Categories: DevBlog

October 28th Bug-Fixing Build

Hello! Got a new build prepared with some quality-of-life improvements that you might be interested in. The first one concerns the “Reputation” feature of the game. First, let me take a moment to summarize how the reputation system works:

The player’s reputation does not update immediately after the player has performed an action that would impact their reputation. The player’s reputation only updates after students have had a chance to gather and discuss the player’s actions. To be specific, your reputation updates at three distinct times of day:

When you attend class after 8:30 AM
When you attend class after 1:30 PM
When you leave school and go home.

I attempted to design the Reputation Bar to display your current reputation alongside your pending reputation. However, it’s difficult to convey this kind of abstract concept visually, and I’m not a UI designer, so I didn’t do a great job of designing a reputation bar that communicates the difference between where your reputation is right now, and where your reputation is going to be in the future after people have discussed you. As a result, there are very few people who correctly understand the reputation system, and many players get confused when they think that the game isn’t acknowledging their reputation accurately.

To eliminate this problem, I’ve made a change to the game. Whenever the player has some “pending reputation” – positive or negative – a string of text will appear above the reputation bar clearly communicating when their reputation is going to update.

Hopefully, this will reduce – or outright eliminate – any confusion regarding the player’s current reputation and pending reputation.

There’s probably a more elegant way to communicate this information than just using a blunt sentence, but this is probably the sort of problem that can only be fixed with a bright idea from a professional UI designer.

Anyway! To learn about all the other stuff that I changed in the latest build, scroll down past this beautiful artwork of Ryoba drawn by likesac!

(Ryoba’s wearing the 202X uniform in this illustration because this artwork was created shortly before the release of 1980s Mode, before the design of the 1980s uniform was revealed. Still beautiful artwork, though!!)

Fixes and Changes

The game now recognizes dying in an explosion as a specific type of death (instead of just putting it into the vague “murder” category). Because the nature and cause of the explosion cannot be determined by the police, and because it’s inconceivable that a student could have brought a military-grade explosive device to school, any death by explosion is ruled an accident resulting from static electricity igniting a nearby gas leak or something along those lines.
If the player attempts to tell a student to perform an action to another student (such as murder) but the option is not available because the target student is currently busy with an event, the words “BUSY! TRY AGAIN LATER” now will appear over the target student’s portrait in order to communicate to the player that the action is possible, just not available at that exact moment.
Players were reporting a bug that would make the tutorial girl’s ghost appear before she was dead. I was not encountering this bug, but because it was reported by numerous players, it was clear that it existed. I’ve attempted to fix the bug (but because it was never happening for me in the first place, I can’t confirm whether or not it’s actually fixed).
I remembered that the entire point of adding the “Pool’s Closed” sign to the game was to give the player a way to prevent the bullies from sunbathing so that they could be poisoned at lunchtime, so I reverted that “bullies eat food at lunchtime in Mission Mode” change.
Previously, I had disabled the ability to crouch or crawl while in first-person in 1980s Mode. This was due to a bug that I was unable to fix. I recently fixed the bug, so I have re-enabled the ability to use first-person view while crouching/crawling in 1980s Mode.
The “Haha, nope” text that displays when the player is not allowed to detonate an explosive has been replaced with more meaningful text that describes the exact reason why the explosive can’t detonate.
Fixed bug that caused students to perform the “Distract” favor at low school atmosphere, even though their dialogue implied they were refusing to perform the favor.
Fixed bug that was causing girls to get stuck inside of the shower building if the player used the “Pool’s Closed” sign to change the sunbathing girls’ routines.
Fixed bug that would cause the wrong text to display during the courtroom sequence if the player eliminated one of their rivals with a murder-suicide.
Any rival who is eliminated non-lethally and continues to attend school will no longer use the “Lovestruck” Persona after she has been eliminated.
Replaced the final modern-day photograph in the headmaster’s 1989 office so that all of his photographs are now appropriate for the time period.
Fixed bug that prevented the game from being able to say anything about a rival’s death if the rival died in an explosion.
Changed the 202X gym teacher’s last name so that she doesn’t have the same last name as one of the 1980s Mode rivals.
Fixed bug that made text appear the wrong color in 202X if the player entered the Student Info menu at any point.