Shepherds of Haven (WIP) (DEMO UPDATE: 3 Aug 2021)

THE CLIFFHANGER!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?! OMG!!! :sob: :sob: :sob:

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Spending time scene with Tallys in ch 3 is the same scene in ch2, where they go outside of walls to pick herbs. I am guessing this is a bug?

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Ah, thank you so much for your kind words! :heart: I’m so, so happy you enjoyed the story, your words mean the world! :blush:

And thank you to everyone for reading and enjoying the demo so far, and for your excitement and enthusiasm! :heart_eyes: It’s really very motivating lol!

I know, I’m sorry!!! When I was looking at the chapter I was literally like, “Oh man, it would be really cruel and unusual to end at this cliffhanger…” and then I did it anyway gfldggfd forgive me for my sins!!!

MC: Just tell me one thing you like to do

Blade: Exist

You absolutely can flirt with Chase as friends and keep doing so; he kind of does it too even if his feelings towards you are strictly platonic! I intend “flirty” to be a potential personality type of the MC’s and a way they interact with people and the world, the same way they can be “broody” or “optimistic”–rather than necessarily something you have to do to romance someone, which is why actually flirting often doesn’t net romance flags or affect a romantic relationship with certain characters. I know this has proved confusing for people who are like, “I’m playing as a lesbian, why do I get flirtation options with Chase?”, but I put it there as an option because it can be fun for certain players who want to roleplay a certain way, and I absolutely know people in real life who casually flirt with others as a way of talking or interacting, even if they’re not sexually or romantically attracted to them!

Anyway, that’s a long-winded way of saying yes, you can flirt and banter back and forth with Chase to your heart’s content. :slight_smile:

It is done in the alpha build and I’m told it’s… entertaining! :grin:

It is possible to use a WOP to save both Caine and Prihine, and still get your magic high enough to defeat the first two Faceless Lords! I personally tested that, though it can be difficult depending on what routes you choose!

For testing purposes, I’ll put the skill checks for the first two Faceless Lords below. Please note that these are very liable to change as testing continues; I was pretty arbitrary with setting these values at first, and will adjust according to difficulty later down the road!

The skill checks are currently:

  • Blaphemel: at least 35 Magic or higher
  • Clochus: in order to destroy him permanently, you need to wound Clochus and get his health to 50 or lower (he starts at 100) by using various attacks against him first. Then you need at least 47 Magic or higher. If you have 47 Magic but his health is above 50, he will be banished back to Hael, but not destroyed.

It’s not necessarily a bug; I moved that second day off scene with Tallys to the third day off because I felt the pacing was more natural if you slept with her on the third time rather than the second. But I haven’t written the scene that will be the “second” day off scene yet, so there’s a placeholder for now, and that’s probably why you see the scene twice! You should have gotten this message on your second day off with her:

I hope that explains things! :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the answer! If you ask me, with what we’ve played so far those checks make perfect sense to me. You could probably set the second one even a little higher if you want. At the end of the public demo I think I was at like 63 magic or something like that. 60s-70s and I chose as many magic increasing options as I could on the routes that I played (couldn’t get any from Hal bc I was a war mage though, and obviously I missed the 4% increase from fighting the revenant with magic, I used the WOP)

Of course I’m good with where it’s at too :joy: I do appreciate the leeway to do other things after all.

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Me: I never remembered volunteering to exist? lol

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@rinari Do you have plans to release this on Steam aswell? I’ve heard they require jumping through extra hoops, but I’ve always preferred playing these games on Steam so I can edit save files (and possibly… maybe… cheat).

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The platforms a game releases on are at CoG’s discretion, not at the author’s request.

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I thought the author had some say in whether or not it would go on Steam. That would explain why some games from both Hosted Games and CoG are on Steam but others aren’t.

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Congrats on the public update Lena!

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This cliffhanger is just mean​:sweat::sob:

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When you update you always go all out. That was one hell of an update!

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Holy shiiiite…I stayed up WAY too late playing through every path possible last night, like it was my job. (Fun fact: I wish it was! ;P) Your writing continues to amaze :heart: Congrats on the awesome new chapter!

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uhhhh cheats ?

This is good to know! I’ll have to ask you what your stats are at for the third Faceless Lord eventually; I want to strike a balance where it becomes more difficult to beat the Faceless Lords, but in a way that doesn’t force people to min-max their stats and enjoy the story!

As @rose-court says, the company decides what games go on what platforms, including Steam. It takes more manpower and money (for them, the publisher) to publish on Steam, which is why not all games go on there, and it’s at their discretion. I would love for Shepherds to be available on Steam eventually, and it would be a dream come true! But I leave that decision up to the staff. :slight_smile:

Thank you so much!!! :heart:

Are you asking for cheats haha? If so, I don’t make them for my own games except for testing purposes, though they’ll be removed in the final published version of the game.

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Also, the Shepherds of Haven Holiday Contest Winners have been decided!

Shepherds of Haven Holiday Contest Winners

You can view all entries and winners on the official contest page here!

1st Prize Winner: @cariykon​

Prize: Shepherds of Haven Gift Box

2nd Prize Winners (Tie): @mr081​ and @jaexmi​!

Prize: Shepherds of Haven T-shirt

3rd Prize Winner: @elmshore​ for “winter embers, burning bright”

Prize: 3 Shepherds of Haven Stickers, Magnets, or Bookmarks in a Special Wax-Sealed Envelope

Honorary Prizes:

Congratulations once again to all winners, and thank you so much to everyone who participated and created all of these amazing entries for the contest! You really made the end of 2020 an incredible and magical time. :slight_smile: Thank you!

I’ll be offline today for my partner’s birthday, but I will be in contact with all winners in the coming days. If you’re a fan of the game, check out everyone’s incredible fan creations for Shepherds of Haven at the link above! Thank you so much everyone again, and happy Wintersun! :heart:

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this is so well written and there are so many choices that make you want to replay it over and over to explore all the areas of the story. I really enjoyed it !

there were a couple of tiny things that I noticed, apologies if they’ve already been pointed out by someone:

it says gold instead of deucalions here (idk if they’re interchangeable terms or not ?):

(it’s not letting me attach a picture for some strange reason but it’s when you try to buy a medicinal sachet from Chandry)

the chapter summary bit in the stats screen doesn’t update past chapter 1, even when you are on chapters further than that.

when, in chapter 2, you take the route to investigate the minister of trade and end up being knocked out in the office you wake up once still at the gala and then once at the infirmary which just felt a bit odd to me, as in the infirmary the same events are explained to you as when you wake up at the gala and so I wasn’t sure what the point was of the gala scene. it just confused me a little.

anyway, it was very enjoyable and the choices felt meaningful so I look forward to reading more :slight_smile:

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I’ve been reading my favorite story called Black Horda in webtoons one of the main characters named
Cywer reminds me of Chase

Back to playing this after a while. Looks like there was a lot to catch up on, which is great. Disappointed in the lack of options though when talking to Chase. Really want to tell him to stick it where the sun don’t shine, but the closest we seem to be able to choose is mild indifference. I get that he has resources that the Shepherds can use, but I would appreciate an option to show that it’s the only reason my MC hasn’t argued to throw him in the Void

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Wait wait wait
So there ARE cheats? How do we get them

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