Hello there! It's been a while.

I'm not going to go into why's here, but I am going to go into what's. Without further delay, here's the devlog for Distant Travels 0.7

There's no new chapter for this update, this is a code and art update. The story update is coming, and will have a dev log of its own.

Main Info

Please note that there are changes to the game that will affect your saves; create new ones or you might eventually end up with the wrong ending.

As an extra note, if you are installing the android version, please delete any previous installed versions of the game first.

- There's a new Ingame UI.

Designed by Camazule. You can change this in the Preferences if you prefer the old one.

- There's now an extended quick start  tool

Compared to the previous light weight one. this one is faster and should be more straight-forward.

- There's now a music room and a sprite viewer

There's a new music room in which you can listen and check out all the songs made for the game. If you wish to have easier access, there's a link to Camazule's soundcloud in the gallery.

- New Start Menu Image

A new start menu image by HugeCookie! This one is a little more story relevant than the previous one.

Code Updates

- Updated Ren'py from 7.3.5 to 8.0.3

In an attempt to remove the bug with Rex, and due to the sprite rework I decided to rewrite the entire code of the game. This means I've created a fresh project with an updated version of the engine the game runs on (Ren'py) and rewritten it all.

- Rewritten menus, Sprite Viewer, Music Room & Quick Start

I've rewritten all the menu screens to be included in the Navigation screen, as well as optimized the code to never show more than 1 video at once. This should immensely improve performance on lower end devices, both mobile and computers. As an extension to this, I've added in a proper Sprite Viewer for all characters in the game, as well as a music room to check out the OST. As a final note, I've updated the Quick Start section to be smoother, faster and better looking. You can now make choices before actually entering the game.

- Lightweight Movies

No more double video, I've made the animated backgrounds work better by changing the way transitioning between colors works. It should now be much better performance-wise.

Story

-  No new Story

For now, this is just an art and code update. Story is coming, but it'll be a 0.7.5 patch, since I still want to update more. There are minor edits in the current story, but nothing major.

Art

- A massive sprite overhaul, all sprites are now drawn by @SirDrakes (https://drakes64.itch.io/limits) as to keep consistency.

- Sprite movement is now much more animated and cinematic, including depth of field effects.

- Updated the "Fade to Character" transitions to reflect the new sprites.

- Updated the font and layout for the text between chapters.

- Updated the Snow & Rain effects

- Added Wattsons auto highlight

- Updated a few backgrounds on the Firefly to have a more consistent theme.

Music

- Aside from a ton of new songs from @Camazule, I've gone through the game and smoothened out the intros/outros and placement of songs, hopefully making the experience better.

- The song name is now displayed at the bottom of the screen, rather than the top. This is now something that is also always active.

Other / Smaller:

- You can now QuickSave / QuickLoad with F5 and F9 respectively.

To ease checking out older choices and whatnot, quicksave/load is now possible with keyboard shortcuts.

- You can now name your save files (if you don't edit the name, it'll change automatically to "Chapter - Route" format, a k a the old format.

- Increased the time the notification screen (the pop-up in the top left) appears on screen.

- Fixed lots of spelling & grammar issues

- Changed fonts & Text formats in the save/load menu.

- Fixed a minor issue with a semi transparent book in one background

- A bunch of stuff I've forgotten to write down.