Book of Hours News

FEATURE: Crafting helper panel for workstations
FEATURE: Mouseover to show unlock requirements on rooms
FEATURE: Save-independent endings. You can now unlock a History with one save, and access it from the Histories screen even when playing another save. (When you open the game, it'll log any new Histories from your current AUTOSAVE and store them permanently.)
Two matching spintriae can now be converted into a spool of metal wire.
Items fixed to the wall no longer highlight as Considerable.
To minimise beach-madness, some UI elements only appear once you're out of the first phase of the game
Added an 'Unlock All Resolutions' checkbox option for people who really don't want to play in 16:10
Aspect-finder pulse now keeps going if you leave your mouse over the aspect display
Little bit of camera easing
Fixed some incorrect crafting hints
Expanded hints on Determinations and ending-related info
Fixed Curse of the Flying Scroll/Phonograph bug
Rev Tim no longer pretends like he's going to give you two Memories on first introduction
Roots Origin Determination no longer claims to affect Grail
Tree of Wisdoms auto-closes when you hit Backspace
Clarified some Moth and Lantern History text
Added some clarifying information about Numa frequency
Dog is no longer confusingly found in staff-room if already found elsewhere (in new games, anyway)
Candles, and some llies, are no longer Fuel
Fatigued Soul cards now properly affected by theoplasmic contamination
Deeplight Corals didn't allow crafting.
Deep Mandaic no longer alphabetised under M
Fludd Gallery glassware is a little less greedy for clicks
Some experimental perf optimisations
Added a hotkey to hide the HUD/UI, for screenshot enthusiasts
UI Scale is now a slider
Fixed annoying mouseover flicker bug on aspect preview
Rags are now Fabric
VSync options are now separate from quality settings
Some more of the higher-level Memories are Persistent (but no longer Confounding Parable)
Pennies can now be disposed of
Fixed an issue where you could use hotkey to start a room unlocking while another unlock was in progress, bypassing checks and devouring the assistant
Leathy now consumed when drunk
Added some aspects to Telescope and Cage.
Tweaked some miscued recipes to fit their skills better.
All Altars which accept Lights now also accept Fuels and Pigments.
Dragging an item a very long way from a newly unlocked room while scrolling will no longer make the item disappear
Activated nooks in the dispensary room in the Motley Tower
Tiny icons for things now preserve the correct aspect ratio
Typos!
HOTFIX: 'ghostcrafting' issue (thanks E.K.) where mysterious empty recipe info could appear in helper panel
HOTFIX: no black border around books
HOTFIX: silly bug fixed where books were taking up too much space
HOTFIX: reverted accidental ordering changes in trays
HOTFIX: Reduced likelihood of pulse-search getting stuck
HOTFIX: Occasional issue with cards escaping from inside workstations
HOTFIX: Sun-Cross symbol has suitable aspects again
HOTFIX: ordering for money is sensible again
HOTFIX: truly ridiculous bug where things go BONG when you pick them up or put them down.

As you may have noticed from our Steam updates, we’ve been updating BOOK OF HOURS with loads of fixes and improvements since launch (well, AK has. Lottie been fidaddling about with ART like the hornswoggling dilettante that she is. More on that below). We’ve got some big QoL features nearly ready to go on the beta branch for the game. But first of all, here’s one much-requested change that has made it into the main game. Over to AK:

[h3]NEXT COMPLETED WORKSTATION WATCHER/BUTTON[/h3]

This function was in the game from the beginning, but you had to hammer the BACKSPACE key, and the implementation was a little rough. It’s much easier to keep track of what you’ve done and where you’ve done it, now.



Now the features that are almost ready to come out of the oven (or you can try them now on the beta branch on GOG or Steam):

[h3]LESS CLICKY ROOM NAVIGATION[/h3]

Mouse over a locked room to get a preview of its unlock requirements – which will also highlight any relevant assistants you have ready to go…



…and when you click to get the room unlock window, I’ve tidied it up so all the details are in one place.



[h3]SAVE-INDEPENDENT ENDINGS[/h3]

BOOK OF HOURS is a long game – I didn’t especially plan for people to replay it, at least not without waiting for expansions and updates. More – the reason there are so many endings is that I wanted people to play through once and get a distinctive ending that most others would never see. I didn’t really particularly think people would want to save-scum and try out different endings. So endings were locked to a particular save file.

But almost everyone else felt differently! In hindsight it seems obvious that people would want to fossick around and experience at least a couple of endings, without starting a whole new save. (This is the peril of making the games that you want to play yourself.) So I’ve fixed it; all endings are stored save-independently and you can build up a library of logged histories from multiple saves. When the update hits, it’ll pick up any endings in your current save and add them to the store.



[h3]THE CRAFTING HELPER PANEL[/h3]

Used to be that you could lock yourself out of lower-level crafting recipes if you increased your skills too much. This was usually not a problem, because you could usually just leave a relevant ingredient out and not activate the higher-level recipe, but it was much more annoying than I’d realised. This helps with that, but it also makes it much easier to explore the crafting system… and it’s a starting-point for further crafting improvements in this and future games.



The response in beta was enthusiastic, but a few harder-core folks were worried that it might automate away some of the fun of exploration. Banish those worries. (1) it doesn’t show all the recipes in the game, just the ones most relevant to the crafting system (though I’ll probably enable it for Determinations and Histories, too) and (2) you can just leave it permanently hidden if you prefer.



[h3]SCREENSHOT MODE[/h3]

This has caused an unexpected degree of excitement…



[h3].. AND THIS[/h3]

A very small number of people are very enthusiastic about getting rid of the stray penny in their Sundries tray. There will almost certainly be more uses for pennies in the future, but



Back to Lottie’s hornswoggling art, also known the long-awaited Lucid Tarot. I announced this aaages ago before BOOK OF HOURS evolved into the all-encompassing Fabergé egg it became and I had more free time to focus on merch. Let this be a humbling lesson to me to remember that Even If You Are Excited About Something It’s Not Necessarily The Best Time To Tell People About It, and the other sobering truth, There Are Only So Many Hours In The Day. I feel guilty about not having completed it yet so I’m trying my hardest to get the Lucid Tarot out on our Etsy shop by the end of the year – ideally in time for people to order as Christmas presents! Here are a few WIPs to give you a sense of the minor arcana, which I’ve never shared before:



Anyone want to guess who the Knights, Queens and Kings of each suit are? I shared this already on my Twitter, so here’s Aunt Mopsy to get you started:

1. Another big performance pass. That’s AK’s priority for this week.
   
2. Nuisances pass. Why are Pale Mommets so hard to make? Are some skill evolutions technically possible but practically impossible? why is bookshelf x in room y 10 pixels shorter than it should be? etc. etc. etc.
   
3. Another QoL pass. AK hasn’t forgotten he said he’d add notes; and he really wants to sort out that zoom-to-cursor function.
   
4. New free content and/or paid expansions. By Christmas, we’ll be sorting out what content goes free into the main game and what goes into our first paid expansion (though these are free to anyone with Perpetual Edition, too).
   
5. Soundtrack. Everyone seems to like it (everyone has EARS) so we’re getting this out ASAP. Please note that because of royalty splits with our composer, and because it’s not a content expansion, this isn’t included for free in Perpetual Edition like almost everything else. But it will be extremely reasonably priced!
   
6. Localisation. We’re starting with Simplified Chinese and will announce more languages as they’re official.
   

May Hush House keep you warm as the season turns to autumn. More news soon!

This is on the beta branch now! I've had some life admin this week, so it might make it to the main branch by Friday if it's stable, but no guarantees.

BETA 2023.9.a.9

- FEATURE: Crafting helper panel for workstations
- FEATURE: Mouseover to show unlock requirements on rooms
- FEATURE: Save-independent endings. You can now unlock a History with one save, and access it from the Histories screen even when playing another save. (When you open the game, it'll log any new Histories from your current AUTOSAVE and store them permanently.)
- To minimise beach-madness, some UI elements only appear once you're out of the first phase of the game
- Added an 'Unlock All Resolutions' checkbox option for people who really don't want to play in 16:10
- Aspect-finder pulse now keeps going if you leave your mouse over the aspect display
- Little bit of camera easing
- Fixed some incorrect crafting hints
- Expanded hints on Determinations and ending-related info
- Fixed Curse of the Flying Scroll/Phonograph bug
- Rev Tim no longer pretends like he's going to give you two Memories on first introduction
- Roots Origin Determination no longer claims to affect Grail
- Tree of Wisdoms auto-closes when you hit Backspace
- Clarified some Moth and Lantern History text
- Added some clarifying information about Numa frequency
- Dog is no longer confusingly found in staff-room if already found elsewhere (in new games, anyway)
- Candles, and some llies, are no longer Fuel
- Fatigued Soul cards now properly affected by theoplasmic contamination
- Deeplight Corals didn't allow crafting.
- Deep Mandaic no longer alphabetised under M
- Fludd Gallery glassware is a little less greedy for clicks
- Some experimental perf optimisations
- Added a hotkey to hide the HUD/UI, for screenshot enthusiasts
- UI Scale is now a slider
- Fixed annoying mouseover flicker bug on aspect preview
- Rags are now Fabric
- Some more gof the higher-level Memories are Persistent
- HOTFIX: no black border around books
- HOTFIX: silly bug fixed where books were taking up too much space
- HOTFIX: reverted accidental ordering changes in trays

Teeny patchlet, most importantly addressing what one bug reporter described as 'Mr Crab's Bad Day'

- Chimeric Larva now develops into, not produces, Perilous Imago
- Franklin speaks Latin
- Added a missing requirement to the hidden ending (it was less hidden than it should have been)
- Circumstances now disappear in Numa; numina make it clear that they will only disappear in Numa.
- 'Multitudinous' books are identified.
- Once an attuned Skill has been used to evolve Soul, it gets an Attunement Fulfilled marker so you don't need to keep futzing around with it.
- Fixed that disturbing crab glitch. You know the one. Count yourself lucky if you don't. Poor Carkifer.
- Smoothed out zoom step movement, added a little easing

That makes it five major patches and, good crikey, twelve minor patches since launch on 17th August. We're going to slow down a bit now, although by 'slow down a bit' I only mean 'take a coupla days off and not work this weekend'. Expect more quality-of-life updates soon.

'Forerunner?' 29th August is traditionally celebrated as the day of the Decollation of the Forerunner, which is to say, the day that Herod had John the Baptist shortened. I hadn't run across 'decollation' before. The etymology suggests cutting the neck, rather than the head. You know the story about Loki losing the bet with the dwarf Brok where his stake is his head? And he says, okay, my head is yours, but you better not touch my neck? So Brok sews Loki's lips shut, although at least in the Crossley-Holland version he has to use his brother's awl because Loki's lips are needle-proof. I can't imagine there's any relationship at all between John the Baptist and Loki, I just always liked the story, lots of fab swag.

Patch notes.

- Added a Completed Recipe button + count
- Added a fourth zoom level
- Added a config slider for zoom speed with scroll wheel / keys
- When you change zoom level, mouse moves towards cursor - WIP, currently optional in settings
- When using BACKSPACE to cycle to a recent workstation, zoom is not horribly close on external workstations
- [b[Another optimisation pass - memory requirements and frame rate should be better on lower end machines
- Daybreak and nightfall sounds are now (again) different!
- Boathouse and Crane now allow you to release beasts, and no longer have currently-extraneous ability slot (run an item through to refresh and update in existing saves)
- Save and Quit disabled as well as Load and Save in ToW
- Fixed bug where you sometimes had to ESC not [x] out of windows (when you dropped a card on a stack instead of in a tray)
- 'NOPE' marker when you can't put something in a slot (and hotfixed NOPES getting sticky when you dropped a card on a stack)
- Some card autosorting options
- A genealogical chart is no longer fixed in place
- Lengthened some workstation timer displays
- Snow displays on top of beehive in winter
- SFX play on workstation close as well
- Optimisation pass on textures! which means the game can just about run on 2GB VRAM now, but we're still working on it.
- Kanishk's book has a more suitable cover
- Windlit Gallery shrouded image updated
- Clearer hint about brewing tea
- 'NO RAIN BEHIND STAR'
- Marked fixed wall art so it didn't confuse people
- Disallowing invalid save characters again
- Cats may now be placed in niches in the Grand Ascent (also any other tame beasts, though some may look odd)
- Enabled mouseover highlight for accessible card text
- Ending text is visible again! (it was broken briefly on beta)
- Lower pump room now clickable rather than entirely hidden behind pump
- Sea now lines up better with rocks
- Soft Amber Pumpkin is no longer an infinite source of honey
- All rest beds now have a certain hidden interaction that was limited to one particular rest bed
- Thing slots in Windlit gallery now appear no longer appear in front of... other things they're not in front of
- Fixed optimisation bug: rooms offscreen when unlocked are now visible without a reload
- Fixed optimisation bug: very large rooms no longer flicker in and out on close zoom
- Hopefully fixed optimisation bug: objects should no longer glitch in/out on close zoom
- Hopefully fixed optimisation bug: scrolls and books should no longer show black instead of transparency
- Sacrament Calicite is now Grail, not Heart BUT to avoid inconveniencing people who were planning to use it, existing S.C. retains Heart
- Fixed misleading Scholar-level clue when making moth-gold paint
- 'Deep Mandaic', not just 'Mandaic'
- Glinting Cranial Tchotchke displays again
- Middle display in Duelling Hall has more wiggle room