Alpha Preview Update (July)

Hello! Long time no talk, it feels like! 

A little (or not so little) update for you today! It's hard to believe that my novel launched just three weeks ago, it's been a flurry of activity for me ever since then: I've been running around doing interviews, organizing a book signing, and, of course, I went out of town for a week to travel out of state and attend my best friend's wedding! (It was awesome!)

In between all of that, I managed to start Chapter 7 of the alpha build, add 20,000 words to it, and end things on a really cool cliffhanger! Enjoy!

Edit: I legitimately meant to type cruel cliffhanger, really cruel cliffhanger... sorry...

Play the alpha here 

Password: eternalsummer

What's New:

• 20,000 words to Chapter 7!
• Cute reunions with your RO or best friend if they're not already in your party!
• Some changes and new content to stuff you can add to your room! Ditto for the Social Link function, which you can temporarily access to check your relationships with the characters! (In the full game, you won't be able to access it until after you've recruited Mimir.)
• Various bug and typo fixes!

Developer Notes:

• It may not feel like 20,000 words at first because of all of the metric fuck-ton of branching that happened in Chapter 6... Why did I do that to myself... I kept looking at how much everything branched, thought 'I'll just skip all this and handle it later', and then did it all anyway, because I was not going to kick this chapter off by skipping a bunch of stuff when I've waited for it for so long!!!
• The only route that is currently incomplete in this chapter is if you [spoilers] cut a deal with Auberon and Isolde to throw Lavinet under the bus in Chapter 6 [/spoilers]. I was just exhausted and could not deal with the noble drama at the moment gfldjgdg I will get back to it at some point!
• As in the last update, some stuff in Chapter 6 is still technically not done. Namely uhhhh 1) Lavinet's "kidnapped" route, which will change, 2) some investigative routes prior to meeting the Elementals, and 3) achievements! 
• I actually forgot that the, uh, cliffhanger here was actually charted to take place in this chapter. I was all gung-ho like "heh heh heh, time for some swamp MURDER" and then I checked my notes at the last second and went "oh, that's happening this chapter? oh no"
• MC might come off as sentimental in this chapter, and that's probably because I'm projecting my feelings into them, I'm so glad that they're home and I missed the crew so much and the previous chapter was so long (95,000 words!!) that I think some of my exhaustion leaked through, lol!

Total wordcount: 619,073 words without code

By God... You know what's not 600,000 words? THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY. BECAUSE IT'S ONLY 558,000 WORDS. I DON'T KNOW IF I SHOULD LAUGH OR SCREAM. 

What's Next:

More Chapter 7! I already have the next 1,000 words or so written out, as well as a nice little Shery-MC scene for any Shery!mancers or Shery!BFFs out there! The next part of Chapter 7 will either get straight to the next mission (after a rest period for MC, of course) or linger in Haven for a part that a lot of people have been excited about, we'll see which one has the most momentum for me to write next week!

In the meantime, I will be trying to get this short story done before the end of the month, and mailing out our first tarot cards! I just saw Trouble's nearly-finished tarot card, we have a fun goody coming up in August, and we are getting started on Riel's character sheet (which you voted for!) very soon!

I just wanted to thank everyone for their patience, support, and understanding this month: I know I had to cut a few things from the schedule in order to accommodate the craziness of the book release, and I truly appreciate how cool everyone was about that! And if you picked up a copy of We Have Always Been Here, THANK YOU!!! I'm truly so honored and appreciative, and I got so many loving, encouraging, incredible messages that I still have to answer! In short, I'm currently a (happy) mess, and I truly just love and appreciate everyone here so much for supporting that, and I'm so excited to get back to our regularly-scheduled programming in August!

Okay, soapbox over! I hope you enjoy!