The first Chapter 3 update is here! After hitting milestone after milestone since June (Unsexy Times With George scenes) and closing out storylines towards the Chapter 2 climax we return now a bit more to strongly setup oriented update. As usual, for anyone who is new here, the more detailed devlog posts can be found on the patreon devlog feed, in this post I usually summarize the main points.

And that usually starts off with a short summary in numbers. We have started 3 new quests (started being the keyword here :'D), added 4 corruption scenes, opened two mental change rooms, got started on one new area, added 2 new character artworks, and then there's the usual bunch of minor changes. 

Sadly no new lewd scenes or new H-CGs, instead we got the character artworks for Luciela and Demon King Richard. Production on the last Roland CG set is still on the base color level, hopefully getting beginning of next week so we are a bit behind on that one. But since my heating in my flat died two days ago (and always briefly starts working the moment my landlord tries to check it) I'm got kind of busy trying to fix that myself or at least get proof it's  not working---Ah well let's stop here :'D. Anyways, would have been tough in terms of time to integrate anyways, will be coming next week then.

Then, moving on to the summary part!

First of all: Maid Academy! There is sadly not a lot to do yet, but if interact with the newly added barrier around Richard's Barrier you can start the quest Final Shield, which after talking to Mira will trigger the Maid Academy quest Mansion of Lust. Since we only started this month with Chapter 3 dev, most time went into concept work/character introduction/startup/etc, stuff like that. However, instead of a lewd scene we do have at least one new corruption action in this new area! One little Vice choice where we can ruin the life of a maid trying to come clean off drug use. Yay! Not that much more to say yet. Next month we will be properly getting started with the maid training content.

Then, the other big thing is the addition of the two final mental rooms. Again, mostly startup stuff with only few things actually implemented, although in the left room, the Skills Room, we do have a couple of already implemented entries. Auto-Seductive Stance and the crippling ability to make Aura a complete dizz when trying to use a skill of Alicia's choosing and inserting Aura's aptitude for it into a lewd skill to reach rank 3 lewd skills! With this you can now get Seductive Stance III and Flashing Crotch Kick III.

For the real world segment, I will just refer to the patreon post to make things not too spoilery. The main thing here to say is simply that they mostly follow up on the end of Chapter 2 and function as reaction scenes and transition scenes into the new Chapter 3 corruption storylines. Although, only one of them is a proper starter for a new storyline. The others will then mostly be locked behind the second row of value mental change orbs. Other than implementing the new scenes, I have also worked quite a lot on the detail concept. I didn't quite finish though and have still a couple storylines where it's not quite clear to me which mental change will trigger them and how the dependence is going to work out. Iterating a bit on that and then getting onto the start of the next storylines will be next on the menu in this part of the game. 

And finally, for the last piece of new content we return into the world of Roya once more! Written by our assistant writer Absurdity and implemented by our assistant developer Trihan, Detective Aura gets to have a case to solve in the last Roland quest. Either unravel the truth behind a murder or... pin it on the Ex-Knight Commander Lorraine whose opposition towards Roland has been a pain for him but now he's gotten the opportunity to get her sentenced into slavery. An Aura without Vice unlocked won't be facing that choice though :'D 

The quest follows a similar structure to the Ace Attorney series: First we have an investigation phase and that is the one implemented in this update. Collect evidence, talk to suspects, shove them evidence to get to the truth, or well, in one instance, blackmail them into it. :'D Next update we will be then be going to a trial face. Be sure to drop feedback early so that can be considered before we move into the showdown phase of this quest.

Besides the new content we also had quite a lot of technical work going on this update, mostly bugfixes, or stuff like delay adjustments for triggers in real world corruption events that you will see in the changelog, as a lot of players picked the game up again to play to the end of Chapter 2. But there is one particular technical experimental feature that I want to quickly to highlight and warn about: The new External Save Directory option. 

This option moves your save folder to 

AppData/Local/AuraGamedev/Star Knightess Aura/save/         (Desktop)

Documents/AuraGamedev/Star Knightess Aura/save/                (Android)

respectively. If everything works, you will never again have to copy&paste your save folder. Simply turn on the option and the game will find your save in the external save folder. Likewise, you will be able to transfer your save files between 

On Desktop alone this feature is not complicated, however android has a lot of peculiar things going on in what it can access and not acces and so on, also it's very difficult for me to test. Furthermore, various effects like the android operation to check if a file exists being async and the desktop one in RPGMaker being by default sync has caused to also make the Desktop logic more complated. The short of this story is that it's possible that things might explode if you use this feature. :'D I had to constantly go into it over the month and fix things and expect I will need to do so again in a hotfix tomorrow x_X

Alright, that covers most of the new stuff, hope you enjoy the update and then next month is most likely going to be lewd focused! For the complete changelog, as usual, see below.

Changelog 0.37.0 (24.11.2023)

• Added Luciela character artwork 
• Added Demon King Richard character artwork 
• Added scene Cheating on George 4 
• Added scene Aura Thinking 5 
• Added scene Rose and George Meetup 3 
• Added scene Rose Seduced by Richard 9 
• Added mental changes room Identity Room 
• Added mental changes room Skill Room 
• Added mental mental change Auto Seductive Stance 
• Added mental Extract Aptitude 
• Added mental change Insert Aptitude 
• Added quest stub Final Shield 
• Added quest stub Mansion of Lust 
• Added quest Nothing But the Truth Investigation segment 
• Added area Maid Academy
• Added on day start event after Completing Reverse Summoning Ritual 
• Added Barry to Trademond 
• Added minor effect improvements to Reverse Summoning Ritual 
• More shouting animations in Reverse Summoning Ritual 
• Replaced Cursed Woman battler with better edit
• Added Idealism Crystal and follow-up scene when entering Depths for the second time 
• Added barrier to Crystal Caverns map stub 
• Handled Paulina moving to Maid Academy 
• Added vice option to slip drug into former drug addict ex-arwin maid 
• Added rank II dark spells to Nephlune Dark Make Spell Shop if Trust >= 100 
• Added skill Seductive Stance III
• Added skill Flashing Crotch Kick III 
• Implemented external save support on android and re-enable external saves plugin
• Implemented logic so defender EVA is reduced by attacker HIT if attacker HIT > 1
• Increased max mental changes to 136

Balancing

• Started Veronica and George next event countdown after their scene instead of after Rose and George meetup
• Started event progress of Being Into The Next Super Model 4 before Aura Dev 6 and double speed once Appearance Competitivess is on 
• Moved start of Rose Seduced By Richard event chain to after Library Club scene unlocking Estrangement II 
• Removed 1 day delay between Cafeteria scene and Library Club 8 
• Only require model dream job for making last event progress for Tutored By George 4 
• Removed 1 day delay between Doubting Rose 2 and Rose Seduced by Richard 6 
• Doubled progression speed of first Infiltrating Cheerleaders scene if Library Club 9 has occurred 

Bugfixes

• Fixed typos 
• Fixed typo in choice for learning Shadowcloak II 
• Fixed external save file option getting erase on restart 
• Fixed incorrrect color formatting when picking up Mana Stone in Northern Mines Vault 
• Fixed Horror II having NG tag and incorrect damage formula 
• Added Aura Masturbating 4 as a prerequisite to unlocking Lewd Streamining Hobby 
• Fixed reload fix plugin causing event issues when loading autosaves 
• Added tag to force through events to respect tile passability 
• Fixed incorrect Vice damage multiplier in update event 
• Fixed text size changes not appearing in backlog
• Fixed various bugs in Fast Item Stance causing missing repeat effects to creating to many repeat effects in other cases 
• Fixed Slime not forgetting own morph skill when changing to another form 
• Fixed multi-hit damage popups not working properly 
• Fixed race condition in external save exists check
• Fixed end of content point briefly leading to kerberos domain 
• Fixed incorrect lewdness check variable in Roland 6 choice 
• Fixed vice text value check in roland 6 
• Fixed missing vice point in Roland 7 
• Fixed roland 8 being considered a vice action 
• Fixed incorrect gold reward when unlocking the Lord Nephlune chest 
• Fixed missing Cheating tags to Roland scenes in recollection room 
• Fixed Splash I and II only dealing 1 damage if no enhance spell is set

Stats

• Estimated play time: 30-40h
• Word Count: 512k
• Lewd Scenes: 90
• Real World Scenes: 244
• CGs: 39 (+1 Bonus CG)