Well, ladies and gentlemen;

Thanks to me being an alpha/beta tester of the Game Jolt CLI based upload tool I can now keep uploads on GJ up-to-date programmatically. Thank you, @YLivay . :)

Due to this I can easily send daily builds of the alpha version of Cynthia Johnson to Game Jolt… well daily means, every day I actually worked on the game, since I do have other obligations too. Having a life is good, but sometimes it has its cons, but hey, allow me to have a life too. XD

In the versions you can download normally from either Game Jolt or itch.io you can only play the content that has been deemed “safe”, and realms that have not yet been completely finished have been “dummied” in these downloads. But if not for you if you have the alpha status. As an alpha you can access the realms and puzzles that are still in development and try them out.

A few notes though:

• Alpha downloads are only for those who have alpha status. The GPL license on the game ONLY applies to content that has been officially released. So please don’t copy alpha versions around.

• Expect crashes!

• If you play puzzles in a realm of which the development have NOT yet been completed the game will crash upon solving the last puzzle. That’s normal, so please don’t report those crashes. Any other crashes are fine to report.

• Also note that some puzzles may not yet be solvable, for several reasons:

  • I may have made a mistake in setting things up

  • Some new kinds of obstacles or enemies or other stuff is still being coded/scripted

  • Or some parts of the puzzle are half set up

  • It goes without saying all of these will be taken care of, and since I only set up one puzzle at the time, that’s mostly the last puzzle of the realm in development.

• Please note that all scores of a realm may be removed from the leaderboards once that realm has been finished and may be pushed into the public version of the game.

• Linux testers will, just like Linux users for the normal download require Love 0.10.2 to be installed. Love 9 won’t do and Love 11 is even worse for the game. The Windows and Mac versions have these included in their builds.

• The alpha should be compatible with the client, and yes, it should automatically update your version.

• Version numbers are numbered in the Ubuntu style: yy.mm.dd (leading zeros are not shown on the GJ site, as the GJ site doesn’t support them). Numbers as alpha1 alpha2 may be shown on GJ, but they only count up if multiple uploads were done the same day, which only should happen when critical fixes are done. When reporting bugs, keep the version number in mind.

• When reporting bugs, please create a github account so you can use my issue tracker. What I need to know when you report bugs is the following:

  1. Are you on Mac, Linux or Windows?

  2. The version number in which the bug occurred

  3. A description of the bug

  4. How to replicate the bug?

  5. If you can provide a screenshot of the error message or otherwise showing the odd behavior, it would be wonderful. Github does support copy-and-pasting screenshots into bug report messages, and it will automatically generate the correct markdown tags to make them visible, so you do not need to rely on imgur or sites like that.

• And if you want to discuss things with me directly hey come to my discord server and I’ll be happy to discuss everything.

If you want the alpha status just reply to this announcement, or send me a PM here or on Discord, and if you are accepted, you will receive a message in which you can accept your status, and as soon as you did the alpha versions should appear on the game’s profile page automatically for you. ;)