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March 2022 Patreon Build Now Available!
🕑 Added 2022-03-02 09:35:32 +0000 UTC
It's finally here!
Hope you're as excited as we are, because our March Patreon Update is now live with the debut of the 0.4X series of Sileo builds! And what is the flagship feature of 0.4X, you might ask? Well, it's our brand new spanking new user interface, of course!
Our new game window has been designed to be easier to use on smaller devices while still being as space efficient as ever! In fact, the quick menu is now collapsed by default, and the calendar is displayed in the top left of that frame. There are no buttons or UI elements along the top of the screen! But of course, we're ignoring the single best feature of this entire update...
On the left-hand-side of the game window, you might notice some familiar faces! That's right, Sileo now has a speaker portrait, and the sprites displayed here even wear their appropriate outfits and are fully expressive! More importantly however, you can now see the player character's face and emotions every single time he speaks! This includes times when another character is in charge, as you can no doubt see by little Tai's pouting above! This equates to more than 6000 new expressions added to the story! And yes, this feature has been fully implemented for all existing story content, and it really brings a number of scenes to life, or gives some scenes new meaning!
But, naturally, we didn't stop there! Every single screen has been remodeled in the style of this new UI, from our brand new main menu whose background is different depending on the time of day, to the beautiful new save/load and preferences screens which have never been easier to read or navigate!
And hey, take a look at the file size of this new update! 0.40 is smaller than 0.38! Thanks to some clever image manipulation, the vast majority of the new user interface is contructed with code! In fact, the image files reponsible for all the new windows, frames, buttons etc consume a grand total of 17.5Kb!
This new user interface serves as the primary content of this months update (and as such will not be released on the public channel for another month) while I take a short break from the writing to recharge those creative juices. That being said, this month was anything but a break! Implementing this new UI was a massive undertaking, and the amount of time we spent bug hunting and fixing issues was nothing short of horrific! Alas, as you can tell by the borderline late release of this months update, there's never enough time for squishing bugs, and as such, please be aware the user interface is currently in beta! There will probably be some small issues here and there, so please be patient with us while we iron those out! Any major issues will receive a patch this month. Minor issues will be rolled into 0.41 next month, which will ship with a number of futher improvements and enhancements to the user interface, as well as April's exciting new flagship feature! What is it, you ask?! Oh, well, you see... [mumbles incoherantly] ...gallery... [continues mumbling] ...sprites. But we'll talk more about that later!
If you encounter any bugs, glitches, missing expressions or other problems with this update, please drop a comment here or swing by our discord! Let us know what's happening, and please include screenshots where applicable!
In addition to the new UI, this update fixes a metric crapton of bugs (while probably introducing a metric crapton of new ones!), adds a few new backgrounds, a new sprite for lil' Tai and bunches of other stuff too! It's a seriously dope update and I really hope you'll all agree!
Download 0.40 Here!: https://www.dropbox.com/t/L5Ucsb9aWBh2khcz
Password for Download: *Yjz63Vx#Khj
Changelogs:
• Introducing our brand new user interface! (Beta!)
• Character Portrait which shows the current speaker and their expression!
• Displays a silhouette for the current narrator during monologue, and their full sprite when speaking.
• Added over 6000 individual reactions for the protagonist!
• Kid Tai now has a sprite which also appears in the UI whenever he speaks during the applicable flashback.
• It's adorable.
• All other characters have had reactions added when the story is being told from their perspective.
• Brand new layouts for the splash screen, main menu, save/load screens, preferences and credits screens.
• Retrofitted gallery layout for the new UI. This is due for a rework in the near(ish) future.
• UI colors follow the current speakers color ingame!
• Buttons are larger and easier to operate on touchscreen devices!
• Added New Background(s) for Festival (Daytime, Evening)
• Massive amount of fixes and improvements throughout the story including typos, grammatical errors, issues with consistency and more!
• Fixed heaps of bugs! (And probably added twice as many!)
• Major technical improvements!
Important: As of 0.40, the model-based renderer is *required* as the new user interface has been built using features exclusive to this newer renderer. It will no longer be possible to roll back to the old renderer in the settings like before. Apologies to those who relied on this workaround to enjoy Sileo.
Comments
Wow, whenever I think that this VN can't get any better you guys prove me wrong.
Xevvy
PS: I know the varying sizes for the character portrait isn't ideal. Believe me, that wasn't what we wanted, but... well, Ren'Py. That's why it's like that at the moment. I'm hoping to devise a solution for next months update!
