Hangouts Four & Five Released!

Both Hangout Four and Hangout Five have been released, which means that the Hangouts feature is now finished! Please note that the price of the game will increase soon now that the Hangouts are released, so now is a good time to get the game at a reduced price!

With these Hangouts comes two new Outfit sets — Pirates and Suits. Whether you prefer to plunder other detective team's ships or make sure Team Tads looks spiffy for a night out on the town, you will now have the option!

Changes to Hangouts System

• Vote choices no longer impact Morale

• Outfits now unlock when you get a good ending instead of requiring both good and bad endings

The votes in each File used to impact Hangout Morale — for example, the character who you voted for as "Most Useless" would have a lower Morale when you began the Hangout. This wasn't very intuitive or clearly communicated, and led to some edge cases of players not being able to improve Morale for a character, so this is no longer the case.

I also realized that making you play through both "good" and "bad" routes to unlock the Outfits was a little too demanding. I designed it that way so you would be encouraged to see as much of the dialog as possible, since there is some interesting dialog hidden behind "bad" options. However, asking players to try to get the characters to dislike them on purpose seemed a bit odd and confusing, especially since whether the characters like each other or not doesn't affect the dialog in the main story. After running a poll to get a sense of what solution would be best, I've now changed it so they unlock after getting good endings.

Other Improvements

• Bagels and Baguettes has been given a quieter remix to play during Hangout Two

• Improperly aligned text in Support minigame in File 04 fixed

• Line added for context during File 04 theories

File 06 Enters Production

I've started working on File 06, and judging from how long the other Files took, it will take at least six months to finish. When I release it, Methods: The Canada Files will finally be complete. It's been a longer development journey than I predicted, so thank you for your patience and for supporting the game in Early Access.

Have fun with the new Hangouts and outfits!

Until next time!

— LockedOn.