Hi friends!

We’ve had two weeks now to work on some additional tweaking of Vidar, and version 0.8.0.2 was launched this past Friday to address some additional bugs that were cropping up.

A personal favorite bug was that people were reporting they couldn’t switch tools in the Dark Cave between the shovel and the lantern. Which, yes, that’s what it seemed like. But the real bug was that they had managed to make it to the Dark Cave without ever picking up the lantern. The “can you switch tools?” enabler was off - because you only had one tool in inventory - but it would still seem like you had two. This has been solved! You can’t go to the Dark Cave without first physically picking up the lantern. People who have already experienced the bug have had the lantern auto-added to their inventory.

Additionally, I took the opportunity to remove the last room of the Dark Cave. I saw a lot of people on streams struggling with it, and so far in my metrics have seen very few people make it out of that room (and even fewer make it out in a reasonable time). I’ll be redesigning it and bringing it back as a possible variant. For now, I want to make sure people are getting to the Water Cave without getting too frustrated to keep playing. Otherwise, I’ll never collect data on the second half of the game.

Finally, a lot of dialogue was written for the upcoming content patch. All of the conversations for “Make it Work”, “Vigil,” and “Music to My Ears” was added behind a version control system, so while it’s there, it won’t unlock until we reach the actual content patch.

On the docket next week is to continue progress on the content patch, as well as fixing a few additional non-progress blocking bugs. I’m also hoping to start working on improving the menus!

• Dean

Alpha 0.8.0.2

• Games created in version 0.8.0.0 or prior with a buggy Dark Cave 3 are now fixed

• Fixed a crash in Dorottya’s dialogue

• Fixed a crash in Gusztav’s dialogue

• Dark Cave 4 has been removed from the game.

• Dark Cave 3 has been redesigned slightly to accomodate this fact

• “Clearing the Way” now only extends the tunnel for 3 rooms

• “Sketched Out” now only requires three sketches to complete

• Quest Items for “Bring Him Home,” “Light in the Darkness,” “Dr. Spore”, “Not a Thief,” and the entrance to the library have been moved out of Dark Cave 4 (if they spawned there) and scattered throughout the remaining 3 rooms.

• Time is now stopped in the Library and the Wolf Cave

• Fixed a bug that revealed Dark Cave 1 before you picked up the lantern. If you managed to advance to the Dark Cave without picking up the lantern, it has been added to your inventory. This should resolve the bug that some reported as being unable to switch tools in the cave.

• Rubble for “Clearing the Way” will now spawn correctly in Dark Cave 2b

• Removed a glowing tile that was blocking a path in Boulder Cave 3

• Fixed a reset issue in Dark Cave 1 that could cause you to get stuck in the last puzzle

• Fixed a bug in Puzzle 35, Option 5 where a torch could spawn on the wolf cave entrance

• If you have read all of the books for this quest for “Reading is Fundamental”, but use a campfire instead of returning to town, this quest will no longer complete. Instead, a person will die as usual and the quest will not complete until you actually return to town.

• Fixed Szabina’s text if “Sketched Out” is complete with 2 of 3 helpers

• Time will not unfreeze in the Ice Cave or Dark Cave Waypoints after a dialogue window is displayed