Himeko Sutori News

Hi everyone! Here are the latest changes to Himeko Sutori, covering the last few days' worth of patches.

• Character notes are now saved when going to character-sheet submenus to change class, change equipment, or level up
  
• Hitpoint bars and damage indicators now display after every attack, even when attacks are in rapid succession
  
• Cleaner hitpoint bar displays
  
• Fixed yellow flashes that appeared during combat
  
• Added speech bubble to weapons vendor in Sunrise Falls to make him easier to find
  
• Easier battle when the player attacks the Scrapper Wall
• Wolf dreamwalker ability does less damage, can only be used in melee range
  
• Added functionality for books that can be read. Books in Sunrise Falls library are currently placeholders.
  
• Added readable book Holy Scripture inside Sunrise Falls church to provide more lore and context for later events
  
• Added dialog outside Amir's palace in the Scrapyard to make the related quest more obvious
  
• Added cutscene during attack on Sunrise Falls in response to player feedback, to make the main characters more concerned with others. We will try to make the characters more involved with the world from now on.
  
• Added cutscene to prevent players from skipping Trouble at the House of Life quest before going through the next world gate.
  
• Fixed localization of tool tip window in pause menu character sheet
  
• Added random noncombat encounter Empty Shadowlands Ruins to provide more lore and context for later events
  
• Added necessary Vijayanagara clan leaders for cutscene advancing main quest
  
• Added interior level to Grand Necropolis
  

And we are still working every day to add and fix more. We read every post you make telling us about bug reports and desired features. We're trying to tackle them in order of necessity.

We are currently working on the game's final chapter, but we have to add a little more to the beginning and middle of the game to set up the ending better. The major structure of the story isn't going to change, but we will add some additional books, characters, cutscenes, and lore.

Today we added the following:

• Fixed a crash commonly seen when illusionists are attacking. We think this was due to the large number of status effect popups. We have changed status effect behavior so that one popup can display multiple bonuses and penalties. This should greatly reduce the number of popups being created, drawn, and destroyed. Please let us know if you're still seeing this bug.
  
• The change-class menu now displays class level and an asterisk if that class has level-up cards available to draw.
  
• Fixed a bug that was preventing several cards from being added to the special abilities list on the character sheet, and was also creating errors in the log.
  
• Made several classes compatible with the localization system.
  

And since our last patch notes, we also added localization for the combat tutorial and the reserves, deployed, no lances ready, and retreat messages that can appear on hexes.

In the immediate future we plan on reworking wolf abilities and fixing a bug that can close the menu if you save the game, go elsewhere in the menu, and then save the game again.

Hey everyone! If you've been keeping up with the discussions in the Steam Community, then you probably know most of this. But I really do need to be better about posting patch notes. Here's what I uploaded today, and maybe a couple older things if I can remember them:

• You can now press escape to skip the introductory screens on startup--the Rockwell Studios, Unreal Engine, and legalese pages. And if you didn't know already, you can also press escape to skip the Himeko Sutori logo animation and go straight to using the main menu. In all, you can save yourself about 15 seconds on each startup. :)
  
• There are two new areas in the desert. They won't be relevant on your first visit, but there will be some important events that take place there later. I'll script those events in April.
  
• We made a bunch of visual fixes and improvements, including a new autosave animation, lance info windows, and improved color balance and contrast in the desert.
  
• As requested, you can now see melee and ranged attack power of your lances in battle.
  
• Changed the sandstorm effect in the desert. Several players noted poor performance in the desert. This was due to massive overdraw with a complicated particle effect. The sandstorm is now a static mesh and the movement and animation are built into the shader. This should improve performance throughout the desert.
  
• Fixed a bunch of misspelled names. (Thanks lantastic79!)
  
• Expanded localization support to include army names, random character names, and world map encounters. (Also, thanks lantastic79!)
  
• Improved resource sharing throughout the user interface. All of the menus are now much smaller and should load instantly.
  
• Increased variety of Adventurers' and Students' skills and attributes learned at level-up. This should make them viable paths into any of the advanced classes.
  
• Increased weapon and armor selection for all tier-1 and tier-2 classes. This should make it much easier to keep your rookies alive when you're trying to grow your army in the late game.
  
• Tweaked XP formula. Your total character level now accounts for only 20% of your effective level when calculating XP, meaning that your veterans should be able to level-up in new classes faster.
  
• Added new stages to the main quest line. You can't finish the latest part of the main quest yet. We'll work on that next.
  

And for those of you who have reported the "Pure virtual function being called while application was running (GIsRunning == 1)" bug, thank you for your patience. We're trying to figure that one out. For now, we're just trying to get the game to tell us the call stack if it ever gets to that error message. We'll keep working on this.

And if any of you can find steps to reproduce this error consistently, please let us know. Thanks!

We don't want to give too much away, but the plot has reached a major milestone with the completion of the quest that takes you to the girls' ancestral homeland. Over the last few weeks, we've added lots of new content, including new shops, NPCs, cutscenes, a battle map, enemy type, and--as always--tons of bug fixes. Here are the highlights.


New quest to the Yamatai Empire where you must seek the emperor's help


New character type with portrait and sprite sheets, along with unique classes and abilities


New cutscenes, with new plot developments


New underground battle map

Plus lots of new features and bug fixes:

• Fixed collision in the Icy Reach and Pyramid Gate
  
• Localization support for crafting menu
  
• Fixed tabbing while lance is moving
  
• Fixed dialog progression when Aya is moving during a cutscene
  
• Improved controller support, fixed mouse sensitivity
  
• Fixed a bug where if you saved in the Sunrise Falls dungeon treasure room, then loaded the game, the camera is in a different location
  
• Added lots of new journal entries
  

And the game is still under constant development with almost daily updates. We're currently working on the next stage of the main quest, but we'll keep fixing bugs and adding new equipment and other content as we go.

Also, I'd like to thank the amazing lantastic79 for his ongoing work localizing Himeko Sutori for Japanese audiences and all of our Early Access players for their feedback and bug reports. Your help is truly appreciated.

Hi everyone! Just a quick note to let you know what we added today. There's a second floor to the alchemist in Icy Reach with a new vendor there. There are also some shops and NPCs in Utakawa, along with some items not previously in the game. Not all of the new items have sprite sheets yet, and I'll get on that next.

Please keep an eye open for new bugs in the new areas. Specifically, there may be problems with the shops failing to load, or camera transitions not working, or NPC dialogs not working, or new equipment having a cost of zero or the wrong stats or something like that. But please let me know if you see any bugs and I'll try to get them fixed in the next patch.

And now I'm off to make sprite sheets for the autohatchet, wrecking hammer, storm crystal, and disciple staff.