Posted November 29, 2020 by Celianna
There are plenty of things to update you on! But let's start off with James' route.
James
Currently sitting at 192k words for his script, 26 chapters out of 28 programmed and playable, James' route is nearing completion! There are 3 chapters left to write and program. His route will most likely finish development in January. Patreon users will be able to enjoy James' epilogue (chapter 28) in March.
Roughly speaking, that means free users of Tailor Tales will be able to see a James release date around May! If everything goes according to schedule, that is. James' route took longer than Caine to develop, simply due to the sheer amount of words and new content that was needed. His route will be nearly twice as long as the others. I didn't mean for it to happen, since I want to make sure every love interest is given the same attention, but that's just how the story went. James' route is very slow burn. It is also the first route that makes use of the LI saying the player's name (provided the name matches one of 200 existing names).
New features
Now, onto new features! Since the last release for Tailor Tales (version 3.0.6), a couple of things have been added or changed. First up; an entire new original soundtrack, composed by Joel Steudler! What was wrong with the previous OST? Well, nothing, it was great. However, they were purchased from a stock website and the license didn't cover my usage anymore, so I was forced to swap it out. Now 95% of the tracks have been replaced with an original song. I love them!
Achievements have now properly been added as well. The concept for a fashion show was promised earlier, but I had to scrap the system, sadly (along with the date system). No more fashion shows, no more competing to earn outfits. I don't want to get into it but I had to compromise and I settled for an achievement system! Each achievement unlocked will earn you an outfit and you can dress up your avatar with it. These achievements range from completing a certain ending to finishing X amount of clients. Achievements will also unlock on the Steam version.
New players who have trouble jumping right into a route from the start can take a short quiz to find out which route suits their tastes best. There are 11 questions. For example, it may ask if you prefer if the LI is younger or older than the MC. Or it will ask if you enjoy modern settings or fantasy etc. It's pretty accurate at picking a route you would enjoy!
In preparation for Aiden's route, a dictionary function has been added. In Aiden's route, the MC is a player of a popular MOBA game and it is referenced a lot in the story. Players who have never touched a MOBA before in their life would be completely lost at some of the terms used, hence why hovering over the word in question brings up a definition entry.
Tailor Tales Plus
Itch.io does not support DLC in the way I need it to, so Tailor Tales Plus will not be released on Itch, only on Steam. Once James' route is completed and released on Steam, I will be working on getting Neil's Plus version released on Steam as DLC. It will take a while to get through the process though, so please be patient.
And that is it for the update :)