Hey folks! It's been almost a week since Episode 3 came out, so we wanted to share a couple things with you all. The first is that, just like after Episode 2, we've put together a survey to let you share what decisions you've made so far in game! This information is super valuable to us since it lets us see what traits, characters, and decisions are under- or over-picked, and helps us maintain a decent balance of things going forward. The last time around, for instance, we used this data to add significantly more content to Powerful Build and Street Smart in the first two Episodes (entering the forbidden wings, punching a ditchling, better sneaking at the mines) to make those traits feel more valuable and expressive to players. We also use the information to do deep dive write-ups on game design for our devlog. There might be an interesting announcement/reveal buried in there this time as well, so definitely fill it out if you want to be in the know! Here's the link: https://forms.gle/smqGGhJntedER1Aw8 There's a question on the survey that asks how scary you think the game is don't worry about your answers for that question changing the direction of the game in any way. This is more just curiosity from the two of us, and something we might use to direct the marketing of the game. On top of the survey, we also wanted to take the chance to collect some of the most important changes and fixes we've made to the game over the past week. Since we want to make sure players are aware of some of the more important bugs, there'll be some spoilers here, so if you haven't finished Episode 3 yet, read at your own peril!

• We've added controller support! The only place this is a little iffy is during character creation I haven't figured out a way to bring up a keyboard on screen to type out a character name/home town, but maybe that's just something I don't know how to do.
• We've edited a couple of achievements to make them easier to obtain/to make the achievement art less confusing. The three that come to mind are: "Let's see who this really is," which now has 3 separate opportunities where you can earn it, and the "Tight-knight social circle" and "The gang's all here" pair, which now both have art that wholly reflect the conditions needed to earn them. Hope this helps folks who've been stuck going for 100%
• On day one, we had a few unfortunate spots in the wrap-up segment of the episode that would incorrectly jump to incorrect world states. For those of you who had an extra-confusing wrap-up, this might have been what happened. Good news, though! Because of the way things were flagged (major decisions marked right after making them), the issues with these saves shouldn't carry over into episode 4.
• For a few hours yesterday, there was a pretty bad bug with an extra dialogue option we added to Tabitha's route. Selecting "I'm with Tabitha. Neither of us owe this ghost a damn thing. We're leaving." accidentally jumped the player to the special trait ending of the episode rather than the leaving route. Thankfully I caught and patched the error within hours, but these changes unfortunately are going to persist with those saves. For now, it's unclear if those saves are going to be broken in a good way (effectively having 3 traits for a major decision) or if they'll be broken in weird and unpredictable ways moving forward. Many apologies if you picked that option on your first playthrough, since it probably made the ending much more confusing than we intended! If you have one of those saves, it's up to you if you want to continue with it or reload an earlier save continue at your own risk, and again, our deepest apologies for the error, but we want to make sure we're as transparent as possible with our players when mistakes like this have been made.
• We fixed a lot of missing sprites and typos! A member of our discord was amazing enough to help set up a linter specifically for the sprites side of that, so at this point, I believe EVERY missing sprite in the first 3 episodes has been fixed.
• Fixed a fair number of explore options that weren't correctly disappearing. This should have minimal impact on your saves, but the game won't remember that you picked those options if you did so before we patched things.
• Fixed quite a few instances of text overlapping with choice menus.
• Fixed a bug on the non-Tabitha route that would loop players back to earlier in the haunt for certain dialogue options. If you continued to play through that worldstate, that shouldn't have any negative consequences for Episode 4.
• Fixed a few instances where achievements weren't properly being earned, most notably including "The Gang's All Here" which was only triggering for players who had done a non-Tabitha hangout but still invited her ghost hunting.

Thank you so much for your patience while we've patched things up! Because of all the branching, Scarlet Hollow is a huge game (370,000 words of dialogue and 1,200 branching menus) that is frankly impossible to thoroughly test on our own, so both your patience and tenacity with bug reports are a huge part of what makes building a game like this even possible. Finally, here's a peak at what's next:

• Episode 4! We're getting right to work on the script tomorrow. It's going to be so cool we're optimistically hoping to have it out by Halloween, but as is always the case, we're going to make sure we take the time we need so it lives up to our standard of quality, so it may take until closer to the end of the year.
• There's a fan art competition going on right now where the more entries we receive, the more rewards you unlock as a community, with the top prize being a marathon livestream where the devs play through all three episodes in one sitting! You can find more information on this competition here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1609230/eventcomments/3183487594845534140?snr=1_5_9_
• We'll be doing a content patch to Episode 3 at some point in the next couple of months! This patch will include adding a few more dialogue options to the wrap-up phase of the Episode, as well as fleshing out a few niche details here and there to make a couple of traits even more impactful. We'll also be adding a special CG to commemorate the departure of a certain beloved character, so keep your eyes peeled!
• As some of you may know, a certain ending path in Episode 3 alters the appearance of your game. Because of the significance of the decision leading up to this change, this alteration is permanent. That being said, we want to make sure our visually impaired players are able to take this option without ruining their experience, so at the start of Episode 4 (and between every other Episode moving forward) we'll be adding an accessibility option that allows players to reduce or entirely remove this modification. We won't be adding this option to the middle of the episode so it doesn't break the tension, but once the assets are done, we'll probably add it to the transition between Episodes 2 and 3 as well so that ending sequence is also more accessible!

That's it for now! Thank you all once again for your patience, support, and dedication. This game wouldn't be possible without you! Best, Tony + Abby