Black Closet - Beta Testing / Discount Copies

[hanako]

Black Closet webpage (for screenshots)

After years of work, this game is finally just about complete!

What is in the game?

* You play the Student Council President and direct your minions to solve randomly-generated mysteries. As you solve mysteries, you'll level up the skills of your minions, collect items to boost your stats, and socialise with people to learn more about them (and whether they're plotting against you).
* Everything your character says is your choice of what to say, like in an RPG. You have plenty of freedom in how you play the character. You don't need to worry that every choice will bring the game to an abrupt end - choices that are critically important to the plot are generally pretty obvious. So for the rest of it, just enjoy chatting with your friends the way YOU want to.
* Yuri romance or friendship options - If GxG is not your thing, you can still play the mystery-solving aspects and just be friends with your minions.
* The game is completely playable at this point, although additions are still being made. Art is in place. You can finish all the character routes and collect all the CGs. There's an achievement checklist and a jukebox and all that.
* Bugs? Yeah, there's probably still a few, this game is complicated. If you run into one, there should be buttons for you to upload the error messages you encounter, but feel free to post about them anyway. And if you can't upload for whatever reason, then please do post the error messages in this thread. If we don't know about it we can't fix it!
* Updates! You will need the license key from your purchase email to download new patches as they are released. You can generally safely apply anything labeled 'beta' (and you may want to check for updates right away after you install your game). Spiky's announcing new patches as they're released. Don't download patches labeled 'alpha' unless we specifically tell you to - that means *I* haven't tested it yet, so it's more likely to go kaboom.

What's not in the game

* Make-your-own-character / free-play mode still hasn't been done. I still want to make this happen and hope to add it in a later update, but if this part is really important to you, it's not there yet.

[skydragonwings]

I've been playing for a while and I haven't encountered any problems that actually interfere with the game, but I keep getting messages indicating that my saves might not load, or that it might cause problems if I try to play with them even if they do load. Thus far I've loaded a few saves with that message, chosen to ignore it, and nothing has gone wrong when I've played. I think I get more of the error messages in the second term usually, but it's happened in both terms and on every girl's route so far (I've played with everyone except Thais as my queen).

When I was playing Althea's route, in the second term I got a message almost every week saying that I wouldn't be able to save, or wouldn't be able to load if I did. This just happened as I was playing, not when I attempted to save specifically (and I didn't try to save after I started getting the messages). I think I selected the option to upload the log every time that happened, and that seemed to be working from my end. I also have an option to upload the save and debugging log when I get an error screen on trying to load a save, but my game freezes whenever I try to do that. This is the text I get when I save the debugging log (I haven't saved all of them, but I think they're all very similar, with a long list of student names):

(5, 'Expected a Student, got', <class 'store.RichendaStudent'>, 'discarded', [<Student 13847750: Valarie>, <Student 13bb67d0: May>, <Student 13bb0f90: Vivian>, <Student 13ba32f0: Allie>, <Student 13b99c30: Judy>, <Student 13494490: Tracey>, <Student 13ba3a70: Sheri>, <Student 13bb28d0: Kylie>, <Student 13bd2cf0: Kristal>, <Student 13ba3570: Anamarija>, <Student 13bb2b70: Patsy>, <Student 13ba37f0: Marguerite>, <Student 134ab930: Hilda>, <Student 13ba3d30: Sonya>, <Student 13bb2e50: Henrietta>, <Student 13ba3ff0: Tabitha>, <Student 134acb50: Hailee>, <Student 1347b0b0: Aurelia>, <Student 13bb6bf0: Leanna>, <Student 13b99350: Abbie>, <Student 1347a6d0: Nelda>, <Student 13bc54b0: India>, <Student 1347c170: Sharon>, <Student 1347aa70: Leigh>, <Student 13bb01f0: Sharron>, <Student 13490270: Valentina>, <Student 13b995f0: Alanna>, <Student 13b99ef0: Melisa>, <Student 13bb6f90: Jo>, <Student 13b99890: Kaye>, <Student 13bd28f0: Rosalind>, <Student 13bc0f70: Jewell>, <Student 1348d210: Kalean>, <Student 1347ae10: Lori>, <Student 13482b30: Lizzie>, <Student 13bc0cf0: Lauryn>, <Student 13837030: Brentnie>, <Student 13bc5870: Carina>, <Student 13482830: Octavia>, <Student 13bc0350: Chelesy>, <Student 13482d30: Haleigh>, <Student 13491c70: Christian>, <Student 13bc5c30: Summit>, <Student 138373b0: Rosetta>, <Student 1347c530: Marta>, <Student 1348ddd0: Roxanne>, <Student 13837770: Gayla>, <Student 1347ccd0: Chelsey>, <Student 13847eb0: Hilary>, <Student 13499cf0: Kaitlyn>, <Student 13499070: Carlie>, <Student 13499430: Mitzi>, <Student 13bb0a90: Kiera>, <Student 13bb07b0: \u00c1ine>, <Student 1347b430: Edna>, <Student 13499810: Serena>, <Student 1347b810: Laurie>, <Student 13499b50: Luraine>, <Student 13490dd0: Delilah>, <Student 134ac7b0: Janeicia>, <Student 1347c8d0: Valarie>, <Student 138473b0: Geraldine>, <Student 13491890: Anya>, <Student 1348da10: \u00c1gnes>, <Student 13494890: Stella>, <Student 134ac030: Jerry>], ('tr', 'underground_case'), 'Cultists', 'default_students')
(0, 'Save was', '6-4')
-end

Also, I don't know if this is related, but I just noticed that I don't have Mallory's CGs in the album even though I just beat the game with her as queen and got both of them. Althea's are there even though hers was the route I had the most saving issues on.

As I said, so far this hasn't interfered with actually playing the game, and I'm having a lot of fun doing that!

[hanako]

It autosaves every week, which is why it's throwing constant messages at you once something's gone wrong. Some case is causing bad Gossip again, apparently. (Will poke Spiky once he wakes up.)

(Unimportant sidenote - postcounts are being weird. I think any further posts in this forum should now add up but previous ones I guess still don't even though this subforum isn't private anymore. Not important, just noting.)

[zeru57]

In Trouble in Paradise, it's always the friend in the bottom row who knows what happened. That should probably be randomized.

[skydragonwings]

Do you know why Mallory's CGs aren't in my album? I definitely did see all of them when I was playing her route.

[Franka]

I've been playing for a while and I haven't encountered any problems that actually interfere with the game, but I keep getting messages indicating that my saves might not load, or that it might cause problems if I try to play with them even if they do load. Thus far I've loaded a few saves with that message, chosen to ignore it, and nothing has gone wrong when I've played.

Closing down the game and starting it again usually makes those load errors go away. Usually.

(Unimportant sidenote - postcounts are being weird. I think any further posts in this forum should now add up but previous ones I guess still don't even though this subforum isn't private anymore. Not important, just noting.)

(They've been weird for a good while.)

[hanako]

Oh I knew they were weird for a while, but I figured it was just because this forum, like the secrets forum, was hidden so posts didn't count. I thought they would start counting once I unhid it, but no. There's clearly a permissions setting somewhere that I'm not seeing. Anyway, I copied over permissions from a different subforum so now the posts are counting.

I have no idea why Mallory's CGs aren't showing in the album for you - they're showing up for me. Spiky's looking at something else right now but I'm sure he'll wander around here eventually

[skydragonwings]

It was a while ago and I don't think I have a save file for it, but one time Rowan became ill and was withdrawn from school after I failed to please the Red Mask Society, but she still showed up to be my personal slave after I got deferred. Then she still wasn't available for missions until she came back next term, at which point she got angry at me for failing to protect her and left again, which I assume is supposed to happen.

I guess it's not necessarily a bug if she's just that determined to please me, but it seemed a bit odd.

[hanako]

Yeah, that sounds like a bug.

[zeru57]

In Trouble in Paradise, it's always the friend in the bottom row who knows what happened. That should probably be randomized.

Nevermind about this - it is properly randomized.

[zeru57]

If you let the Steam tunnels case get to the bitter end and girls start getting headaches, etc., if Mallory becomes absent for nightmares, she will not actually be absent, and can still be assigned to cases. This does not happen with Vonne or Rowan, they will be absent as indicated.

[Spiky Caterpillar]

This is the text I get when I save the debugging log (I haven't saved all of them, but I think they're all very similar, with a long list of student names):

(5, 'Expected a Student, got', <class 'store.RichendaStudent'>, 'discarded', [<Student 13847750: Valarie>, (etc)
-end

Re-saving an errored save should make that error message go away; the underlying bug that was leaking nonstandard students into the gossip list when the steam tunnels case starts should be fixed in 0.9.15 (which isn't done yet).

Also, I don't know if this is related, but I just noticed that I don't have Mallory's CGs in the album even though I just beat the game with her as queen and got both of them. Althea's are there even though hers was the route I had the most saving issues on.

I can't reproduce this. If you first unlocked the CGs on a sufficiently old version the unlock data might not have saved - do they make it into the gallery if you play over the scenes where they unlock again?

[zeru57]

It seems weird that you can have a conversation with Thais about the Red Mask society before she gets poisoned, and when she comes back for spring semester she jumps straight to giving you Christmas presents and has apparently forgotten all about the Red Mask.

[skydragonwings]

I can try to replay the scenes with Mallory's CGs - could you let me know which weeks they appear on? Thanks!

[hanako]

It seems weird that you can have a conversation with Thais about the Red Mask society before she gets poisoned, and when she comes back for spring semester she jumps straight to giving you Christmas presents and has apparently forgotten all about the Red Mask.

Currently, with the obvious exception, most people don't have written reactions to the whole Red Mask thing if they get poisoned.

The meta-reason for this is that since you can't DO anything about it at this point (you've lost the thread, you can no longer target the Red Mask) it seems slightly pointless to derail the main plot over it, especially when the girls may not necessarily believe that the Mask was really behind them getting sick.

I may look at adding a quick handwave comment in a few cases, even if it's just a denial, but it does have to be fairly quickly brushed aside lest it raise too many questions that can't be addressed in that run. Only in the case where it has serious consequences does it merit a full scene, IMO.