code for it to know which one was selected, but also what to display when selected.

Replays involving Aida (and the one in Demon and Mage that is the last scene was playing after the first one in replay...weird. Anyways, fixed.)

[olist]

If you play the English language and turn Bria's accent off, there were blocks. What was happening was it was loading the Japanese dictionary for Bria was saying (which requires Japanese to be set to load that font). I have corrected the issue so the right dictionaries are being set.

I fixed some of the cosmetic issues that the translations have caused, and also made an "english" translation file. Long story short: The bubbles rely on Translation ID (if you are familiar with Renpy inner workings, it is how it replaces certain things. Change the text, it makes a new id.) However, making that new id means I would have to make sure all the bubbles are right, and that...is a hassle. However, using the English "Translation", it keeps the bubbles in place, which was help in adjusting things. I added an init that if you are currently using Language None (which is what the base script uses), it will switch you over to English and that will be all set. ;)

I am aware of issues that occur in the English (or None) with the text, especially one I made bold. i am currently working on a fix.

A few more items were found and addressed. :)

Issues in the common.rpy caused certain features (like Screenshots) to throw errors, and the Save Files didn't have the right information showing.

After a few weeks, I have translated (to the best of my ability) to four languages. These will likely be improved in the future, but it should suffice for the moment in Early Access.:) Also added some new screens for menus.:) Fixed a few bugs from the galleries (some images were not appearing).

A short log: Right now, I am going through each scene and screen to make sure that:

• the translated text fits in the bubbles,
• something that didn't translate (I didn't do a _(), or something) On top of that, made some changes to reduce the number of text menus where it made sense to do so.:) Replaced it with imagebuttons that depicts what it is asking. ;) Why I said where it makes sense: There are some cases where it is overkill to make a screen when Menu does the job.:)
  
  [ 2023-11-13 01:20:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Well, for Day 2 at least. If you had it on and played classes, you might have gotten "Key Errors". I found those while trying to translate. TLDR: All translation of Bria's accent into other languages will go back on the filter (what changes it from accented text to plain old english). So, got a lot of those, and fixed them. Right now, I am working on French, but once I am done with that...a lot of rest will be making sure things appears correctly rather than reconfiguring the script to do certain things. ;)

Right now, I am currently working on Translations and getting them to work properly. :) At this point, I nearly got all of them in a Best Effort Translation (Machine), and will probably redo them at later time for a more ACCURATE translation.:)

There was a report where the "Change Name" achievement fired off without changing the name. Fixed it that it will only fire if you click on the textbutton to confirm the new name.

Similar to the bug I patched earlier. I took a look to see what else had been eric. and fixed those.

I had changed some variables to a dictionary to easily count. However, I somehow missed an if statement, so it was bypassing the scene itself. That has been fixed, and I will doublecheck in a bit to make sure other scenes work as needed.

I somehow couldn't spell concepts for a brief moment. That has been fixed. I have added something to the moment when Neil says something about Bria and there is a button "Stop Neil Comments". How much patience Eric has affects his bond with Bria, and having it go all the way isn't that bad of thing. I will elaborate storywise why later, but figure I would give that heads up. For starters, Bria is not defenseless...she is fire! :) I will elaborate on this narratively later.:)

I am going to delay my attempt at translating what is currently there by at least a week. The reason is I am ill and I am not concentrating as well as I could. This makes me miss things, so I will hold off on it for a week while the remedy tries to resolve the issue.:)

Andrei, Bria, Eric, Cayla, Kei, Matt, and Tori head off to class! This story also elaborates why Bria and Eric act the way they do when in proximity to each other (a supernatural reason) . A few changes:

• New Initiate Screen: That scene with Lily and Fio when you click on Begin. I have moved that to the splashscreen section, and use that for initial set ups and a brief tutorial. That way when you click on Begin, you are going right to the chapter window.
• Continue Button: This will load the last save. I am keeping the Load button (for now) if you have you have another save you want to load.
• Main Menu button (both in Game Menu and the Chapter Screen): This will create a quicksave before you fully exit. This will cooperate with the Continue Button.
• Also changed the Chapter screen a bit. The top bar (Prologue, Part 1, Part 2) makes it easier to switch without doing a "Next Page" mechanicism.

Storyline content is done. Right now, I am working on a few things: [olist]

A few updates. [olist]

I know I missed last week, but I have been busy with creating content. TLDR: Pollen count has been really high in my area, and been trying to get through the rendering while enduring significant sinus headaches. Part 2 will work a little differently than Prologue and Part 1. As noted by the image, Bria (fae), Andrei (vampire), Tori, and Cayla (mage) are involved, and on the other side of the Room Kei is sitting near Eric. Integrating the stories as they fit best by what going on overall. English class: Done. Art Class: In progress Biology: Will do that after art And there will be a few in-between scenes, and the chapter I am labeling (currently) Classes will have it content complete.

Right now, I am working on Part 2 (or Day 2) that continues where Part 1 leaves off. I am going to handle this a little differently. For example, the first chapter will be Classes, which will have related characters who are in the school attending classes. There will be a moment in the beginning where you can select to play a lead-up scene for Bria, Andrei, Tori and Cayla, and Kei and Matt (currently working on Kei and Matt and will do Cayla and Tori). Also taking care to make sure choices that were made in Part 1 impact Part 2. :)
Including how naughty a certain redhead is...:)

When you hover over the Demon and Mage, it is giving the image of the Council. I thought I got everything when I built the original 38, but. However, I have added a hover image that is reflective of this chapter.

Except for the look of the Chapters menu, a lot of the changes aren't visable. :) So, Part 2 is going to have least one chapter where it is necessary to see 4 of 5 of part 1. :) So I restructured the JSON file to account for that, and made sure it works. Also made sure the Replay menu had the same thing done. 2 differences on the screen: [olist]

For some reason, the thing I use to mark a chapter completion (complete with Notify) wasn't there for Demon and Mage. So I added it, and also put in code that if you have seen the Dee Home scene (the last one), it will add that in.

I noticed that the number of images unlocked was wrong, and there were some other issues (images not opening, wrong image opening, etc). These have been fixed.

There was a few bugs: [olist]

Fire of Life v. 38 Demons and Mages

Enhancements

Bio filters:

New Pics for Bios:

Somehow, the image definition that I had for the first image in Amy's gallery got..deleted. Fixed it so it looks as it should.

Usually try to do this on Sunday, but dealing with a loss of a family member as well. While keeping busy helps me process things, it also makes me forget to do things. I will be fine...eventually. In any case, I am down to just doing a few more gallery images and a final bug check. So, the Demon and Mage chapter should be released within the week. I will be sending out a small update in a few minutes to address Amy's gallery glitch.

I have one more scene to (and quick one at that) left to do for this chapter. Just getting my motivation up to do it. ;) TLDR: I just finished a scene with Madison and Cayla that had alternate clothing options I needed to render. So brain is a little...off. ;) Also coming up, I am planning to enhance the bio/character profile a little. When you reach a certain point in each character story, it will give you an additional bio pic that you can select and it will stay that way unless you delete persistent. Here is one of them:
This will conclude Part 1...and I will move onto Part 2 shortly after that ;)

There were some entries that were merging into others. This was the result of me using vpgrid, which assumes the same size grids as all. Changed it to viewport and used vbox so the different size text areas will stack neatly on top of each other. :)

If I have been quiet, I do apologize. Outside the fact I am normally quiet, I had been ill the last few weeks with sinuses causing holy havoc. But I still try to get some work done.
You might recall her appearing in the Madison and Tori prologue...briefly. Morrigan (Celtic goddess, not to be confused with Dragon Age :)) was one character I thought "Maybe a brief appearence to introduce Cayla, and ... Then came the idea of her making an appearence in the same gym Tori and Cayla practiced in. :) Thinking some mother-daughter interactions to help work through their issues for the greater good. :) As of right now (with Prologue and Part 1 and some left overs of Part 2 I am going to rework):

• Number of AVIF images (main image format for this VN): 2,167
• Number of Webp (Secondary and often used where AVIF doesn't work out well): 188
• Number of WebM (movie animation): 146

One didn't have a $renpy.end_replay and continued playing even though (The Dungeon) it was at the end of that scene. Another would end too soon (Katia at the apartment).

I misspelled Available (missing the L) somehow, and it would crash when going into Supernatural part of the Lore. Spelling now correct, and should not cause that exception screen.

Working on Madison's lunch break. :) For those who played the original one: As you might notice, the scenery is different. The main reason: I wanted plenty of space to get camera angles in without worrying about walls (I know I can make them invisible, but when multiple things are attached...I tend to forget to make them reappear). That would not be such a problem for stills, but would be for multiple animations. ;) A little preview without showing TOO much, both the bathroom and the prologue adult scenes are progressive. Meaning you can select on the first option (the left) and it will give you the option to go through all three scenes. Not that complicated to program, but does require me to render transition scenes (which isn't an issue). Right now, I am primarily focusing on the Madison scenes because I have a clear vision of what I want to show. Expanding the Tori and Cayla scenes, I am workshopping it around. ;) Also, the person Ryan works for (Dee) also has scenes I will doing as well. You might not have ran into Dee because she originally appeared in Day 2. However, doing a bit of intro work before she appears for that scene. ;)

The fix I did for the Menu...it made the scene loop. Fixed that.

So I had something set to guide you to the prologue if it isn't playing. However, it created an exception screen about parameters lists. I have fixed that.

The way it was before: It would sync (maybe) when the Fire of Life loaded up, but not when you received the Achievement. This patch fixes that so it will sync with Steam the moment the achievement been granted.

If any who are not in the Playtest and are interested, let me know and I will open the applications again. If you are in the Playtest, once I get something resembling a scene done, I will push it to the Playtest area. With that said, there is no rest for the weary. :) The first scene I am working on is the Madison bakes scene. Originally, this was at the end of Night 1 but I am moving it to the beginning of this chapter, adding a little prologue involving the house Madison lives in now, and a little discussions of Succubi in context of the story. ;) The above is a fresh render with nice glowy eyes. ;)

When you get to the screen that replays animation: The first button would end animation, and the second one would idle with Madison. I have gone through what controls that and made sure all the names are correct. :)

Not sure if the Nightly Fixed caused any issues..but..

Fangs and Claws has been released on next page after the prologue. Both Andrei and Keis prologue link to the same chapter. Two months, but did two character worth of a chapter I believe. Some fixes and refinements were also put in. The Window 32-bit version is on hold until I figure out a way to do it with Renpy.

Above is Lucia relaxing after going through the Story for Fangs and Claws. ;) Right now, the majority of it is done. Just got some gallery images to do, check for bugs, and such. It should release next week. ;)

From the scene I am currently working on. Got significant segments of that scene done, but right now working on animations. Those take a little longer, but more importantly, takes some concentration. Concentration I do not always have due to a back injury, but I am progressing the best I can. :) Once I am done with this scene, there are two scenes left. One is big and the other is smaller. The big one involves Alex (Kei's brother) in a makeshift camp that explores werewolves in that region, and the other involves a small Darling Moonshine scene. Once those are done, I will be doing gallery images, checking for codex entries, updating the chapter's UI, and such (those shouldn't take nearly as long). After that and a check for noticeable bugs, it will be released. It will be a significant update at (currently) 97MB. There was some re-use of images, but they were converted from the base .psd to avif. Since webp can be lossy, I always keep the psd files stored and monitored. Going from Webp to Avif is a risk because it is compressing a compressed file, which means more quality loss. But there were a couple re-renders to match previous scenes. For example, Kei going through the woods..it would not make sense for her to go with boots and hose, so took them off. However, the warehouse scene: she had them on. For continuity, I did this:
IMO, It looks atmospherically better. :) The Shifters and Vampires chapter will be called "Fangs and Claws" to represent both species. I do appreciate everyone's patience's while I work through these scenes. ;)

The last animation settings for the bathroom scene with eric and michelle got messed up (including a missing jpg). Other changes may not be as noticeable because they are addressing lint errors for text tags still work correctly.

Working on some Lint errors (nothing major..just an eyesore for me), I ran into things missing in previous chapters. I am going to go through them and fix those issues, and issue a bug fix hopefully tomorrow if not today.

I did the same thing to the Game Menu as I did the main menu. Now both show the display Extra if using the demo.

Removed one of the If statements to hide the Extra menu option in the main menu. There is still one there so it doesn't appear in the demo (doesn't have galleries and certain features). This seemed to most expedient way to resolve an issue with things looking the same going from demo to full.

I have finished redoing the Vampire Dungeon scene for Day 1. The set I had used in the previous one was...ok. However, I found a set that had a much better feel, and didn't just repeat the "Grand Inquisition" dungeon I had used for Andrei Prologue and The Council chapter. Also finished a scene that explains the mech that was in the previous version (and still in this. When I have a chance to use a large creature like the Deathstalker, I will use it to tell a story ;)) Now, I am going to work the Lucia portion of the backstory. Up to now, you have seen her briefly in Kei's prologue and Andrei's prologue. I did this intentionally so I could have an opportunity to flesh her out a little more..which I am going to do now. ;)

Someone said "Isn't there enough women?" Well...there is always more. :) Here is a character I am introducing in the Vampire storyline. Related to Lucia...and will give a little more details about her type. Hint: Dria (pictured) does have a pulse, and she drinks blood. ;) The undead are a type of vampire true, and I do cover them. However, the strictest definition of vampire is a being who feeds off human essences (i.e. blood). They don't have to be dead to do that, which goes into a little more lore from around the world. :)

Somehow, there was a problem with the bubbles when Emily causes an eruption. Fixed it.

There was a bug that would not show the correct images if you had content warning. Adjusted it and now the correct image shows.

Still working on sex scene. This one had a choice of who is involved, and I decided to add four choices (with unique personalities). I am working on the third one, and then the fourth. However, rather than reiterate those through Kei (working with Matt)...I am going to repurpose a scene I did from before. There will be an in-story reason explained. This particular scene has been a little daunting. One part because trying to work through it the last two weeks with constant headaches (unrelated to rendering, but the headache didn't help with trying to do them. :)) In other news.... I plan to figure out how Daz to Unreal works. So far, I have gotten the "Daz had a fatal exception". However, I am going to go step by step manually sometime in the future and explore it. Why? Iray is nice and all. Really. But...it seems to make me say "Feck Daz and Nvidia" quite often. So I want to learn some new tools to accomplish things. I am uncertain when the transition will be complete, but I will let everyone know. :) I might even do hybrid approach if I find something I can do in Daz Studio and not in Unreal (unsure if I will find anything.).

Somehow in the scene where Bria needs to make a choice between watching Rebecca or returning the favor, there were three watches. I added the appropriate conditions so only one shows up. :)

If you played the demo and starting the game for the first time in the paid version, it will show the new chapters because you have seen the label. I will leave that in for the time being, but it may be removed in a major update (or 2).

The Demo carries over the saved data via cloud, but no persistents were being set. Also, changed the prologue persistent to unlock The Council. Shouldn't notice much of a change.

Removed the persistent for Kitsune Torment and Ascent from Hell for the Next Button on the Chapters screen. This will prevent the next button appearing if you only play Andrei, Kei, Madison, and Tori's prologues. I will add them back in when I finish the related segments.

The way it previous read, it did sound like ONLY the prologue was complete. I have noted which Part 1 (chapter 1) will be on page 2..and indicate where to click to go there. Also made the bottom menu bar on the chapters screen a little more visible. Again, thanks for any feedback I can get to improve things. :)

I believe in the process of creating the storyguide, I may have not spelled the function all the way through. I doublechecked to make sure there was only one instance it. This will resolve the issue.

A screenshot from one of the scenes I am working on. After going through the Council, figure I would do a little about shifter life. Also, working on a response to what happened in Kei's prologue. ;) Also considering doing a little bit of Andrei's life as well as delve into Vampires. Give a little more context on who is living the town. ;) Part of the reason is to give a fuller chapter since some things don't happen until nightfall (Vampires). Additionally, it will start "combining" the story a little bit since a few of them work together (Like Cayla, Tori, and Lucia).

1. Corrected which key is used for the translations to not create that exception. 2. Also redid how it gets the unique wording. May adjust in the future with the word bubbles.

I put: day1.fioanswers instead of day1.fioanswersfirst, which is what caused the exception in Kei prologue. Also, adjusted the name box for Tori in the Madison/Tori prologue. It is narratively suggested that a shorter name can be set later in the story...so just ask for the Long name ;)

You may see a "Turn this on" twice without any messages. [olist]

If you didn't have persistents from before, this error would come up. I have made a default for the variable in question and this fixes the issue. I apologize about this error as I do not recall deleting the default before I made this particular change.

I have added a Story Guide to the visual novel. When you launch, an option to turn it on and off will appear. Additionally, it can be turned on and off in the Content Settings.

You would get an exception if you went past the shower scene. This used to have something for solo animation and two animations (which this scene is). I have implemented that back in and it will now work. There is a new feature coming "Story Guide" to help figure which occurs with achievements and what affects future events. I am currently through Emily prologue, Eric Day 1 and Eric Prologue. It will take me a little bit to implement this, but wanted to get this bug fixed asap.

S was missing from the version name, which will mess with the Steam Achievement granting.

V 0.36s The Council

Renpy Improvements

JSON Support

Version. rpyc

Bugs

Beta made it into the names. So, I fixed it. What I will likely do in the future (not today...I messed the code up enough;)) is make different rpy files for the different branches (steam, develop (beta), demo) ..so they have a unique define that have the correct name so I don't worry about it too much. :)

Disabled the access to "The Council" chapter. As I said, still working on it. However, it is getting close to completion.

[olist]

I will be honest and say I intended to send updates with different processes. One of them is changing over from having certain items stored in dictionaries to storing them in json files. The benefit? It loads when you start the game whereas I have to hope any changes refreshes. ;) However, what happen was: I am sick. Nothing major. Just between air quality being terrible at the moment and I have asthma. So some days are better than others. My biggest concern is on the day I am not so well I might code something that causes an error and not catch it. So with these changes, I am making sure they consistently work when I am able to pay total attention to it. So when I do release these item, I am not sending a swamp of bugs. :)

This week I had gone through all the dialogue (and still need to tweak some) and change them to Word Balloon (like Comic Books). I will add a switch in to go back to "adv" style (how it looks now). However, it is one of the features of Renpy 8.1 that I thought would make things stand out a little more (make it clearer who is talking..what their emotion in their tone is..etc). Working on a scene (well..trying to). I have been a little distracted the last day or so, which is a bad thing for any 3D program. :) So, I have spent a little bit of today transferring some information into JSON. Why? It was making the screens a little unwieldy the way I was doing it. Once these adjustments are done, tested, and working like it is supposed to, I will likely update the UI.rpa and defines.rpa and push it out. ;) emily day 1 is not ready yet, so don't want to push that content yet. Thanks for your patiences.:) Dana

Included in the Renpy 8.1, is word balloons/bubbles, which I think would be a nice and unique way to convey things. However, as I was going through the code (and there is some rewrites of it that will come out in a later patch), I noticed that even if Eric says "Go to practice" at the end of the dorm scene during the day...the Coffeestop scene still plays. There was a missing flag and that has been fixed. Now when you say "Got to go to practice" It goes to the first swim practice scene.

Upgraded the Renpy version to 8.1. Most images have been converted to AVIF to address some quality issues. Noticed a few bugs and patched. Most importantly in Bria Day 1 content where the SFW Bria image after returning the dorm is not shown.

When you run the Michelle Shower scene, it will error out with a positional argument. This particular sex gallery uses a label seperate from others (not doing that again...:)) that will play the relevant scenes (better way to do it, so I will do that next time..or fix it in the next content update). :) I apologize about that. I thought I caught all of them, but apparently this one slipped through.

Made some progress with the Council chapter. This also includes redoing three animations to match the thematic look. I am taking care in writing this section because not everyone in "The Council" is the bad guy. To logically explain that, as well as for them to function globally, there are autonomous branches that follow ideals. So that means one unit may behave differently, which I am stressing in this case.
If you played Fire of Life: New Day before I started restructuring the story, you might recall Aida. If you don't, she used to be under the employ of Ben as a scientist. She is still a scientist but restructured her as working for another branch. I hope this provides enough contrast. :)

So while working on the chapter with Emily, I went to review the image where her eyes glow. Then I notice that the shadows look..weird. To summarize my postwork process: I make "masks" for skin, hair, and clothes so I can make adjustments. I try to make sure I save the right PSD file with the masks so if I need to redo the images, it looks the same. Well..key word is try. For reason, I didn't save that file right and it was a bit dark so I didn't see the odd shapes until now. This fixes that.

I missed one sound effect name. I had changed it to female_moan_01 rather than femalemoan_01. I could've sworn I fixed this, but...missed one spot. Sorry about that. All of Andrei Snacktern options should play without a crash.

For some reason, Beta was in the build name.

This label was part of the old animation system before switching to Webm. I thought I had gotten to Josh scene, but... sorry about that.

Eric and Bria taking some R&R as I release this update...

Update 0.35.5

Eric Day 1

Previous Save Games

Animations:

Renpy 8.1

Size

Size of Game

Quality

Ability to Play

7.6

Apologies for the Silence

AV1

Yes, I had managed to test AV1 in the Nightly, and it seems to play well from that test. I even converted a WebM with VP9 to AV1, and it looked decent. So I will likely be converting videos once Renpy 8.1 is available. The goal for this is smaller file sizes while maintaining quality. Once 8.1 is released (or preleased) I will also get on converting the AVIF as well. :)

Who's Next?

After I am done with Eric, I am considering on going onto Emily (The girl who had a short prologue through the woods). I can be convinced otherwise, but here is my reason: The Council A lot of fantasy and urban fantasy stories have these. In terms of humans, it is usually a group of people who make sure regular humans don't know the supernatural exist. The Council has been mentioned briefly in the different chapters, so having one that goes a little more into detail will help the overall story. :)

[ 2023-03-31 04:05:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

I would be remiss if I didn't do a St. Paddy inspired image of Bria, so...:) Now that is out of the way. I am working on the Eric Day 1 content, and I got through first half of it. Now, I am working on the "Night 1" part of the segment. Only downside is I have been ill, so it has been slower this week than I would like. Right now, I am at the Swim Practice portion and expanding on that piece. Renpy 8.1 is at 91% on GitHub, so it is getting closer to release. ;) One of the promises is that AV1 video will be released there and it is supposed to be better than VP9 (a common codec used with WebM). I will probably test it soon, but my main concern is responsiveness. My goal when video play is to less delay when it start playing. AV1, from what I heard, can be a CPU intensive item unless you have a RTX 40xx GPU. So, need to test that. ;)

• In some cases, the Extra menu will not show even if you do play through a prologue scene. So, made it so it evaluates the flag for unlocking the extra menu regardless if a persistent flag exists.
• For some reason, the file for one of the long chapter thumbnails did not get replaced for Kei. Fixed.

I thought I had gotten all the animations right, but there was still one using the old method. This has been corrected.

[olist]

Obviously, I am going to do a new chapter, and I will focus on Eric at the moment (although there is a chance I might do one more for the update depending on how much work needs to be done. :) However, one thing I am noticing is the bloat of the visual novel. [olist]

• Emily Prologue will activate the Extra's menu.
• Bria and Lily's gallery gallery fixed so the "missing" images now show. :)

There were two bugs that prevented Bios from loading properly. These have been fixed. Also, made sure Andrei will end in the bios. :)

v.35 Bria Day 1 As the title suggests, the content will go from where you left off with Bria in the prologue to the end of day 1: [olist]

As far as I am aware, the content and code for Bria Day 1 is fine. However, doing some additional work:

Changing how Long Chapters are done in Replay.

Adding code to insert different Codex, Bio, and Gallery images as you move along.

The name change was happening, but there was a problem in the code that allow it to go with the name as is. This has been corrected.

If you use a custom name for a character, it would cause a crash in the gallery for not being able to find a key. I have fixed the problem.

The artwork for Bria Day 1 chapter is done. Right now I am debugging and refining things. A few things I want to address: [olist]

Somehow, someway..the beginning of Emily's prologue didn't have music (the songs were there) that has been resolved. Also put a note on the prologue page to clear up what's happening. Might do something with this page to indicate what to do.

As I was going through the process of preparing for AVIF conversion, I noticed the names of a Tori file that would result in a "Cannot file Error". This fixes that.

Noticed that in Extra menu and you click on return in the Bio of a single character, it will return away from the Extra menu. That has been fixed

Demo code got into this somehow.

There was a wrong hover image in a scene with bria and reb.

For some reason, Bria and Reb thumbnail ended up in there. Fixed it so only Andrei/Katia thumbnails are in there.

Added Sex Scene Gallery back

I did a little bit of the code so it would work better. Additionally, I had updated the file names so it can find the images (to avoid "Can't find images").

I had webp in the name, which Renpy cannot find files if I do that. Fixed. Also temporarily disabled sex gallery and cg gallery to get them working.

There was a typo in the name (I had thought I fixed, but it was still there...). It is now fixed.

There has been some missing file problems occuring. So, to resolve this: [olist]

[olist]

[olist]

So, there was a typo. I could've sworn I typed in a "or" in there, but it somehow got deleted. This puts it back in there.

Additionally, it will check if emily is in the dictionary. if that key is not, it will rebuild the dictionary.

In certain instances, you will either get a blank name for character, or an error message that Emily couldn't be found. This resolves that issue.

Caveat: Renpy 8.1 (currently at 61% Pre-Release) needs to be released before this occurs. I have tested this with a nightly build, but I am not going to subject players to potential issues that might come from that. :) One issue I have seen come up is comments about images. I don't think the source images is the problem, but rather the compression used. The problem is: [olist]

Even worse than that, it doesn't help with the color. [/olist]
Here is how Bria appears in the Game with Webp at the current setting. Even if I went to 99, I have not gotten that much clarity and colors seem a bit meh.
Screenshot from 8.1 Nightly Build with avif file. Her freckles appears, there is stranges in her hair, and things look more pronounced colorwise. So, my plan is this: [olist]

[olist]

Even though the scene is not available (yet) in regular play, I left it in the Sex Gallery for people who made it that far. ;) However, the content filter had changed and the call would cause a crash. Commented that out for the moment until I get to that scene in the re-write of chapters.

IF you cleared persistents, the menu would disappear. Configured it now to appear if any of the Prologue segments are done.

Used the Long form way of accessing the files, so that error screen with "Can't find image" should not occur now.

If there was any rollback that went past where the Conversion occured, it would give you a "Cannot find file". This includes a rollback prevention past that point. :) This will allow you to watch the Initiation screen without worry.

Release v 0.34s

Clarification:

What is fixed:

After taking time off to get my focus back (was feeling a little blah the last few days), I noticed some bugs or things not going as anticipated. So I am going to work on those so it functions as intended.

I plan to release the prologue in the next couple of days. Most of the content is ready, but I want to doublecheck to make sure it works as intended.

So I have completed the prologue section of the story, and now working to put the different scenes done so far into the chapter system. This may include new renders, but hopefully not as many as the prologue where new scenes were required. On top of that, there had been some notes about image quality. I don't want to be the person who has a multi-gig Visual Novel if I can avoid it. ;) Keep in mind, I have all the source files that are in high detail, so I can go back and save into a format for higher resolution of the image. So, options: [olist]

Prologue Update

Coding Change

[olist]

Somehow, the wrong code went into Lucia Gallery (I could've sworn I tested that). Fixed it and now it should work.

This patch addresses some bugs (particularly for the last few sex scenes). If there are still any oddities I missed (exception screens), let me know. Now, this does not have any new scenes like I mentioned in the announcement. This is strictly bug fixs. :) So far, I have one prologue done, and working on other to explain characters a little more. My priority is: [olist]

First off, let me thank everyone for their interest in this story. I have received reports that there are some issues to resolve (particularly in the last three scene in this version). Please know I am working on it. :) There have been reports that the story is confusing and goes through a lot of characters very quickly. I get that. The story is complex, so I am working on a chapter system to break the story apart into more logical chunks (in the same game so you don't have to buy something else for that) so it is clear who the main character is within a storyline (there are multiple protagonists depending on the storyline).

There was a case when players had "Rename" character on where Bria would have "None" in the dialogue when she is still ???. This bug has been fixed.

The Irish Accent filter created an error. I had reworked how Bria would speak in the beginning with that filter to solve that issue.

Created a switch for Bria's Accent. It will be in the initial Splash Screen, but it will also be in Settings>Content Filters. When set to off, it will give dialogue without the Irish Accent. :)