itch.io

The regular save files should be working, but you have to save in them manually. If you've unzipped the files to a folder you have permissions to add or alter files in, there shouldn't be any issues with saving. If you continue to have issues, could you describe the exact process you go through when saving and where the problem occurs? You should just be able to open the Save Menu (not the Load Menu, which looks similar) and click on one of the save slots, which look like comic books.

There should be an auto-save page with 3 slots on the loading screen. You can reach it by navigating back from Page 1 and forward from Page 2 of the Load Menu.

If those slots are empty after playing for a while, I suspect you may be on a Mac. Be sure to extract Henchman Story from the DMG to your Applications folder before playing, or saves won't work. The DMG is provided so the app can be certified as safe by Apple, sorry if that's an incovenience.

Hope that helps, and thanks for supporting the game!

And the results are in!

1. Kate (25.2%)
2. Miss Dynamo (23.6%)
3. Stan (15%)
4. Madame Scorpion (12.6%)
5. Lord Bedlam (11%)
6. Dave (8.7%)
7. Other (2.4%)
8. Chef Antonio (1.6%)

Thanks to everyone who voted!

Now that the game has been released, we're curious - who's your favorite character in Henchman Story? Vote in our poll and offer your hot take here, on Twitter or in our Discord!

https://strawpoll.com/bc87r8gdf

We're considering our options for DLC, but whether or not it happens depends on how well the game does. So we'll see! We do have a few ideas in mind...

Thanks for  playing the game, and for the kind words! =) We do love us some banter. And we were fortunate to have such an awesome cast and VO crew.

If you enjoyed the music, then feel free to check it out on Spotify or Apple Music, or buy it right here on Itch, if you're so inclined.

Kate and Madame Scorpion are the romance options, but you won't be able to romance them on every route.

The protagonist, Stan, has a set name and identity - but also full voice acting!

There's roughly 200k words overall in the final game. For reference, the demo had ~15k words so if you know how long that took you, that's a good metric. In total, there are 11 endings and 2 romances, with no nudity or explicit scenes. Hope that helps!

Thanks for asking! The game will officially go live at 9am Central Daylight Time.

Thanks so much! It's awesome that you had such a fun time with the game so far!

And to answer your question: yes, there will be two romance options, and each one will a couple endings. There will also be multiple endings that don't have romance - so your choices will shape both the plot and Stan's love life.  We don't really believe in the idea of "bad ends" either, so all of them are totally valid conclusions to the story (though there is one that cuts things a little short).

It'll be exciting to see what endings people gravitate towards in the full game, they really cover a whole spectrum of possibilities!

Hey, ifo, thanks again for checking out the game and pointing this out.

We just uploaded a fixed version and tested on a couple machines with Ubuntu, so if you download the new version it should be good to go! To avoid any confusion, we deleted our previous reply.

Hope you enjoy the demo!

We are too!

There will definitely be romance, but it will be more like a BioWare game than a dating sim. The romance is part of the story, but not the sole focus of the story. Hope that helps!

That's kind of you to say, thanks so much for the support! We hope more people get the chance to play it too.

Thanks for checking in! The demo is currently on Steam, but don't worry, the full game is move along at a steady pace. Our script was finalized in mid-March at over 200,000 words, and we've officially started the voiceover process! We offered some insight on that in our last Kickstarter update, here: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/silkensail/henchman-story/posts/3128736 

However, while we're prioritizing keeping our backers informed, we understand that not everyone who's interested in the game was able to support the campaign. So we'll be posting a devlog here on itch.io soon with some more news about how development is going and what to expect in the near future.  The one thing we don't want to share until we're absolutely certain is our game's official release date. We know it can be frustrating to see a release date delayed, so we want to avoid that if possible.

Hope that helps clear things up! Thanks for being patient and supporting the game! And always feel free to ping us on here or Twitter if you're curious about how things are going.

No problem, happy to help! As for the Miss Dynamo romance, I can't promise anything, but if the game does well enough and there's enough interest a Dynamo route or side story is something I can see us doing. The team in general likes her a lot, as do a lot of players! So it's a possibility we may discuss after launch - we just can't guarantee it.

Really appreciate the support, Mark, it's great that you enjoyed the demo! We'll be posting more regular devlogs and updates in the coming months to show our progress , so keep your eye on our blog and our Twitter if you want to follow along.

Sorry you had trouble saving the game though. That's a critical bug for sure, so we took a look at it right away, and luckily I think we found the problem. This appears to happen if you open the .DMG file and play the game directly from that location. While the game does start from there, it can't create the new files it needs for the save system to function.

To remedy this, open the .DMG file, and then open your Applications folder in a second Finder window. Then, take the HenchmanStory-Demo-mac file and drag it into the Applications folder. After a minute, the game should be ready to go, and saves should function properly as long as you open it from the Applications folder. You can then get rid of the original .DMG file to save space. We realize now that's not wholly intuitive, so for the final version, we'll look into creating MacOS installer that takes care of this for you. So thanks for pointing that out, and thanks again for checking out the game!

Thanks for asking, Jay, glad the game caught your eye! We're not planning any further full-fledged crowdfunding right now, but we're considering a pre-order or storefront system where people can support the game and nab some of the rewards from the Kickstarter. We'll be sure to let you know how that progresses.

Appreciate you checking out the game!

Hey, good news! We just released the Mac version of the demo today, so you should be good to go. Thanks for your patience!

No worries! I would try deleting the files and downloading it into a new location - the error you got means that the .exe is looking for the files but they aren't where they expect them to be. Sorry for he hassle, hope that helps!
Alternatively, you can try the Steam version, which should do all that automatically.

Okay, I think I've replicated it. Did you move the Henchman Story - Demo.exe or the folders there to another location? Or did you rename anything? The .exe file needs to remain in the same folder as the "game," "lib," and "renpy" folders with those names. 

Thanks! Fingers crossed on those stretch goals for sure.

Digital Rights Management  (DRM) is a tool that some games/programs include that restricts how they can be used, ostensibly to prevent piracy. However you don't have to worry about that, because we don't use it. :)

Thanks for you patience - things have been busy over here and I missed this. Are you on Windows or Linux?

Hmm, good question...

Thanks for your support!

Unfortunately, the demo is only playable on PC and Linux right now. We are working on securing a Mac so that we can finalize the Mac version of the demo. We hope to have that up soon, and we'll reply to this comment as soon as it's ready! Thanks for your patience, and for your interest in the game!

Awesome! It was fun to watch your reaction to everything as it played out - Lord Bedlam's poker face is definitely top notch, he may have missed his calling.  I'm glad that we could provide you  with an enjoyable introduction to visual novels, even if they're not normally your thing. The story is often the be-all and end-all of VNs, so if you enjoyed that, then we can't ask for much more. Thanks for checking it out and sharing your playthrough!

Hey, great news! We've managed to find a way to ship internationally to both the EU and UK, so you can feel free to back any of the physical reward tiers you'd like! Thanks again for your patience, and for bringing this up. 

I've deleted my earlier comment linking this morning's Kickstarter update so as not to cause a comment logjam or create any confusion. Enjoy your rewards, and thanks so much for supporting the game. :)

Hi, Johnkes98! We're looking into finding a way to ship to the UK and Europe, but we're having trouble pinning down the cost. We will get back to you right away if we can nail that down. Thanks for your interest in the project and for bringing this up, it's much appreciated!

Thanks again for the fun playthrough, Steev! Much appreciated.

Almost! Just hang in there for 4 more days!

We'll be sure to post an update to itch.io when it goes live. Appreciate the love!

Appreciate you sharing your playthrough of the demo, Terrorose! It's fun to watch people react to the story as they play. Making you feel immersed in a superhero themed world is one of the game's biggest goals, so it's great to see that it accomplished that for you. :)

It's awesome to hear that the demo rose to your villainous expectations! I've always enjoyed larger than life supervillains myself, so writing for Lord Bedlam has been a blast. To answer your questions:

1) Yep! The final game will be released on both Steam and itch.io, so you can choose whichever platform you prefer.

2) I wouldn't say it's in the early beginnings. There's a lot of the game that's very far along, especially when it comes to the art and script, but full voice acting takes time and we want to make sure the final product is as polished as possible. So we're very confident that the full game will be released in its entireity in spring.

3) Male romance options aren't planned right now, unfortunately. Sorry! But you can avoid romance altogether if hetero romances aren't your thing.

And thanks for your note about the Opinion popup! I prefer that method too, and it's nice to see that others feel the same way.

Thanks so much for the kind words! It's great to hear that you enjoyed your time with the demo. We're definitely planning on finishing it, so keep an eye on our devlog and/or our Twitter for updates to the game as it progresses.