- Fixed softlock on Juny;
- Fixed bug with appearing lines from 2nd Chapter inside the Abandoned House in the 2st Chapter;
- Fixed an apologies dialogue with Alek in an Axe route;
- Fixed Mindscape articles about Karkadann and Marestail;
- Fixed some graphic bugs.
The Crown of Leaves
Patch 1.0.2. и 2.0.2.
New Tracks in the Album!
- Empty World
- Bird Cage
- Ink and The Fire
- The Hill Camp Morning
- The Hill Camp Morning (Festival on The Cemetery)
- Salesaly
- Magician’s Assistant
- It’s Showtime! (Fairytail)
- It’s Showtime!
The 2nd Chapter is Now Live
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1160540/The_Crown_of_Leaves_Chapter_2/
More lore, story, and dynamics await you this time. We started working on this chapter during the remaster, but we had the capability to get fully underway only at the beginning of 2020. With much thanks to our new team members, Dizir and Fjorge, we were able to devote more time to the script. We quickly found weak points in the plot and eliminated them, thanks to our professional editor Maria Mukharskaya (Grimm's mother, btw :>). Previously, we had to rewrite almost the entire story several times without her help, which affected the work's speed.
And yet, we still had to curb our ambitions a little; otherwise, we may have had to release Chapter 2 yet another year later.
We would like to reiterate some information from previous news to discuss and ensure transparency about pricing:
- Chapter 1. Costs $ 4,99
- Chapter 2. Costs $ 1.99 Unlike the previous chapter, we divided this one into acts (there are 3 of them in the game) two of which will be released right now.
- Chapter 3 will be the last and the longest, as we think. It will also cost $ 1.99
Remember the Immortal Horses add-on? This was a free content update to celebrate the remaster of the First Chapter. Similarly, Chapter 2 will be updated for free with the third act and you will be able to play it and see how everything in this chapter ends.
We apologize in advance for any bugs or errors you may encounter - alas, they inevitably appear even after the most intense beta tests. If you find one, we ask that you report it as soon as possible in the community center. We will be glad to help you!
Well, we definitely want to say our thanks to the Patrons' support, all those tons of kind words and inspiring fan creativity, as well as the vigilance of alpha and beta testers who did their best to make the project better.
A Few Words From Lins: As the project leader, I also thank the other members of the tCoL Chapter 2 team. We kept in contact almost 24/7, encouraging each other, discussing complex issues, and generating ideas. I would go to the ends of the Earth with you, guys.
DO NOTICE
It is the new engine so the old save files won't work! But there is the save-generator that will be working inside the game when you start the second Chapter!
Everything is ready! Waiting for the Steam response.
Let's hope this happens as soon as possible! We are so hyped to share the result of our hard work with all of you, guys!
2nd Chapter is Coming Soon!
For technical reasons, we cannot publish the game on March 27th - only on Monday 29th. This is our mistake: we absolutely forgot that Steam doesn't allow weekend releases. Forgive us for this!
So, the first two Acts of the second Сhapter will be published on March 29th. We will release a free update for it a little later, which will add even more dialogues, illustrations, and the final third Act. We cannot set an exact date for this last update yet, since the team needs rest to be back to work with renewed vigor.
A note about the Crowns of Leaves OST: New mesmerizing tracks by Blacksmith will be added to the album! The album's price will not change, and if you have already purchased it, it will update automatically to include the new tracks.
Important news for Linux users: We are having temporary difficulties creating a build for this OS, but we will be addressing this issue as soon as possible immediately following the release. Thank you for understanding.
The 2nd Chapter Release Date Announcement
The release date is already close, so it's time to summarize the work we have done!
The second chapter is almost finished. It turned out to be so big and detailed that we realized we simply would not be able to put the third act in order during the tests within the team in a timely manner.
But we would like for you could continue your journey with Roui as soon as possible and therefore we have decided to release the first two acts on March 27 and the third one closer to May. And take our word for it: even without the third act, the second chapter is longer than the previous one!
To clarify some information once more: the second chapter will be priced at $2.50. You will get the first two acts right away, and the third act will be released as a free update a couple of months later. Do we think this will spoil the impression? Of course not! In the third act, you will find much more dialogue (main-story and additional), cutscenes, as well as a quest from the last supporter cameo, Alain.
That's all for now! We look forward to delivering to you the next installment of The Crown of Leaves!
[previewyoutube="KF9vSMYtpKA;full"]
Game Progress Update
The time has come for news and a small report on the work we've done!
The First chapter has been completely moved from the RenPy engine to Game Maker Studio 2. We added a special module to the game for those who want to save on time: you can automatically simulate the completion of the First chapter before starting the Second one. Please note that only the main plot routes and character relationships (including the DLC) are built into the module, so if you still want to get those cookies you will have to go get them yourself. :)
We hoped for the best, of course, but the situation with the virus has not spared us, and it took a lot of our time and messed with our nerves. However, our team has kept and continues to keep working surprisingly well and remains united!
Let's go over some general points here:
- The Second chapter turned out to be 2.5-3 times longer than the First—even longer than we originally planned.
- This time we decided not to limit ourselves on anything, so we made lots of cutscenes and alternative dialogues (remember the decorous conversation between Roui and his aunt over a bottle of wine? Something like that), and gave more life to the sprites of the sahash characters with the expressive animation of their tails.
- The game will have 13 new characters, most of which will have their own quests.
- Morning and night versions of Hill Camp await you.
- The script is 100% finished (as well as its editing), the last part of it is being translated into English right now.
- 90% of the game content has already been drawn, but there are still some unfinished scenes and objects.
- _Blacksmith_ is still working on the OST for the game, adding themes for locations and characters.
Also, in the near future we will conduct a beta test before publishing the final version of the game on Steam.
So, the Second chapter is almost ready! It would be great to be right in time by the end of December to present the continuation of Roui's story for the New Year, but you know how it's done—before you put the game on display, it must be properly debugged and polished. So we plan to finish it either by the end of January or by the end of February (at maximum).
Your positive comments, words of support and faith for this project give us strength and the desire to work even harder. We are infinitely grateful that you are looking forward to the game, and we will do our best to reward you for these long months of waiting. ♥
What's New
We've been thinking for a while after analyzing the situation with save-file bugs, which caused errors in the game code and awkward FPS stutters, and… We have finally moved from the free RenPy engine to a professional paid engine: Game Maker Studio 2, which is more suitable for our needs and the genre of "the Crown of Leaves". It has finally provided us with decent optimization and stable work. You'll be able to check this out when the game updates on Steam – which will happen at the same time with the release of Chapter Two. We have been busy with this for a long time, but most of the first chapter has already been transferred to the new engine, and everything is going smoothly, so we've decided to share that news with you!
Changing the game engine has entailed some changes within the team. Our previous coder, who had been working with the game’s modules –mold.ff– unfortunately left The Broken Horn. Now coding is entirely on the shoulders of our new programmer: Dizir. Such an arrangement allowed Lins (screenwriter and sprite artist) to relieve herself of coding responsibilities to focus more on the main plot of Chapter Two, and enabled her to finish it with all routes in under 3 months. The script’s word-count is approximately 37,300 words without additional dialogues, points of interest, item descriptions and the Mindscape's articles! Maria Mukharskaya, a professional literature editor and also Grimm's mother, has wholly joined our team. She has been ruthlessly reading the text, making corrections, checking the logic and behaviour of the characters, and also discussing the further plot with us. It’s possible that her interest in this story played a huge role in a morale boost for us to pull ourselves together and continue our work.
And we've also got a professional translator, Lada Zainullina. Lada works fast -and this is important for us because we are going to publish "the Crown of Leaves" in two languages at the same time.
And finally, we now have an animator (!), Fjorge, who will make the character sprites life like by animating their tails, and she also helps us work with the animatic.
To sum up:
► The main scenario for the second chapter is finished! Almost all sprites have already been drawn, and Grimm has completed 80% of all backgrounds. We still need to work on quests, additional dialogues, descriptions of points of interest and items, as well as to write articles for the Mindscape. Cutscenes are currently only in the sketch phase.
► Transferring the first chapter to the new engine is in full swing. With the help of Dizir, we don't have to work on coding by ourselves anymore, which means we don't have to waste our time on it.
► The release date is scheduled for the end of the 2020, according to our tradition - on the 27th (November or December). Perfectionists take time with a margin!
► The second chapter is almost twice as large as the first!
P.S: What else would we like to tell you about the game? We've planned to create a small story in three chapters, but it seems like we have placed too many mysteries to the first chapter but haven't answered that much on them. Therefore, the second chapter will not only answer some of those questions that concern you, but will also begin to gradually lead you away from the Hill Camp, inviting you into a great adventure beyond its borders.
That's all for today, folks! Don't forget to wash your hands. And thank you very much for being with us!
Let's keep strong, no matter what 2020 prepares for us.
The new art and characters from the second chapter!
So.
First of all, this is the cameo of our Patrons' characters, Akira08 and Yurokat.
> Anoosh is an insidious guy from El-Balyama who makes a living by different types of fraud, in particular by showing everyone a booklet made of psychic paper, so everyone thinks something is written on it. Okay, we're joking, we just removed the contents of the brochure to avoid the spoilers. xP
> Raakel is a half-breed, a gloomy Beylerian adventurer from the Magpies Brotherhood, a bounty hunter. She pretends to be a wandering merchant. Raakel was brought in Hill Camp by chance, and she fell in love with the local cuisine - it seems that Hill Camp dishes are always able to lift her spirits!
So you can try to guess what kind of quests are waiting for you, looking at these guys! (:
And here are the new background! Spooky! We drew the popcorn and soda cans to add a feeling of some abandoned cinema to this room. All that vending machines and the bird skulls, branches growing right from the walls... It's a strange place. But we won't tell you what's going on here anyway. xP
We did A LOT of new stuff for the game's next chapter, and if you want to support us and to join our glorious backstage - welcome to our Patreon!
⭐️⭐️ https://www.patreon.com/lingrimm/ ⭐️⭐️
Happy Birthday tCoL!
Hello everyone!~
Today is our game's Birthday (: ! We planned to release the game on the 27th of November because this number is quite symbolic for the Crown of Leaves, but somehow it appeared on Steam in between 26th and 27th - literally a few minutes earlier than planned.
Anyway, we all can salute the birthday girl (if we may call the game like this haha) right now!
And a couple of warm words we have already said in Discord fan server and want to say to you too: thank you so much for your loyalty and love to our project, for believing in us.
For being our fans and people who really were interested in this small indie game from the very start. Even if the kiddo is dead, it doesn't mean that the Crown is dead too - we're working on it so hard and never stop doing it. Thank you for being our community! We love you!