Minotaur News

My fellow Kyosians!



A million-lot question... The short answer to it is: not quite! However, even though this still isn't a release with the voice over, it's actually a pretty major update with new playable content, features and adjustments, and I really hope you'll check it out in more detail!

But before we begin, a quick word on Ollie's "special" outfits - you might remember (even though it was 10 years ago) how we asked you which ones you liked best:



This wasn't just for show - we took the voting seriously and Ollie is now wearing the most popular choices! Here's a screenshot/wallpaper from the game - a beautiful art by Demi with original The Spire background by Adam:



You can download it in full HD and even 4K from our website!

Now... what's in the box, Fifteen?

Well, first of all, we uploaded a new playable build to the beta branch which includes Thea's route up to its final parts. The reason we haven't pushed it onto the main branch yet is that it really does need some testing - not only because of the new content, but also due to the new features that have been implemented (primarily controller support), as well as a major update to the saving system, which was necessary because of the problems that started appearing in older saves after the game grew in size considerably.

Should you decide to bravely venture into the beta build, please make sure to check the notes below! If not, you can safely skip to the next section.

[h2]Beta notes[/h2]

Just a reminder that you can easily switch to the beta branch by selecting Minotaur in your Steam library, then going to "Properties" > "Betas" here:



...then entering the password: Sungatesettlement (or simply selecting beta branch from dropdown if you unlocked it already). At the moment, only the PC build is live, since we still need to figure out a few things with the Mac version, but I will upload the latter in the next few days.

In addition to checking out new content, you could really help us with testing the new features!

1) Gamepad support: at the moment, Minotaur fully supports XInput controllers (such as Xbox and many third-party controllers), and DirectInput controllers (such as PS and Switch Pro controllers) are supported via the Steam Input wrapper. Which means that:

- If you have an XInput controller, you need to make sure that Steam Input is disabled

- If you have a DirectInput controller, you need to enable Steam Input and select "Gamepad" layout in controller configurator templates

Either can be done in Minotaur's "Properties" > "Controller"! Once the build is live on the main branch, I'll adjust game settings in backend to let Steam know which controllers we support, and this will then be happening automatically.

Minotaur (being a point-and-click game) actually plays with a controller much better than I expected - I was pleasantly surprised! Hopefully we can improve the experience further with your feedback. Don't forget to check out the controls help page in-game!



One particularly useful feature mentioned on it is the ability to control the cursor speed with LB/RB. While convenient (I hope), we're still considering adding an adjustable default speed setting, as well as the options to: choose which thumbstick to move the cursor with, adjust RT (fast-skip) threshold and disable vibration.

2) New audio options: the auto-dialogue feature wasn't something that we originally planned, so we had to edit thousands of audio files to make the dialogue flow naturally, but in the end, I think it was worth it, and this mode makes the game much more cinematic. It's important to note that a line pause is calculated based on the duration of its VO audio clip, as in Minotaur, almost every line has a voice over - even lines like this:



However, since we still haven't added the VO to Thea's route, in the beta, a fallback method is used, and the pause is calculated based on the number of symbols in a line (multiplied by a language-specific coefficient, but there's also a minimum for ellipses and such). It's not something that will be heavily featured in the final release, but there are still a few "silent" lines in the game (like after the final "hand incident", you might recall), so please let us know if you think the text speed for such lines needs to be adjusted.

There's also a "mute the protagonist" option, which we hope some of the three precious streamers who play Minotaur might find useful (should they like to roleplay as the protagonist of a route). It does technically work alongside the auto-dialogue, though I imagine there's not much point in enabling both at the same time!

3) Update to the saving system: this nearly drove me crazy... What started as a minor bug during the alpha-testing phase unfolded into an absolute cluster**** of saving-related issues. In short, with the latest addition of a large amount of new content, old saves stopped working properly, causing all sorts of visual, audio and gameplay bugs. Given a vast amount of all types of old saves (starting way back from Nod's route release), as well as dozens of intertwined variables that the game keeps track of while allowing free movement between 20+ chapters, the temptation to simply wipe older data was strong... But we resisted. The update should keep almost all of your progress - I say should because that's what we're going to test, right?

Here's what's supposed to happen - the following should remain intact:

- Bonus content (extras, including their variants, if any)

- Hidden conditions (such as taking the flower in Nod's route or examining Terminus in Mentor's route)

- Unlocked routes and routes' endings

- Cleared routes (chapter select unlocks)

This means that, if you haven't cleared Mentor's route, for example, its chapter select will stay unavailable. It you did clear it, however, it's supposed to remain as such. The only thing that might change are the results of the in-route events:



There was no way to preserve them because of the way they were tracked, unfortunately, but worry not: they're reset in such a way as to make acquiring different route endings as easy as possible. For example:

- To save Ollie's energy in Nod's route, start from the concierge's room and examine all areas in Ollie's world, plus turn off the light in Nod's apartment (it's right there on the top right monitor when Royce comes up). Do not release Mentor and proceed as normal - you can also restore the Axis grid along the way depending on which ending you're shooting for. If you want to get the bye-bye-hand ending, you'll need to start a little earlier from the penthouse chapter, but that'd be the case regardless of the update.

- To get Mentor to update the autopilot, simply start from her route's last chapter and fast-skip it without making a detour to the kitchen

Richie's route path A is unaffected by this, and Thea's route older chapter select preview will simply be gone, replaced by a newer one once you clear the beta.

Please note that we'll need to reset these events at least once more when we move to the main branch!

If anything goes wrong (not how I described it above), please let us know! Not only will this let us fix the bugs in this critical system before the full release, I will also make sure to provide you with save data should yours get corrupted somehow.

[h2]Development progress[/h2]

Arthur waiting for the release of Thea's route:



...Probably hoping people will finally start appreciating him once he's dead.

Anyway, while most of Thea's route has been completed and now even released without the voice over, there are still some things we need to finish. It really is the final push, essentially up to the point of one of the ending videos - which is going to be absolutely epic, by the way, here's a GIF of the work in progress (WIP):



...As well as some of the key scenes, a few of which need backgrounds and/or character art:





There are also some things that only come into play when a route is ready, such as special route results and main menu screens and OST preparation, and we need to take care of those as well. Plus we need to make sure that the updated saving system works properly, which is one of the main goals of the current beta.

That said, we should be able to start recording the voice over for all the new content soon™, as the script for Thea's route has mostly been finalized. However, a full release on the main branch is always a spike in development costs, since we need to pay for third-party services and products, such as the VO, some OST licenses (including separate soundtrack distribution fees), and so on. So we'll have to plan our budget accordingly!

I just mentioned "all the new content", by the way, and I'd like to stress that, in addition to the work that we did on Thea's route and the new features, we also crossed out a lot of tasks from our, hm, extensive backlog, which included content updates.

For example, the stupid "wall of text" puzzle after the Bygone knockout is finally gone, replaced instead by a completely new set of dialogues and interactions with Ollie (a "spot the differences" minigame of sorts). Those were huge fun to make, and I don't know how I didn't think of this much better setup from the get-go:



Mentor's route also got an update in form of an extension of the train scene. I think I mentioned it before a couple of times, but it's only with the release of Thea's route that it will become theoretically possible to take a walk at the last stop, which is an important prerequisite for one of the overall endings:



These new additions are still missing the voice over, but we plan to record it together with the VO for Thea's route.

We also continue working on Unter's route and remaining Richie's paths whenever we can. Unter's route in particular keeps getting crazier... Plague doesn't mess around:





Richie's Nova Corps station is also coming together nicely. He'll be able to explore almost all of NC building in one of his paths, even train a bit at its shooting range:



In addition to all that, there are many adjustments and improvements that we've made to the existing mechanics, most of which are already available in the beta. For example, the fast-skip is much, well, faster now, which makes skipping dialogue a lot more convenient (we strive to be speedrun-friendly); the hot spots system has been completely reworked to be more manageable and avoid slowdowns and other minor glitches that sometimes happened; we have finally found a way to implement an "alternative" streamer-friendly soundtrack, etc. etc.

Oh, and we've also been working on a complete redesign of our website!



We already handled the technical part (migrated to a new server to avoid downtime in future, got an SSL certificate, and so on), and are now populating the site with content. The new version has a number of advantages over the old one: it's mobile-friendly, it has a SEARCH, we're updating its content to better tie in with the in-game and our Discord server lore, and we're also adding new artwork and wallpapers which we produced over these last few decades. And, while I'm not sure if we'll have the resources to translate it, it's at least set up in a way that makes the process of adding translations relatively straightforward.

[h2]tl;dr[/h2]

"That's all well and good, Nick," you might say, "but when's the release with the voice over?"



It's coming! And it's going to be massive. The amount of new content is roughly equal to Nod and Mentor's routes combined - I haven't even mentioned all of the new stuff in this already bloated update (you can buy it as an ebook to further support us, by the way), like Remont's short story, which has already been written, and Thea's pixel trip. We really can't wait for you to experience all of it - with the voice over - and are doing everything we can to bring you version 0.8 ASAP. Now that most of Thea's route has been completed, I personally am quite sure that it won't disappoint - just as the other additions - and I hope that, should you play the new beta (and not have all of your save data deleted), you'll come out with the same opinion.

Regardless of whether you decide to check the beta out or not, I would like to thank you all for your incredible patience and support, as well as to apologize for the long periods between the updates. An update doesn't have to be that massive, and it's not that difficult to post something shorter, so I really have no idea why I've been failing to uphold my promise to post them more often like some drunken New Year's resolution. I will keep trying to break this wicked pattern! While the next major update should be about a voiced release, I will do my best to inform you about how the progress on it is going should it be taking too long.

And now, back to work!



Love ♡🐧

Nick & u7committee

My fellow Kyosians!

As you can see, we're picking up the pace! Minotaur updates - now (almost) biannual! To be honest, we wanted to post this update a bit sooner, but Larian and Todd got in touch and asked us to postpone, so as to avoid a clash with their releases.

As usual, we would like to thank you all infinitely for your patience and assure you that we've been hard at work! Not only we're now in the final stages of Thea's route (and all the good stuff that comes with it - more on that later), we have also secured the funds to cover the necessary public release expenses (such as purchasing the music licenses, for example), which is a huge weight off our shoulders.

A couple of words about Thea's route - I can now say, with certainty, that in most respects it's our biggest one yet. Additionally, we're going above and beyond to create what we hope will be some of the most memorable sequences in the game. For greater emotional payoff, we put most of them in the last parts of the route, so it's a difficult final push, but I think it's going to be worth it.

I'd love to tell you more about these sequences (no spoilers below, unless you prefer to go in completely blind)! For starters, check out this fantastic sketch of Thea's room in Royce by Adam:



The scene will later be rendered in our usual manner, but for the moment, Adam is using it to prototype key frames for a very special animation that we're making:



In some other cases, we're actually experimenting with different visual styles (and mechanics!) to achieve the desired effect:





Sometimes these new styles will be mixed in with our usual fare, since we're only using them for specific elements in key scenes - like for the paintings in Hoptons' art gallery:



Not much to see there now, but we don't want to disclose Arthur's singular tastes just yet, so you'll have to use your imagination for this one : )

And that's not all! But unfortunately, even though I'm dying to show you some other stuff, that'd be spoiling too much. What I can say is that we have, in particular, one very cool surprise involving Ollie. We'll probably be able to share more right before the release, but for the moment, check out these amazing sketches of some of her... let's say "alternative" outfits for various occasions designed by Demi!

Here she is straight out of bed:



Then later, at a TFX office:



And then she ends her day at The Spire:



What the Hades is going on? Is it a dream? (No.) Did Ollie finally get an android body? (Of course not.) Was Ollie Nod's mother this whole time? (...What?) Time will tell! For the moment, let us know which variants of her outfits you like best!

And now, a short FAQ about less crazy things (some of which I mentioned in our previous update):

- Whatever happened to 0.7.5 beta release?

We're quite happy with how the middle part of Thea's route turned out! The "ducts" section in particular is a very atmospheric affair:





The part, however, turned out to be quite big, which has its implications. First, we only just recently, after a couple of sales, managed to secure the music rights for it (it has 9 (!) music tracks in it, including 2 full songs). Second, it covers Thea's route up to a very late point - it's a decent break off point, but I'm sure that stopping at it will later muddle the impression from the route as a whole, especially since saving in it is still disabled (we'll only be able to activate it once the route is finished). It's somewhat like if we'd released Nod's route up to the moment when he climbed the stairs - you know which ones.

So we're a bit on the fence about how to proceed with it. We feel pretty confident about its quality, and that it doesn't require extensive testing on its own, but some other features (such as controller and Steam Deck support - see below) would certainly benefit from a larger sample of devices, and perhaps it makes sense to roll these things out in one package. In any case, we'll decide soon enough and I promise to keep you updated!

- There was also some talk about adding a short illustrated story as a reward for collecting cards...

Absolutely, this bonus content is in development and will be present in the next release. We continue adding cards - we're up to #14 so far:



And since it costs 8 cards to hear a part of the story, and it's quite possible that, with Thea's route, the total will reach 16, you'll likely be able to enjoy 2/3 of it (provided you're into collecting cards in the first place, of course).

By the way, another thing worth noting is that, because of the resulting size of Thea's route, we have further increased the number of artworks (and therefore skits) and music tracks in the corresponding extras sections.

- Alright... Then what about controller support?

Yes! Yes to controller support, which has been masterfully implemented by Rokari! That irritating placeholder is finally gone from the controls modal:



By the way, the amazing customized Ollie-themed gamepad can be yours for only $999:



(The ears rise up when you touch the thumbsticks.)

Furthermore! Not only that, but Minotaur will also (again, thanks to Rokari) be Steam Deck verified! Take the game with you wherever you go and let people around you hear what you think about its developers after reaching the endings of Thea's route.

Any there any more question? No? Well, in that case, thank you so much for your attention, and I think it's time to wrap this up. I'll be going the...





Memes aside, I wish I could tell you... We were previously hoping to finish the game this year, but as you can see, we're clearly spilling over into the next one. That said, the silver linings are:

- What we're doing right now is one of the hardest part of the game (in terms of development, except probably for the overall ending) - after it, things will get easier... Or that's what we keep telling ourselves.

- Unter's route is shorter than the rest (which doesn't in any way interfere with it being the badassest), and in addition to that, we've been chipping away at it for a while now, so the wait between Unter and Thea's routes will be the shortest one yet

- Richie's route paths B and C also inspire hope: path B is quite compact (yet impactful), and for path C, most of the scenes have already been modelled. We'll probably bundle path B together with Unter's route, and paths C and D of Richie's route will be released as the final update.

So as you can see, for the moment it's crucial that we get through this final part of Thea's route - we're doing our best to finish it as soon as possible, and will hopefully be able to announce its release window to you soon™!

In the meantime... Please wait for Thea, because she's absolutely worth waiting for.

Love ♡🐧

Nick & u7committee

My fellow Kyosians!



First of all, I apologize for not bringing a major update to you sooner... While I do post regular small updates on our Discord, it's obvious that not everyone uses it or has joined our server, and updates on Kickstarter, Steam, etc. are just as necessary. And while the main dish - Thea's route in its entirety - is still being cooked (in a crock-pot, apparently), I'd love to share the details about our overall progress with you!

1) We aim to release our next major update, 0.7.5, in February next year! Here's what it will include:

- An extended demo of Thea's route, which will cover 2/3 of the route. Not necessarily for playing, but definitely a solid evidence that we're getting there with its full release! More info on the progress on Thea's route below...

- Richie's route path A will move from beta to main branch (and will also get a Mac release)! A refresher about it: Richie's route is split into 4 alternative paths, which take place after different endings of Nod's route, or a combination of endings of several routes. Path A, in particular, happens after Nod's route To Be With Her Again ("The Swap") ending, and it's entirely self-contained, which makes a safer bet for playing than the demo of the unfinished Thea's route, for example. Here are a couple of screenshots from it:







Just like Thea's route, though, it still doesn't have the voice over, but if that doesn't deter you (and if you're on Windows), you can actually play it right now by switching to the beta branch - to do this, select Minotaur in your Steam library, then go to "Properties" > "Betas" here:



...and enter the super-secret password that I'm posting in a public update: Sungatesettlement

Don't forget to back up your save files before switching, just in case! They're located at: \Users\ \AppData\Local\VisionaireStudio\Minotaur, and you need to back up the whole folder.

- A bunch of major quality of life improvements, including some highly requested ones, such as (drum roll) automatic dialogue - the next best thing to an anime adaptation.



The updated sound options window

- An update to chapter select screen, which will make discovering different endings and extras easier, among other things. It's pretty important, but I don't want to make this post longer than it already is, so I'll talk about the chapter select screen in more detail in the next update!

2) Speaking of new features and our development effort in general - our small committee has recently grown! We had a wonderful new member - Rokari - join us, which not only lets us work faster all in all, but, with the help of his programming expertise, allows us to add more quality of life features to the game, such as auto-dialogue mentioned above, as well as controller support and - who knows! - maybe even a dialogue log... The list is long, and we obviously want to bring you new content as soon as possible, so we're very happy to have Rokari on board!

3) And finally, about the progress on Thea's route... Oh, Thea, Thea!



Your route is turning out to be long and ambitions. All characters take part...





There are several cinematics...





And even musical numbers!





Also, Thea's skill has been a major pain to implement, since it essentially requires a new scene for every place she can use it in, but it allows us to take a fresh look at some familiar locations...



...as well as integrate several cool (we hope) puzzles and story moments. It all builds towards a very satisfying emotional payoff - or payoffs, to be precise, since Thea's route will have 3 endings. All varying degrees of bad, of course, as is tradition.

To be honest, I think the task of completing all of this would have been insurmountable without your continued support... We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your amazing patience, and while it's not clear whether we'll be able to finish the game entirely by the end of 2023, we'll do our utmost best to bring you at least 2 new routes next year! In that February update that I mentioned earlier, we should be able to pretty accurately™ estimate the final release date for Thea's route, and we really hope that you'll be looking forward to it.

Love ♡🐧

Nick & u7committee

My fellow Kyosians,

I'm happy to say that, while we're still working on Thea's route, we prepared a demo that can be accessed directly from chapter select screen (provided you have unlocked Thea's route in the first place). It's basically a complete version of the Mirian part of Thea's route (even the collectibles are included), the only thing that's missing is the voice over! So if you'd like to see how the development is going, as well as to find out more about the story, do check the demo out.



Another update I wanted to release before the end of the year was Richie's route path A, but we're a bit behind on that. Just a bit, though! The work on it has been going well, and we'll try to release it next month (or at least, not much later after that).





So yes, I hope to be back with another update shortly! In the meantime, a couple of important notes:

– REGARDING CLOUD SAVES: as Minotaur grows in size, so does its save data, and I had to make some updates to it. If you use cloud saving and will get a message (after this update) about your local save files conflicting with the ones on the server, know that your local files should take priority, and that you should use those! If you'll still have problems with your save data, no worries - let me know and I'll help you restore it.

– About an event from the ending of Mentor's route: at the moment, should you select Thea's route on chapter select screen, you'll see that there's an event for Mentor updating the autopilot. This event needs to be re-initialized, i.e. by default it will always be shown as "off" (something that didn't happen), even if Mentor did update the autopilot! It doesn't matter now, but it will affect Thea's route ending dramatically, so if you'd like it to be "on", you will need to re-acquire it. Sorry about that, I should have foreseen this and planned ahead, but... it is what it is! Hopefully with some kittens sacrificed, it won't be too much trouble.

- Just a reminder that you can join our Discord server for weekly more frequent smaller updates, as well as lots of other stuff, really : )

And that's that! We hope you all have a great ending to this year, and that you and your loved ones will stay safe and healthy next year (and for many more years to come)!



Love ♡🐧

Nick & u7committee

Our fellow Kyosians,

I'm so, so happy to say that just now, we finally published Mentor's route!!

Last-minute news: we have a Discord server now! I only just created it and it's pretty bare-bones at the moment, but we'll work on it. Hopefully together, so come join us!

(This turned out to be a looong update - I'm probably overcompensating for the lack of them lately. If you'd like a TL;DR, please scroll down to "The meaty stuff" section, which contains the most important information that I recommend reading before playing Mentor's route, especially if you already played Nod's.)

[h2]Mentor's route[/h2]

It's hard to argue that we didn't take our sweet time... I have to admit that COVID, in particular, impacted us in more ways than I thought it would. We were more or less fine while working internally, and in fact, we already had a stable build back in December (!) last year, but the post-production stage of the job, which required involving more people from all over the world, was... wild.

In any case, we hugely appreciate your patience (and hope that you have been and will continue to stay safe!), and I actually have a couple of ideas about making content updates more frequent - regardless of the state of the world, so to speak - which I'd like to share further below.

In the meantime, a couple of words about Mentor's route: it took a huge amount of effort to plan and put together, as it is quite different from the other routes in its structure and execution. There are two main characters in it: Mentor herself, of course, but also Kyos.



A large part of this chapter is dedicated to the world that Minotaur takes place in, since learning more about it is crucial in order to fully experience the overall story and the impact of some of its endings (especially the one called "The Empress", wink-wink). Mentor's route is very lore-heavy, but it's integral, and without it, Minotaur simply wouldn't be complete. Though we aren't, of course (to quote one of the new characters), "just going to read to you from 'An Abridged History of Kyos'". This is still very much a chapter about Fifteen, and since her story is intertwined with the lives of other Royce residents, there are many clues about what's going on there, as well as tons of smaller secrets and references.



Speaking of personal assistants, even though it's the route in which Ollie is least featured, it contains some very important information about her. Which is delivered mostly indirectly (via the lore about the blue boxes, for example), but don't forget about the skits too!



(It probably is.)

In any case, please don't worry - just as I promised, the story of Nod and Ollie (and everyone else) will be resolved, but we do need to set some things up for that.

By the way, the sweet creature you see up there on that screenshot (in the center) is one of new Minotaur characters, and just like everyone else, these new characters were given voices, in this case by fantastic actors D.C. Douglas and Michael Schwalbe. Let's welcome them to the cast! They did an awesome job, just like the rest of the cast, and I'm really happy that we managed to produce the voice over for Mentor's route in current conditions, which was only made possible by great effort from everyone involved in this process. And since this is Mentor's route, it's worth mentioning in particular the amazing work of her VA, Rina Hoshino, who essentially had to play several roles in two languages. Seriously, her part was insane, and I still get goosebumps from her lines in the final dialogue. Here's a short clip from Salmix recording studio in Tokyo (another dialogue - Mentor is asking Arthur what's wrong):

https://twitter.com/rinahoshino/status/1395195633934376972

Nothing's wrong, obviously.



Now let's get to the part that I mentioned in the beginning of the update:

[h2]The meaty (or machin-y?) stuff[/h2]

1) After you update to version 0.6, all your collected extras and obtained endings from Nod's route should be preserved! There's no way to check directly for obtained endings at the moment, but as long as the movies (on the extras screen) are present, this means that the corresponding endings are unlocked as well. To be honest, I'm proud that we managed to pull this off while still introducing the new chapter select screen, it was quite non-trivial!

2) However, you will still need to play through Nod's route to unlock its chapter select. Since a new checkpoint system is in place, there was no way around it, unfortunately... I'd recommend doing a normal run to refresh your memory a bit, but it's of course not necessary - you can simply blaze through it to initialize the checkpoints, and it doesn't matter which ending you get (see previous item).

Please note that the next 4 items on this list contain some spoilers for Nod and Mentor's routes, including the number of endings that Mentor's route has. I tagged these spoilers, but if you'd like to go in blind, I suggest skipping items 3 to 6 (but do come back for them later).

3) Mentor's route should be unlocked immediately as long as you freed her in the concierge's room in Nod's route!

4) The new chapter select screen is here in all its glory (I think I already posted it in one of previous updates, but here's a reminder):



We hope it makes playing and getting different endings more convenient, though it's still a work in progress. I think we can make it more intuitive. In the meantime, just like I mentioned, to unlock it for a character (including Nod), you'll need to finish their route once first.

5) Endings: Mentor's route has only one ending, but there's a "thing" that you can do (or fail to do) near the end. It will influence the outcome of one of the endings of Thea's route, which will be reflected on the chapter select screen:



I suggest taking another look at this screenshot after finishing Mentor's route and getting acquainted with the chapter select screen, I'm sure it will give you a sense of closure.

6) Nod's route bug fixes

• We managed to fix the "extra wrong symbol" but in Chinese version by decreasing font size, which stopped text texture buffer from overflowing. Of course, this solution is far from perfect, but we have been in touch with the engine developers, and it appears that the only way for us to fix this issue permanently without decreasing font size is by switching to a newer engine version. We plan to do this eventually, of course, but after more content is released, since it's by no means a small undertaking, which will require some time... I do hope that the current solution will make playing Minotaur in Chinese more enjoyable, though!
  
• I have optimized Nod's route elevator descent scene to be less demanding on the hardware. However, it's still the most resource heavy scene in the game, and may cause crashes on some machines. But! Thanks to @PePTo, one of our players on Steam, we discovered (well, they discovered!) that the issue is most likely caused by these machines running Minotaur on integrated cards, and forcing the OS to use the discreet card instead solves the problem. I will post a more detailed description of this solution to this thread.
  
• A bunch of other minor fixes have been implemented, though not everything has been done for Nod's route yet, and it will get a final revision pass before the full release. For example: the post-Bygone fight optional puzzle will be remade (instead of examining that wall of text, Nod will interact with various areas in the room in a kind of "spot the difference" mini-game); Ollie will have a dialogue after "watching the sunset" with her in Maya's car (she will thank Nod for staying, to which he'll reply that he simply dozed off); we'll do a number of small text amends; and so on.

7) The soundtrack has been updated with new tracks from Mentor's route! Just like I promised, it's a free update, because what on Aya would we need money for? I also converted it from DLC into OST format, and all tracks should be there (and should play in Steam's music player correctly), so we hope you enjoy! We also included some additional artwork, and since some of the tracks for Mentor's route are mixes which I made for its longer scenes, the extras folder for Mentor's route also contains individual tracks from these mixes. No secret this time, but I think the files are still worth checking out.

[h2]Well, what's next?[/h2]

How's work on Thea's route coming along, you ask? Very well! Larger part of it is in playable state, though sharing screenshots without spoilers is becoming increasingly difficult. Wait, I found one...



Seriously though, I'm sure that we'll finish it before the end of the year (and maybe Unter's route too), but at this point, it's really hard for me to say how long the post-production stage will take. In our case, this stage usually includes licensing music, adding SFX, recording and adding the voice over, doing the translations, etc. So that's on one hand, and on the other, I'd like to make the updates more frequent, which is why I want to try something different. I want to make a beta-testing branch that anyone can opt into (right here on Steam - it's really easy!), as there are several things that we can release on it in the nearby future:

1) The first part of Thea's route without the voice over: the music and the translations will still be there, though music won't be available on the OST until the route is fully released. Thea's route can roughly be split into three parts, and as I mentioned before, the first part takes place in Mira. If this release goes well, we will later push the second part the same way, and then the full route. I want to release the first part in September. This year...

2) One of Richie's route's "paths". A "path" is a variant of Richie's route that takes place after an ending of Nod's route, or a combination of endings of several routes. Some of them are relatively short and can be done comparatively quickly. Minor spoilers (in case you haven't played Nod's route or don't want to know anything about Richie's route at all): the path that I'm talking about takes place after "To Be With Her Again" ending, and in it, Richie is looking for Nod (sorry, "Nod"), one of the very few survivors of the Royce incident, in Soma DC.

Some sweet Soma DC hand-drawn sketches from Adam (the path starts with Richie sitting in a Somian café):





Just like with Thea's route beta releases, it won't have the voice over, and the music, even though it will be in the game, will be added to the OST later, but the path will be fully playable. And again: you won't need to play it if you prefer to wait for full releases, since installing it will be optional. I do think it answers some very interesting questions about the story, though, and we'd like to release this path in parallel with Thea's route until the end of this year.

3) Now that one of new characters of Mentor's route is introduced, he can take his rightful place at the cards table:



The original idea was for him to tell Mentor a short illustrated horror story for every 8 cards you bring him, but then I thought: why not tell the story of what happened in the Northern Research Center 500 years ago? We're still figuring this part out, but for the moment it seems like a good candidate for a smaller update, and unlike the parts of Thea and Richie's routes, since the story is narrated by just one character, it might even come with a voice over right away. And who knows, maybe Mentor (and everyone else by extension) can get something out of collecting all 24 cards... You never know.

[h2]Okay, you can stop now[/h2]

I was honestly going to! I apologize for the longread, though I do hope that you got something interesting out of it. We also hope you enjoy Mentor's route, and we can't thank you enough for your limitless patience! You're the best players that we could ask for, and you inspire us to keep working on the game and to try and make it the best it can be.

Which reminds me... Time to get back to work!



Love ♡🐧

Nick & u7committee