Hotfix 7.7.1

Oi, there were lots of little bugs to clean up with this one. This should cover all the important ones, though, and of course let me know if I missed anything ASAP.

7.7.1 Hotfix

Additions

- When selecting monster pairings on the breeding assistant menu you can now see what their energy cost will be, and monsters that would result in a pairing with too high of an energy cost will be automatically hidden

Bug Fixes/Minor Changes

- Obtaining Alita should no longer break the breeding menu, let me know ASAP if this one still persists at all

- The final stage of the Alita quest should no longer repeat (it might repeat one more time after loading a save, but will stop from then on)

- Alita's dialog sprite is now animated

- Ellenor's quest for 3-star consumables no longer has a hidden Elf Juice requirement, and she now actually takes the consumables when you start the event

- Some strange interactions between the Sorting system and the Select Monster menu have been fixed, and it should no longer hide monsters without available hearts when you go to select monsters to sell or donate

- Holstaurus variants' horn styles are now based on their hair rather than on their faces

- Fixed some minor issues with saves that had the old (removed) Fluffdragons marked as unlocked

- Fixed a goofy bug where if you loaded a save from the fishing pool, you would suddenly start thinking you lived on the beach instead of on the ranch

- Fixed spelling of the word "received" because I after E EXCEPT after C, according to Endrian

Known Issues

- There may be some weird game behavior when monsters with disabled traits are obtained

- The tutorial displays some of the old UI

- The colors on some animations are incorrect as they have yet to be overhauled

Wanted: Flash Animators

Flash Animators Wanted!

I want to go ahead and put out an open call for applications for new Flash animators for the project! If you're highly experienced in working with Adobe Flash or similar animation software and are interested in working with us, please send your resume and portfolio to beanbagroomstudios@gmail.com

We heavily prioritize people who have a solid portfolio of previous work that they can show us. Experience in hand-drawn frame-by-frame animation or previous work with pixel art are major pluses, as is some ability to code in ActionScript 3.0 or JavaScript.

Also, if you're curious about the Composer/Sound Designer positions: those are still in the process of being selected! I hope to have more information to share with you all regarding those soon.

Finally, I'm very aware of the big bugs in 7.7; I've rooted out most of them and a hotfix should be coming out within the next three days to rectify the biggest issues.

Alpha Build 7.7 for Patrons

Woo, I can gladly say that the Ranch Assistant system is finally ready for you guys to use! This is the last major gameplay system that I'll be adding to the game (we'll also be adding the Inquisitor system, but that's an ultimately much smaller system based on parts already in game). This is important not only because the system itself is cool and I hope you guys'll like it, but because it means I can majorly shift my focus towards refining gameplay/game balance and writing storylines/events. Alita is the only assistant who will be currently available in the game, but expect that number to expand rapidly.

Important note about animations: You'll notice there are no animations in this update. Don't freak out! They're coming! As a result of the issues we had with the harpies as well as a few other compounding problems (computer troubles, some missing cow parts, some particularly complex animation set-ups), the prep work for the animations got pushed back this month. Making animations requires a long set of processes, starting with cutting up the poses and assembling them before anything can be actually animated. Since rather than doing the animations one at a time we put them through each process in batches (cut all the poses, then assemble all the poses, etc) this means that all this month's animations are currently in the assembly phase.

What we're planning to do is, instead of making you wait a whole other month for more animations, have our mid-month release be our "animation update". Given this goes well, from now on we'll probably do releases in this manner, with two releases each month: a gameplay update on the 1st, and then an animation update mid-month.

Also, as this is the last major system we're adding to the game (and an update to some of the more important bits of the UI), there's a very high chance of bugs. I fully expect to be doing a hotfix even before we get to the animation update this month, so let me know of any important bugs and I'll try to get the hotfix up ASAP.

7.7 Patch Notes

Additions
- The Ranch Assistant system is now in-game! This is the last major game system to be implemented! You can use it to assign breeding pairs to your assistants who will automatically be bred every day, increase the happiness of monsters in a particular building, or automatically sell your consumables. Complete Alita's quest-line in order to use it in-game.
-  Alita the robot girl has been added to the game! To get her on your ranch you must complete her new questline, which is currently the biggest questline implemented in the game. In order to start it, you must raise your affection with Margo and have Ellenor on your ranch. It's also the first quest line in the game to involve branching paths.
- The Shop Menu and the Monster Select Menu have been overhauled. The shop now more clearly shows the monster idles and the monster select menu now includes your custom sorting tabs. They're also both prettier and ideally better optimized now! (There may be a few issues introduced with the new selection menu; let me know and they'll be added to the hotfix)

Bug Fixes/Minor Changes
- Happiness events can now occur on the same days as other events at the ranch, and are more frequent as a result
- The loading time when opening the breeding menu after loading a save has been shifted to immediately when you load the save itself
- Gremlin versions of the Swine, the Seraphs, and the Mandrakes are now possible to obtain.
- Changed Feral, Futanari, Neoteny, and Genderbent into platinum traits: will not apply to old monsters, so you may see some gold versions of the trait floating around on your old saves.
- Fixed issues with Kay's Sea Sponge
- Fixed issues with mousewheel scrolling

Known Issues
- While selecting a monster to add to an assistant's breeding schedule, you aren't shown the energy cost; this will be fixed soon
- Consumables loaded from saves from older versions won't be counted as having been harvested from your monsters when being sold by a ranch assistant, and won't stack with newly harvested consumables (this was not tracked previously)
- Alita's mouth and idle movements aren't animated yet
- There may be some weird game behavior when monsters with disabled traits are obtained
- The tutorial displays some of the old UI
- The colors on some animations are incorrect as they have yet to be overhauled

Hotfix 7.6.1

Hey, in a few minutes I'll drop the hotfix up on the Patreon.

7.6.1 Hotfix

Additions
- Full animations for Siren, Cockatrice, and Chickadee x Fbreeder are now in-game
- A couple new events should now start popping up once you've got sufficient affection with Margo that begin the quest-line that will lead to getting Alita in patch 7.7
- Shortcuts:
- You can compare your two selected monsters' stats in the breeding menu by holding the C key

Bug Fixes/Minor Changes
- The Scrollbar on the breeding menu should update correctly now when using the mousewheel
- Updated the Item Quantity Box
- Added green bar on the XP bar to show how much XP the monster will get from breeding
- You can now see how close each stat is to leveling up from the small bar
- Stored hearts text now changes color based on how close to heart overflow your monster is: it turns orange when the current usable hearts the monster has will cause it to have a heart overflow next day, and it turns yellow when it will happen in two days
- Monsters in other menus should no longer disappear when you choose to have monsters without usable hearts hidden

Known Issues
- There may be some weird game behavior when monsters with disabled traits are obtained
- The tutorial displays some of the old UI
- The colors on some animations are incorrect as they have yet to be overhauled

Also, we're still on track to have the assistant system ready for 7.7 (worst-case scenario it will be lacking some polish, but at the moment the menu is in-game and working along with the ability to assign monsters to be bred each day in our dev version).

And expect the new public release to be up on Monday.

Programming Update

Hey, this is just a short update to let you guys know what's up: due to the animation issues with the harpies Vanilly ended up having to reanimate some of their loops, but we intend to have the hotfix up next week. Sub should ideally also have the neo harpy x fbreeder animation ready for the hotfix so you'll get that as well! I've also done some more bugfixes/added a few more QoL features to the breeding menu, including a bar showing you the XP the monster will get from breeding (like on the old one) and a hotkey you can hold to bring up both selected monsters' stats side-by-side for comparison.

Fleet's nearly done with the Ranch Assistant menu, after which I'll get to finishing up the system and getting the Alita quest-line in-game. I've been having fun writing it since it includes some cute Ellenor and Cordelia interactions.

Alpha Build 7.6 for Patrons

The update will be going up in the Patreon Creations section in a couple hours. Unfortunately due to some last minute issues with the new harpy animations two of them only display the first loop currently (feral cockatiel and feral harpy); we intend to hotfix this ASAP. The rest of them should be working just fine, though.

The sorting system is finally in! You have a number of criteria to sort by, and you can even move your monsters into custom tabs as you choose. Let me know right away if there's any major bugs with the system. There will be a hotfix ideally within the next week to address any issues that pop up. We also made a large number of optimizations on the breeding menu that should make it go a lot faster and hopefully be easier to use.

I've also added more to the Delilah/Ferris storyline that starts by getting enough affection with Margo. The newest scenes start with visiting Delilah in the church, and progress as you gain affection with both her and Ferris (and visit the church and guild).

7.6 Patch Notes

Additions
- New animations! Fbreeder x Harpy, Fbreeder x Futa Harpy, Fbreeder x Cockatiel, Fbreeder x Budgie, Fbreeder x Cockatrice, Fbreeder x Siren (the last two have loop issues, will be hotfixed ASAP)
- Added 3 more loops to the Kay beach animation
- All new sorting system with customizable tabs: you can now move and reorder monsters between tabs by opening the sorting tab in the breeding menu and then dragging and dropping. You can also set a list of criteria to sort monsters by for each tab. (UI graphics placeholder atm)
- More storyline has been added with Delilah/Ferris, progress it by gaining affection with Margo, Delilah, and Ferris and visiting the Guild and Church
- New Shortcuts:
- The number keys will switch between different tabs in the breeding menu
- If you hold ctrl while selecting a monster in the breeding menu, it will automatically select both that monster and its last breeding partner
- If you hold shift while selecting a monster in the breeding menu, it will select the monster without closing the tab (in case you want to hover over the traits, etc)

Bug Fixes/Minor Changes
- We've made a number of changes to hopefully make the breeding menu a lot faster/less laggy
- The exit x should show up on the Kay animation now
- Fixed a bug affecting monsters that develop a preference for futas
- Margo loses affection when you ask her about her boobs now (seriously, how tasteless of you)
- Preg chance and energy cost will now update when you hover over a monster in the breeding menu
- Fixed issue preventing you from completing the Kaliba event with the new inventory menu
- Fixed skin color issue with Kittenboys and Budgies, but unfortunately this fix will not apply to the colors of monsters from previous saves
- Moved the breeder to the top of the breeding list rather than the bottom by default

Known Issues
- There may be some weird game behavior when monsters with disabled traits are obtained
- The tutorial displays some of the old UI
- The colors on some animations are incorrect as they have yet to overhauled

Programming Update

Hey guys, it's been way too long since I've done a programming blog update.

Apologies on the delay on the 7.4 public release: I was trying to get the browser embedded version working again but continue to run into issues. Unfortunately, we may just not be able to have browser embedded versions again until we launch the website. As a result, I'll just put the download version of the 7.4 public release up now.

As to when we'll finally launch the site; we should see the new site go up in the next couple of months (at the very least, we'll launch the blog portion of the site with the community portion to come afterwards). Right now I admit I'm the bottleneck for getting the site up and operational and I've just had my attention split between too many things at the moment, exacerbating the delay. Following the next update I plan on re-focusing on getting the site going ASAP. Thanks for bearing with us.

As for game progress: I've been working on cleaning up and adding a lot of new functionality to the new breeding menu. You'll now be able to sort monsters between your own custom tabs as you please using a drag-and-drop menu, as well as rearrange the monsters in the tabs however you like. Please continue to give us feedback on changes you'd like done to the menu, I want to make sure it's as perfect as we can make it since it's where the vast majority of the gameplay happens. I've also been dedicating time to writing more storyline events, including working on the events leading up to getting Alita, your first ranch assistant, who you should be seeing in-game relatively soon.

Fleet has been working on implementing the ranch assistant UI in between making animation set-ups, and it's coming along nicely. Right now our plans are to have the ranch assistant system finally make it in-game with update 7.7 (the July 1st update).