I have only been posting the devlog posts on Patreon since only the people over there can download the files. But copy&pasting them over to itch isn't exactly a huge hurdle, so I will give it a try to also share them here. If nobody reads them, I can just stop.

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Before we do anything else.

REMINDER THAT ANDROID PLAYERS NEED TO ACTIVATE EXTERNAL SAVES BEFORE UPDATING OR THEY WILL LOSE THEIR PROGRESS! 

Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk about this week's prerelease! 

Content-wise, there are two new corruption scenes, focusing on Laura's side of the story. The homework project is finally done........ and Aura is not happy with the grades Laura earned for her friends. The scene went a little bit crazy at parts, as in very crazy, buuuut on the other hand, this is lategame and at some point the switch to Aura not just saying some mean things but getting more physical gotta happen. Well, I won't say anymore than this except that this scene would make Laura jump from pure happiness if she could trade places with the cuck of an NTR story male protagonist. Yeah, it's that. :'D 

I was hoping that maybe I could after all also go for the lewd scene with the Rowdy Student, Laura and Aura buuut like I mentioned in the Project Plan post, that was a bit too ambitious to fit into this more technical oriented week.

In the mindscape, the mental changes that trigger this sequence are the mental changes for the corruption of the second Diligence Orb. In addition to that, this also unlocks a further happiness mental change "Weakness Hate" which gives Aura a new passive "The Strong Stand Above The Weak" which reduces her Willpower by her current Level during Vice checks - representing a sort of increasing disdain for the weak, the stronger Aura gets. 

Originally, this was supposed to be "Self-Righteousness" Hatred but as I have been writing the recent Chapter 3 scenes, I didn't feel like that was the correct direction. Aura still retains a certain sense of justice, or self-righteousness, except it's getting twisted into evil, as the newest Laura bullying scene shows.

But wait a moment! What is that funny "NEW" marker in the UI for the new passive! That is my connection to the technical section of this prerelease. Our assistant developer Trihan implemented this item from our UI/UX Improvement Iteration. When you get a new skill or item, it will be marked with NEW until you hover over it for the first time. With the increasing complexity of the inventory and the skill lists, this should help us scale up into the end game.

Then, the next bigger technical item is without a doubt the new Android port. I mentioned it in the linked post, so I don't think there is much left to talk about here as to why I decided to switch from the framework we had been using in the past to a completely new port. 

There are some minor improvements that going to the new port brought us, such as when you press BACK it will no longer push the app into the background, but instead open an Exit Game dialogue. Maybe some people had black lines when playing the game, this should be fixed now. Also, while I was at it, I also changed the behavior of the SKIP functionality on Android - now when you long tap it will no longer enter fast-forward mode (playing at 3x speed) but SKIP mode (playing at the default 10x or whatever SKIP speed is configured in the Options). This also works during battle and greatly speeds up things. 

Then, another change I also mentioned in the hotfix release, the Maid Academy is now unlocked from clearing the quest Hand of The King. As mentioned, it should be all backward compatible, and the old unlock in the Crystal Caverns are left in-tact so if you are past that point you can still unlock the Maid Academy as before.

Finally, I discussed with our artist the next set of commissions. As mentioned in the commission plan, the next important artwork is the Maid Paulina variation and then the Laura character artwork to complete the side character artworks.

Aaand that's it for the week! For the complete changelog including the changes from the latest public build, please check below.

Changelog 0.39.0-prerelease-1 (05.01.2024)

• Added mental change Corrupt Diligence Orb 2 
• Added mental change insert corrupted Deliquence Orb 2 
• Added mental change Weakness Hate 1 
• Added scene Homework Project 6 
• Added scene Homework Project 7 
• Added passive "The Strong Stand Above The Weak" 
• Implemented new android port 
• Set fast-forward on Android to enter SKIP mode 
• Implemented NEW marker in item and skill menu 
• Move Maid Academy unlock to finding James documents 
• Increased max mental changes 144 

Balancing

• Reversed +1 MATK from Goblin Teeth but give +1 MP instead
• Increase Maid Job 1 and 2 reward by 250 Gold each to compensate for debuffs
• Increased HP of Knight Duelist Francis by 500

Bugfixes

• Fixed typos
• Fixed Missing Will variant not working as evidence in Nothing But The Truth
• Fixed blank text box when feeding Maleficumplating to Slime
• Fixed max vice being too high
• Fixed Nothing But The Truth ending when presenting incorrect evidence even with lives left
• Fixed battles starting in ambush even if player did not ambush them
• Fixed John being unable to learn Blooming Fire in some circumstances
• Fixed inconsistent Aura line in Rampaging Golem
• Fixed Ointed Body no longer showing permanent MDEF message
• Fixed Medium Slime not splitting in Slime Queen fight
• Fixed being able to do Bonding with Slime II without doing the first one
• Fixed knights outside Keep not having Roland death dialogue after doing Something is Fishy
• Fixed some enemies still getting popularity boost after Roland dies
• Fixed battle bugs in Maid Academy catacombs
• Fixed shop inventory disappearing if highlighting "sell" while inventory is empty
• Fixed Aura portrait remaining in refugee shed if examining wall and leaving
• Fixed Roland still being in forced sex event list after killing him
• Fixed party reaction scene triggering if Paulina already moved to the maid academy before triggering it
• Fixed 1-4 inputs for skill sorting no longer working properly