Moonlight In Garland News

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.

Welcome neighbors to a whole new year of Garland!

I hope you all had a great break and are reset and ready for the next year because it’s going to be a pretty great one.

Over the break I visited Japan with friends, bought a lot of electronic dictionaries, got pretty sick and had some mental refresh time so now I’m pumped and ready to get back to our regular routine!

🌙🌙🌙Game Updates🌙🌙🌙
Last Friday I released the first update of the year which took care of some big bugs along with updating the window view rooms. This year, I’ll be updating on a fortnightly schedule so the updates will be a little less frequent but chunkier ❤️

🌿 🌿 🌿 Community Updates 🌿 🌿 🌿
Community nights are coming back to the Discord and we will have a vote for the first date tomorrow in the cafe. They’re always so much fun so I hope you can join!

📆📆📆 Schedule📆📆📆
✨ Game updates will still be Friday mornings (the next one will be on the 16th of Feb)

I'm also streaming development twice a week so come join me on Twitch for some fun:
✨ Tuesday 1:30PM AEDT - Drawing and coding.
✨Friday 1:30PM AEDT - Fun time things for the community.

That’s everything for now. Thanks so much for being such a wonderful community, I can’t wait to grow with you this year ❤️

See you in Garland!
💖 Violet

Hi Neighbours!

First update of the new year, I'm back into it and ready to go! I had an issue with the Mac files during upload and had to roll back and reupload (ugh) so you may need to close steam and update a few times if you're on Mac sorry!

I've consolidated all major bug reports so far and from now on each update will have a mix of bug fixes and also new content. This means that I'll be updating every two weeks rather than every week like last year. I'm really excited to start adding stuff again!

General:
Fixed not being able to reach Dan’s bedroom.
Added logging for called line to get_event_dialogue.
Added more silent exits if called line in get_event_dialogue fails.
Fixed textbox crash when incorrectly formatted sprites/voices/etc are called (still needs some work).
Updated to Gamemaker 2023.11.1.1.160
Many minor code fixes.
Updated room transitions for better troubleshooting (if anything gets stuck please let me know).
Title screen - fixe crash on settings creation (intermittent, plz let me know if this happens to you).

Window view:
Updated phone to new UI system.
Removed pink bars.
Added animation.
Fixed bug getting stuck with no input during music control.
This is a WIP, there is still an issue where the pink bars may appear when you exit the window scene, for now if this happens please view the window scene again and it should toggle off again.

Tutorials:
Fixed get map quest ending with player getting stuck in desk.

Player:
Fixed fringe colour change not working.
Removed partial accessory colour change temporarily

Passing out:
Fixed getting stuck indivisible during transition.
Fixed not being able to pass out twice in a row.
Fixed not being able to pass out in player apartment.
Added NPC emotes.

Notifications/Achievements:
Changed notification sound to only alert during the first notification when there are multiples.
Fixed Achievements being intermittently stuck open with no input.

Petal Events:
Added a check to fix debug object visibility when not debugging.
April PE 2 - Fixed stuck in dialogue issue.

Hi everyone!

What a year it’s been! It feels kind of weird writing an end of year wrap up because it feels like it’s been about 5 years crammed into one for me. So much has happened that it’s all kind of blurred together.

This year we hung out on stream together for over 207 hours, you witnessed my diminishing sanity drawing 201 portraits, we had 4 fun community nights, did Steam festivals, attended dev events and since Garland was released into public Early Access 2 months ago I’ve put out 10 updates. What a fricking year!

Game Updates
The biggest updates recently have been around controller UI and Steamdeck compatibility. It’s taken me a bit longer than I’d like to get it all moving smoothly and while I think I can say it’s now functional, every update I’m getting things closer to polished. Moving this up has taken a chunk of time I was originally planning to put towards content but I’ll be back working on that again now dividing time between Petal Events and daily activities.

Community Updates
A special thank you goes to our tireless Building Managers who have taken everything that I (and the year) has thrown at them with grace and managed Garland’s growing community wonderfully, I’m so proud and lucky to have been able to work together with them!

Following on from that: thank you to every member of the Garland community. Whether you’ve been here from the start, came from the streams or found us after the Early Access release, you’ve all been so supportive. I could never have dreamed that the community would grow like this and every time I get a Discord notification it makes me so happy to get to know you all better.

Holiday Break Schedule
So personally, on top of game dev, this year has been a lot for me. I’ve never done anything like this before so it’s all been navigating uncharted. I’ve balanced actual game dev, working with 2 government agencies and running a business, while trying to make time for everyone and just general life stuff.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to take a little time away from my full work schedule, reset my brain, touch grass and not think about code 24/7. I’ll still be hanging out in the Discord but I won’t be streaming or putting out any patches until mid-late January. Next year I'll be back at it full force so get ready for some fun content updates!

Whether you celebrate holidays this season or not, I hope you have a wonderful December and a Happy New Year. Thank you for every post, chat, bug report, minute of play and emote.

2023 has been wonderful for Garland and I can’t wait to see how we grow together as a community in 2024

See you in Garland!

Last patch of the year! This is a smaller one because it was split up with the one earlier in the week. I'll do a full wrap up of the year next week but thanks everyone for all of your suggestions, bug reports and playing this year! This year has been a dream come true, you are all so appreciated and I can't wait for Garland to keep growing with you next year.


UI:
- Removed hotbar/notification button auto selection.
- Removed player walk six on title screen
- Fixed phone app selection/unselection issues when going app>phone on controller.