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Quite a few new patrons these days (though I also recognize some old names ^-^). I have so-so metrics on traffic, but Patreon's internal data has never been great. Any patrons who have joined recently, want to tell me where you're from and how you found TLS?

Anyway, we have more fanart! You can see it above, but also please click on the link to Pink Seito's Twitter to give them metrics. Interesting to see where all TLS appears!

TLS 0.67.1 is out and hopefully everything is on course for a smooth, easy path to the public release. Meanwhile, I'm still working. I'm almost always working on future content, but recently I've been taking bigger risks with the kinds of things I do while a previous release is still WIP. A few bugs aside, this has mostly worked.

Now I'd like to call your attention to a screenshot much more boring than the above art:

For many of you, that will mean nothing (except the obvious indication of whose quest is next). But for those of you familiar with RPG Maker, this represents a kind of crazy point. This screenshot is of the switch control window, which governs the flags that control and record various events.

RPG Maker includes a variety of default limits, like database maximums for number of enemies or items. One of those is 5000 switches. As of this newest quest, TLS needed to use a special database limit breaker script in order to increase that number. I honestly wonder if anyone has ever needed to increase the number of switches past 5000 before.

Not all switches are created equal, of course. I could use half a dozen in one cutscene, for example, while some other switches create hundreds of new lines of dialogue across the game. But as a whole, this is an indication of just how much TLS records and responds to the player's actions.

Anyway, onward! Work work work.

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Comments

Desertopa

You know, I've often wondered whether you were deliberately conserving switch usage enough to last the entire duration of the game without breaking the limit, or if you were planning to use some sort of scripting to exceed the limit before the end of the game. Based on my intuitions about how many switches various events call for, I thought it was pretty likely that TLS would exceed that limit before the end of the game. I don't know if any other RPGMaker game has ever exceeded that limit, but I think there are games in older generations of RPGMaker which are likely to have hit the limits of their engines if they were any more restrictive than that which VX Ace offers. I've definitely never hit the generic switch limit, but I have worked on a project where I created a kind of hacky workaround to reset all the self-switches of the NPCs in a few areas, so that I could update the same NPCs with progressing dialogue more times than the default number of self-switches would allow.

Aria the bunny

I recently joined the Patreon, but I've been playing TLS for long enough I don't remember when I started, though it was some significant amount of time before the Discord was created. Congrats on the 5000 switches too!

Dubsington

Interesting milestone-- it's impressive as a measurement of the complexity of the project, but it's alarming as... a measurement of the complexity of the project.

Dubsington

If anyone wants to know the number of different states a TLS game could conceivably be in based on boolean switches alone, well: $ bc 2^5000 14124670321394260368352096670161473336688961751845411168136880858571\ 18169842707512558089126316711526373356032084313660827642038380699793\ 38335971185726639923431051777851865399011877999645131707069373498212\ 63132375255311121537284403595090053595486073341845340557556673680156\ 55874054646996404990508496994723579009056175713766182282164342131815\ 20991556677126498651782204174061830939239176861341383294018240225838\ 69272559614700514424328107527562949533909381319896673563360632969102\ 38424541258358886568731339812872409800088380736682218042644329108940\ 30789020219440578198488267339768238872279902157420307247570510423845\ 86887259673589180581872779643575301851808664135601285130254672682300\ 92502183280182519073402454498631832656379878621985110463629854619495\ 87281119139907228004385942880953958816554567625296086916885774828934\ 44994136241658867532694033256110366455698262220683447421981108187240\ 49295034819913767403798259987914118798027175838854985751152994717434\ 69241117070230398103378615232793710290992656444842895511830355733152\ 02080415792009004181195188045670551546834944618273174232768598927760\ 76207095258783187664883683489650154749978641197654414333569280123441\ 11765735336393557879214937004347568208665958717764059293592887514292\ 84355704708916487648311661569188620381299755569017189216973375522446\ 90324750787978309013215799401273372106943772834399222802740607982347\ 86740434893458120198341101033812506720046609891160700284002100980452\ 96403978870433530261933759786205219228037148113216414718651416909091\ 7191909376 Edit: double the above if you count Nalili's quest :)

sierralee

There was a time earlier in development when I was trying to plan for the eventual limits, but when I learned about limit breaking scripts, I relaxed. The worst one would actually have been Troops: I passed 999 long ago. As far as I know, the 999 map limit isn't easy to pass, but I was never very concerned about that, as the world has been mostly established.

sierralee

Hello, really appreciate your support. ^-^

sierralee

Oh, you should be getting less alarmed with each complex update. Every time I wrap up a piece of the story like the succession crisis, the remaining work gets simpler. The final battle is the only real complexity hurdle left, because the postgame can be done piecemeal.

sierralee

Haha, it would depend on how you count. Many of the switches are more of a measure of how far you've progressed in the plot, so they wouldn't be multiplied by later switches, but on the other hand there are also self-switches that aren't included in the 5000. After the conclusion of the game, I hope to make a post with a bunch of interesting numbers along these lines. ^-^

Dubsington

> implying the final battle won't be a monument to complexity Seriously, good to hear you have a plan for managing all this. Part of the key to your longevity. So many developers create branching routes with multiple combinations of LIs each with various personality aspects and then wonder why the % of their time spent debugging grows steadily with each update.

Dubsington

Awesome, I hope you do, and that you take your time and revel in it. As I'm sure you are very, very well aware, your fan base here is quite fond of that sort of analysis.

lostone2

That is impressive. Specially, when you consider how old the RPG Maker Vx Ace is and how stable and solid the game is. It's a notable milestone to have.

Treeman4

Heck, Yeah as someone used to poking around in the backend of any RPGmaker game i play, I dont see many ever get to that number, and if they ever do its more a management thing like certain flags being in like a 3500-3599 series is dedicated, so many arent filled all the way. Its pretty amazing to see how dense the game really is

sierralee

To be fair, not all 5000 of those are in use (some are empty for future use or organizational purposes). But I've used every available switch page!

Petrichorus

Hi, I'm kinda new, I've been here about 2 months or so. I picked up your game on Steam a few years ago (like 2020 or something) when it got into my discovery queue. I tried it out and it kind of bounced me out initially, but I went back to it this year and have gone through the game twice, now. Decided that, because I'd put so much time into it, I probably should give you some money, so Patreon. Also the 5000 switches thing is nutty, yet completely unsurprising for this game :P

sierralee

Hello, pleased to have you with us! I appreciate that you gave the game another chance. ^-^

sierralee

That is the script I used to go over 5000 switches. =P

Darius

I just joined about a few days ago. I learned of your name some time ago, on some forum talking about Kingdom of Deception (which I learned about because a fan had at the bottom of every forum post a picture of the game to advertise it, lol). I liked the setting of the game so I looked you up and found out about Last Sovereign. Tried it out and was blown away by the detail and how refreshing it was to play as someone like Simon instead of a Chosen!

sierralee

By whatever path, I'm glad you enjoyed TLS so much you wanted to support me! If you appreciated Simon as a protagonist I hope you'll find a lot more to enjoy. ^-^

DankPotatoes

I mean this HAS to be some kind of record. Congrats on breaking 5000!

FenyxSCPlayer

Sierra, Im replaying the game from the beggining, you should know when you visit ardford for the first time, donoban is already there before you know about him or anything

sierralee

Are you playing version .0 or .1?

Elena Tyler

Replaying the game from the beginning, the game crashes during the Yarra's Joint Squad scene. The message flashes up, "Unable to find file: Error ocurred, check the debug console for more information." I'm playing the .1 version.

Grim8P

The switch thing is crazy. I've actually looked at the number of things you have in this game a few times and just been blown away. Equipment, Skills, Enemies, Troops, etc. 5000+ switches is nuts! I found a random typo in the .1 build. While talking to Bhakan in Ardford Castle. It's under the 2 >= Bhakan Control >= 1 section. Start at the bottom of the first event page and look up. "I don't trust you, but I think I can trust that our interests ***our*** aligned here."

sierralee

Sadly, it seems I made a typo in the last image call. Tested fixed now!

sierralee

Typo should be fixed next version!

FenyxSCPlayer

I usually play .0 games and save, for the last 2 years or so, and about 2 months ago I decided to start a game fresh because the unbalance was starting to pile up and my experience of the game was starting to not resemble anybody`s. So when you released 0,67 some days ago I decided most of the game should be stable until the later parts...well that surprised me (yes , I procrastinated restarting the game 2 whole months xD )

sierralee

Yeah, moving your saves through .0 versions will gradually produce differences that will compound over time. Not that I blame you, since keeping up saves in final versions is a huge hassle for me! Anyway, it's easy for later content to leak into previous sections if it's on the same map. Hopefully in .2 all of these oversights will be removed.

FenyxSCPlayer

funnily enough , your game is usually so stable that .0 versions only make combat harder, or there are some gamebreaking bugs like appearing in the wrong part of a map . But I had to restart the game twice because of my big stubborn head . Pretty impressive if we consider I have been playing your game public until version .35 or .37 so 25 versions or more with only 2 restarts

Cato

I remember that I started playing the game mid of 2019 right before my Japan holiday. Was probably lurking on some pirate site for erotic games and saw the game, found out it is free and installed it.

DukeLeto7

Bug report. 18. Erosian War/Zirantian Waystation (015,022) Page 1 & 2. There's a forced move up on both versions of this event, and one or more of the NPCs can wander into cel (015,021) trapping the player. Need to turn Through ON for movements or add a blocking event between the two pillars @ ~ (015,015).

sierralee

Seems an edge case, but sure. I'm going to just add through commands to all the exits on that map.

DukeLeto7

I suppose we should be grateful that most bugs are this improbable.

Donastray

*pops a party noisemaker* this is quite a milestone XD but I can see why you would get there, as deep as this game is.

Donastray

...but will an extra 4999 switches be enough?