I’m about 1/3rd done the Secrebot quest scenario work. Got a bit distracted fixing up memory issues because I noticed a rare crash and now I’m basically cleaning up all the code’s latent memory problems. Hey, it’ll make the game more stable.
Urimas is making an explosion, Koops is drawing pretty dresses, Hund is working on a bunch of trees, and Giga is actually busy so I had to farm out the Secrebot TF to his friend Dias. It’s looking great so far but it’s a sketch so I can’t show it off on the bonus stuff quite yet.
Instrumentality
The secret project I mentioned a while back is now announced. It’s a String-Tyrant-adjacent light novel. 25 pages and a few illustrations! It’ll be available on Itch.io once the art is ready.
Look I get to make doll TF, it’s my thing that I’m good at.
Fan Art!
Holy cow, it’s a frightening amount of fan art by Xandra! Wow! I am legitimately mad that now I have to make Lydie taking a beach vacation canon and it wasn’t my idea.
No I don’t know why Kumquat commissioned a food safety course. I don’t think Kumquat knows.
Not to be outdone, we have a genie TF commissioned from Daimos by Justin Kombat! Sadly Genie is one of those TFs that you can put anywhere but doesn’t totally fit anywhere, so I don’t know if it’ll make it into RoP.
I do know that Verand doesn’t need a genie because she has everything she could wish for. Maybe she’ll wish for a dog.
Koops got me one of the needed portraits for the chapter 5 update, Urimas is working on a few commissions before finishing the sprites I need, and I have finished doing all the “not new stuff” improvements. Chapter 5 now has field abilities, a host of smaller fixes, new topics, new dialogue, emotes added to conversations that didn’t have them, and more!
I also fixed the longstanding dialogue lag bug and rewrote the loading code to use segmented memory, which should help with out-of-memory errors on some machines.
Next up is me working on the new TF and new quest!
GRZZRRKK
Heyo, my name’s Sigrid Vjeol, I’m a good ‘friend’ and colleague of Salty, she’s just given me permission to spruke the demo for my new game ‘GutterBlight’ a tf rpg where you explore a proto Victorian setting whilst trying to avoid being tf’d by ‘mysterious forces’ it’s a lot like runes in that it’s going to be story heavy and take place in a unique world, but also has a lot of it’s own stuff going on, like a special sub stories exploring what happens to folks post tf
I’ve added a number of topics, updated the meeting-Sophie part of chapter 5, and am working on adding a few new field abilities to the chapter. Chapter 5 wasn’t design with field abilities in mind, so you can turn invisible, heal yourself, and nuke enemies with electricity. Pretty basic stuff.
Next week I’ll be adding in the remainder of the topics and workarounds. Hopefully I can get to adding the new quest too, but that’s a maybe. There have been a ton of good suggestions for little improvements to chapter 5 over the year so I want to give them all a consideration.
Meanwhile, Urimas is recovering from dental surgery, Stinkehund is drawing a mountain, and Giga made the Harpy Sanya talk sprites. I’m hoping all the talk sprites for chapter 2 will be ready by the next release!
Last week was a bit of a vacation, having spent the last three months working like a dog to get the chapter 1 update out and bugs fixed. So as a way to take time off I got the working translation of Maiden Sealed in Stone updated. It’s currently being tested, but if you don’t mind some kinks you can get it here. The original game is here in Japanese, you need to install the translation’s data folder over the RPGMaker one.
Otherwise, it’s back to work this week on getting the combat in chapter 5 modernized and adding new stuff. New dialogue, new quests, and a new TF!
Urimas is presently working on the loading animation, Hund is still on the chapter 2 intro, Koops is drawing a yeti (don’t ask) and I sent off a script to Mario for editing. There might be a SECRET RELEASE soon!
Fan Art!
Holy cow it’s Ghost Maid Mei again, this time as Maid #7! It fits so well and I love the little tie on the sleeves. Thanks, Xandrasubmarine!
BUT WAIT
What if Jeanne got possessed by an ink slime and also became a french maid? Yeah this is what’d happen. Don’t worry she’s hypnotized so she’s going to be very happy, it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Also by Xandrasubmarine.
BONUS ALT: Black maid outfit to match the spooky ghost aesthetic.
Curious Cat
APRIL FOOL’S
The look on your face when there were cats in this post after I said there weren’t any cats.
Major *Refactored journal functions into a lua class. None of you know what this means but it means something to me
Minor *Slightly changed JX-101’s dialogue during a part of the questline to avoid the world’s most minor continuity error. *Added a bit more SX-399 dialogue so the long discussion doesn’t repeat after the questline is over. *You can now talk to 55 before the Gala to get a list of suggested sidequests in case you missed anything. It is non-exhaustive. *You can now examine Unit 8711’s body after completing the Equinox labs. *Added a very silly dialogue in the LRT facility about crawling through vents. *Added dialogue to the darkmatters who appear in Serenity Crater’s base. *Added labels to the pipe nightmare pipes. This should help colorblind players to reach the same level of frustration as everyone else. *Added a bit of shading to sector 119’s subway tunnel. That’ll teach you widescreen enthusiasts! *Can no longer re-enter the electrosprite training program once it’s completed (that’s why I put it on the title screen for enthusiasts!) *Adjusted position on Epsilon ending sequence for No-SX playthroughs so Christine is centered. *Added a Rilmani to skip out of the moth movie on successive “viewings” in case you accidentally pushed the wrong button. *Adjusted some of the golem voice ticks in the Biolabs transit station. *Adjusted some dialogue in case Sophie knows about the runestone during the gala sequence. *The gala objectives will now list how many prime command units you have identified. *Adjusted dialogue with Dr. Maisie and VN-19 so meeting them with the other investigator won’t leave any awkward dialogue. *Added a very stupid NC+ scene with 300910 and Raiju Christine. *Whether or not Chris or Christine appears on the chapter select is now per-savefile rather than a saved game option. *Added a few more form handlers for Cassandra in the basement of sector 15. *Changed Sophie’s handlers for NC+ so she can still transform Christine into a latex drone if you haven’t seen the scene before.
Bugs *Fixed error messages in the chapter 5 quest log. *Fixed being able to warp to areas from other chapters if the warp points were unlocked in that savefile. *Fixed the steam droids who need ammo knowing who Christine is on NC+ due to her carrying over Steam Droid form. *Fixed several objects in Cryogenics incorrectly assuming you’re a golem and further in the story due to carrying over golem form in NC+. *Fixed that shadow during the scraprat explosion part of the date montage. *Fixed Psue using the wrong text tick in one conversation. *Added the three ‘missing’ bestiary entries to chapter 5. *Vivify dialogue topic should unlock correctly. *Sophie won’t be standing on the tram station if you go back to sector 96 from sector 119 before seeing the cutscene there. *Fixed Latex Packmaster not using the “My Pretties” ability when surrounded by adorable scraprats. *Fixed all those GolemFancy error reports in the gala/raiju ranch. *Fixed a sign in the Raiju Ranch showing the wrong leader text. *Fixed Narissa’s sell-credits dialogue having a decimal on the credits count. *Fixed the golems during the memory sequence erroneously being marked for 8 direction movement (and spitting error messages). *Fixed a minor position desync during the Tennis Court negotiation. *Stamina wheel should no longer appear during cutscenes. *That weird camera jump during the Raibie sequence should be removed. *Christine should vanish when placing the noisemaker during the Raibie scene. *Fixed the lantern in Cryogenics not disabling its light when picked up. Be on the lookout for other bugs! *Fixed some incorrect facings during a Raiju Ranch cutscene. *Should no longer be possible to deathwarp out of the gala basement. *You will no longer receive a Tazer and re-equip weapons at the start of a chapter 5 NC+ playthrough. Also removed that from that lord golem TF. *Fixed the “broken” doll costumes not setting correctly when changing forms. *Fixed always getting certain dialogue during the gala by bringing over EDG form from an NC+. *Fixed electrosprite quest not working correctly when carrying over Electrosprite form from NC+.
Development Update
I’m going to take a bit of time off RoP since I have spent basically the last THREE MONTHS working constantly. Instead I’m going to be working on the Maiden Sealed in Stone translation, hooray.
We had a brief (TWO HOURS) meeting yesterday to pick our voice actors for chapter 5. We got… 152 submissions across the three characters. Chris is going to be voiced by Pyxxis himself (woooow!) while JX will be voiced by the same VA who does SX-399. There were so many good VAs to pick from we had to come up with a letter grading system just to keep track.
Everyone but me is still working on RoP stuff but me? Time to work on another thing. CLEAR THE BOARD.
I have cleaned up the bugs from the first half of chapter 5, so now it’s on to the next half and maybe NC+ bugs. Once those are all taken care of, I’ll release a patch and then start working on the new stuff.
Urimas will be making the chapter 2 loading animation this week, Hund is still working on the chapter 2 opening image, Koops got a BIG COMMISSION but is otherwise working on the chapter 5 trainer. We might also see the Sanya Harpy talk sprites this month depending on Giga’s schedule.
The Voice Actors have sent in a ton of auditions for the chapter 5 characters, we’ll be going over them as a team sometime soon and picking out who we want to go with.
WHI Mod News
After mulling it over for a while, I decided the best path forward is to make WHI have workshop support on the understanding that people who put stuff on the workshop should also provide zip files for users who got WHI via some other method. Only half of the userbase uses Steam.
This provides a method of backups for mods that don’t involve me having to do it without excluding non-Steam users. If anyone does upload a mod to the workshop without a matching zip file we’ll all politely ask them to upload one :3
This will take a bit of coding (I just have to add some backend to upload mods to the workshop, Steam insists you do it in-game for some reason) so I’ll see about that after the chapter 5 bugfix patch it out.
Downloads page as usual, or get it right here (Mega.nz / Mediafire) (Win/Lin/Mac Bundle)
Changelog:
Minor *Added three new achievements for chapter 1. These will unlock retroactively if you got them before this version. *Added extremely dumb butterbomber reference to chapter 5. *Changed gi_Force_Facing to giForceFacing. If you know what this is you’re something impressive. *Added a little extra dialogue to the LRT terminal on the off chance you choose to revisit it later. *Restructured bottom of mines boss dialogue to reflect losing the battle. *Restructured a Sophie date conversation a bit. *Adjusted voice ticks in golem TF. *JX-101’s talk sprites are now shaded, thanks to Stinkehund. *The helpful NC+ Rilmani at the Salt Flats will now remove Florentina from the party so you can see the Adina stuff. Florentina will rejoin when you leave the area.
Bugs *Fixed a catalyst marker in chapter 1 being on the wrong map. *Fixed missing asset load lists when playing chapter 1 after exiting and restarting the game. *Fixed incorrect tiles in the hydroponics/datacore area. *Can no longer get 55 stuck on a wall when entering the LRT facility for the first time. *Fixed incorrect facing after exiting elevators in Sector 198. *Fixed incorrect dialogue appearing in Sector 198 before it was meant to. *Fixed music not playing correctly after loading a game. *Fixed boss music not playing during the Equinox boss battles. *Fixed error text when spawning DarkmatterGirls during certain cutscenes. *Fixed an awkward collision during the Serenity Base cutscenes. *Added missing emotes in post-Darkmatter TF scene. *Added form handlers for Linda in the repair bay of Sector 96. *Vivify in the LRT will now correctly be marked for “Volunteer” if you don’t have the form yet. *It should no longer be possible to get 55 stuck when watching the Serenity Observatory Darkmatter scene. *Fixed the longstanding HP roundoff error in the main menu (may still affect combat, be vigilant!) *Manufactory doors should no longer cause issues once Christine’s cover is blown. *Fixed percentage-of-max healing abilities displaying 0% in their descriptions. *Fixed stackable items being sold changing their names to “AdventureItem” in the buyback menu. *You can no longer deathwarp past a cutscene trigger after defeating Infirm and thus prevent yourself from using warp points. *Wisphag paragon sprites are no longer bats. *Fixed one of the slimes in the mausoleum area having the wrong combat encounter. *Fixed the combat glossary showing random number garbage where percent symbols are supposed to be.
Mostly bufixes, but the Black Screen Bug has been fixed! Hooray!
Witch Hunter Izana v1.12 Is Out!
Changelog:
-Mod load order option will disappear when changing languages. -Moved Inventory UI around a bit so there’s more space for item names, made item names shrink to match length (needed for JP translation) -Fixed quest descriptions not displaying. -Fixed being unable to craft charms if you ARE NOT using the Palette Forms mod. -Fireburst no longer says it costs 10 MP (it actually costs no MP). -Fixed a bug where the game would crash when attempting to create a new save onto a file slot rather than using the new save button (Thanks, Meryl)
Once again, bugfixes. This will remain as a beta for a little bit just in case there is some other horrible bug I didn’t fix this time.
Budget Report!
We do a periodic budget report so you all know where the studio money is going. You can find it here.
Witch Hunter Izana Voted Images!
That’s right, Chic now has some free time, so she finished up the 1000 sales bonus art. You voted for: Salty as a bug! Well you got it, now I’m a moth. Thanks a lot. So I spent my own money to commission Chic to draw Living Armor Izana which was the 2nd place thing on the poll. Splendid work as always, Chic!
Development Update!
As you can probably guess from the changelogs, I’m now working on the chapter 5 update, getting the bugs out of the way before I start the new stuff. It will be a few more weeks of these before I have to start making the new quests and NPCs so there will be several more public patches before things go back to being supporter-only for a month.
Koops has finished one of the new characters (Chapter 5’s fortune teller) and is working on the trainer, Chicken actually made some enemies for chapter 2 (where does he find the time!?), Hund is working on the chapter 2 intro image, and I’m going to gut Urimas.
We have also put out our casting call for chapter 5’s voice acting. Yay us.
Wearing a leg garter when you have no legs is next-level. This is why you will never be as good a maid as Ghost Mei.
BlueLily is slightly updating a few of the chapter 3 designs. I can’t wait to see how our artists render them for RoP but we got so many chapter 2’s to do first…
There was a release earlier this week so I had to make a page for that. Go check that out if you only usually check this page on Mondays! It also contains information on what the mod for WHI actually is and how to use it.
Minor *Sammie and Jackie will no longer recognize Florentina in her Agarist class. *Jobs can now manually specify face tables (useful for mods).
Bugs UFOs *Victoria now uses a sword slash instead of poison animation for Rapier Slice. *Added Wisphags to the bestiary *Fixed the text not aligning in the bestiary. *Can no longer strangle mannequin enemies. *Fixed pain sounds sometimes playing when the voice play chance is “never”. *Fixed enemies failing to pathfind in vertically large rooms. *Missed abilities now show their title. *Can no longer chat with Florentina during a section of the mannequin quest. *Fixed a paragon ability “Fatal Sting” having a chaser set incorrectly.
Mostly a bugfix release, there may or may not be one more of these before it’s full-speed on the chapter 5 bugs.
Version 1.11 of Witch Hunter Izana is out!
I’m leaving it on the beta branch of Steam for a day or two just in case I made a huge mistake somewhere and it’d blow up the base game. On Itch.io it can be downloaded as usual. Changelog:
-Fixed Izana’s Piety not restoring 10 MP. -Essences from tough enemies now have a 100% drop chance instead of 99%. -Fixed some missing trees in the Villa. -Fixed one of the Orcville enemy groups using the wrong enemy listing. -Removed some diagnostic text. -Fixed Caelyn’s Bolas not showing the evade icon. -Fixed an issue with older savefiles that made Izana disappear during NG+. -Caelyn’s Inspire can no longer miss/glance. -Fixed items not unlocking when playing with translation active. -Missed abilities now show their title. -Loading a save in the Monastery courtyard should stop music from playing from the title screen. -Bestiary should correctly toggle censoring along with enemy censoring in the options menu. -Added title display to some enemy skills that didn’t have them. -Updated some of the text in the final scenes to better describe the tiles in the final room. -Stats for the next level up are displayed on the level up UI. -Updated boss victory callouts for JP translation.
I have also updated the PaletteForms mod to v1.01 to fix some of the bugs. (Mediafire / Mega.nz)
-Fixed bestiary misalignments. -Added other enemies to bestiary. -Fixed attuned charms for the new forms. -New enemies now appear in Hard Mode groupings in addition to normal groupings. -Fixed level-up portraits not being aligned correctly.
Development Stuff
We are now off to the races on the chapter 5 stuff, amazingly, ahead of schedule. I didn’t think I’d do the WHI mod stuff until the end of March. First is bugfixing, then a few content changes, then the new quest.
Koops is now designing the new characters for chapter 5, namely the trainer and fortune tellers. Chicken actually wanted to draw some characters for the chapter 2 update but who knows when that’ll happen. Hund is now working on the chapter 2 intro scene, and I tricked Urimas into doing commissions.
Perhaps most amazingly, Wispy is helping with the code! That’s right, several chapter 5 skills have already been modernized and bugfixed by Wispy! It has taken 8 years to get to this point, where someone is helping me with the code.
Pyxxis promises he has a bunch of the maps for the Tellurium Mines done but I don’t know if the full set will be ready by the time the update comes out, they may need to be patched in later.
Niko and Dmitri were apparently extremely patient during the team meeting because it was right around feeding time and they were starving. We all thanked them for their patience.
There will be a budget report next week. I was going to do it this week but payouts are on the 5th and oh what a tragedy. I BLAME YOU, LEAP YEAR.
Fan Art!
I am told this is how rubbery slimes make friends. Right? Totally innocent! There’s an NSFW version that I will post on the Patreon/Subscriberstar but I don’t want any of you to get in trouble for browsing my smut game website at work.
And then this happened. Artwork by the lovely Xandra K / BestLilBurger.
February is now gone and can’t hurt you anymore, and that means the Chapter 1 Update for Runes of Pandemonium is now public. It contains several new transformations, some new areas, oodles of bugfixes, deep lore, and a new quest.
Witch Hunter Izana v1.10 Beta – With Mod Support
If you are privy to Witch Hunter Izana, then you can now get version 1.10. This is a Beta release, as it may have bugs related to the addition of engine changes for the Japanese translation effort. In fact the JP translation is included though it is incomplete at the moment.
If you are using Steam, enter the beta password “PumpernickelBread” to unlock the beta. On Itch.io you can download version 1.10 directly. If you got the game via the blog, then I have updated the support page.
DB-Palette’s New Forms Mod
The mod is available here (Mediafire) (Version 1.0). To install it, unzip it into your Witch Hunter Izana/Games/AdventureMode/Chapter C/Mods/ folder, run the game, and enable it by clicking the empty box on the right side of the mod load order menu. Make sure to hit Save after enabling the mod.
Update: Updated mod to version 1.01, bugfixes. (Mediafire / Mega.nz)
A Mod Load Order.txt file will be in your game executable directory to indicate the mod is active.
Massive thanks to db-Palette for making the assets for this, doing some of the initial scripting, and giving me the kick in the ass I needed to make a mod load order handler.
Because mod making is a player-driven activity, I won’t be maintaining any sort of database on the subject. The best I will do is make a channel in the studio Discord that will have a list of all existing mods, if any surface after this one anyway.
That’s right, every single bug ever has been fixed, including the ones I haven’t even fixed yet. I’m just that good of a coder, every time you encounter a bug from now on it will be sent back in time and I’ll fix it and update before you even encounter the bug.
In a completely unrelated fact, any time the game behaves in a way that you’d consider erroneous or unexpected, that isn’t a bug, it is in fact an Unintended Feature, Obviously (UFO). I think tracking down, catching, and explaining UFOs is very important so I will focus my energies on those.
Art by the incomparable Yuuta Wisp. The mad bastard actually animated my shitpost. This will not be a recurring theme.
Public Chapter 1 Update Soon
The update goes public at the end of the month, which you can check your calendars to find out (there’s all kinds of amazing facts on your calendars! Like 27 happens, and then 28! And then 29 BUT ONLY SOMETIMES). I just got one of the maps from Hund and the other one comes tomorrow, so we might even have all of the chapter 1 images ready ON TIME. It’s a miracle.
Other Development Updating
The mod update for WHI is coming right along, I may release it on the same day as the chapter 1 update goes public. I have to hunt down a few bugs UFOs and Urimas is getting me some sprite sheets for the kitsune forms.
The WHI translation project is going well, I believe the technical hurdles are all done with and we just need to get the lines translated. I will make a few backend improvements like maxing line lengths on item names and the like, just to make it a bit easier to read in Japanese. Who knew this would be so difficult.
The mod update for WHI will be released but considered a “beta” since it has some misaligned text and may contain other bugs as a result of all my tinkering for translations. 1.06 is still the official version for people who just want to play the game as it was intended. I also have to make a modmaking guide before you’ll be able to REALLY get into it, but if any community members want to help and know Lua I’d appreciate the hell out of it.
Fan Art!
Made by Dias, commissioned by Justin Kinniger. It’s Christine Secrebot, except she’s got a maid outfit on! Is this a hint about chapter 5? Yes, yes it is. I can’t wait to work on it.
Curious Cat
Niko has taken up indoor gardening and become an expert on grass. He spent both his braincells on this puzzle.
Pandemonium Development 