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saturdaily12 days ago

Hi Esh! 
Thanks for taking the time and having the patience to explain the engine code vs. the game code -- I know basically nothing about the nuts and bolts about the magic stories get to my screen, but I figured it was something complicated. I've had issues with games using the Renpy engine before, but they almost all self-resolved (except in one case where the creator sent me a link to a special download -- in that situation it seemed like my machine was too new for the game? this is a terrible summary / paraphrase but it's what I got). 

Anyway, I added any and every folder I could find involving itch to my antivirus' exceptions, but I still got the exception error during character creation (this time before I got to enter a name). 

Now, when I tried downloading directly, then unzipping and accessing from the subfolder in my Documents folder where I moved it, 7-zip told me these two things:

CRC failed : GildedShadows-4-win\game\archive.rpa

CRC failed : GildedShadows-4-win\game\images\Sprites\reub\reuben_sprite.psd

I don't know exactly what this means, but does it help?

I'm definitely willing to try the Steam key, though I will say with the other game that I couldn't get to work without a special secret link from the dev, I actually bought that game on both Steam AND itch (it was a sequel and the first game was that good lol), and the same issue arose when I launched from Steam. 

Anyway, again, I appreciate you taking the time to try to work through this with me. I've heard really good things about this game, and I really want to play it! :D 

Thanks again! 

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Steamberry Studio12 days ago

Hmmmmmmmmm. 

CRC failed usually indicates a corrupted file. Which could be happening during the download based on cursory research. In this case, two files are triggering the issue: archive.rpa, and reuben_sprite.psd

Archive.rpa is a file created by renpy to essentially hide the game code. Everything gets encrypted and bundled into this file.  So the script, the images, the music - all of those things are packaged up into this archive file. The CRC failed is saying there's some kind of error in that file.

Reuben_sprite.psd is Reuben's photoshop file. This file isn't even used by the code at any point, that file somehow being corrupted wouldn't normally cause issues (there are honestly tons of superfluous files that exist but never get used) because the game never even attempts to access it. 

Google attributes CRC failed to several possibilities:

- network transmission noise

- download issues

- storage media issues

- some issue with the compression utility itself (IE 7zip itself is causing the corruption)


I have sent in a request for a Steam key. But while that is brewing (since it can take a day or so to get them), if you want to try some other solutions, you can DM me so we can talk through some other options involving unique download solutions (especially on the chance downloading from Steam still won't help.) 

I think at this point since it's a very niche problem that may need a you-specific solution, if you want to continue to troubleshoot, it's best to just work in DMs!

I can be reached:

On tumbler as steamberrystudio

On twitter as steamberryesh

On bluesky as steamberrystudio

You can also join the Discord and reach out to me there!
https://discord.gg/RxMyQddrba

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