Hi everyone.

Quick update here, after internal discussion, we decided to remove this game as well as one other of our older titles for sale on Steam. Existing owners are not effected and can keep the game in perpetuity.

All in all we didn't feel like these titles represented the quality of the brand or were fair to continue to sell to consumers, as represented by their public reviews and very low sales.

These were games developed as amateurs at the time around half a decade ago, and we don't feel they were good enough titles to continue to distribute. We have no plans to remove any other titles from sale.

Hi everyone,

This is a post seemingly out of nowhere, but we wanted to address some stuff about the game since it's release. First off, we realize we made a mistake in how we rolled out this project. It's something both us (as the publisher) and the developer themselves really deeply regret. We were excited to release the game coming off of the last project we had worked on, and in that excitement, we obviously missed a lot. A lot doesn't cover it. We amateurishly tried going through a 3 day QA prior to the original release, but that clearly wasn't even remotely enough; we made a big mistake in how we released it. We had pushed back the game several times, and we rushed to get it out after receiving a wave of criticism for having trouble determining a release date. We know the game has gotten a lot of negative feedback since release (as of now, the game sits at mostly negative, or mixed if you count curator reviews).

A few months ago, in September, we tried rolling out the overhaul patch to fix things. We wanted to address player feedback, but clearly this didn't help with much, as feedback on the game actually got worse. We understand that we did a poor job in the rollout for the game and the game's update. I want people to know that it's been a massive learning experience for the developer (and for us, having published the game), and this will not happen again, ever. We know hotfixes and overhaul patches are no match for a polished game on release. We should have went with early access if anything at the time if anything. It's a retroactive decision which has haunted us.

The quality of this rollout was upsetting to us because we did not intend to ship a broken product. It was not done out of malicious intent; we simply did not do as good of a job in QAing as we thought. It was a mixture of incompetence on our part as well as over-excitement and stress. After the release (May to September), we tried to ship as many hotfixes as we could. Since the September patch, most crashes luckily have dissipated, but feedback is obviously still negative. We want to make things clear though - even though we're ashamed of this situation, we aren't just moving on. We want to fix issues players have with the game. We genuinely want to make things right and give players the game they originally wanted. People have expressed interest in the story, the gameplay, and the quests, but felt the engine held back their enjoyment of the game.

We want to fix things. We know we can't retroactively, but we want to bring the game up to speed. As such, we are asking players to submit any form of feedback they can. We are taking extra time to QA the game from the ground up again over the next month internally; but even with that we want players to submit any and all feedback. Quality of life suggestions. Any bugs - no matter how small, even a typo - anything. Anything you feel is currently bulky or needs work mechanically. We want to do our best to fix this game. You can either let us know here, on the steam forums, or in our discord server in the #adv-tale channel (https://discordapp.com/invite/tophat).

This is a genuine message for everyone, no matter if you hated the game, or even if you liked it. We want to fix things.

Hello everyone,

We are aware from our Discord server that some people where experiencing odd behavior with saving and roll-back. We recently rolled out a patch today, 9/20, aimed at addressing this behavior. It will not require a new game for games created after the last overhaul update or anything as well. Most of these effects will not be noticeable, but a significant amount of code behind the scenes has been overhauled so save/load rollback will not cause data to be lost. Part of this was mainly because of how scene calls were initiated from the Quick Maps menu, but this was observed with at least 1 other interface. This should now be fixed.

Hello everyone,

We're very happy to say the overhaul patch is now live. Below you will find a changelog detailing every we've changed in the game (it's quite a lot).

• (Steam Only) - Added Trading Cards
  
• Added "Easy Mode" in options to skip battles.
  
• Added version indicator + indicator for if patch is installed
  
• Adding ability to sell items at most vendors
  
• Added "bulk" selection for both banks & for the new sell option when selecting items
  
• Vendors now have a "sell rate" which determines item & sell pricing. Some vendors are better than others!
  
• Changed navigation ability, instead of defaulting back to tavern, you can now go to the worldmap, or when retreating certain areas ask to go back to the tavern or area hub
  
• Fixed notifications, now overlay correctly and show in stacked order
  
• In-battle notifications now show chronologically vertically instead of replacing each other
  
• changed "party" UI - now tracks time of day/time left per day, player/party stats, etc.
  
• stats UI now shows all party stats
  
• added "Quick Battling", can be turned off/on from the party->stats menu
  
• added bindable actions to battles if quick battle is enabled
  
• added "Quick Travel" UI - click the "!" bubble when available. Also acts as a mini quest tracker
  
• "Quick Travel" UI now tracks Quests, Events, Skills/Skill Quests, etc., regardless of if the events show up in the quest log or not
  
• Reformatted parts of script to work with new "Quick Travel" system. Certain dialogue or area routes may be slightly tweaked.
  
• Added "Forage Lists" to all areas - once every area is discovered, you can view all items in a certain area
  
• Added "Enemy Lists" to all areas - once every event in an area is discovered, you can view all enemies in a location
  
• Changed spawn encounter mechanics in non-boss areas for balancing; instead of pre-made troops, spawns are now random in size and type from a pool
  
• Changed mechanics for Nega-monsters. Nega-bait can now be bought and used under the "Nega-hunting" option. Lesser bait will cause an instant nega-encounter but with random enemies, while greater nega-bait will let you choose monsters from said area. Random nega-monsters will still spawn.
  
• Added a Tutorial option accessible from gameplay select
  
• Rebalancing many stats & skills
  
• Changed enemy growth mechanics, enemies now "grow" in stats every 3 days by a slightly lesser amount rather than by more every 5 days.
  
• Added new bubble on map specifically for routing to other cities. The "other cities" option is still available in the main city.
  
• Added version notices for data/save incompatibilities
  
• Fixed various quests & other bugs
  
• Added fail-safe mechanisms for certain quests some users were experiencing troubles progressing in
  
• Fixed a bug related to how inventory data was stored to prevent item rollback
  
• UI tweaks
  
• Various animation tweaks
  
• Typo fixes
  

Hello everyone,

First and foremost, we are very sorry for the lack of updates on our part regarding the overhaul update. We wanted to say that we have not abandoned the project and are sorry for the lack of communication. We have still been very active in our Discord server in regards to inquiries, as well by email. During this period of time, we have been working on this update, fixing as much stuff as possible. We are very happy to say there has been an extremely significant overhaul to many interfaces, mechanics, and lots of other miscellaneous fixes during this time. We do feel we made a slight mishap in not communicating better during this period that things were still being worked on, so you our sincere apologies.

With that said, we are happy to say that we are planning to release the overhaul update (for free of course) next Monday, September 2nd. While the update is mostly done, we are taking the next week for intensive QA to make sure there are no issues, as we have certainly learned our lesson from the game's launch.

The update will also come alongside the addition of steam trading cards (which have been approved), as well as a sale of 15% off for those looking to jump into the game (or back to it) and have been waiting for this patch.

While we will have a full update log alongside the update, here are some things to look forward to which we have previously teased;

Full Quick Maps for all areas (including sub-areas and explorable ones), including event + quest tracking, even for skills. Also includes tracking for non-quest log quests, such as guild entry quests or fetch requests



Interface overhauls based on feedback, including showing party stats at all times, as well the time remaining during the day



And more, including;

• Quick Battle System, inc. binding actions to keys for battle
  
• Changing of the Nega-monster system
  
• Re-balancing the game
  
• UI updates for battle system, namely for how battle dialogue(s) are displayed
  
• Additional options for battle speed & animations
  
• Foraging List + Monster Lists available for areas, to view all possible area-exclusives items to forge
  

Hello everyone,

Two updates today.

First off (and most importantly), we're not fully sure what happened but Steam seems to have had an issue for some people which has caused files to incorrectly download; this has resulted in save file corruption for certain people, as its been reported to us. If this happens to you, go to the game in your games library, right click, click properties -> local files -> verify integrity of game cache. We're not sure if this'll fix things for everyone, but for some people it seems to have. If this does not fix it, you may need to start a new game.

Secondly, we wanted to announce that we will be releasing an update soon which fixes a number of things and balances the game better, based off of feedback from players. This will be entirely free.

We realize many people - ourselves included - are not happy with the state the game launched in. We agree with the assessment, and we genuinely apologize for the problems; this will not happen again on our end. We should have delayed again, but instead made a brash decision to release early instead of better QAing the product, which we assumed to be fine after only two QA cycles. We admit this was a bad mistake on our part, and we are dedicated to fixing this and making the game the best possible form it can be. As such, we want to make things right.





As you can see above, this will include adding a time bar and removing the "Check Time" button. We've also added a "quick map" for navigating quicker. This is just one of many changes. Here is a list of things we're working on improving in the coming update:

• -better balancing overall
  
• -reworking to the healing mechanic
  
• -added optional tutorial/explanation
  
• -better quest tracking
  
• -party/player HP in the stats screen
  
• -leaving an area brings you to the worldmap instead of tavern
  
• -better confirmation/options for banking
  
• -bulk delete items
  
• -some form of selling system
  
• better navigation in areas, like shortcuts or paths
  
• -tracking for where to find skills similar to quest tracking
  
• -ability to use keyboard for battles (i.e. key 1 -> enemy 1)
  
• -changes/overhaul to the nega-monster mechanic
  
• -more options in the options menu, namely ability to disable all battle animations rather than just the VFX
  
• -various UI improvements (notifications staying longer on screen, battle messages showing in a list rather than fading in and out rapidly)
  

Hello everyone,

IMPORTANT: YOU WILL MORE THAN LIKELY NEED TO START A NEW GAME TO SEE THE EFFECTS OF THE MOST RECENT PATCH.


Over the past 12 hours or so, a decent amount of bugs have been reported to us, as well as some feedback. We try our best to address and fix all feedback within 12 hours of receiving it; this often means that we will get multiple bugfixes out in the same hour, which would explain why there's been so many hotfixes / updates today.

We are hyper-attentive to all bugs reported to us and try our best to fix them as quickly as possible. You can report bugs to us (or just talk with us in general!) in our discord channel: https://discordapp.com/invite/tophat

Today we have fixed a number of crashes, bugs, and some QoL tweaks. We keep a full list of these updates categorized by date here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/942580/discussions/0/1653297026033061568/

Please check to see if your crash is fixed and make sure you are on the latest version before reporting. This is a massive game overall, so some things slip through sometimes.

If you're especially enjoying the game, we'd really appreciate if you could consider leaving us a review as well. All feedback is appreciated - just today we did a number of improvements such as making combat faster and adding current gold to the shop screen. We value player suggestions and feedback and try our best to make the best game possible.

Thank you to everyone who's bought the game so far, we really hope you're enjoying it, and want to make it the best experience possible.

Hello everyone!



Happy to say that our latest project, VN/RPG hybrid An Adventurer's Tale, is now live on Steam!!!

You can pick it up here for 15% off for the next week:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/942580/An_Adventurers_Tale/

and also grab the free 18+ mature patch if you're over 18:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1060520/An_Adventurers_Tale__Mature_Content_Patch/

Happy adventuring!

Finally, FINALLY our release build has been approved by Valve. Our official release will be tomorrow, 5/23 at 12 PM EST / 9 AM PST. Mark it down! We will be launching with a 15% discount. We're very excited to finally be launching. We hope you all will enjoy the game!

Hello,

We are happy to say we have launched a pre-release copy of the game on Itch while we wait for Steam. Please note that the game is currently full price on Itch. It WILL launch with a 15% discount on Steam once Valve approves everything. The sale will then be mirrored to Itch during the same timeframe the sale runs on Steam. As a note, this build does not feature Steam-exclusive things which are going to be in the Steam build (i.e. Steam Achievements). That said, we are also still going over and QAing/Balancing up until Valve approves the build, so the game can be as balanced & bug-free as humanly possible.

With that stated, however, we are confident in the current build of the game, so wanted to upload it for those that really can't wait any longer (which we don't blame you for given the long development cycle of the game). Please note that while you will receive future updates, the first update will not be until the Steam build is released. You will also get a Steam key if you buy through here, but please note that it will take at least 2-3 days after the game is approved on Steam, as we need an additional 2 days or so for Valve to provide keys post-release.

We personally would probably recommend waiting until the game is released on Steam, but if you're interested in getting a hold of the game early to try it out then you can check it out.

Link: https://tophatstudios.itch.io/an-adventurers-tale

Hey guys,

Finally, finally the saga that has been the tumultuous (to say the least) development of the project is about done. With this, however, comes good and bad news.

A lot of people were wondering why the game hasn't been approved yet - this is partially our fault, so we'll explain. So bad news first, then good news.

Basically, first off as a precursor, you'll notice the screenshots we've uploaded to the store page are almost entirely new. You might be wondering why.



The above is an excerpt from the last Steam review we did. Basically, there was an oversight on our part and that was, from what we can assume, leaving screenshots up from pre-alpha builds of the game with nuances from the final build (i.e. there was a different font, and certain events were worded slightly different). We've replaced the screenshots, and along with this new submission to Steam, we've also included details on how to jump to each scene within each screenshot. We were confused about why builds were rejected so we submitted again, and this time it was made more clear to us in the above except.

Secondly, we were confused about being rejected for our trailer - since it was approved to begin with with the original store page. That said, we realized part of the trailer was not in the build we were submitting to steam, so we've cut that part out as well. Valve has requested we add some gameplay to our trailer (either in our current one or in a new one) so we're working on that, and will have it done and uploaded by tomorrow.

Other than that, we're happy to say the game is done. For real this time - it's completely done. Finally. This'll be our last submission - hopefully (knock on wood).

This is where we want to ask a question - we can currently upload the game on Itch now, but we want to know if there's enough interest in uploading the game off-site prior to a Steam release. We can guarantee Steam keys, but since Valve has to approve keys and the game needs to be approved by them first, we basically would need to wait for approval anyway. If you just want to play though then that's fine, but we figured we'd do a poll.

That all said, we're really hoping Valve is speedy with the review this time. We would love nothing more than to release this week. We're going to be launching with a 15% off discount. As far as other platforms (i.e. Nutaku), we're sending the builds off for review by them today as well, so we would probably expect them to get done with review this week too. If you guys have any questions, feel free to ask. Thank you all so much for staying with us through the admitted disaster of development. We're incredibly proud of the final product. Onward to release!

Hello everyone!

Just dropping in for a quick update. We are still waiting for build approval right now, however we have good news! The mature/adult patch for the game has been approved, and will launch free alongside the game. While we're waiting for Valve's approval, we're just doing some QA/balancing and editing. Hopefully Valve will get done soon. Honestly, we have no idea how the mature patch was approved before the main game, but we're glad that we won't have any content issues there. Anyway, we expect Valve's review to probably be done before the end of the week or so, so we'll keep everyone updated. If they get it done by Friday we can maybe even launch before the end of the week. We're really just waiting for them at the moment, so it's a bit out of our control.

Anyway, here's a link to the page for the Mature Patch DLC, just for future reference ;)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1060520/An_Adventurers_Tale__Mature_Content_Patch/

Hello everyone!

Just a quick update to let everyone know that we're submitting the game (and the free Mature Patch DLC) for review on Steam this week. We probably expect the review time to take about 5-8 days on Valve's end (unless, there's issues with the review, knock on wood). Once the review period is over we'll be able to release right away. Thank you for your patience and onward to the release!

Hello everyone,

As we said in our last post, we originally wanted to put out An Adventurer's Tale on April 15th, and we were progressing well toward that goal. However, a very unexpected adversity has come up in one of the developer's families, which has interrupted our development schedule with the additional content we wanted to implement in the game. This adversity has essentially come out of nowhere, and for the time being has essentially disrupted the life of the developer involved. While the developer himself is fine, the situation requires some attention and figuring out on their end. He is not taking a break from development or putting the project on hiatus, but the amount of time he can put into the project is going to be severely limited for at least the next week or so.

While we could attempt to go for an Early Access release with what we have now, we don't think Early Access is the best way to take the game, especially because of the short time-span in which it would be in Early Access. Given the length of a typical Steam review compounding this issue with our Developer's family, we're going to have to delay the release a bit. That said, we promise we will have the game out in April still, assuming the build check on Steam's end goes alright.

We're sorry again that something like this has come up; we know these continual delays are not up to par with our studio's work ethic and typical behavior, but we thank everyone for understanding and hope you all will stick with us for the upcoming release of the project.

If you need to contact us or have any questions,
Our Twitter is: https://twitter.com/TopHatStudiosEN
and our Discord is: https://discord.gg/yy7javF

Hi everyone,

Just letting everyone know we're pushing back the release slightly to April 15th, which is our new tentative release date. We had originally planned to release the game in march, but we feel that the game in its current state could use a bit more work; we're going to work on balancing, QA, and adding a bit more content in the meantime. Feel free to let us know if you have any questions!

Our twitter is: https://twitter.com/TopHatStudiosEN
and our discord is: https://discord.gg/yy7javF