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This was very moving to read!

Reviewing comments like this is a surreal experience for me not just as a hobby VN developer, but as the developer of Perfect Pitch specifically. And I say this because so much of the impression you've shared above reflects in near identical fashion that which inspired me to create the project in the first place.

I think it's in our nature as human beings to chase rich, visceral emotional experiences. That's probably not only the foundation which undergirds the development Perfect Pitch, but maybe even the thesis for the game itself. Perhaps it would sound strange to a player to hear me say, but having completed the production of this update, I've also had the experience of a profoundly hollow feeling accompanying me this past month. A very natural, very human consequence of traversing the 2-year liminal space I found myself in when writing this update.

You've drawn attention to a number of personal connections you've made with characters and events in playing the game, and I really admire you for sharing that. When I put this project out into the world, there's really no way of me knowing what the impact will be. Comments like this show that the solitary hours typing away at my computer can create profound moments for others in ways that others have done for me.

Hey, thanks, friend! I'm glad that the effort I make to showcase the culture of musicianship, even if it's through my own imperfect lens, is evident to you in the writing of the events. I want characters to feel authentic, flawed, and relatable when I write. It's why most events receive around 6 to 7 revisions before settling into the state you would see them in game. 

It's easy to assume that the developer knows their characters best, but in some ways, I feel like you all might know them better than me. Or maybe it's better to say you know a less fluid version of them than I do. Many times it's tricky to uncover a character's role within any given event idea, and in those moments, characters can feel murky to me. But that gradual discovery is part of the fun of writing, I suppose.  

Thanks so much for the support and for the encouragement with this project. It has been a long two years of chipping away at progress on the update, but I'm glad to hear it has made such a positive impression on you. 

Does it happen as soon as you begin that event, or is there a certain point in the event where the sound is triggered? And is it in the full event only or does it also appear when replaying that room from the blueprint screen?

If it started more or less at the beginning, then it may be bleed over from some other event. In that case, I'd try completing some other event first to clear the audio channels.

If it still persists, try using your device's speakers or a different audio output device and see if that changes anything.

Wow! What a thoughtful post, and thank you so much for sharing it.

There are many complimentary statements in your message, but what I appreciate most is the degree to which you feel invested in the characters and their lives. Especially to the point where it's making a yo-yo out of your sympathetic nervous system. That's an uncommon experience for any sort of media, and I can certainly speak to just how rich that type of thing makes a story feel to me. So to be on the receiving end of that fills me with gratitude.

I also appreciate your statement about wanting to explore new avenues of self-expression. Despite blue's clues and sesame street drilling it into us, I don't feel like folks often make it a point in their daily life to be creative for the sake of being creative. Sometimes it's for fear of failure, or a fear of producing something that's terribly uninteresting. Heck, I struggle with that more days than not. In fact it's one of the sources I draw from when I consider how MC views his own poetry writing.

Anyhow, thanks again for your message and for spending however many hours it took you to make it through the game. I'm glad to have created something that you found to be particularly meaningful.

Oh, that's a bummer! The issue you're seeing is a result of the ren'py engine opting to use these big, bright and colorful emojis by default with one of their releases in the last year. It really messes with appearance of the dialogue when including a heart or other non-text shapes, so I turned off that option in the code.

Unfortunately, if I went back and switched that out it would affect all tablet and desktop users. And you're right, I really never built with mobile in mind.

I'm not sure if this would throw some other error entirely, but if you used a source code editor (Notepad++ is free, for instance) you could simply use that software to open "screens.rpy" and then delete lines 8115, 8121, etc from the code and see what happens. I'm obviously no programmer though, so maybe save a back up of the game somewhere before poking around in the guts of it.

Hah, thank you! I was sure the first comment I'd get about that was someone wanting to be snarky about how little effort I put into the thumbnail. Hope you enjoy the update.

Hey! I really appreciate hearing how much you've been anticipating this release. I live with this game every day, building bit by bit, so I never really had the hiatus experience that players did. But I'm glad to know it made enough of an impression on you to keep checking back in every so often. Have fun!

Thank you very much! Very surreal to get the product of a little over two years of my life published. Hope you enjoy it.

Also, be sure to stand up and stretch every so often with this one. It's a whole lot of content.

I'm always given pause when someone holds such passion about Perfect Pitch that they suggest supporting the project in this way. Thank you very much for expressing that desire— I do not take the sentiments behind it for granted.

In the absence of some catastrophic occurrence that leaves me destitute and starving, I am certain that I will never solicit, accept, or otherwise allow folks to contribute financially to Perfect Pitch. I really do not like the idea of attaching monetary value to this game. It's a similar feeling to another inquiry I occasionally receive about creating a Discord community or any other forum for this game outside of the Itch comment section.

I'm not trying to make money, garner attention, or do much of anything at all except remain creatively connected to music. At this point in my life where I no longer teach nor perform, I'm simply grateful for this outlet that adds value and richness to my life.

Hey there! I'm doing very well, thank you for asking. The roller coaster I had mentioned further down in these comments several months ago has smoothed out quite a bit.  My life outside of the game has settled into a much better version of normal than before it, and I'm very grateful for that change.

I also have a bit of exciting news to share regarding progress on the next update. At this point I can say with a very high degree of confidence that v0.8 will release later this year.

The next update's play time and file size has significantly exceeded my initial expectations. v0.8 will add about 10 hours of play time and clock in just shy of 10 gigabytes once unzipped (8gb comes just from this new release). It's very exciting to be transitioning into the phase where I'm tying up loose ends, crossing t's and dotting i's, and all that fun stuff. 

I'll tell you now, we're still easily over a month away from launch. But for now I am focusing in on the remaining tasks on my rapidly shrinking to-do list— and boy does that feel good.

Hey, thanks for that! Unfortunately, this is the only social media presence I maintain. You're always welcome to drop in and check on the game or the developer. Couldn't help but notice the Riley thumbnail, by the way. Is that fan art? Very cool!

Excellent catch! Thank you for noticing and taking the time to bring that to my attention. Little details like that make or break events for me, so I really appreciate you lending your personal experience in that regard.

Hey Sim, good to hear from you again! It's always interesting to reflect on where I was with this game when I last wrote you, and to see how far things have come.

Right now I'm in the midpoint of what is likely the most intense, time consuming event that I may ever develop in Perfect Pitch. Beginning to end, I'm guessing this one single event is going to take me a month and some change.

Once this one is done, I'm betting a big psychological weight will be taken off my shoulders for completing the remainder of the update. I won't say I was dreading this one, but I knew it would be the doozy to end all doozies.

Lots still to do afterwards, though nothing quite like this. And I still want to impress upon players the likelihood of a post-2024 release.

I appreciate you saying so. Being able to build characters that come alive to the point where players have visceral, emotional reactions to their personality (especially negative, to be honest) is one of the most flattering comments a visual novel developer could hear.

Hey there, thanks for dropping by again! Things are going well here. Wrapping up yet another event this week in the last large grouping of them, and I'm starting to think I might see a pin prick of light at the end of the tunnel.

The development time of what's left is hard to predict because I've never attempted something like what I'm trying to build with these last handful of events. Thankfully, I gave myself opportunities to practice some of the techniques in a few of the events leading up to the final few.

And yes, that description is vague and probably won't mean much to anyone until they play v0.8, but suffice to say I'm trying pretty hard to make something special.

Hate to break it to you but this isn't it. Still, there's an interesting first hand account into Riley backstory for folks who care about that sort of thing. She gets the spotlight more than a couple times in the next release, but I'd stop far short of calling it a "Riley Update". 

Hey, thanks! It's just as much of a discovery for me every time I sit down to write. Very proud of the v0.8 progress so far, and there sure has been a lot. We're clocking in just shy of 10,000 new renders at this point*** , and that's to say nothing of the various animations, video, and other mixed multimedia that accompanies it. 

It's the type of update where you need to keep your head down and focus on rendering frame by frame to make any progress. Like standing on the roof of a tall building, you just have to keep looking ahead or else your palms start getting sweaty.

***My math's not so great. We're around 6000, not 10,000.

Time flies, doesn't it? Almost a whole calendar year since the last release! And sitting courtside to the evolution of these characters across that year has been so much fun.

The massive checklist for v0.8 continues to be chipped away at. Just last week I finished all renders and music for one of the largest events (~20 minutes) in this series, and that felt like a great milestone. 

Thanks for checking in again. I'm sure some of the folks who occasionally lurk around here waiting for updates from the dev appreciate your consistency in reaching out, seeing as I usually do respond.  

Thanks for approaching the long development timeframe with that mindset. It's a much more fulfilling experience to build in a deliberate manner rather than to rush half baked ideas out of the door as fast as possible. And that's one of the benefits of keeping this game free to play— I don't feel like I owe anyone anything. I can choose to spend two or more years of my life to developing a big update and not have to make any justifications for it.

Thanks for saying that. I'm really itching to share what I've been up to, too. It has been consuming all of my non 9-5 hours for a very long time. In fact, this isn't really a spoiler, but I finished the dialogue for the very first v0.8 event way back in September 2022— probably about half way through my work building renders for v0.5. Needless to say I've been working on this update for a while.

Out of curiosity I took a look through my word documents to see where I'm at with event writing + screen directions, all of which are done thankfully, and the total number of MS word pages for v0.8 (and only v0.8) is around 375. It certainly feels like I've been writing a dissertation, or at least what I imagine it would feel like.

I think most people recognize that writing a book is a multi-year affair, and even though I'm not going through quite the same editorial rigors that a well-published author might, it's still a lot of text and a lot of visual materials to match. I realize most of my comments lately are contextualizing my busy-ness, but my goodness, this update sure does keep me busy.

Hey Sim!

Life outside of Perfect Pitch has been a bit of a roller coaster lately, and I'll leave it at that. Even so, I'm managing to keep up with development at a respectable pace despite it all.

One of the upsides of the roller coaster is that I'll be taking somewhat of a brief sabbatical (i.e. vacation) to western Europe where I plan on visiting some of the sites important to the world of classical music. A few concerts, a few museums, a brief bit of time spent living where it all went down— I'm really looking forward to that.

As for the progress of the game, again, not much news to share at the moment. I've been dedicating a lot of time to understanding and iterating on animation within Chara Studio, which has led to some great breakthroughs for the upcoming release, but obviously it's also a time investment. I think when the update finally does go live you'll agree it was time well spent.

Thanks for choosing to adopt a perspective of patience as you wait out the next release. It's easy as a player to feel like each update is comparing apples to apples-- as though one update is more or less equivalent to any other update. Perhaps for some developers who operate on consistent release schedules that might actually be true, but it isn't for this project.

For context: this next update, from v0.7 to v0.8, will be the gameplay and event quantity equivalent of about seven and a half new releases of Perfect Pitch. Essentially, we're jumping straight from version 7 to 14. That's one of, but not the only, reason why the next update is such a doozy.

Fixed overlapping ren'py screen issue preventing players from saving using save blocks. No more pressing escape key needed to reset screens and unstumble from the limbo.

This fix will go live in the v0.8 release.

Hey, friend. Smooth sailing here still, though I'm afraid I don't have much additional news to share about the update. Lots done, and lots still to do. Keeping a good pace in light of the update's play time and quality of that play time. I'm excited to share it with you once it's ready.

Hey, Sim! Great to hear from you again.

Just want to make it clear though that the next update is definitely not coming out in January. I'll likely post an addendum to my "Not dead; just busy" dev log in the new year with a little more info, but v0.8 is still a looong ways away. Still on track and going well, but the update is enormous.

Hey friend, I'm touched that you would be so insistent on compensating me for my efforts on this project. It's obvious that this game has made some significant and positive impact on you for you to say so. Thank you very, very much.

What I'll say to you and anyone else wishing to support this project, beyond just downloading the game, is this: offer that money instead to help fund the creation and performance of music in your own community, if at all possible. 

Attend a concert with local performers, buy a t-shirt or other merch from your favorite band/musician. The type of support matters far less than the spirit of that support.  Having this game result in a small group of people becoming patrons of the arts in their community would mean far more to me than $5 in my pocket.

And if you can't or don't want to support music locally or otherwise? Choose another small developer making these sorts of projects and offer them your money instead. That would also feel very fulfilling to know I'm indirectly supporting those with whom I share a common medium. After all, this game wouldn't exist without the inspiration I've found from the work of so many others on Itch and beyond.

Thanks! Happy to hear that you've liked what you've seen so far. Very glad to be taking the extra time that this next update needs to be done right. Haven't had this much fun developing any of the other 7 releases, and those were already a blast.

Yeah, for sure, I gave it a little thought initially. And I appreciate you saying so. Really the only thing keeping me building this game day after day is intrinsic motivation, and in my case I think any extrinsic motivators would erode that. I'd hate to see my passion project become my side hustle. 

Thanks for offering your honest review of the project. 

Hey there, good to hear from you again! And nope, the new release is not even close to close. The good news is that what progress has been made has me more excited about the story than any other release. Things feel sharper, smoother, with what feels to me like the biggest jump in production value of any update. It's like putting on glasses.

I do mention this in the "Not dead; just busy" devlog, but this game won't see another release until 2024, and I'll go ahead and tell you now that it won't be coming out in January.

Still, it has been a little while since I've posted, so I'll include a contextless render from the upcoming release:

If someone felt so strongly about the game that they'd like to create and manage their own forum on the topic then hey, more power to them. But, respectfully, I have no desire to participate in that sort of thing myself.

Hello there! Thanks for stopping by.

To be honest, the idea of creating and managing a discord community for this game has never appealed to me, so I think it is very unlikely that it would ever happen. As for typos, I'd ask that you please direct those to the bugs/errors devlog. Thanks again!

Hi there, and thank you for the encouraging words! That means a lot and I do very much appreciate it.

v0.8 is proceeding more or less at the expected pace. It has been a rewarding experience so far though certainly not without its fair share of challenges. Lots of edits, optimizations, and customizations needing to be made on the fly.

Even so, it's been so much fun to see the beginnings of nearly one calendar year of event writing finally come to a playable state. There's something special about moving from the space of ideas and imagination to the space of tangibility. It's the type of feeling that makes me glad I decided to make this game.

I'll check it out, for sure. Haven't looked much further back than the 90s around the time when Star of Indiana was still a thing, but I'm very interested in giving the stuff of that era a listen. Glad you like the game so far, too. And in my opinion, good timing to start up a first play through. Solid 10 hours of gameplay and the render quality is finally catching up to where I had wished it could be early on. Writing is a lot of fun these days, too. Getting better. I'm glad I can feel good about the product I'm putting out instead of sacrificing the quality of releases. I'd rather have a solid release every few months than 6 biweekly duds.

Despite the Cavies banter, I'm honestly a little sad to see them do away with their classic technique these past few years! It's probably not conducive to the types of programs that elite groups put on these days, but it had its charm.

Actually, Kara was the one who marched Coats. Great show too, wish I could've seen it in person. Thankfully I did manage to see Tilt live, which if I only could only pick one, I'm glad I got to see that one. Still comes second to seeing E=Mc2 in person. Chills every time.

Hope you'll stick around for v0.8. Something tells me you might like that update.  

All three of the S-wing marching band girls did, plus Elaine! In fact, the only girl introduced in the v0.7 version who hasn't marched corps is Taylor, but I'm pretty sure I only ever canonize the groups of those four, Kara, and Sam.

Thanks! That bit was quite a learning experience-- one I'm excited to build upon for the next release. Also a great plug for some of the incredible and often under-appreciated works by female composers. Clara Schumann has some bangers and that's just one of them.

Yeah, when I was building the new UI I knew there would be an adjustment period. For folks who have been around for a few updates it's a change in routine, and change takes time to adapt to. Unfortunately, unless someone else has a workaround they can share, or someone with experience in ren'py would like me to explain the code behind the scenes, I'm probably not going to sink anymore time into that issue. It's inconvenient, sure, but I'll take a little ding on function for a much better looking UI overall. In my opinion, those are diminishing returns for the type of time investment required to come to some sort of solution.

 It sounds like you've found a workaround for your particular issue, so that's good. And if more users have similar issues, I welcome them to describe them here. Who knows, maybe that will trigger some kind of aha moment.

Muse with the Montreal Drawl, Willow, Orchestra - Triggers same event every time a player clicks to visit, granting Willow infinite birthdays. Updated live version to rectify the loop. Issue caught+cited on main page by frafrakyky.