Well, we're not quite there yet, but we're so close! I had to do a complete re-write of the game engine in many fundamental places. Check out the GitHub for the complete code differences, but it's intense. Hopefully, the game doesn't play much different - if anything, this should be a somewhat quiet update - but under the hood, it's been completely redone. I did this because there are some fun surprises I want to have in it by the 28th that the previous engine wasn't quite fast enough to handle.

(The 'valentines day update' is named as version TremblayIsland_021422.gba)

THE GOOD

Tons of bug fixes, especially stability fixes! Now, there are some weird graphical quirks I'm still working on, but the most important detail is that it won't crash. I also added a new scoring HUD, a new rewards screen, and thanks to the new engine, many of the top-down minigames are a LOT more flexible, since they're now based on the same core code as the actual overworld! In theory, this will eventually mean you can play through them with different characters if you wanted to for some reason.

The most obvious change is the new art!! I spend a little over a week drawing 60 all-new panels to really make it come to life. The cutscenes are finally in the same art style as the cartoon short, partially because I discovered the style transferred over to GBA really well without any compression artefacts. Check out the screenshots if you're curious!

THE BAD

There are no game-breaking bugs in this build, thank goodness, but there are quirks. I also had to remove the hat stand for the time being, and replaced it with a sign. It'll come back by the 28th, no worries, it was just causing the entire game to catastrophically collapse for no discernable reason(?!)

I couldn't get to a few other bugs. While the small (somewhat easier) bugs were resolved, the collision engine needs an overhaul eventually. The reason why will become obvious once you get later into the game. It's not game-breaking, but the results are a little... humorous, let's just put it that way.

I only have two weeks before launch, so we'll see what I can do to get it stable by then.

THE UGLY

Okay... TWO WEEKS TO LAUNCH. If this was all I had, I'd be in trouble. However, the Kickstarter doesn't end until Feb. 28 (yay!), which means that I'm not ordering cartridges until then, which means that I might have up to an extra month for development while I'm waiting for them to come. I'll be frantically working to get version 1.0 out by Feb. 28 but expect updates very shortly afterwards.

Thank you everyone for checking out this game! I hope everyone has a great day, and a very happy Valentine's day!