I was able to address a couple of QoL changes based on some recent feedback and did a bit more testing on the builds. I'm optimistic about Launch on Monday and I'll probably be creating a new thread dedicated to any Known Issues or Bug Reports for launch day. I want to be as proactive as possible and do my best to address any issues that I may not have seen in my own testing. Here are the QoL changes I made:
Added Ctrl hotkey for skipping dialogue
The game should now remember the state of your window settings when launching the game. If your settings are windowed or fullscreen it should launch the game in that mode.
This week I took a step back and started thinking about how to design the next chapter of this game such that I could mitigate a lot of the common pain points that devs and players face when going from one chapter/season to the next. Most notably, with respect to save files and migrations. I think I've designed a clever way to address the save file issue such that the player won't have to worry about whether or not saves will migrate from chapter to chapter since they'll have a failsafe system they can rely on. Here is what I'm implementing:
Each time a chapter is completed on any save file, it will trigger a persistent flag that will allow you to create a new game from your current chapter. You won't need to start from the beginning unless you want to. The game will create a happy path clear save with focus on the story and all side content still locked so you can play through it again if you'd like. Sort of like a new game+
If you also manage to complete the chapter with 100% completion, you will now have the option to create a new game at the current chapter with the previous chapter completed at 100% just by toggling the option. So instead of just a happy path story chapter save, you'll unlock all available content for that chapter as well.
I'll post some prototype screenshots below of what this might look like, but I think this will greatly improve and help mitigate issues of corrupted saves or migration issues since you'll be able to start a new game with all content unlocked if you've already done so at least once on any save. As more chapters are completed this will be even more helpful. Thank you all so much for all your support! I'll talk to you again on Monday.
Prototype images showing the New Game flow (This assumes the player has already completed chapter 1 and has cleared chapter 1 with 100% completion)