Haha i havent yet gotten playing far but im already curious of that one 
I’d like to keep detailed discussion of the parts of the game later than the public demo (so Chapter 7 onwards, and anything I added during beta) for after the release, please - partly to avoid spoilers so people can come in fresh but also because it’s very subject to change at this stage.
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Totally understandable, my apologies. I have removed what was in the spoiler and can delete the post if you wish.
No worries at all! 
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I’m feeling really pleased with some of the stuff I’m putting in during the beta. Admittedly my changelogs are becoming increasingly deranged during the month but I’ve added 27K+ more words. A lot of the words are spoilery but something that isn’t is that I’ve been making the romances feel more responsive and organic. Characters notice more if you’re dating other people and check in what your intentions are, and there’s a lot more flexibility about deciding to break up (sometimes in a pretty amicable/“hey this didn’t work out, let’s go our separate ways” fashion, sometimes with more upset) or swap to someone else. There does become a point where you need to decide between some characters who are monogamous or incompatible, but you can spend some time figuring it out.
The beta feedback has been and continues to be invaluable and I’m feeling confident about things at the moment (more so than at the equivalent stages of other projects, actually) which is a nice place to be. It’s absolutely fantastic to be able to be responsive to all the helpful comments.
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I can’t speak for everyone - or heck, I probably can actually: thank you for making this beta such a joy to work on. Although I’m a newcomer to your fandom, being back in Westerlin feels like coming home. The story and characters are excellent, the writing is good, and even the newer material that hasn’t already been read yet by hundreds of people is pretty polished. (I’ve been alternating Royal Affairs with Choice of Rebels this week, and I swear you and @Havenstone are going to make me forget that beta testing can be pretty intense work!) You’re always a joy to work with, and it’s been delightful to see how this story has continued to blossom as you take our comments and suggestions to heart. I’ll be forever proud of having had even a tiny part in what I’m sure will be another widely-acclaimed favorite.
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That’s so so kind, thank you 
I am feeling really positive about how things are going and very grateful for the help in improving!
Although the provisional date was February, it’s going to be more like March, which means that it will have the room to make sure it’s as polished as possible; I’m also able to add in some nice-to-haves that I wasn’t sure I’d have time to do!
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What does q1 2023 mean?
Generally speaking, first quarter. So January to March
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That’s right!
Something that’s shocked me as I’ve come to the end is how big Royal Affairs is. The last three chapters are a lot bigger than those in Crème de la Crème but there was a long time when writing the first draft that I was confident that it would be shorter. It was always intended to be smaller in scope (though with some larger scale events) especially because of having fewer main characters and fewer branching school clubs, and it has just… not been. Currently it’s quite a bit longer in total and a lot longer per playthrough. I guess games are a gas that expands to fit any available space…?
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I had an incredible amount of feedback come in over the weekend and wanted to say to anyone who sent it in who’s reading: thank you so much, I’ve read it, and if you don’t notice things in the changelog reflecting it yet, usually it’s because I’ve either put it under “various additions”, or I’m giving it a little more thinking time while fixing recent bugs (some of which I introduced myself by doing quick edits. Thank you past me). Occasionally I don’t end up changing things based on feedback but more often I do so in some way in the end!
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To celebrate Royal Affairs being out soon, I’m considering commissioning a portrait of one of the main characters. I don’t know when it’ll happen due to artist timings, but I’d love to hear who you’d like to see - please fill out the poll here if you fancy it!
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I’m having an issue I think it might be most helpful to post about here: for people who have done multiple playthroughs (four or more) with randomized genders, are there any characters who have turned out to be the same gender every time?
As far as I know it’s randomised using *rand and I haven’t noticed that myself - but then I haven’t been looking for it. Which character(s) have been staying the same for you?
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Prince Javi
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I’ll do some checks to make sure things are behaving as they should!
Edit: @AletheiaKnights I did some testing, with 10 randomtest seeds and 10 manually playing through the randomisation onscreen, and all the characters ended up with variations across playthroughs, though some were more and some less evenly spread. I’m not a statistics person but I suspect that with only 3 options for each, and a relatively (statistically speaking) low number of playthroughs, it’s not super unlikely for there to be a few of the same in a row. But I don’t think there’s anything to be done about that other than players going through and choosing some or all themselves.
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Sorry to alarm you then. I didn’t really mean you to go through all that unless other people reported the same issue.
Oh no, don’t worry! It’s really good to double check 
Recently only one person found an obscure bug in the stats page and I almost assumed it was to do with an update mismatch, but then discovered it was something that needed fixing - I’d always rather hear about something and check, than miss it.
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Arkham-Ball(t)
You are not alone in the embarrassment.
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