Hey everyone! I know it’s been a while since I updated this game, and I'm very sorry for that, but recently I’ve been getting back into doing some more Lovestruck stuff with Ren’Py and I wanted to make some major UI and quality of life improvements to MSCR to improve the gameplay experience and hopefully make the game closer to the original Lovestruck version as possible.

I also went ahead and redid all of the episodes in the Arianna special because I wasn’t entirely happy with how I remade these episodes the first time around, so I hope you enjoy the improvements I made.

Before we get started with the patch notes, Here is an comparison between the old UI and the new one!

Before

After!

Bonus! The New, Lovestruck Inspired, Quick Menu!

Now that is out of the way, here are the patch notes!

General

• Made a minor adjustment to when you start the game so that you get a good look at MC before selecting her name. (This was a big issue on Android where the keyboard covers most, if not all of MC’s character sprite when selecting her name.)
• Made some minor changes to the text when starting the game. The tutorial text should now sound a lot less cringe.
• The Auto button returns! Yay! Now you can let Ren’Py progress the text for you! Yay!

Arianna

• Significantly improved the Trina shoving the MC off the surfboard animation in Special, Episode 1.
• Replaced the fade scene transition with the dissolve scene transition when MC is pushed into the water in Special, Episode 1.
• MC now no longer appears standing on the water when surfacing from the ocean floor in Special, Episode 1.
• MC now no longer floats near Trina when talking about what she found on the ocean floor in Special, Episode 1.
• Fixed an issue with missing speech marks in dialogue when Arianna talks to the MC for the first time in Special, Episode 1.
• Added some head bobbing animations for Arianna’s full-face sprite in Special, Episode 1.
• Added new exit animations for Arianna in Special, Episodes 1, 2.
• Fixed a bug where Hamish’s character sprite height changes when leaving the surf shop in Special, Episode 1.
• Increased the speed of an animation in Special, Episode 2 where Arianna returns to the tidepools after performing mermaid tricks.
• Fixed Hamish’s sprite height in the surf shop scene in Special, Episode 2 when talking to the MC.
• Arianna and MC now no longer floats in the air in the ocean in Special, Episode 2.
• Added a new animation at the start of Special, Episode 3 where MC gets on her surfboard.
• Adjusted Arianna’s character sprite height in the ocean in Special, Episode 3.
• Fixed an issue where MC and Arianna character sprites are set too high on the beach in Special, Episode 3. (I had no idea why that happened. Maybe I changed something in the previous update?)
• Made some positional improvements to Arianna’s character sprite in Special, Episode 4.
• Simplified the flashing images warning at the start of Special, Episode 5.
• Made some adjustments to Arianna’s character sprite height during the underwater scene in Special, Episode 5.
• Fixed an issue where the MC’s character sprite is not positioned in the middle alongside Arianna’s sprite in the beach bar in Special, Episode 5.
• Added Hamish’s missing “sad” full body sprites in Special, Episodes 5 and 6.
• Added Hamish’s missing “sad” full face sprite in Special, Episodes 5 and 6.
• Made some improvements to Arianna’s sprite exit animation at the end of Special, Episode 6.
  

Lexi

• Added a missing fade transition at the start of Season 1, Episode 10.
• Fixed some issues with missing speech marks in dialogue in Season 1, Episode 1.

UI

• Replaced the default Ren’Py main menu with a newly redesigned main menu.
• The main menu background now changes every time you complete a season! The main menu will revert back to normal when you start a new game.
• You can now toggle the Textbox frame on and off in the settings!
• You can now customise the opacity of the Textbox using a slider in the settings menu!
• Renamed “Start” to “Start Game” in the main menu.
• Renamed “CG Gallery” to “Gallery” in the main menu.
• Replaced the “heart scene” indicator icon with a bigger icon.

Gallery

• Replaced the text buttons for selecting a character’s gallery page with character icons!
• Slightly moved the CG previews inside of Arianna’s gallery page.

Textbox

• The top of the Textbox now has a gradient effect to decrease the ‘blockyness’ of the old Textbox.
• The ugly namebox that appears behind each character name has been removed.
• Character names now have an underline beneath them.
• Made some small adjustments to text and name positions from inside of the Textbox.

Quick Menu

• The quick menu has been fully remade to look as similar to the original Lovestruck UI as possible!
• The quick menu on PC and Mac is now displayed from the right-hand side of the screen instead from the left-hand side.
• On Android, the ugly hamburger menu button which displays the quick menu has been replaced by the new quick menu. Yay!

Android

• Tablet users will now use the UI designed for Android phones instead of a mix between the PC/Mac UI and the Android phone UI from the previous version. (Yeah, I admit, the user experience for Android tablets was a bit of a mess, sorry…)

PC/Mac

• The size of text in game has been increased across the board for better accessibility.

Other

• Fixed a bug where the MC character sprite is slightly taller than normal.
• Removed a loose zip file from the game files. Oops!
  

Well… Time for me to disappear into the void again. Thank you for your support and I’ll see you all very soon!

BeamyComet