Hey! I've just released an update to the Dreadwinter demo! There's a lot of gameplay and Quality of Life updates, as well as some new content.

I would highly recommend making a new save if you've played before, as the save file has changed a lot since the last update.

If you'd like to see a more detailed explanation of the changes made, and the rationale behind them, I'd recommend checking out the monthly devlogs I've been releasing!

With that being said, let's get into the patch notes! ːsteamhappyː

• Fixed an incorrect setting when starting the game for the first time, causing it to crash (!!!)

• Fixed clothes on zombie customers and interaction highlights not appearing

• Cutscenes in the cafe that trigger at night also trigger in the early morning (12am - 5am)

• Drinks no longer sell for 0 Ls

• Fixed some character schedules that were not being carried out

• Fixed a bug that caused the victory screen to not appear after defeating an enemy

• Fixed a bug that caused the game to crash when spawning ghost or zombie customers

• Fixed some incorrect stats in menus

• Added a fade in to cutscenes that did not have it by default

• There are now 18 NPCs you can meet in town (Increased from 12). New NPCs include:

  • Vanille

  • Kazuho

  • Kiya

  • Hana

  • Usagi

  • Pyogi

• You can now go inside all of the houses in Lunara, although some may be locked at first! This includes:

  • Dread & Winter's home

  • Kazuho's home

  • The Taikoji family home

  • Mayor Moon's manor (not all rooms, though)

  • Chocola & vanille's apartment

• The bath is now accessible

• Townspeople have more active schedules

• Added the book shop

  • Buying recipe books will be available in the full game

• There are now 3 settings for day length (1 day = 12, 18 or 24 minutes)

  • Previously, a day was equal to 24 minutes

  • Currently, you can only set this during character creation

    • In a future update you will be able to change this in game

• Revamped existing tutorials and added new ones to make gameplay clearer

• Added an indicator when you can interact with an object

• Added highlighting when you can interact with NPCs and cafe machines (grinder, cauldron etc.)

  • This may be extended to all interactable objects in the future

• Added manual saves

  • You can save and reload from any point (outside of cafe shifts and dungeons)

  • This is currently experimental! There shouldn't be any issues, but I can't guarantee it.

• Some shops are open for longer

• You can enter people's homes between 7am and 9pm (I don't actually think there was a time limit before)

• Additional controller support and controller icons added to the UI

• Dreadwinter opens from 8pm at night

• Revamped the Recipe Book to be easier to understand (and better looking)

• Changed some skills and moved some around

  • The cauldron can now be unlocked earlier

  • Mixing coffee beans has been changed to focus on price increases

  • Adding multiple beans to the grinder is now unlocked by a skill

• Additional coffee beans will unlock based on interest & loyalty rank

  • This is more for the full game

• Customers will have an indicator if they are being served by Winter

• Spaced out the positions of machines and seats by the bar

  • Customers and machines shouldn't overlap now

• Increased the speed of brewing and grinding

• You now gain money (and potentially items) when you win a battle

• Running from battle no longer counts as a defeat (no more clinic visits)

• You can attempt to run from battle once per turn

  • You have a 50% base chance of escaping, which can change depending on skills and enemies

• You will now be warned before you battle a powerful enemy (such as the Lumbering Jack)

Good job on making it to the end! There's been a lot of bug fixes alongside these changes, but there are also probably bugs that have been introduced in their place! ːsteamfacepalmː

If you find any bugs or have any issues, let me know (discord or steam community is fastest), and I'll do my best to resolve them!

There will likely be one more major update to the demo just before the full release, but I can't say when that would be yet. For now, though, it's back to the grind!

Have fun, and thanks for reading!

-Alex

Whose home do you think this is?

Hello, and welcome to this month's development update! This month focused on improvements and changes to gameplay mechanics, as well as adding more content to the game.

It's been a bit of a blur lately, with updates being made all over the place, so I'll try to keep it coherent ːsteamhappyː

First up, I've introduced Little D-Mons to the cafe. They're small mechanical demons that can carry out tasks for you! They first made their appearance in the coffee farm, which you won't have had access to yet, and I've added the ability to place Server-Mons and Barista-Mons to help you serve customers.

Server-Mon, as the name suggests, will serve drinks to customers, but you have to make the drinks first. Once you've made a drink, hand it to a Server-Mon, and they will deliver it to whoever ordered the drink.

Barista-Mon is a little more advanced, as it can also brew the drinks, as well as serving them. Bear in mind that it can only make basic drinks with ordinary coffee beans, so you won't be getting any bonuses for high quality coffee, or price increases from certain coffee beans.

They will be available to purchase slightly later on in the game, once your business starts to grow, and if you find that you're getting too many customers to handle alone, these will be a lifesaver!

One of the mechanics in the game is the ability to mix coffee beans together to produce a unique blend of coffee, but something I realised is that the way it currently works is both confusing and expensive (in-game).

You could buy different coffee beans with certain taste modifiers, and combine them to create a unique taste profile, but there were a lot of difficulties with how it works, so I decided to rework certain parts.

First, I've swapped the order that the skills unlock, so that you get access to the cauldron first, before mixing coffee beans. It makes more sense to just make a certain drink that fits the flavour profile the customer wants, rather than having to mix beans (which becomes redundant once the cauldron is unlocked anyway).

The 'Custom Coffee' skill, which used to enable customers to request different flavours, now enables you to add more than one bean to the grinder (previously this was always possible), and coffee beans are now more focused on price modifiers. Some beans add a flat amount to the sale price, some will multiply it, and the effects stack as you combine them. These can eventually lead to the price of a coffee getting quite crazy, which is always fun!

The changes I've made might be a bit hard to understand, which may be due to the mechanics not being that well explained in-game (and a bit complicated).

I've taken the time to revamp and add more tutorials, so that there's less walls of text! There's also more visual indicators to guide you along when you start out! Less frustration = more fun, after all!

The main story has finally begun development! It's not that I've only started thinking about it, but it's now making its way into the game. The first quest gives you a few goals to achieve, such as earning a certain amount of money, bonding with regular customers, or clearing the first dungeon.

The story will branch off depending on which objective you choose to complete, with there being 3 different routes it can take. There isn't a need to complete the story, but the aim is for it to progress naturally as you play anyway.

Escaping from combat no longer counts as a defeat! This was considered quite punishing before, so you can now exit battle without being sent to the clinic. There are now rewards for winning a battle, though, so you may want to consider whether the time saved is worth it!

That's it for this devlog! The demo should be updated in the next week or so, I just need to make sure that there's no obvious bugs or conflicts I've missed. It will mostly be quality of life and gameplay changes, as most of the new content is for the full release, but you might get to see some new things! ːsteamhappyː

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next update!

-Alex