RELEASE II // Chapters 6 & 7

Release II is here!

Release II includes two new chapters, three music tracks (four if you count the Nell minigame one), four bios and the "ranks" screen.

On a stealthier note, I added a few persistent variables that will help in later releases. Don't worry, they won't break your game! (Some of them are actually to fix what previously were game-breaking variables). This is mainly to help the casefile: I removed the ability to see past casefiles in-game. This feature will be coming back as a separate casefile screen accessible from the options menu. The reason I did this is that it's potentially confusing to be able to see all of the cases while you're trying to work on the current case. The casefile screen will be included with Release III.

Speaking of Release III, it will have only one chapter. If you haven't noticed, Methods follows a basic formula of alternating mystery chapters with chapters that have purely story. Obviously, the mystery chapters are waaaay more work. Chapters 8 and 9 are an instance with two mystery chapters in a row. My philosophy is to have one "mystery chapter" in a release -- no more, no less -- so that the content is  satisfying while still being doable within a week. If there is a long stretch of "story chapters", (which there is a lot more of later in the novel), I will try to bundle those together, since they are pretty easy to make (or at least easier than the mystery chapters).

As for the chapters themselves, I'm excited to introduce Detective 772 and Detective Nell into the world. Detective 772 is easily the most recognizable character from the novel and there's plenty of wackiness coming your way. In the novel, Nell didn't have a distinct method or much of a character arc. I'm going to change that as I make adjustments to these chapters.

Also, heads up: I'm probably going to make a full post about this down the road, but once there is a significant amount of content in Methods, I'll begin charging for it -- so now's the time to download it, while it's still free! I'm still thinking about how I want to go about changing the price, whether I should bump it up to "full price" (probably $30) once it's done, or increase it in increments, like $5 at 20 chapters, then $10 at 55 chapters, then $20 at 70 chapters, something like that. But that's still a long way off.

Let me know if you have any thoughts about this in the comments below!