[Progress Report]: 5th of January

 Hey everyone,

It's January again. Join me for a quick chat as we celebrate the life and loss of the game's Relationship Panel menu. Yes, I'm serious. I've been coding all week and now I see why programmers are just as nutty as writers.

The relationship panel was introduced well past the launch of the game. In the beginning, I didn't think I needed a way to track events and, back when there were only twenty in the game, I was right. At this point in time, that is no longer the case. It was an ugly, quick, lick it and stick it job made during one the development cycles as a response to feedback I received on a forum. It helped a lot of people navigate those early days of the game, but it has fallen to the wayside due to a myriad of problems.

The amount of characters I've wanted in the game has stayed more or less static since I originally came up with the story, but they took so long to introduce that I hadn't thought of how I would add them to all of the preexisting systems, like the relationship panel. This is why the tabs appear when you see a new character. I just added them to the space to the right. I'm also running out of room.

There's not really a reason to use it, either. The minimap is a better navigational tool, and new chat bubbles (you can see Riley's waiting to strike) are going to render it redundant. After a discussion on Discord, I'm also planning on adding new "Floor Navigators" in the future that will alert you to what floor content is on. I am planning on expanding the Academy, so this will be necessary. Sandbox events will likely get a different treatment, but I'll cross that bridge later.

Anyway, this is a long-winded post to say that the UI update is nearly complete. I'm going to finish and polish the new menu this week and begin work on the story wiki.

Also, many of you have reached out to me at this point about a possible progression bug regarding Ferocitease appearing. That will be sorted out by the next update as I will be doing three comprehensive playthroughs to finish the wiki. I apologize for the inconvenience that has caused.

Boy, this is a long post.

In short, the Relationship Panel is dead! Long live the Story Panel! I'm going back to coding.

Thank you for all of your support,

~Solace