wishbonegame

[wishbonegame]

May Update!

Late on this one, oops! I've been... really really busy. Just totally slammed by work and life and stuff these last couple months, but sneaking in work on these very important cowboys where I can...

Currently working on implementing a bighuge quest starring Mayor North! Only the final (fairly long) scene remains.

Not a whole lot else to report, but I am really hoping that after this next week things start to clear up a little and I can get back into my "working on Wishbone" groove again!

[wishbonegame]

Forever Gold is a text-heavy dark fantasy roleplaying game. Assume the life of Duke Quintrell Barghur, a pariah of high birth, and grapple with your unlikely rise to political relevancy as the thriving alliance between Vestur's three kingdoms comes under strain. Achieve, fail, and despair as you navigate the frustrations of the Tri-Kingdom court and negotiate precarious double-binds. Halfway between visual novel and interactive fiction, Forever Gold is a unique multimedia experience incorporating artwork and writing with RPG mechanics such as skill systems, dice rolls, and lasting narrative decisions. It is intended for mature audiences.

EPISODE 1 NOW AVAILABLE

At long last, our first real installment! Brought to you by @broncoburro and @lsdoiphin, Forever Gold is a massive labor of love; this episode is the first of many more to come. Play online in your browser, or download to play offline on your desktop.

👑Reblogs greatly appreciated!👑

[wishbonegame]

April's Update is being posted very late, oops!

Again, not a whole lot to say about this stage of development--still plugging in Fall quests and events, gradually transforming my to-do document from the regular black text of incompleteness to the underlined, bold red text of being done!

These last couple months of development have been slower than I'd hoped because I've lost more than half of my weekend work days to other tasks. It's been an incredibly busy spring, and the rest of May is going to continue that trend. Not being able to work on Wishbone as much as I'd like has been a little maddening. But things are continuing to move along, and I'm happy with what I've gotten to implement so far. I'm also testing a lot more as I go so that we can avoid a repeat of the Summer Y1 beta lead up (where it was delayed significantly due to needing a lot of last-minute debugging).

Hope to have more progress to share next time...!

[wishbonegame]

March Update!

Little late on this one (it's been a busy couple of weeks), but the Fall quests and events are being implemented now! Currently have several small and medium ones done and one big one that's mostly done (still troubleshooting the scene playing out, making sure characters don't get stuck and animate properly).

Not a ton to say this month except it's underway and I'm having fun. this is always one of the most exciting parts of development, seeing the scripts turn into actual scenes and become "real!" (also, feeling relieved when a script you weren't sure about when it was just text on a white page winds up actually being really good when you have the appropriate graphic and audio elements to back it up!)

[wishbonegame]

Version 6.00.03 is now available! Download it here.

This is a pretty important one because it fixes an unavoidable game-stopping bug during the lawful path railroad assessment event. I'd strongly recommend patching to this version!

It also fixes some other conversation pathing issues much earlier in the game, but since these were only introduced in 6.00.02, only effected two early game events, and only effected some dialog paths instead of all, I don't think anyone caught them.

Wishbone Summer Y1 Beta Release!

At long, long last, the Wishbone Summer Year 1 Public Beta is COMPLETE! Download it here!

For those who haven't been following the project: Wishbone is a character drama-slash-farming sim game that takes place in a wild west-inspired setting. The player takes the role of a farmer, fresh off the wagon in a new town and tasked with building a successful ranch. The town of Wishbone might seem sleepy and mundane--albeit full of weirdos--at first, but there’s trouble brewing on the horizon: a fierce, prolonged standoff between the lawmen and the outlaws that will decide the fate of the town itself.

The Summer Year 1 beta represents a complete vertical slice of the first 25% of the final game. It contains around 10-20 hours of playtime, depending on how thorough you are.

[wishbonegame]

February Update!

So, despite all that (gestures at state of the world), my NaNo style quest to fully script out Fall has been fairly successful!

The Fall event document has grown by 74 pages. The actual amount I wrote is even more than that, though, perhaps as much as 15-20 additional pages, since the 91-page document from a month ago still included lengthy outline versions of all the events and quests.

Currently, all but two quests and events are either fully scripted or like, 85-90% scripted (pending final touch ups and revisions by character collab writers, who have mostly been busy this month and unable to play cowboys with me).

My plan for the coming weekend is to finish up one of those remaining quests and begin implementing them in game. I aim to have another beta patch out, too, fixing the bug with the Moreau event, among other things.

[wishbonegame]

Hey, so I've found myself in a bit of a pickle. It's the day that Moreau is set to arrive. Theo's at the door, asks me to go with him, but no matter which combination of options I pick my character walks back into the house, walks out, and begins the conversation with Theo again. I thought maybe it was just a flag that would unset after enough runs through the dialogue, but it's a full soft lock. That said, I'm loving the game, and I'm eager to see this develop!

Hmm, that's an odd one! Could you please send your affected save file (the one titled Save0#.rvdata2, where # is the save slot) to me at welcometowishbone [at] gmail [dot] com? I can add some debug stuff and figure out what's going wrong. Since it's a game-breaking issue, I'll make fixing it a top priority.

Sorry you ran into something that halted progress! Glad you're enjoying the game otherwise, though!

[wishbonegame]

January Update!

Ran out of time to post this update on the weekend... but that's because I was writing scripts for Fall instead! The current Fall script document is 91 pages and roughly 50% complete. My goal for February (assuming a giant meteor doesn't hit the United States and completely derail life as we know it) is to complete this document, NaNoWriMo style. That may or may not be feasible depending on what the other character writers' schedules look like, but if that's the case, we'll aim for "all the non-collaborative writing and some of the collaborative writing done" at minimum.

I also pushed out another patch for the Summer beta! Check it out here if you haven't already.

See you next month, and hang in there, everyone.

[wishbonegame]

Version 6.00.02 is now available! Download it here.

I'm pleased to report that there have been hardly any crashes or progress-halting glitches reported--it's mostly been minor aesthetic issues, all of which have been pretty easy fixes.

Wishbone Summer Y1 Beta Release!

At long, long last, the Wishbone Summer Year 1 Public Beta is COMPLETE! Download it here!

For those who haven't been following the project: Wishbone is a character drama-slash-farming sim game that takes place in a wild west-inspired setting. The player takes the role of a farmer, fresh off the wagon in a new town and tasked with building a successful ranch. The town of Wishbone might seem sleepy and mundane--albeit full of weirdos--at first, but there’s trouble brewing on the horizon: a fierce, prolonged standoff between the lawmen and the outlaws that will decide the fate of the town itself.

The Summer Year 1 beta represents a complete vertical slice of the first 25% of the final game. It contains around 10-20 hours of playtime, depending on how thorough you are.

[wishbonegame]

I'm aware that romance isn't going to be a very significant portion of the game, but I am curious as to how relevant it will be to the storyline. Does a successfully wooed character have a different dynamic with the player than a safely platonic one would? do we get special dialogue outside of the cute snippets when reaching max hearts?

I'll gladly take any character writing you're all planning if its just a fun option that doesn't pose much in terms of the story itself.

There are a few plot-related scenes in the late game that will be different depending on who you're romancing, but overall, romance won't alter the story significantly. The majority of romance-related content pre-endgame will come from holiday events.

It was originally planned to have a more direct effect on plot events, but as we nailed the late-game outline down, it became apparent that it wouldn't be feasible. The late game story is already so branchy that also accounting for every single possible romance would make a huge snarl of branching paths that would be implausible to write and program.

The player + their romanced NPC of choice aren't "officially" together until the postgame, when the plot-dust has settled. At that point, it does change a few things, but it's more stuff like "them and their kids/pets (if applicable) move into your house" rather than tons of rewritten dialog. Though they will have some unique dialog if romanced, as will their families/friends.

[wishbonegame]

Heyo, I am trying to carry love letters to bandits but I can't find them anywhere 😭 I've searched all over the map but I can't find Wishbone mine. Can you give me a hint to where it is?

The specific map that piece of text is referring to is one of the most remote maps in the deepest area of Devil's Gulch, down to the south by the big river--you'll see more old mining equipment and ruins the deeper you go. You If you're next to a river and walking along a minecart rail, you're in the area that's describing.

But that map isn't supposed to be eligible for bandit spawns until Devil's Gulch becomes accessible, so if it's telling you to deliver love letters or collect bounties there before the 15th of summer, or if you go to that map and there aren't any bandits on it, then those would both be bugs.

(If it's the latter case, could you please send me your affected save file so that I can load it in my debug environment and figure out how the bandit spawn IDs got messed up? You can email it to us at welcometowishbone [at] gmail [dot] com!)

[wishbonegame]

I've finished and uploaded the first patch! Version 6.00.01 is now available. It mostly deals with minor text and cosmetic issues, but it does fix a hard crash that happens under certain circumstances on Romance Day and an issue with the What's His Problem quest displaying as failed after the deadline passes. It also implements the two remaining missing Ask About menus (Mrs. Jia and Reverend Felix).

I'd encourage you to download the new version here! See the Readme file for how to import your existing game saves (it's very easy).

Wishbone Summer Y1 Beta Release!

At long, long last, the Wishbone Summer Year 1 Public Beta is COMPLETE! Download it here!

For those who haven't been following the project: Wishbone is a character drama-slash-farming sim game that takes place in a wild west-inspired setting. The player takes the role of a farmer, fresh off the wagon in a new town and tasked with building a successful ranch. The town of Wishbone might seem sleepy and mundane--albeit full of weirdos--at first, but there’s trouble brewing on the horizon: a fierce, prolonged standoff between the lawmen and the outlaws that will decide the fate of the town itself.

The Summer Year 1 beta represents a complete vertical slice of the first 25% of the final game. It contains around 10-20 hours of playtime, depending on how thorough you are.

[wishbonegame]

Wishbone Summer Y1 Beta Release!

At long, long last, the Wishbone Summer Year 1 Public Beta is COMPLETE! Download it here!

For those who haven't been following the project: Wishbone is a character drama-slash-farming sim game that takes place in a wild west-inspired setting. The player takes the role of a farmer, fresh off the wagon in a new town and tasked with building a successful ranch. The town of Wishbone might seem sleepy and mundane--albeit full of weirdos--at first, but there’s trouble brewing on the horizon: a fierce, prolonged standoff between the lawmen and the outlaws that will decide the fate of the town itself.

The Summer Year 1 beta represents a complete vertical slice of the first 25% of the final game. It contains around 10-20 hours of playtime, depending on how thorough you are.

[wishbonegame]

Summer Beta arrives soon!

The public beta is being prepared now! I had hoped to have it out already but the last few bugs are taking more rounds of patches to diagnose and fix than I had hoped. It's very close now, though!

Aiming for just before or just after New Years for the public release. :) Stay tuned!

[wishbonegame]

i downloaded wishbone from the most recent link, being the 5.1 release, but the menu screen says "5.0". im mainly expressing concern over this because i sent in a lot of feedback on that bug report google sheet and i worry if ive been marking it incorrectly as 5.1 the whole time 😭 if that is the case, sorry!! im not sure if the emails are visible to you upon submission, but just in case, im c**********@gmail.com

Oh, oops, I should have taken down that form some time ago... the beta that's publicly available currently is so outdated that very little in the way of bug reporting will be terribly relevant to the current version. All the bugs I'm aware of in the current/old public beta have been fixed in the current development version.

We will have a new version (the Summer Y1 beta) available in a matter of weeks! :) Many systems have been dramatically overhauled under the hood since the old beta, so I'd want to create a brand new bug report form from scratch, anyway.

[wishbonegame]

October Update!

All of the actual content (quests, story stuff, etc) for the Summer Y1 beta has been implemented!

It's undergoing testing now. Testing is taking a bit longer than I had planned--some of the new quests and the new quest log were pretty buggy, and I'm currently trying to gather more info about a very stubborn crash that I haven't been able to replicate on my own computer--but it's a great deal more stable than it was a month or so ago.

I don't foresee future betas being so buggy--this particular beta involved some big system overhauls and way less testing during development. I anticipated bug testing would take a while because of this, so it's not a huge surprise, but Life Stuff cutting into my Wishbone time + our main beta tester having computer issues delayed things a bit further (it's better now, though!)

Hang in there, everyone... see you next month!

[wishbonegame]

YOU HAVE A GAME???? WHERE WE CAN WIFE UP THEO????

Indeed, @chocodile and I do, over at @wishbonegame! It's an in-development Western-themed farming sim/story game. Theo is a central character, and will either be a potential ally or antagonist for the player character, depending on the story path they take.

Here are a smattering of Theo moments already implemented in the game for your mild amusement.

And yes, he is a potential romance option, if you're into aristocratic billiard balls with delusions of grandeur. (I should note that Wishbone is not at all a dating sim and the features involving character romance are a very very minute part of the game; most of the game is milking cows and dealing with tiny pixel cowboy drama.)

We already have a Beta version of the game out with the first part of the game's story and about 8-10 hours of playable content, BUT we are currently hard at work doing a SECOND beta with the next part of the story and tons more gameplay features, characters, quests, mini-games and story scenes! Look forward to that whenever we manage to wrangle it into submission!