Those of you who keep an eye on our twitter and/or forum are probably aware that there were a few small issues with the first release of “Dysfunctional Systems: Episode 1″. Namely, there is a CG that never unlocks, and also a missing piece of guest art. We have just released a new build which fixes these issues, and a few other things.

List of Fixes:

- Built with Ren’Py 6.15.4.320, which fixes some issues on 64-bit Linux, as well as improves general performance

- Problematic CG now unlocks when the game is complete

- Added in missing kaname guest art in extras

Instructions to update your installation are below.

NOTE: UPDATING YOUR GAME WILL REMOVE YOUR SAVE FILES. We are very sorry for this, but we couldn’t get saves compatible between versions. If losing your save files is unacceptable, please do not update your build. The missing content is at the bottom of this blog post.

Profiles are unaffected by this update.

Windows:

Download the new installer from your library (or using your serial) and run the installer (making sure that the old version of DS:EP1 is not running).

Done!

Mac:

Delete the old app from your applications folder.

Download the new .dmg from your library (or using your serial) and place the new app in your applications folder.

Done!

Linux:

Delete the old DS:EP1 directory.

Download the new .tar.gz2 from your library (or using your serial) and extract it wherever you please.

Done!

For your benefit, the CG and guest art in question are below.

Kaname‘s Guest Art

CG which would not unlock

Sorry about this issue, and thanks for playing!

Yep, the first episode in the “Dysfunctional Systems” series may now be purchased on our store! We at Dischan really hope you enjoy it. Also, if you hadn’t heard, you’ll be getting the original soundtrack by CombatPlayer along with your purchase! It’s called “Learning to Manage Chaos”, and is available in both FLAC and MP3.

This will be our first commercial visual novel release, and we put quite a lot of heart into it. If you like the it, please show support by spreading the word! Tell your friends, tell your family! Like it on Facebook, I don’t know!

And of course, since the game is out, the Dysfunctional Systems forum is up! Feel free to talk about your experience with the game once you’ve played it. You can also ask us some questions about it if you’d like.

Now then, please join Winter Harrison on her first (technically her second) adventure, and enjoy the ride.

I’m happy to announce that we’ve just pushed another site update. The primary purpose of this update was to clean up the back-end code and increase the speed, efficiency, and maintainability of the site. We achieved a lot of success in this area, and the site should be significantly faster and better able to handle heavy loads. There isn’t too much to talk about with regards to new features, but there are still some important things to note.

Due to some major changes in how personal messages are handled, we decided to clear the current PM database rather than try to convert all the old messages to the new system. We looked at the common types of personal messages in the database and found that most were just thread update notifications anyway. That being said, although your old messages are no longer accessible from your inbox, we are still in possession of a backup of the database. If there are any messages of your ownership which are important to you, feel free to contact us and we will provide you with them. We will retain this backup for a month or two.

The forum software has also received a major overhaul, and for this reason thread subscriptions have been reset. If there were any threads you were subscribed to, you will have to resubscribe to them to continue receiving updates.

We apologize for these inconveniences.

A list of other smaller changes follows:

• Cross forum quotes are now supported
• Additional Dischan PSAs for the forum
• Personal messages may no longer be sent to multiple recipients
• Fixed some style bugs
• Updated some site content
• Various other small bug fixes

Dysfunctional Systems

There have been some questions floating around since our announcement a few days ago. We decided that we should answer some of them.

“Will Dysfunctional Systems have choices?”

Yes.

“How many episodes will there be?”

We decided on a maximum of five episodes. There may be one or two less, depending on what time and resources we have available in the future.

“What will the release cycle be like?”

We still have Cradle Song to work on, so the release cycle for episodes will likely be a bit slow. We expect to be able to release an episode a year, but we’ll see how things progress. We might be able to be faster than that.

“Will there be an iOS/Android version?”

We are going to be working on iOS versions of the episodes, however they will take us longer and we cannot guarantee their release dates. We are also looking into Android, but it’s uncertain if or when we can make any ports for it.
 

Cradle Song

It’s been a while since we’ve released any news on Cradle Song, and I apologize for that. We’re still working on it, and hopefully this post will sate any worries you may have developed.

As most of you probably know, the currently released preview of Cradle Song is only part of the full demo which we want to get out before the finished game. This year we will be buckling down hard in an effort to get the full demo finished and released.

It should be quite possible as well. The demo script has been finished for a while, and lately we’ve just been refining it to ensure it’s perfect. We have quite a few sprite sets completed, and recently RiceGnat helped us to finished another. Doomfest and Ricegnat were also able to work on world building concept art (some of which we shared in a previous post). Sound effects and music are now working their way into the game as well.

In conclusion, the demo is in a “playable” state, but not a presentable one. We are still missing some sprite sets and backgrounds, and there is more audio and visual directing to be done.

Regardless, we’ll try our best to get it out as soon as possible, look forward to it.
 

Dischan

We’re drawing close to a pivotal time for Dischan. For the past three and a half years, we’ve been sheltered from the requirements of the real world. Finding time and money never posed too much of a problem, thanks for our university schedules and student loans.

However, as we near graduation, we will lose these shields. Our student loans will be turning into burdens, and our university schedules will be turning into full time jobs. I’ve already lost my loan, and for the past four months have been working part-time in addition to attending university and working with Dischan.

To a degree, we have also been victims of our own success. As our popularity increases, so do our costs. We’ve had to upgrade our servers several times since our original $6 a month shared hosting plan. New costs have also appeared, such as SSL certificates, software licenses, developer licenses, and domain name renewals. I’ve been happy to pay these expenses out-of-pocket for the past three years, but they are starting to add up. I don’t make much money at my part time job, and the more I have to work, the more time I have to sacrifice that I could be spending on Dischan.

This is why we decided to charge for Dysfunctional Systems. While we don’t expect it to do so well as to allow us to circumvent employment, we do hope it might make enough to alleviate the burden of funding Dischan. It may also be the start of something bigger for us.

I don’t think it’s been any secret that we love doing this. The quality of product we put out amazes me, and sometimes I can’t believe I’ve had the opportunity to work in a group with such talented people.

We do hope that someday Dischan will become a self-sufficient business. It would be a dream come true to do this for a living. One commercial release won’t get us there, but it is a start, and you have to start somewhere. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and likewise our success will likely take some time.

It’s difficult to properly convey my excitement over the idea of Dischan becoming a real development studio. Looking at the things we’ve been able to create for free, while some of us have been working, or going to school, is amazing. The possibilities of what we could create working full-time with a budget would be several times greater.

Whether or not that dream becomes a reality is entirely up to you: our fans. If you like what we make, please consider purchasing it. That’s all we ask.

I think we have a great future ahead of us, and I can’t wait to build it.

I’m happy to announce that we will be releasing the first episode of a new visual novel series called “Dysfunctional Systems” on April 4th, 2013 for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It will cost $5. You can find out more about Dysfunctional Systems on its official website. We’ve released the opening video for the series early and you can view it below.

What is Dysfunctional Systems?

Dysfunctional Systems is an episodic visual novel chronicling the life of Winter Harrison. Having long become comfortable with her utopian society, Winter is surprised to learn that there are other worlds in other planes of existence. These worlds are quite different from hers, ranging from troubled, to dystopian, to futuristic or fantastical. However, they are all riddled with problems that, if not resolved, may adversely affect her home world. She is chosen to become a “mediator”, charged with the maintenance of order in these chaotic planes, and so enters a vocational school for training. Episode 1 details her second shadowing of a seasoned mediator, only a few weeks into her first year. She and her mentor enter a world seemingly much like their own, except for this issue of “poverty” with which Winter has difficulty understanding…

 

For those of you wondering, the Dysfunctional Systems series will be worked on concurrently with Cradle Song. We had a lot of fun making Juniper’s Knot, and decided that we’d like to continue doing the occasional short-term project. There will be another blog post in the next few weeks elaborating the state of Cradle Song as well as Dischan as a whole.