Moonlight In Garland News

[p]Hey Neighbours!

Hope you’re having a great day! Release day omg wtf?

Garland is officially out of Early Access and there’s a 30% off launch discount for the first 2 weeks so go get it while it’s hot babyyyyy!

To be honest, I was never 100% sure I’d get this far so now we’re here I’m not sure what to say… being reflective usually makes me feel like throwing up, but when would be a better time than reaching a milestone like this?

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This is me sitting on the first map of Garland which I still have rolled up in a cupboard somewhere!

I started Garland in Jan 2020 and thought it would just be a silly little hobby. But I’ve never had much chill when setting appropriately sized goals so, like all of my silly little hobbies, things quickly spiralled into a life changing, all encompassing city.[/p][p][/p][p]

Every new dev bites off more than they can chew with their first project… but I guess I’m stubborn enough that I just kind of continued on regardless. [/p][p]

10 year old Violet her natural habitat: playing Donkey Kong on a train. The vibes have not changed tbh.

Did I scope creep myself into burn out? Yes. Did I make a lot of mistakes? Hell yes. Am I still learning and getting a little better every day? Fuck yeah I am.
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[/p][p]Above you can see me working where I did 90% of Garland: the couch. And my first play test, panel talk and live demo!

So 5.5 years in, what has Garland meant for me?

- A career and a huuuuge number of new skills?
- New lifelong friends and neighbours who I couldn’t have done this without?
- An unhealthy fear of opening my emails and new level of social anxiety?
- A million creative ways to dodge the question when friends and family give me and ask “So when do you think you’ll actually be done?”

Yes, but also the confidence that no matter what comes up in development (or life), I’ll be able to figure it out and keep going.



And yet, even with all that, somehow leaving Early Access still doesn’t feel very milestone-y? There’s still so much to do, so many features I’m planning to implement and my actual end goal: porting! It’s not… , so celebrating feels weird? And everyone has different expectations and I never want to over promise and under deliver.

So far every time I’ve hit a proper milestone with Garland, something has come up that makes it hard to celebrate. Game breaking bugs! Lockdown! Family deaths! Timezones and distance with friends! Burn out! Tech problems! Health problems! The all encompassing sinking feeling that yes I devoted a chunk of my life to this, but hard work doesn’t mean it’s actually a good game…



And if Tom Cardy has taught me anything, it’s that it’s that being in an endless loop with no pauses just ends with eating a lot of ham on stream so sometimes you need to celebrate that you cleared the damn level! (:medal: :earth_asia: :key: #inspirational)

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So after stream today I’m going to order some take away then go to sleep.

And tomorrow I’ll start again and we’ll see where this city takes us.

Continue?
>Yes
No



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[p]Hey Neighbours! [/p][p][/p][p]Just a little update today to do some housekeeping for release next week. This marks the official version change to 2.0.0A! It’s mostly polish and I’ve changed the EA gifts to register to your user id rather than be per save file so if you’re thinking of starting a new game at release feel free![/p][p][/p][p]And one last reminder that I’ll be streaming the release on Twitch and Youtube (@violetlebeaux) so some join me to celebrate the milestone![/p][p][/p][p]Stream time: 1:30pm Weds 27th Aug AEST (Tuesday night in the US)[/p][p][/p][p]Now back to working on the next update for me, hope you all have a great weekend![/p][p][/p][p] See you in Garland! [/p][p]

[p]Hey Neighbours!

Exciting news today: [/p][p]Garland will be exiting Early Access and moving to full release on 27th Aug 2pm (AEST)!

To celebrate, I’ll be hosting a stream on Twitch and Youtube (@VioletLeBeaux on both) so grab your friends and come join me to celebrate this milestone! [/p][p]
New roadmap![/p][p]Like I mentioned last time, moving to release status won’t change anything in terms of the update schedule, you can read the new roadmap here if you want to see what’s on the way: https://wiki.moonlightingarland.com/Roadmap.html[/p][p][/p][p]On to the update!
This will most likely be the last update before the release, though I might sneak in another patch if time allows.

The biggest changes in today’s update are: [/p][p]- Early Access gifts! You will be mailed some exclusive bed and couch, a healthy muffin trophy and some cold hard cashhhh as a thank you for playing! [/p][p]- Added a welcome screen for first time players. [/p][p]- Passing out now takes you to the Medical Center for a short cutscene. Depending on how unlucky you are, you’ll lose a couple of items and Hannah will charge you on a sliding scale (max f100). [/p][p]- The addition of a help tab in settings which has some common reset/rescue options.[/p][p]- Small adjustments to mental energy drains. [/p][p]- Lots of little polish things and bug fixes. [/p][p][/p][p] See you in Garland! [/p][p]

[p]Hey Neighbours! [/p][p][/p][p]What a week huh? Today's update is small but important, it adds folder support in game to the save area, squashes some annoying bugs and add more balancing to gift giving, and energy drains. [/p][p][/p][p]Previously, when you opened the game it tried to detect the Steam overlay and if it was detected, it looked for save files in a folder with your 10 digit Steam UserID. If Steam wasn't detected then it defaulted to a local user folder called 0000000000. That was all good until the Steam extension couldn't detect Steam at all so it looked like there were no files... even though they were safe in the other folder! [/p][p][/p][p]The steam overlay stuff has been fixed now but to avoid this in the future and give you more options on where to store your files, I've added folder tabs to the save area. When you load in now, if you have Cloud Save enabled and a default local user folder, you'll see two tabs in your save area and you can switch between them. If it detects a folder that's not the 0000000000 one, it will default to that but whichever tab you have open is where files will be saved.[/p][p][/p][p]You can probably also make your own folders if you want to separate things more but I haven't tested that much so use at your own risk and as always, back up first![/p][p][/p][p]See you in Garland![/p][p][/p][p] [/p][p][/p][p]_______________________________________________________________________[/p][p]Early Access 1.3.7D - Patch (PC and Mac) (Full and Demo) - 23/07/25[/p][p]_______________________________________________________________________[/p][p]General:[/p][p]- Fixed camera crash during Man Hunt game (I believe this has been fixed but the circumstances are very specific so I couldn’t recreate 100% so please let me know if you experience it).[/p][p]- Fixed crash when completing specific tasks (Meet the Neighbours, Animal Photos) in reverse order.[/p][p]- Nightly summary: adjusted formatting[/p][p]- Penny: fixed hovering on chair.[/p][p]- Intro I.D. cutscene: updated text[/p][p]- CatJake now only appears in Kirin’s room after completing Kirin’s PE 3.[/p][p]- Music: fixed incorrect music playing during tutorial days.[/p][p]- Fixed stuttering when trying to move during letterbox bars slide out.[/p][p]- Tasks: Photograph 8 animals- fixed sketches counting as animal photos.[/p][p]- Stake out: fixed incorrect notification[/p][p][/p][p]Inventory:[/p][p]- Gifting: adjusted NPC likes and dislikes across all items (will be reflected in the wiki in the next few days).[/p][p]- Energy: adjusted mental and physical energy gains from food.[/p][p]- Pricing: adjusted a few prices across items for balancing.[/p][p][/p][p]Save files:[/p][p]- Rearranged save area to show all user folders as tabs.[/p][p]- Default Local User folder: 0000000000 [/p][p]- Steam Cloud Save folder (if enabled): 10 digit Steam UserID.[/p][p]- If a Cloud Save folder is detected, the game will default to that folder on start up, if you want to save to the other folder, just switch tabs in the load area and then files will be saved to that folder.[/p][p]- Added button to copy folder file path to clipboard.[/p][p]- I will add the option to move files between folders eventually but for now you can do it either manually in file explorer or by loading a save and then resaving to an empty slot in your preferred folder.[/p][p]- Note that only saves in the Cloud Save folder will be uploaded to Steam Cloud.[/p][p][/p][p]Mac Users - Steam Cloudsave update:[/p][p]The cloud save functions appear to be working on Mac now with a few caveats:[/p][p]- Because of OS permissions, the Steam overlay isn’t detected on Mac often, previously that was what triggered the game to choose the Cloudsave folder rather than the Default Local User.[/p][p]- To counteract that, now, if the game detects a user folder that isn’t the local user number it will default to that folder on start up instead of the local user.[/p][p]- If you want to use your local folder for saves, just switch to that tab in the save area.[/p][p] I would be a lot more comfortable if I had a few more Mac testers though, if you’re a Mac player and are interested in testing please drop me a line in the Garland discord or by submitting a bug ticket

[p]Hey Neighbours! [/p][p][/p][p]Build 1.3.7B had a required update to the third party extension that connects Gamemaker to Steam. Unfortunately that has caused some issues as the extension has a bug with recognizing the Steam connection in some circumstances. [/p][p]I was able to fix this in the Windows build but the fix doesn’t work on Mac and I can’t roll back to the previous Mac version for technical reasons. I’ve logged the bug with the extension’s dev and hopefully they will have a fix soon but in the meantime I’ll keep looking for Mac users.[/p][p][/p][p] _______________________________________________________________________[/p][p]Early Access 1.3.7C - Hotfix (PC and Mac) (Full and Demo) - 19/07/25[/p][p]_______________________________________________________________________[/p][p]The last update had a required upgrade of the third party extension that connects Gamemaker to Steam. Unfortunately that has caused some issues as the extension has a bug with connecting to Steam in some circumstances. [/p][p]I was able to fix this in the Windows but the fix doesn’t work on Mac and I can’t roll back to the previous Mac version for technical reasons. I’ve logged the bug with the extension’s dev and hopefully they will have a fix soon but in the meantime I’ll keep looking for another solution.[/p][p]Windows - Fixed issue with Steam not initialising.[/p][p]Mac - Steam Cloudsave and Steam related functions are currently not working. [/p][p]If you have Cloudsave enabled your save files are still safe in your user folder and if you want to continue playing while the issue is being solved you can follow these instructions:[/p][p]- Locate your save files in a folder similar to this: /Users//Library/Application Support/com.moonlightingarland.moonlight[/p][p]- Steam cloud save files are in the folder with a 10 digit user number.[/p][p]- Copy the .sav files in your user folder over to the default user folder named “0000000000”.[/p][p]- Play as usual.[/p][p]- Once Cloud save is enabled again, you can copy your save files back to the steam user folder and pick up again.[/p][p][/p][p][/p]