I swear there are LESS sex scenes in this new version! And half of what is there is more broken than before. And why won't the gallery work
edit: Fixed gallery by deleting all files in C:\Users\(username)\AppData\LocalLow\DungeonTavern\DungeonTavern
To myself: "Huh, what's going on- it shouldn't be this broken. We even enabled all of the sex scenes in the gallery by default. Wait... the gallery is broken?"
AHAHAHA. Fuck. I know what's happening.
You guys tripped a Steam API requirement. The game just implodes if it is missing certain calls it's trying to make involving Steam.
I checked in with my programmer- he didn't intend this as an anti-piracy measure, but it looks like it ended up working out that way. Oops.
We're planning on doing a GOG/itch version of the game soon, which won't have the Steam API requirements. Those should be easier to grab and mirror, when the time comes.
Anyways, responding to some of the questions here:
- "Why do Steam deck support before fixing existing bugs?"
1. I realized I really didnt like a mouse-based design for this sort of game. I was replaying Yukiya Hot Springs and realized they had a "direct control" sort of thing going on, and figured that would be a better fit. So
controller/steam deck support was a step towards a new control style we figured would be more fun and intuitive.
2.
The new control stuff wasn't supposed to take as long as it did. It was supposed to be a relatively quick and easy update, so we thought. This unfortunately didn't end up being the case.
3. An overhauled control scheme means that some of the existing "bugs" wouldn't be applicable anymore. With this latest update, not only did we completely update the controls, but also the whole flow for how sandbox mode works.
Our solution to some of the issues players were having with older versions of the game was to revisit, reimagine, and rework how some core parts of the game were being handled- parts that we just thought weren't fun or were too convoluted.
To expand on this idea a little bit too, lots of things are called "bugs" that aren't necessarily bugs. Unintuitive UI/UX decisions for instance, or gameplay features that are working as intended, but what's happening in the background, and what's supposed to be happening, is not being signposted/communicated correctly. These are things that need to be fixed through deeper changes to the core gameplay- which is exactly what we've spent so long doing. If you're wondering why we haven't been fixing these bugs, we have, that's what this gameplay overhaul has been.
- "Okay but why Steam Trading Cards?"
Not everyone on the team is a programmer or an artist. Prepping trading cards was an extra thing that we could do that didn't take any time at all away from actual game development.
It was something that team members who already finished their portion of their tasks could contribute towards.
- "You guys are just trying to milk updates for your Patreon."
We don't have a Patreon. We haven't had one for years. Believe it or not- we launched in Early Access to show off what we had working so far and to get player feedback. The game was originally inspired by Yukiya Hotspring, but eventually we realized a game as simple as Yukiya Hotspring doesn't really make sense for Steam- and we begun trying to expand on it, having to improvise as we went along. And BECAUSE we don't have a Patreon, we've done so at our own expense, and without any external feedback, for a long time.
Eventually we got to a point where we had a ton of art assets and the framework of what we thought was a solid enough game, so we released it to those who were interested. We've gotten a ton of amazing feedback since, and we've been hard at work implementing a lot of it. We're still having to learn and adjust somethings as we go, as not every initial idea or implementation works out as expected- but we've still got an overall idea in mind and are heading towards it. We're looking to have the game done by the end of this year, which is a pretty short development/early access period, one year, for most Western adult games.
Anyways, like I said, keep an eye out for GOG/Itch, those builds shouldn't need any sort of funky API bypassing.