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The Long Journey to Farewell

 
50% more heroism + STORY MODEMar 17, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsThis is a pretty huge update with two main features. First, the start of the game has been hammered on a lot to make it more exciting and a bit creepier. Hopefully, this will highlight the conceits and conflicts of the story earlier and more clearly. As part of this, Elian now has a moral dilemma he's wrestling with right from the start, which parallels the dilemma faced by another major hero in the story. Will they choose the heroic path? You'll have to see ;) The second major item in this update is STORY MODE! A lot of players told me that they wanted a more relaxed experience than the dungeons provided, and some just wanted the story without any of those pesky mechanics. So, I added two new play modes: invincible mode and story mode. Invincible mode makes you (ready for it?) ... invincible! It's for folks who want to basically play the dungeons and puzzles, but don't want the stress of maybe dying hanging over them. Story mode makes monsters not even see you and adds 'solve this now' buttons to the harder puzzles. It's for people who really just want to watch the cut scenes and not be slowed down by having to arrange fish crates into pixel art renditions of my dog. You can swap between modes at any time, so I hope they'll also let you get through difficulty spikes (although please still send me feedback on those!). Hopefully these new options will help folks find the balance of challenge they're looking for! As always, I am excited to hear your thoughts! The game has a feedback button called 'Help, Stuck' in the menus. You can also mail me at [email protected] or tweet @zombiebonsai or post comments here. I hope you all are enjoying the journey!Less Stinky StinkJan 3, 2022 - Community AnnouncementsThe Stinky Lure was fairly difficult to use versus a set of friendly local (and nasally enhanced) yetis in one of the Falsen dungeons. As a result, they would flee in surprisingly unpredictable directions, which made solving puzzles using them frustrating. This update changes a bit about how the Stinky Lure works, as well as tweaks the puzzles, to make it feel better. The update also includes a fix to a fairly nasty item upgrade bug which would leave anyone who was at or beyond the Icy Caves in the Falsen Mountains dungeon unable to swap Demyra's secondary skill (usually her knockout ability). The update should also fix any save games which had this problem. As always, if you have issues, questions or thoughts, mail me at [email protected] or post on the Steam forums. I hope you're all enjoying the journey; happy 2022!Key Rebinding!!!Dec 29, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsYou can now rebind the in game commands to whatever keys you like! To rebind, go into Settings from either the title screen or the in-game menu and hit Key Bindings. I've included a recommended default arrows and default wasd binding which you can swap to with one press (at the bottom) or you can bind each command individually as you like. The bindings are saved and loaded on game exit, so you only have to bind once. If you find a binding set you particularly like, send it to me (System\keyBindings.txt)! I'd love to collect the bindings that folks find most natural. Also, if you notice any oddities around bindings or input, let me know! As always, if you have thoughts, feedback or suggestions, mail me at [email protected] or post on the steam community page for the game! I hope you are enjoying the journey!It's Important to Have GoalsDec 22, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsThe major addition in this update is... GOALS! Yay? Yay! Now, if you go into the menus, there's a little reminder at the top telling you what the next thing to do is in the main quest. Hopefully, this'll help folks progress if it's been a while or the in-game instructions were unclear. There's also a few other bug fixes around the game as well, to polish up some issues players have reported. As always, if you have questions, thoughts or suggestions, post in the steam forums or mail me at [email protected]. If you hit issues in game, please report them using Help! Stuck in the menus. I hope you're all enjoying the journey!Options that go down easyNov 28, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsThe big letter changes are tweaks to the Telemus Mansion and Caves to fix usability issues, make them a tad faster and make some parts optional. I hope this will make it easier for folks to progress through quickly (if you want story, story, story) or take your time if you want to 100% every dungeon. Other notable changes: Tweaked boss in Ancient Ruins to only require 1 cycle instead of 2 Tweaked a ton of text across the game because editing is magical Fixed a few stuck \ locks \ crashes in edge cases As always, if you hit issues or want to send me thoughts, use the Help, Stuck! item in the main menu, comment in the steam forums, email me at [email protected] or HMU on Discord at Mhin Ra#2919 I hope you are enjoying the journey!More an oops than a bwa ha haNov 1, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsIn what is certain to be a spoiler for no one: Demyra makes a poorly considered choice after the party catches up to the mages in Falsen. Her rationale for the choice parsed as extremely self-centered before. This update rewrites the set of scenes around that event to have her original plan be fairly tame, but things spiral out of control as her initial lie takes on a life of its own. This should bring her closer to the generally sympathetic persona I had intended. I've also tweaked the troll visuals in the Falsen Ice Caves to make the two types more distinct and addressed a few crashes \ errors that folks hit. As always, please reach out to me with questions, feedback or thoughts: [email protected], post in Steam discussions, https://discord.gg/FM5ECj9FHG or hit Help! Stuck! in the menus. I hope you are enjoying the journey!When the fish are just too muchOct 18, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsI've had a couple folks get stuck on the fish crate pushing mini game in Falsen, and if you do, there is (well, WAS) absolutely no way to progress. The only two options were you maneuver stinky crates of sea carcasses on slippery ice or the world gets destroyed by the looming calamity (yes of course there's a looming calamity... this IS a JRPG, after all). Well, no more! Now you can talk to the green haired fish pusher dude and he'll let you out of this oddly themed misery, for an appropriate price. What will it be? You'll just have to ask him. NOTE: If you are on a crate puzzle map when you get this update, you have to talk to the green haired fish pusher dude and tell him to reset the puzzle once before you will see the new option to skip the puzzle. Hope this makes the journey more pleasant for you all! As always, email, discord, twitter, carrier pigeon or whatever else if you have thoughts, questions or hit issues. I would love to hear from you!Warming the icy windsOct 16, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsThis update includes several gameplay tweaks to the Falsen invasion, which make the non-violent option for the dungeon less finnicky. It also includes some very late game fixes for a few cut scenes involving Tria and a few bugs in the ending. Rewatching some of that, I got misty eyed; hard to imagine that Tria's storyline was originally intended as optional content! Issues or just wanna talk? [email protected], post in Steam discussions, https://discord.gg/FM5ECj9FHG or hit Help! Stuck! in the menus. I'd love to hear from you! I hope you are enjoying the journey!Here we go squashing bugs today, bugs today...Oct 15, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsThis update fixes a whole raft of bugs across the entire game that have been reported by players or in telemetry. Near the start, I've streamlined the initial town conversations in Telemus to (hopefully) make them a little more approachable, fixed two awkward ways you could loose your button-activating sacks in the Telemus mansion and made it so you can complete (but not infinitely cycle) the package delivery mini-quest (no more limitless money ;p). I've also fixed an issue with the DS4 controller fix I'd implemented that made several non-mapped keyboard keys do random things; now - like the goggles - they do nothing. Thanks to everyone for playing and for sending me the issues you find! As always, if you hit issues or have questions: [email protected], post in Steam discussions, https://discord.gg/FM5ECj9FHG or hit Help! Stuck! in the menus. I hope you're enjoying the journey!More Humane Mind ControlOct 10, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsThe major update in this fix is changing some elements of one of the harsher game scenes, based on feedback that several unintended audio and visual cues made it easy to read as significantly darker than intended. I've tweaked the scene to (hopefully) ameliorate that. In addition, I've allowed controlling the 'thought speed' UI directly while listening to archon thoughts, which should help folks who read faster (or slower) to get things tweaked as they like more easily. This mostly impacts the ancient ruins techno-dungeon, later in the game. As always, if you hit issues or feel stuck, mail me: [email protected] or visit the discord: https://discord.gg/FM5ECj9FHG or click the 'Help! Stuck' button in the menus. I hope you're all enjoying the journey!Bug fixes + Help buttonOct 2, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsI fixed a few minor issues throughout the game, but the big ticket item in this update is a Help, Stuck button in the menu. The game already sends me error reports and telemetry, but if you hit a situation where you think its broken (but isn't spewing errors), or you feel a room is impossible or something really weird or broken looking happened, click the Help, Stuck button. All you have to provide is a short description of the issue. If you give me contact info, I'll ping you to get you unblocked and with status on the fix, but that's totally optional! Hope this helps anyone who's hitting slightly-less-bad-than-gamebreaking issues, and (as always), I hope you're having a lot of fun on the journey!Fixing error on Falsen Mts Ski SlopeOct 1, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsThere was a scripting error on the ski scene coming down the Falsen Mts that was introduced after the test pass had gotten past that part :( The bug would have manifested as an error dialog that pops up just as you start skiing and would have made it difficult\impossible to do the skiing scene. 3.27 should remove the error and let you progress past that point. I'll continue to watch for errors in telemetry and fix them if they come up. Thanks to everyone for playing and bearing with me as things get polished out. I really appreciate your help and enthusiasm for the game!Fixing Map Connection Bug in Telemus CavesSep 30, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsI was looking at telemetry and discovered that the passage that leads North out of the boss room for Telemus caves was incorrectly connected to an older version of the neighboring room. You'd only hit this if you left the boss room to backtrack to the rest of the cave, but at least one user did precisely that. If you continue north through the old\broken version of the room, the next room up is 'correct' again (although you pop out in a harmless but weird location). This update connects the rooms correctly and fixes a few other stitching oddities on various maps later the game. My apologies for the bug; if you did get into the old version of the room, just exit it to the north. If that doesn't fix you, mail me at [email protected]. I will find a way to get your save game fixed :)Smoother SneakingSep 30, 2021 - Community Announcements3.25 includes a bunch of polish updates to the Telemus Mansion (first dungeon), fixing issues I've seen in usability playtesting from this week. Updates include: Slightly less waiting for cooks in the kitchen Mini-tutorials for rafter walking, weapon switching and Smelling Salts Better signposting for required vs optional parts of the dungeon Helpful teddy bears to remind you when Lure might be useful ;) Replaced blocker crates with other, less distracting things (secret passages, moving armors) Tweaked a few geos to make them less claustrophobic I hope this smooths out some parts of the first dungeon where folks were getting frustrated or confused! As always, please send me feedback at [email protected], twitter @zombiebonsai or on the discord https://discord.gg/FM5ECj9FHG Have a great time playing!Tweakin' hard (parts)Sep 26, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsI was looking at telemetry about where people stopped to see if I could find awkward parts. I've tweaked a bunch of things in the start of the game: Added helper text for stairs (they looked weird) in kitchen and removed a needlessly nasty cook Made monsters Demyra knocks out act as cover, so you can hide behind them Added hinting for the cupboards in the mezzanine of the Telemus Mansion Changed floating armors in the caves to take 1 hit, so the level flows faster and more nicely Thanks so much to folks for playing; if you were stuck, give it a try and see if things are better. Or if you want hints or help, poke me on the discord (https://discord.gg/FM5ECj9FHG)! The game is Early Access, so if something seems obtuse, it probably is and needs some hammering out. I'd love to get you through those parts so you can keep playing while I make fixes.Improved controller supportSep 23, 2021 - Community AnnouncementsThis is definitely not a complete fix, but this update will enable PS controllers and likely others to work in the game. If yours still doesn't, try searching for Set up USB Game Controllers in the Windows start menu, click Advanced and select your controller as the Preferred device. I'm working on a more complete overhaul of the input system, which I hope will provide even broader support and eliminate any workarounds. But time is an enemy to us all. If you hit problems, please contact me. Hope you are enjoying the journey!

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