Hello, this is Garrett Thompson, sole member of Act-Novel.

Wow! Where did the last three months go? You’ll recall from last entry, I claimed that the v0.4 update would be coming out soon… Barring some unexpected discoveries. So, what happened? What horrifying, earth-shattering revelations about the game code did I uncover during the testing period that began all those many months ago?

As it turns out… Not much! Apart from a few minor issues, everything seemed to be in pretty good shape. So why has it been three months? Wasn't the update supposed to be just over the horizon? 

... Heh heh. Apparently not. Blame the review process! There’s a lot of stuff I turned up during testing that was just personally bothersome or in need of improvement, if not an outright technical issue. At first, I was only going to address a couple of these. Then, a few more. Then a few more after that, and…

... Well, one thing led to another. Here's a rundown of all of the things I ended up addressing.

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0). Stability Improvements

Hey, "not much" doesn't mean "nothing"! I fixed two hard crashes and several other minor bugs and inefficiencies. This bullet is zero-indexed because we’re talking about programming, here.

1). 3D Trees

Since early on in development, trees in Reality Layer Zero have been represented as two-dimensional billboards. I swapped most of these out for 3D polygonal meshes, which are better at casting shadows and make for more visually compelling environmental decoration. See for yourself!

The best time to plant 3D polygonal trees was 30 years ago. The second best time is version 0.4. That's how that proverb goes.

2). Adventure Mode HUD

In previous releases, the adventure mode screen felt a bit empty, since it consisted of just the 3D view and the occasional odd button prompt in the bottom-right corner. To make things feel a bit livelier, I added an animated HUD that displays things like your current location, time of day, character statistics, and so on. From the Second Layer on, it also includes a pendant indicating the current act that jingles around when you move.

"Red" indicates "Second Layer". Wonder what other colors will show up...

(Many of these UI elements were already present in some form on the pause menu, but this makes them more visible during gameplay)

3). Focal Blur

Cribbing from the likes of Octopath Traveler, I started toying around with a real-time focal blur effect, building off of the fast gaussian blur shader and depth mapping code I wrote some time ago. 

I think it gives the 3D scenes a kind of visually intriguing, scale-model, diorama-like quality. If you're not really into it, though, you can turn it off in the video options submenu.

4). Debate Reminiscence Mode (Hapax Debate)

Player feedback on the public build often contains one or both of the following feature requests:

* Add some sort of training mode. 

* Add a mode that is more gameplay-focused.

This is a step towards satisfying both of those asks. 

You can now redo previously-cleared debates by calling to mind impressions of old opponents via a new submenu in The Garden. This is fully compatible with old saves (I'm pretty sure, anyway!), so returning players should be able to jump right into it. 

You won't get any EXP for repeating debates-- there's not much to be gained from defeating an imaginary opponent, after all-- but to make participation feel a little more worthwhile, I've implemented ranking criteria. 

On completion, your performance will be evaluated, and a rank will be assigned between the letter-grades D and S. Your best records will be recorded, enabling immense gloating potential!

5). Miscellaneous Postprocessing Effects

While I was working on the focal blur effect I mentioned earlier, I stumbled across the excellent Post-Processing FX asset pack by FoxyOfTheJungle. Couldn't pass up the visual upgrade, so I spent about two weeks hooking it up and retooling some of the effects in the game to use it. There's now bloom lighting, sunshafts, displacement maps, radial blur, color grading, tone mapping, ambient camera movement, and a ton of other effects besides. 

Aw yeah, now we're triple-A! (Note that this screenshot is EXAGGERATED)

Regular amount of color grading.

Film noir. Probably won't actually use this filter.

A highly magical object!

... Oh no, I broke it.

Example images aside, you can see what the effects actually look like in some of the other screenshots in this development notes entry. You can disable some of the more noticeable/persistent effects if they don't strike your fancy. 

Note that there's also now a colorblind mode setting (off by default) for protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia, which will hopefully help the game be more visually interpretable for any players of the colorblind persuasion-- or, failing that, at least provide some visually-intriguing color grading options!

6). First Layer - Garden Path Sequence

*New content!* (Technically)

Replaying the beginning of the First Layer to put v0.4 through its paces, I was a little dismayed by just how much unbroken time spent reading there is during the game's opening scenes. I took it upon myself to insert a small new gameplay sequence that occurs after your first day in Liere, to break up the dialog and provide an opportunity to teach/reinforce gameplay mechanics.

Ahhhh! It feels nice to be able to stretch your legs after listening to all of that chatter.

This brief segment introduces the evidence presentation mechanic, the rhetoric deckbuilding interface, and the debate reminiscence mode I described previously, all in a controlled, low-stakes environment. It also increases the total number of debates in the First Layer by... Well, just by one, really. Technically the new debate is a strict repeat of the tutorial debate, but since the second time around you get to actually choose your own moves, it's *like* it's completely new! 

If you aren't planning on revisiting the First Layer for the new update, don't worry about missing out on gameplay resources-- this sequence awards no EXP and no new cards.

7). Various Script Revisions

While I've mentioned previously that I had rewritten parts of the Second Layer, over the last three months, the scope of those revisions has since expanded to encompass the *entire* game's script. Reading through the First Layer again kind of made my teeth itch due to an uncomfortably-high incidence of awkward phrasing, wooden descriptions, and needless repetition of words (writing 101 failure type stuff)-- so I broke out the old text editor and reworked the script into a more literarily-appetizing shape. 

In doing this, I also sought to reduce the quantity of "black background cutscenes", or long stretches of dialog that occur with nothing as comforting as a pretty picture displayed behind the textbox and (occasionally) character portraits. The original tone of the modified scenes is still broadly preserved, but now they're slightly more interesting to look at. 

All alterations are purely in detail-- the events that happened in the original draft all still happen, but the words used to describe those events may have been changed. This is true for all cases EXCEPT...

8). Second Layer Conclusion Update

The very last scene in the Second Layer was, in previous iterations, lacking "momentum" in comparison to the end of the First-- it needs a bigger cliffhanger!-- so I adjusted it a little bit, with one addition and one alteration. Both changes are minor. 

As not to inconvenience any returning players who'd prefer not to replay the Second Layer, the content of the changes are described beneath the spoiler tag below. If you haven't finished the Second Layer yet, proceed with caution!

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9). New Music - "The Gratitude of Plants" (+ Revisions)

This tune plays during quiet scenes, and is particularly associated with The Garden.

I also adjusted the mix of Rival Theory, to reduce the prominence of the "fake saxophone" sound, and to rework some of the dissonant portions of the old arrangement. 

You probably won't notice too much of a difference in the "primary" layer. The muted layer, though, has been rendered considerably more "scuffed", and is likely noticably altered. I think this yields more texturally interesting results, particularly in context, and I hope you'll agree that it's a beneficial (or else non-intrusive) change.

As a footnote, I've been toying around with the idea of changing the naming convention of the debate tracks. Currently, they're "[Track Title]" and "[Track Title] (Muted Layer)". I kind of want to revise that convention into "[Track Title] (Bailey)" and "[Track Title] (Motte)", to reference the famous rhetorical fallacy. This only affects how the tracks are labeled, so it's not really a "v0.4" change, though... 

10). Protagonist Debate Sprite Revisions

With the new character art all finished, the old player debate sprites are no longer really representative of the actual design of the protagonist. It took about a week to redo all of them.

They look better now, I think!

11). New NPCs in Exteriors

In the previous build, the exterior locations, particularly in the Justice District, were all a bit, uh, desolate? This was partially intentional, for story reasons. Still, I don’t think adding a few more points of interest for the player's benefit would skew the atmosphere too awryly. 

Thus, I’ve added a total of 13 new NPCs to various exterior locations, some with unique mechanics, some which only appear at certain times of day, and all with unique dialog. Should feel more like a proper RPG now.

12). Font Config

I've externalized the font files, so if you're so inclined, you can actually replace any and all fonts used in-game with custom equivalents. Here's the UI font on the options menu replaced with comic sans, to demonstrate:

... And... Uh... I think that's everything? Oh, wait, actually, I forgot about...

13). Mouse Cursor

There's an in-game mouse cursor icon now. No more relying on the system default! 

Nice to have.

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That was a ton of stuff! I am PROFOUNDLY RELIEVED to be done with all of it. This more-or-less knocks out all of the major items on my polish list, so now I ought to be able to proceed onto development of the next act with no reservations. 

... Well, once I finish testing all of this stuff, anyway. So far, I've only completed testing of First Layer content... And if I find more stuff that bothers me while testing the Second Layer...

... Oh man, this update might never come out!

My next post here will (probably) announce the release date for v0.4, and if all goes well, should appear within two weeks of today. Thank you all very much for your patience and understanding!

Until next time!