Hello, and welcome to the September 2022 Progress Report! Bit late this one is, but we'll get into that later!

Let's get into the Progress!

After the previous Progress Report, we jumped right back into finishing up the Act 2 Polishing. Most of which involved the Forgotten Mansion rework. 

Overall, we think it feels like a much more polished experienced now, and even introduces a new mechanic that'll appear later in Act 3 as well!

Getting these mechanics to work properly took quite a bit of effort, and afterwards we had one other major aspect of Act 2 to complete. The map!

One of the best things about the Full Game is the Map, which allows the player to see where they are in the majority of areas in the game (excluding certain dungeons or interiors).

Not only that, but it also gives you hints on places you haven't been to yet by showing you little indents where exits would be. This is great in a place like the Forgotten Mansion that has many different rooms and floors. Now there's no risk of getting lost!

By the way, if you didn't know, the map can be accessed easily at any time via the main menu. There's quite a few more options there than what's in the demo!

Now that that was out of the way, it was time to give Act 3 the same treatment!

So, just like with Act 2 we went through the entire Act, meticulously combing the game and compiling a list of changes, additions, and modifications needed in Act 3. 

In total, the full playthrough of Act 3 took around 6 and a half hours.

As for the list? It ended up being well over 200 items long!

Most of the things being this or that needing examine text, this or that enemy taking too long to kill or not long enough, but of course also major bugs and things that need to be added we'd been putting off. Thankfully, the only MAJOR addition necessary in Act 3 is the map functionality, but all those littler things certainly add up!

Not to mention that during that run we also incidentally ran into even more things Act 2 needs! 

So, this took up most of the month, until the final week or so when we began planning for what was to come in October...

Wait... Huh!?

Yup! That's right. To celebrate the spooky season, we went back and updated the original Act 1 Demo with new content. It now contains a special Halloween event full of fun nonsense and teasers of what's to come. 

Also, fun bit of trivia, but while making this patch we actually ended up finding bugs and issues related to the Full Game! Funny how things like that work out. 

This Patch is now live on Steam, Itch, and GameJolt, and it'll only be around for October, so go give it a try while you still can!

In addition, we also cooked up something else...

That's right! NEW merch designs over at Jiang's Shop!

Not only that, but during the entire month of October, all merch will be 20% OFF If you use the code HV2022!!!

If you've ever wanted to support the development of the game and get something actually physically tangible doing it, now you can! Not only that, but your purchases support the fanartists that designed these shirts and stickers as well!

http://shop.horrorvale.net/

TRAGEDY STRIKES

Now, onto what happened shortly after the month ended from Lead Designer Dustin Andrews...

At Midnight, Oct 1st, I jumped onto my computer to upload the 0.4.0 patch to all the platforms. I tweeted and announced the patch, went to bed and that was that.

Next day I awoke, eager to see how many downloads we got overnight.

So I go to turn on my computer.

...

Eh?

...

I press the button again.

That's weird.

I press the button again.

Maybe it came unplugged?

Check the wires... Check the wires inside... Oh no. 

At first, I suspected it might be a faulty Power Supply, so I got a new one as soon as I could, hooked it up aaaand... Still nothing. So essentially, immediately after I uploaded the 0.4.0 Patch, my Motherboard was completely fried.

If you play the patch for yourself and experience the event, the context of it will make all of this very funny in a cosmic sort of way.

At this time, HorrorVale development is being done on my Surface Pro, with my HDD connected externally. It's not ideal, but it's... Something.

It'll be some time before the replacement parts needed for my computer come in, so fully expect very little to get done the first week of October compared to what usually happens. Here's hoping we can get back to the norm ASAP!

I suppose it's a good thing we recently updated our catalog of Merch? If you catch my drift? Wink wink nudge nudge? 

It really couldn't have happened at a worser time. 

Do you ever have nightmares about viruses infecting your computer and messing with it and your files? 

The nightmare has come to life. Well, except without viruses. And my files are totally fine. 

Anyways, this little hiccup will not stop us from continuing to work on HorrorVale! 

Although, if anyone finds any bugs or issues in the current patch of HorrorVale Act 1 Version 0.4.0, it'll be a bit before we can patch those up.

If any fellow Game Developers are reading this, you already know how obnoxious it is to set up Steam patches. You can't just upload the new files directly like any other platform.

Moving on! That's all for now folks, we're hoping that by the time we see you again next month, it'll be with news of Act 3 Polishing being completed! Toodles!