Moonlight In Garland News

Hey Neighbours!

We're getting deep in those petal events now baby! All of the platonic only route NPCS have now had their Petal Events added! Also in this update: bug fixes and bird seed! You can now purchase bird seed and feed the birds around town (though the animation is still a WIP). The art gallery has also had a make over to look a little more pretentious :D

Now that's out of the way, I'll be deep into the romance events over the next few weeks. We're currently having a Garland Sims Battle Royale to decide who's commitment events get added in first so some join us in the Discord if you want to join in!

Other than that I'm still chugging along behind the scenes with quality of life fixes including the layering issues with scroll areas when using controller.

See you in Garland!




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Early Access 1.3.6D - Patch (PC and Mac) (Full and Demo) - 26/04/24

General:
- Fixes scroll bars so don’t run off edges and adjust their spacing properly.
- Birds - Adjusted flight logic and collision (still a WIP).
- Tools - Added birdseed item which can be used to feed the birds (animation still a WIP lol)
- Shops - Removed items from pet rescue and added bird seed
- Fixed crash when entering multiple rooms with no NPC schedules in sequence.
- Added sparkle to item create in some circumstances.
- Updated art gallery level.
- Fixed crash when using keyboard during favourite food input.
- Temporarily removed Chloe’s headshot from the PD noticeboard.
- Changed Hannah’s first greeting to be less time sensitive.
- Changed ok to okay in a lot of built in text (still a WIP)

Petal events:
- Cecile PE 1, 2, 3 - Polished, recoded, minor text edits.
- Cecile PE 4F, 5F, 6F - Added and enabled.
- Liv PE 1, 2, 3 - Polished, recoded, minor text edits. (Added outfit choice art)
- Liv PE 4F, 5F, 6F - Added and enabled.
- Harper PE 1, 2, 3 - Polished, recoded, minor text edits. (Added quest for PE 2 and adjusted spawn conditions of second quest half)
- Harper PE 4F, 5F, 6F - Added and enabled.
- Fixed dating choice event script not registering choice (this will be fully fixed in the first romance event release but should be ok for now).
- Fixed timed petal events not triggering on room move.
- Added functionality for petal event related mail and added mail for Cecile, Leon, Liv, Harper events.
- Started adding recurring emotes to alert when NPCs are waiting for events to start

Back end and optimisations:
- Lots of general clean up on code.
- Added function to dialogue to create relevant NPC if not found for fewer crashes.
- Added import of scripts for spreadsheet functions.

Hey Neighbours!

Hope you're having a good month! Today's update marks the start of fortnightly patches again after I completed a massive chunk of behind the scenes work. That means every update from now on you'll be able to further your friendships or relationships with a few more of Garland's residents.

The first to be added is Léon, the less than cheerful building manager of Cedar Court. There are now 6 events you can complete with him to learn a little more about his past, family and life. Maybe he'll warm up to you eventually... or maybe not!

I'll be releasing the characters that only have platonic options first (Léon, Cecile, Liv and Harper) and then we'll vote in the Discord Community for who will be the first to get their romantic commitment options!

Speaking of Discord, this month's community theme is Gardening and I'd love to see your irl and in game gardens! For those of you looking to get to know your Garland neighbours a bit better, we've started a monthly Book Club and Movie Night so come hang with us for sarcastic jokes, hot takes and good times with friends. I post a lot of behind the scenes stuff there too so if you're curious about what's going on that's the place to find out!

See you in Garland!




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Early Access 1.3.6C - Patch (PC and Mac) - 12/04/24

General:
- Fixed some obj_game references in game text.
- Fixed NPCs getting pushed during cutscenes.
- Fixed player getting up from sitting during cutscenes.
- Fixed crash on room start for areas with no assigned npc schedules.
- Fixed issue with collection tallies

Petal Events:
- Leon Petal Events 1, 2, 3, 4F, 5F, 6F completed and polished.
- Leon Petal Events 1, 2, 3 - minor changes to text and positioning.
- Back end: Set up for all other petal event triggers.
- Back end: Remaining petal event text formatted and added.

Back end and optimisations:
- Optimised camera and window resizing, windowed mode now works properly and is resizable.
- Optimised building fades and window timing.
- Minor changes to world and UI zooming.
- Cleaned up layer swapping code
- Cleaned up log files
- Cleaned up and reorganised font handling to prep for system changes
- Cleaned up and reorganised set up scripts.
- Cleaned up camera settings.

Hey Neighbours!

Hope you're having a good week! This update mainly focuses on some back end optimizations and reworkings that have been a long time coming and will help me work faster and more efficiently for future updates. That said, there are still some changes that you might notice including ability to change the player voice, volume control for dialogue sounds and some petal event fixes. Also lot of the work I've done this time is around handling data in more efficient ways so if you previously experienced slow downs or lagging I'd love to know if this has made any difference!

As voted in our Discord community the next major content I'll be working on will be petal events (and I'm going to get going on polishing off the UI stuff too) so look forward to more relationship progression soon!


General:
- Private detective - Fixed incorrect bank transfer after completing quests.
- Lift menus - Fixed occasional soft lock when spamming exit buttons.
- Adjusted NPC spawn logic for less chance of them spawning into awkward spots (still WIP)

UI/Accessibility:
- Added option to turn off debug logging.
- Redesigned settings page
- Added volume options for dialogue box sfx.
- Fixed energy saver not saving/loading correctly.
- Fixed toggle/hold to run not saving/loading correctly.
- Fixed soft lock on title screen when exiting news.
- Adjusted text for toggle/hold to run to be clearer.

Player:
- Optimised movement functions for less conflicts during Petal Events.
- Adjusted collision system to prevent getting stuck in collisions .
- Adjusted collision system to prevent being sucked through circular collision objects and updated tree collisions.
- Added 2 customisation options for dialogue box voice.
- Re-added bonk sfx to collisions.
- Fix long pants doubling up during sitting facing right.

Petal Events:
- Fixed Avery PE1 crash.
- Fixed Quinn PE 1 speed problem after event.
- Added kill script for all cutscene obj.
- Fixed crash when “Exit to apartment” is used during events.

Back end and optimisations:
- Added a LOT of new trouble shooting logs
- Fixed NPC distance calculation.
- Consolidated MANY functions.
- Removed MANY depreciated variables, objects and scripts.
- Fixed naming conventions for debugger, camera, daycycle, crops, obj_crop, depthsorter, inventory, game.
- Fixed naming conventions for various enums.
- Depth sorting - added exists check for objects to prevent crashes.
- Depth sorting - no longer depth sorting or drawing objects outside of the camera window slice.
- Optimised ds_grid deletion on cleanup.
- Optimised for loops to have fewer array/grid size calls.
- Completely overhauled player sitting functions in preparation for future features.
- Completely overhauled player state functions in preparation for future features.
- Optimised NPC schedules to split into multiple grids swapped on room start.
- Optimised logging functions to be less heavy.
- Optimised tally check functions and switched to be once per second.
- Optimised shadow calculations.
- Optimised fences to call flower check less.
- Updated pathfinding grid update to only call when someone is walking a path.
- Freed a bunch of player and npc scripts to be used by multiple items.
- Removed button saving from hotbar and notifications

Hey Neighbours!

Wooo a whole version number change!! And yay another content update! The biggest things in this version are the addition of Stock Trading with Quinn, an app for cataloguing your music collection and another app for cataloguing the rest of your collections (crystals only to begin with). This is also the start of your work with the museum which is fun!

After you unlock the investment club with Quinn you'll be able to discover a new company to invest with every week and make trades from his computer. Will you make big wins or big losses? Who knows!

Next update will be focused on bug fixes. We'll be voting for the next content features I add in the discord soon too so make sure you check it out!

See you in Garland!



Here's the full changelog:

General:
- Added many more debug codes and dev shortcuts, adjusted logging.
- Old save files: Added error catch for quests in old format to convert them on next save.
- Old save files: Added error catch for very old saves if the world is open but the hotel quest is detected as being open to convert tutorial quests to closed then set welcome quests open again just in case of emergency.
- Old save files: Fixed crash on import for old save files with custom highlight colours.
- Weather - added to train travel scenes.
- Apps - Added beginnings of functionality for reordering apps.
- Apps - Changed structure for future stability.
- Apps - Fixed notification icons occasionally not matching the required app.
- Apps - Fixed a rare crash on exiting apps during global button selection.
- UI - Added custom number pad function for general future UI uses.
- Money - added maximum money amounts.
- Mail - Fixed letter refresh so taking items from letters doesn’t close them anymore.
- Shops - Added ability for shops to run custom cutscenes.
- Relationships - Added additional tally for petal event tracking.
- Hotbar - Tentative fix for hotbar continually setting itself as having a button selected in mouse mode. This is a WIP.
- Time - Fixed an issue where sleeping during months that had more than 28 days would bump you to the next month.
- Time - Reworked the time keeping system.
- Dialogue - Fix for portraits not displaying correctly.

Player:
- Fixed eyes sticking closed (please set them again in the menu if yours are currently saved as closed).
- Adjusted player info scripts for optimisation.
- Adjusted player tool selection as it wasn’t updating correctly for gifting NPCs. This will be adjusted more at the next tool addition.

Museum/Crystals:
- Added Collections app
- Added Collections app mail.
- Added Collections app cutscenes (go to Museum after receiving invitation in the mail and talk to the staff to trigger).

Music:
- Added Music collections app
- Added Music app cutscene (go to Music shop and talk to the staff to trigger)

Quinn’s Stock Trading:
- Added stock market trading mini game to Quinn’s desktop computer, unlocks after Quinn’s second petal event. If you have already completed the event, you should receive mail which unlocks it now.
- Added weekly mail for new trades and trade result information.
- Added stock info to save info.
- Updated Quinn’s Petal Event cutscene dialogue.

Hey Neighbours!

Today's update is a bit special because it's got some fun new features and it's also the last in the 1.3.5 version line so next update we'll be moving to 1.3.6A
Along with bug fixes (no more of those shockingly long dark tunnels during train travel), 1.3.5Z brings to new collection features: music and crystals.

Pebbles will now spawn daily around the city. Is there anything more satisfying than finding a really nice smooth pebble to keep in your pocket? If you find one, take it to the new shop "Hidden Gems" in the mall and use their rock tumbler to convert the pebble into a pretty crystal to decorate your house with.

Speaking of your house, the MP3 player that pops up when you look out your window will now keep track of your personal playlist. Conveniently enough, the music shop near Pinewood Central has just gotten a new shipment of seasonal tunes for you to purchase, what are the odds of that? To add a CD to your playlist, hold it and interact to use.

The next update will include 2 new matching apps for music and crystals so you can keep track of your collections.

I'd love feedback on the new mechanics so if you haven't already, come join our community of neighbours in discord and compare your collections!

See you in Garland!



Here's the full changelog:
This update is pretty big size-wise, I'm still investigating the best ways to compress the music to balance quality with size.

General:
- Fixed black screen soft lock during train travel.
- Fixed black screen soft lock during Private Detective quests.
- Fixed crash on Alt Tab on PC (Hopefully!!).
- Added more checks to application selection.
- Inventory - Cleaned up code in preparation for more item categories and more varied uses.
- Daily spawn - Cleaned up code and moved to main files.
- Shop - Cleaned up code in preparation for new system changes.
- Added pop up to Quinn’s apartment about the delay for the stock trading mini game.
- Rearranged interaction priority levels so shops/other interactions are preferences over NPC talk, this should solve issues around triggering NPC dialogue when in range (and facing the shop).
- Train - Fixed soft locking when selecting the current train station or exiting train dialogue.
- Saving - Fixed issue with saving during sleep occasionally firing before the nightly spawn has completed (and therefore not saving the date/bank transactions etc.) this is a work in progress which will be fully resolved next update. Until then, the game may save at some unexpected times.

Music:
You can now buy CDs at the music shop, add them to your phone and listen to songs you’ve collected at your apartment window!
- Renamed all catalogued music and updated catalogue system.
- Added all album songs to back end (they will become available gradually in game over the next few updates).
- Added song to rain days.
- Added player unlocked music to save file.
- Fixed no sound on default start up (occasionally)

MP3 Player:
- Added weather effects to window view.
- Fixed getting stuck on window exit.
- Added 32 CD items with the ability to use them to add songs to your MP3 player and listen to them when at your apartment window.
- Fixed mp3 player not popping up occasionally and leaving the player stuck.
- Fixed song not restarting when volume too low.
- Fixed a crash during music change for old save files.
- Updated music control icons

Rock collecting:
You can now collect pebbles, take them to the Hidden Gem crystal shop, pay to have them tumbled and turn them into crystals!
- Added 11 crystals, pebble and polishing grit items.
- Added daily random pebble spawn, they’re a bit tricky to find so good luck hunting!
- Added option of shop/tumbler to Hidden Gem shop.

Shops:
- Added CDs (seasonal choices) to music shop.
- Added Hidden Gems crystal shop.
- Mall - Changed open hours to 24/7 (shops still have individual opening hours)
- Mall - Expanded top floor area and bottom floor area in preparation for new shops.
- Mall - Added coming soon art for Wedding shop and Wallpaper shop.
- Fixed a few shop items which were not importing from the spreadsheet correctly.
- Fixed not being able to buy items if you had the exact amount of money they cost.
- Changed layout of shop widths to be more even left/right.
- Added Sophie’s portrait to music shop.
- Fixed incorrect sprites displaying when shops are closed.

Mail:
- Added music shop welcome mail (day 3 or later).
- Added crystal shop welcome mail (day 5 or later).
- Adjusted market opening mail to day 8 or later.
- Adjusted wallpaper shop opening mail to day 12 or later.
- Fixed mail not checking last row in grid.