Hi.

Since the release of Build B I've had to update the game three times because of bugs. I'm very sorry if you bought the game yesterday and had to play it in an unfinished state. 

Unfortunately, it seems that my current testing system has failed to find all bugs in the game - with older versions, I was used to getting feedback on things like these so that I could fix them, but sadly, my main tester (who was extremely dedicated and put so much work into going through the whole game and documenting it) has become busy with real life responsibilities and so I had to rely on new ones. 

As a result, two routes - Charlie's and William's had numerous bugs in them that were never reported to me. I confronted the tester of those routes about it and I think they will have to be replaced so that this doesn't continue. I considered testing the whole game myself but it would mean huge delays (also testing your own game isn't great since you'd make all the right choices, never see some niche outcomes that might be bugged, and can't provide feedback on the story). I'm typically of the mindset of "if you want something done right, do it yourself", but testing really is something that is done more reliably by someone else. The problem starts when that someone doesn't have the same approach to the game as you do and sees a bug but doesn't report it, either thinking that it's intentional (like when I was running through the game quickly to check if it crashes and realized that most of the game has no music because of a technical issue with the file format, but it was never reported to me before as my testers thought it was intentional) or not noticing it at all.

The whole bug situation has been extremely taxing for me because it makes me feel like I'm having people pay for something that doesn't work and they might drop the game with an impression that it's poorly made and that I'm incompetent as a developer. I'm also a very distrustful person so seeing issues in the game that would have been fixed if I did the testing myself makes me want to never ask anyone for help with the project again, which would be a really bad mindset to have because feedback helps so much and I love interacting with the community.

I don't mean to sound like I'm pushing the blame onto someone else. I treat this project very seriously and I take full responsibility for all the issues that have shown up in the game. The tester is also a friend of mine, and  the last thing I want to do is antagonize them. That said, I should be more careful when selecting testers in the future and I think that's a lesson learned for me. I don't hold it against them, nor do I think it's their fault - everyone makes mistakes, I know I do.

In short, I'm having one of my testers replaced, which should hopefully mean less bugs in future builds and less stress for everyone involved, me especially.