itch.io

We're very much working on the game!

This week we started sharing really early builds with testers in our Discord server. SO much has changed since the itch version, but we still have quite a lot to do.

I've been stepping back from making social media posts to spend more time working on the game itself (and resting over the festive season), but we'll try and still have some updates to show some of the things that we've been busy with on IG/Tiktok.

Thank you for the suggestion! We've added a fabric usage estimator in the sketchbook so you don't get an unwelcome surprise. (But I don't think we'll be updating the itch build any more until the game's done.)

We also have some ideas for earning extra money, but nothing concrete there yet.

Sabrina asked me to make a frog sweater, so I had to oblige!

xoxo,
Dressmakers

I've seen a couple of people talk about poor performance. I'm surprised too, because although we do some complicated things now and then (and there's room for optimization), it's typically only at specific points (which in theory could hitch) rather than continuously.

Can you share what your laptop specs are please? especially cpu and gpu?

In terms of the notions, you can use left-click to select a pin, and right-click to get rid of a selected pin.

Oh wow, it's incredible that it's so similar to what your Reddit post was asking for! :D

I was laughing out loud at the music in the title screen. I just sat there waiting for the whole thing to loop, and it was amazing. It also just generally set the scene for how playful the game was.

In terms if gameplay, I felt as if I was primarily chasing the powerups in the hopes of finding something that would heal me, or for more damage per tentacle, or more range. I think next to those the other powerups I seemed to get didn't feel very meaningful. 

I think that the popup for what happened might be good to show above where the gift gets opened (since it's easy to miss the text in the side of the screen when there's action going on). I was also hoping for more ways to use skill to survive. I felt that my move speed was slow enough that dodging cannons didn't seem viable, and I couldn't seem to hit the cannons back at ships (which would have been quite spectacular).

I didn't get past 16 ships, but I had a good time, and I laughed more than I did in any other game I played.

Most smaller devs aren't willing to go through the cost and bureaucracy to get applications signed or verified, leading to these kinds of warnings (on Macs and Windows). You're probably right to be cautious.

I think the large number of high ratings and hundreds of comments would suggest it's probably safe. We definitely don't knowingly put malware in the game, but I think very few people knowingly spread malware either. You're very welcome to scan it with an antivirus to check that there's no malware.

fwiw, when we're on Steam, these are reviewed by Steam's review process and installed by the Steam client, so to my knowledge the exact same build won't raise these warnings. If you're really uncomfortable, you can always just wishlist the game on Steam and get it there when it's available in the future.

Thanks for the suggestions! In terms of moving fabric to the inventory, you can right click them to do that.

Sorry, for this version that went out today (0.5.1), I uploaded the wrong version for Mac. It actually includes the Linux files instead. I've re-enabled the previous version for Mac (0.5), and will fix the upload next time I'm at work.

Hello! I think you have to fully unzip it (i.e. copy the contents of that folder into another folder), otherwise Windows only unzips the file you tried to run rather than all of the adjacent required files.

You might also have a right click menu that says something like "Extract all..." that should ask you where you'd like to unzip the files.

Let me know if that works for you!

What operating system are you playing on? 

For the most part, you download the .zip file, unzip that, and then run the "dressmaker" file.

You can press middle click to zoom on the mannequin.

Thank you for all of your suggestions! omg, the label is such a good idea!!!

Hmm... what's your screen resolution? I wonder if the scissors are cropped out or invisible.

The dress tags are shown in the sketchbook when you drag fabric samples onto the page. (It's a bit complicated as to why, but I'm told that most dresses don't have inherent tags without also choosing fabric.) 

If it doesn't show the tags after adding fabric samples then it's a bug...

Do you remember which panel/garment it was that had issues?

There are instructions near the bottom of the game description titled "Mac issues" that might help you, if your Mac says something about the game being untrusted or potentially malicious.

Hmm, I'm struggling to figure out why that's happening... can you share some info? What resolution are you running the game at? Operating system?

No, the full game will be paid, but we haven't decided on a price yet (and won't until we know what's in the full game).

Oh no! What is your screen resolution?

Thank you for reporting! What's your screen resolution?

It might be that you aren't aligning the pattern pieces to the grain line. When you drag the pieces onto your fabric, make sure the arrows on the paper point left/right. (The piece should get a green outline.) If they don't point that way, your quality score per piece gets capped. We need to figure out how to explain that better without paragraphs of text...

Quality is also affected by your rotation of the piece on the fabric when you cut it out. If you don't "align it to the grain line" (rotate it so the arrows point left/right) the quality of that piece will be capped.

There's a dial on the sewing machine to control the max speed, in case that helps you. You can also release the mouse button to immediately stop moving.

Thank you for playing! Can you describe what you were doing at the time of the crash?

If you could send a player log to us that would be helpful! it's found at:     %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\DefaultCompany\dressmaker\Player.log

support at freelives dot net

The newspaper is only supposed to appear for one quest. (We want to do more, but didn't get around to it.) If it's appearing more than once it's a bug.

I saw this once and thought we fixed it in 1.4.1 🤔

I just saw the video! It was so good 😭

Thank you for the suggestion, I'll look her up!

Ah! I love the paper advertisement suggestion!!

If you press ESC there should be a "Save and Exit" button, but we should add an on-screen button for the pause menu at some point.

Whoa, that's really weird. Can you tell us when your PC seemed to work really hard? Because afaik we're not really doing anything computationally expensive.

Thank you! We've tracked down and fixed the bug. We just need to make new builds and upload them later today.

I'm not sure how to label the silhouettes, because a lot of the time what they fall under changes depending on what fabric you combine them with. Some dresses can be glamorous or cute depending on whether it's black velvet of floral cotton,  but some dresses cannot be workwear even if you are using workwear appropriate fabric. I'd like it to be easy to understand, but the real life categorisation there seems quite fuzzy.

Hmm, that's strange. Thanks, I'll put it on the bug list!

Oh no! Which platform are you playing on? (We've only been able to test the Windows build, which should save fine.)

Dear Readers,

The observant among you may have noticed that there are similarities between embarrassment and fashionable trends. When enough people wear burlap, others willingly join in. What would have been thought of as embarrassing a mere season ago now can be viewed as trendy, in part because of the works of the new dressmaker.

It would appear that the upper classes have grown resistant to poorly-crafted gowns, revelling in the novelty and amusement. They say that fashion lasts a season, but class is forever. Whether it is the former or the latter is too soon to say, but clearly the new dressmaker has left a mark.

(Thank you!)

Haha, this was really clever! I really loved that when I was travelling somewhere I'd also inadvertently be casting random spells on the way there. XD

Thank you! Mac and Linux builds are coming soon. We have working builds, but performance wasn't there yet, so we're working on them some more to get more acceptable fps before releasing those too.

This was announced on earlier on Sunday on the MGSA discord, but I thought I'd post it here for visibility:

--

We are a little late to the party because your entries were so great but...HERE ARE THE SA GAME JAM WINNERS

Overall Winner Welcome, Archer

Best Student Maxwell

Best Hobbyist Do-R-Over

Diversity dead ride me good

Best Art Timothee & Good boi, Puggo

Best Audio Maxwell

Technical Excellence Good boi, Puggo & Beneath the Grass

Best Narrative The Tree of Dreams & Messages into the Void

Best Physics Welcome, Archer

and a surprise category that we felt deserved merit...Best Theme Interpretation Animalgamation

Congratulations to all of you for entering, we really enjoyed this year's submissions ! To the winners, please email melissa[at]freelives[dot]net to arrange prizes. See you at SA GAME JAM 2022