you're a mentally ill man.

So simple yet so interesting. Especially for a quick GB Studio project.

I just now realised I put April 27th in the title and not May. If that's not embarrassing I don't know what is.

Hello all, Shirley here. I'll be using this post to document errors you may or may not come across when trying to run the game. Hopefully the solutions I provide work for you. I'll try my best to sort them from simplest to most complex.

"import: command not found"

This is an issue with your Python installation. You'll most likely need to re-install or upgrade (if possible). If this doesn't fix the problem, there is something wrong with Python.

"ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '[module]'"

This means you do not have the module installed. Try running "pip install -r requirements_(your platform).txt" (win if Windows, mac if MacOS). If you get an error for a specific module, try installing the others individually and run "pip install [problematic module]" last to see if that changes anything. If you still get an error regarding the module that won't install, that's probably an issue with the module itself.

Entering numbers when attacking on MacOS causes the game to crash

Don't enter numbers there... I don't know what's causing this at the moment :(

ToneChecker["Global"] throwing a KeyError

The contents of Pinori.ini are invalid. You'll need to delete it and re-run the game, where a new one will be created for you.

Non-Fatal Errors

This section will document bugs you are likely to come across that do not cause the game to crash, but just hinder the experience.

Attacks frequently missing (even on weaker enemies)

This is because I have yet to balance the damage formula. It's very quirky at the moment. Not necessarily a bug, it just makes gameplay more frustrating. The feminine urge to just abuse the God Mode quirk...

Stats resetting at random

Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Just when I thought v1 was done too...

Accidental Permadeath A (instant Game Over when encountering enemies)

I'm as confused as you are. My best guess as to why this is happening is because something's not reloading properly. As long as you don't save when your party is in a state where everyone is dead, you'll be fine if you reload the game. (I also rediscovered this issue because of the new feature explained below, but I'm pretty sure under rare circumstances it's possible without it.)

Accidental Permadeath B (instant Game Over on final boss)

This is a weird bug relating to a feature I recently added: a flag called --auto_continue. It basically tells the Game Over functions to automatically reload the game instead of asking you what you want to do (or in the final boss' case, exit the game). For some reason there's an unreasonably high chance that you'll get trapped in an infinite loop of the final boss monologuing and "Oh... I guess that's game over.". I'll have to have someone look into this for me...

Patched Issues

Issues that have been fixed or I'm confident have been fixed.

Population stays the same when switching areas

Original description:
A relatively minor issue I just spotted. Reloading the game fixes the population, but it shouldn't take a reload, it should fix it itself.

Cause: Nothing??? It fixed itself somehow. How ironic.

Items do not reload after a Game Over

This was because I programmed the item system to read directly from Inventory.ini and not use the in-game variable to store items. This has been fixed as of 5/22/2024. (It was surprisingly easy to reprogram, I was just lazy.) Changes are now only made to inventory.ini when saving.

No follow-up message after "You take a step forward..."

Original description:
Even I'M curious as to what's causing this. Most likely I missed a condition in the massive condition tree, so a very specific condition that I never accounted for is being met. I'll try to figure this out, but it'll be difficult.

Cause: Missing else statement (great job, me)

Stats resetting to their default when reloading the game

Original description:
My fault again. This is because a failsafe is going off; I have yet to figure out what's going on but I'm sure it's a simple fix. Hang in there!

Cause: flawed code (no shit!)

Returning to the Battle Menu after sending an invalid attack may confuse the game into thinking you're still in the Attack Menu

Original description:
Another really bizarre bug that I don't know how to patch. This has only sometimes happened to me, and I feel like it's just Python being Python rather than a fault of my own. About as "common" as "You chose Invalid input." and its other variants.

Cause: Python itself (hooray)
Solution: Require player to type a keyword to exit the attack menu, although this returns the player to BattleMenu() instead of BattleActions() because it apparently doesn't like that function very much.

Encountering an enemy that was already killed; HP is 0 or less

Original description:
This is a REALLY weird bug. Something has to be skipping past the stat initialisation function for this to occur, and I don't recall programming anything that skips it. I'm going to name this bug the "Corpse Encounter".

Cause: I have NO clue, but I haven't encountered this bug in ages. Hopefully it's not my "step mode" that's making the game more stable.

Infinite Yami

Somehow, some way, it was possible to infinitely trigger the Yami battle. How? Good question. Obviously, you can't anymore. Yay, no more level 55 with 400+ defense!

Solution: Give Yami her own key in Pinori.ini so that when she dies during an Omnicide route, said key is updated when the player saves and proceeding to Tanpopo Town is possible again.

That's all I have at the moment, but I will update this post with more as development continues.

Issues regarding Linux usage will NOT be documented.

Linux support is not on my mind as of now, so if any bugs you come across are because you're using Linux, I will not do anything to fix it at this time. I may in the future, but don't get your hopes up.

Slopes finally being available in platformer scenes has the same energy as Super Mario Maker 2 releasing (SMM2 added slopes too). Dunno what other features were teased since it's been forever since I've tinkered with GBS, but I'm looking forward to doing so.

How embarrassing; apparently copypasting screenshots instead of uploading directly causes them to not embed properly. Noted. Sorry to those who viewed the page and couldn't see the screenshots. I can easily imagine a few getting notified of the update, seeing no images, and thinking this devlog was some sort of practical joke when it wasn't. Damn you, mysterious functionality!

Edit: The only thing more embarrassing than a bug that removes images from your post is making a typo when you're frantically trying to explain an error that wasn't your fault. Jeepers.

Ah okay. At least you're giving credit this time!

Whoa, looking a lot better so far. Hoping all the assets are original this time! (I noticed some were copied either from GBStudio's templates or from Dweller's Empty Path in the original Chatterbox)

Alright, I'll try that. Hopefully there'll be some noticeable improvement (in graphics and music) in Chatterbox DX since it's been a few years.

Linux is having major issues with curses right now. I'm not even sure if stdcr.getch() is the right function for curses, so for all I know this could be failing on MacOS too. Deeply sorry, I'll get that fixed when I can, but for now I'd use Windows (or a Windows VM).

The absolute irony of a library named "curses" not working cannot be matched.

PyNori and Pinori are NOT the same!

While they are both games built off the same concept (and developed by yours truly), PyNori is meant to be a smaller and sillier version of what Pinori was supposed to be. Since PyNori is meant to be completely text based, there are no graphics to show off. If there were graphics needed, that would just infinitely delay development, as that was the primary problem with Pinori's development (every time I got an artist, little to nothing was done before they ended up quitting). So, PyNori is the more action-based text adventure written in Python, and Pinori was supposed to be a full-blown story-driven game (with graphics and an OST and everything).

Long story short, PyNori's completion doesn't impact Pinori at all.

PyNori is not the same as Pinori. This project's development in no way impacts Pinori's.

For something made in GBStudio, this is really frickin' good! The humour is right up my alley. I did struggle a bit on some levels and fights (Mira's fights and the final battle with Dango were the toughest imo) but I eventually pulled through and beat the game. Good job!

I got to Saturday, and the bully said "Get me some chips, why don't ya?" so I actually tried, and to my surprise I couldn't get out of the store once I got in. Dunno what the thought process was when designing this but then again the game is 3 years old now.

yep

CONGRATS TEMMIE!!! Also no worries, this was perfectly readable! I'm so hyped for Chapter 7, congrats on finishing 6! Gonna read it right now.

As for getting distracted by that MMO, I can relate to getting easily distracted; there's so many things I could've done this summer but I chose to sit around waiting for Discord DMs, haha. Now school starts up in like 2 weeks, I'm gonna be a junior this year. God, I'm scared for the future.

You mentioned feeling tipsy, so if things get rough please rest! As you said, you'll be working on the comic leisurely, so there shouldn't be any pressure finishing a chapter. If there is, I'd hope it's not from obsessive fans demanding "next chapter now now now now!!!". Ignore them and work on the comic at your own pace; there shouldn't be any deadlines.

I don't know your thought process though, so maybe at the very least you set up very loose deadlines for yourself (like, for example, 1 chapter per x months instead of "okay, I'm gonna do these pages this week, and those next week...") and I don't know about it, but... well. I'm saying all this cuz you shouldn't worry about having disappointed anyone by leaving them waiting.

Maybe I'm being weird, maybe I'm writing way more than I should be, and I'm probably telling you loads of things that you already knew and this comment is completely useless, but TL;DR congrats on conquering chapter 6, no rush for the future chapters (please). Loving the comic so far.

you're not the only one
unsure whether to say that's a good or bad thing

Interesting!

The jingle sounds like it was made in BeepBox/JummBox. That's not intended to be an insult (at least not for this game, though I use JummBox frequently), I just found it interesting.

Kostya when seeing a literal NSFW mod: I sleep
Kostya when someone says the most passive swear word ever: REAL [CRAP]??? (saying crap so Kostya doesn't scream at me for 6 months straight not to swear even though I will anyway)

I recommend coming back when you're 15 years old
this place is chock full of "bad words" and you can't control that. so come back when you're mature enough to deal with it

radio