Weather Factory

As you may have noticed from our Steam updates, we’ve been updating BOOK OF HOURS with loads of fixes and improvements since launch (well, AK has. I’ve been fidaddling about with ART like the hornswoggling dilettante that I am. More on that below). We’ve got some big QoL features nearly ready to go on the beta branch for the game. But first of all, here’s one much-requested change that has made it into the main game. Over to AK:

NEXT COMPLETED WORKSTATION WATCHER/BUTTON. This function was in the game from the beginning, but you had to hammer the BACKSPACE key, and the implementation was a little rough. It’s much easier to keep track of what you’ve done and where you’ve done it, now.

Now the features that are almost ready to come out of the oven (or you can try them now on the beta branch on GOG or Steam):

LESS CLICKY ROOM NAVIGATION. Mouse over a locked room to get a preview of its unlock requirements – which will also highlight any relevant assistants you have ready to go…

…and when you click to get the room unlock window, I’ve tidied it up so all the details are in one place.

SAVE-INDEPENDENT ENDINGS. BOOK OF HOURS is a long game – I didn’t especially plan for people to replay it, at least not without waiting for expansions and updates. More – the reason there are so many endings is that I wanted people to play through once and get a distinctive ending that most others would never see. I didn’t really particularly think people would want to save-scum and try out different endings. So endings were locked to a particular save file.

But almost everyone else felt differently! In hindsight it seems obvious that people would want to fossick around and experience at least a couple of endings, without starting a whole new save. (This is the peril of making the games that you want to play yourself.) So I’ve fixed it; all endings are stored save-independently and you can build up a library of logged histories from multiple saves. When the update hits, it’ll pick up any endings in your current save and add them to the store.

THE CRAFTING HELPER PANEL. Used to be that you could lock yourself out of lower-level crafting recipes if you increased your skills too much. This was usually not a problem, because you could usually just leave a relevant ingredient out and not activate the higher-level recipe, but it was much more annoying than I’d realised. This helps with that, but it also makes it much easier to explore the crafting system… and it’s a starting-point for further crafting improvements in this and future games.

The response in beta was enthusiastic, but a few harder-core folks were worried that it might automate away some of the fun of exploration. Banish those worries. (1) it doesn’t show all the recipes in the game, just the ones most relevant to the crafting system (though I’ll probably enable it for Determinations and Histories, too) and (2) you can just leave it permanently hidden if you prefer.

SCREENSHOT MODE. This has caused an unexpected degree of excitement…

.. AND THIS. A very small number of people are very enthusiastic about getting rid of the stray penny in their Sundries tray. There will almost certainly be more uses for pennies in the future, but

Back to Lottie’s hornswoggling art, also known the long-awaited Lucid Tarot. I announced this aaages ago before BOOK OF HOURS evolved into the all-encompassing Fabergé egg it became and I had more free time to focus on merch. Let this be a humbling lesson to me to remember that Even If You Are Excited About Something It’s Not Necessarily The Best Time To Tell People About It, and the other sobering truth, There Are Only So Many Hours In The Day. I feel guilty about not having completed it yet so I’m trying my hardest to get the Lucid Tarot out on our Etsy shop by the end of the year – ideally in time for people to order as Christmas presents! Here are a few WIPs to give you a sense of the minor arcana, which I’ve never shared before:

Anyone want to guess who the Knights, Queens and Kings of each suit are? I shared this already on my Twitter, so here’s Aunt Mopsy to get you started:

UP NEXT…

1. Another big performance pass. That’s AK’s priority for this week.
2. Nuisances pass. Why are Pale Mommets so hard to make? Are some skill evolutions technically possible but practically impossible? why is bookshelf x in room y 10 pixels shorter than it should be? etc. etc. etc.
3. Another QoL pass. AK hasn’t forgotten he said he’d add notes; and he really wants to sort out that zoom-to-cursor function.
4. New Free Content and/or Paid Expansions. By Christmas, we’ll be sorting out what content goes free into the main game and what goes into our first paid expansion (though these are free to anyone with Perpetual Edition, too).
5. Soundtrack. Everyone seems to like it (everyone has EARS) so we’re getting this out ASAP. Please note that because of royalty splits with our composer, and because it’s not a content expansion, this isn’t included for free in Perpetual Edition like almost everything else. But it will be extremely reasonably priced!
6. Localisation. We’re starting with Simplified Chinese and will announce more languages as they’re official.

May Hush House keep you warm as the season turns to autumn. More news soon!