I’ll be honest. It’s been a frustrating couple of weeks.

EDIT: PyTom has come through with a quick bugfix release that happens to include a fix for the following issue. So ignore my request for feedback.

There is a bug in Ren’Py that you wouldn’t see except in particular circumstances. Like, for example, what I was planning to do at several points in the story: multiple character dialogue along with auto-forward mode. It took me a couple of days of debugging and testing to discover that there was no workaround. However, the bug has been around long enough that it’s called out in Ren’Py’s documentation. As a feature, I guess? Personally, I prefer using auto-forward mode in most VNs to avoid having to mash the mouse button every couple of seconds. I’m lazy. Sue me. You can see the bug in the telephone conversation between Glenn and Jordan in Chapter 2. Each character’s text is displayed in a separate window, allowing me to set margins and locations. On most screens, Glenn’s text on the left displays and instantly moves to the next screen without a delay. Text on the right adheres to the text-speed and auto-forward time parameters set by the player. I can do one of three things. I can (in order of the amount of work involved):

1. First, rewrite the scene(s) to use a single window.

2. Turn off AFM during the phone call scenes and turn it back on afterward if it was previously on.

3. Finally, leave it as is if nobody’s bothered.

Drop me a message if you have a strong preference.

Aside from that, I continue to progress on completing the next release. I estimate I’m about 80% along with renders–980 (!) total so far for Chapter 3. I estimate I’ll be ready to go to beta testing in about three weeks, with the actual release for Chapter 3 staged a week or two after that.

Thanks to all my new followers this month! Your support is appreciated.