Please Be Happy News

Today, August 15th, is Miho's birthday! To celebrate, here's a new artwork of her by adirosa.



The higher resolution version of this artwork is available here.

Please Be Happy is taking part in the Wholesome Games Steam Celebration, a festival for comfy and wholesome games here on Steam. It's currently on sale for the event.



Our other games Twofold and our upcoming title Summer at the Edge of the Universe are also taking part! They both have demos out that you can play.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1749770/Twofold/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2641720/Summer_at_the_Edge_of_the_Universe/

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Hello, everyone!

Please Be Happy 1.2 has just been released, which fixes a few issues and makes various user experience and performance improvements.

Not too much has changed on the surface, but the game has undergone significant technical changes internally in 1.2 for a better experience now and into the future.

As always, thank you for continuing to support Studio Élan!

〜 Karen/あけみ (akemin_dayo) and adirosa

[h2]Changelog for 1.2:[/h2]
On PC, it targets Unity SDK version 2021.3.33f1.

• Improved ED video and audio quality.
  
• Made further improvements to general performance.
  
• Made improvements to the Episode Replay feature.
  
• The current version of the game is now shown at the top-left corner of the main menu.
  
• The main menu can now always be closed in every context (as opposed to only when ingame) using Escape, Right Click (MOUSE2), or the configured cancel button on a controller.
  
• The quick menu can now be shown and hidden using Backspace or R3 on a controller.
  
• The CG gallery viewer can now be controlled using a keyboard or controller.
  
  
  
  • Escape (keyboard) or the configured cancel button (controller) closes the CG viewer.
    
  • H (keyboard) or Triangle / Top Button (controller) hides the UI.
    
  • [ ] (keyboard) or L1 and R1 (controller) flips between pages, if applicable.
    
• Fixed an issue where the Extras → Gallery screen would sometimes show the contents of the Credits screen instead, if a very specific set of steps were taken.
  
• Fixed some minor UI layout issues.
  
• Worked around a Unity bug that would cause the game to run locked at 30 FPS on certain system configurations.
  
• Worked around a Unity bug that causes VSync to sometimes become momentarily disabled under certain circumstances, resulting in a spike of elevated GPU utilisation as a result of drawing frames at over 5000(!) FPS for a brief period of time.
  

[h3]Very technical information for modders, dataminers, and anyone else who may be interested[/h3]

• Scene scripts are currently still left in serialised binary format. This will change in a future update.
  
• A new preferences file was added: ${Unity persistent data path}/com.vnstudioelan.pleasebehappy.json
  
• PBH 1.2 is the largest update so far in terms of the number of non-external-user-facing internal changes — large portions of the code have been rewritten and/or refactored, and a whole lot of new code was written, too. Additionally, 1.2 also finished porting over everything that's useful in Unity / C# from the shared Python codebase used by our Ren'Py games.
  
• Much like Ren'Py, you can now call arbitrary method selectors using the developer console command

  @performSelector ExampleClass.exampleMethod withArgs:"optionalExample1","example2"

  
  
  • Shorthand form is

    @p a:

    
    
  • (※ This is mostly only useful for testing purposes during development, and is also far less powerful than its Ren'Py counterpart. Any relevant output is written to Player.log.)
    
• Some of you may have noticed that partial controller support was quietly added in 1.1.2. Please note that UI menus are still not yet navigable using a keyboard or controller.
  
• While support for controller prompts in the UI (including in the help screen) has been added, it is not yet exposed as a user-facing option, and currently requires a restart of the game to take effect if manually enabled either via editing the preference file mentioned above, or via the developer console.
  
  
  
  • This also applies to the confirmation button preference, which is currently not functional beyond just affecting the controller prompts UI.
    

Hello, everyone!

Please Be Happy 1.1.2 has just been released, which vastly improves performance and load times, adds Steam Cloud support, and more!

It also fixes a few minor issues that were either reported, or were found in testing.

As always, thank you for continuing to support Studio Élan!

〜 Karen/あけみ (akemin_dayo) and adirosa
[h2]Changelog for 1.1.2:[/h2]
On PC, it targets Unity SDK version 2021.3.33f1.
[h3]New features[/h3]

• Added Steam Cloud save synchronisation!
• Added new optimised asset loading behaviour to vastly improve performance and load times.
• Completely reworked input handling in preparation for upcoming changes. Input bindings are now consistent with other Studio Élan games.
• Completely reworked help screen to list all applicable input bindings.
• Improved support for the Display P3 and DCI-P3 colourspaces.
• The alternate graphics API launcher that was previously a separate download is now included.
• Improved screenshot management.
• Various internal refactors.

[h3]General improvements and bug fixes[/h3]

• Fixed all known input issues on all platforms by virtue of input handling being fully reworked.
• Fixed an issue where certain preference pane tooltips would show incorrect information.
• Fixed an issue where the title screen animation would not always work under certain circumstances.
• Fixed some savescreen issues.
• Fixed a typo in the artbook.

[h3]Scene-specific improvements and bug fixes[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where some text was erroneously duplicated in Chapter 1 Scene 6.
• Fixed an issue where Miho would take longer than intended to show up in Chapter 5 Scene 7.

[h3]Information for modders and dataminers[/h3]

• Scene scripts are currently still left in serialised binary format. This will change in a future update.
• In general, Please Be Happy 1.1.2 is still not very modder or dataminer friendly. This will change in a future update. Thank you for your patience.

One year ago today, we released Please Be Happy after several years of development. We're so glad so many people have played the game so far and traveled with Miho to Wellington!



[h3]Since the game launched...[/h3]

• The music video for the ending theme, Someone Someday, has passed 100k views on YouTube.
  
• The game has over 200 positive reviews on Steam, giving it a Very Positive rating.
  
• We got a lot of people to fall in love with Miho (our evil plan from the beginning).
  

[h3]To celebrate its 1st anniversary, we have a few surprises for you![/h3]

• We've released the .pdf for the special anniversary booklet from the game's anniversary bundle (now sold out) on our Patreon! It contains two post-mortems and a new short story & illustration about Silver.
  
• The two post-mortems from the anniversary booklet are now available to read for everyone, including non-Patrons.
  
• Pre-orders for the Please Be Happy OST's vinyl print are now on sale for Patrons! The public pre-orders start tomorrow but Patrons can reserve a copy a day early.
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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As announced earlier today at the Élan Festival, Please Be Happy has passed over 5,000 copies sold! We're also super close to 200 Steam reviews (with a 99% positive score) which is amazing!! Thank you so much to everyone who has ventured out on this journey with Miho.



Next month is the 1 year anniversary (birthday?) for Please Be Happy—1 year since Miho traveled to Wellington. To celebrate, we have a brand new merch bundle. This bundle will include a new acrylic standee, a mini booklet from the developers, and a mini postcard signed by Miho's voice actress Dottovu.



There is also a reprint of adirosa's Please Be Happy artbook, hic et nunc. which is available now! In the coming months we’ll be sharing info on a vinyl print of Please Be Happy’s soundtrack, so stay tuned for that with our newsletter.

Again, thank you so much to everyone who's decided to travel with Miho ♥