The first five episodes of Scarlet Hollow are now a combined one-million words long!
On that note, we've wrapped up writing work on our planned expansion to Episode 5, which means we're moving on to art. We'll be looking to get a build of this update out to testers in about a couple of weeks, so if you're interested in checking it out early, you can sign up for our Patreon and get access to exclusive Discord channels on our server.
Here's (some of) what you can expect from this upcoming expansion:
Episode 5:
- About 70,000 words of new and remastered content, with most of it expanding some of the shorter sections of the chapter.
- Visit the church for spiritual guidance!
- Chat with Avery and Doctor Kelly while driving to the farms.
- Talk at Franklin from the back of the squad car after you've been arrested.
- The transition to the farms should be smoother and more drawn out across most playthroughs, including longer interactions with Reese, Wayne and Irma.
- Players romancing Reese with the Hot trait will have the ability to more thoroughly explore the town, though this might come with its own set of consequences.
- Going to the farms with Stella will have more route-unique content, including some entirely new backgrounds.
- Most routes through Episode 5 now contain more background context for Julius, helping bring players who skipped Julius-relevant scenes in previous Episodes up to speed.
- The Tabitha office confrontation scene has been rebalanced. Overall, the "best" outcome should be harder to obtain, without making it easier to trigger a hard failure. The "most powerful" strategies for this scene have been nerfed, and the weakest strategies have been buffed.
- Keen Eye has been given a number of buffs. Notably, it now gives the player warnings ahead of major relationship checks that the player is likely going to fail before the player locks in to an attempt. This further cements its role as a powerful trait for first time players, while falling off for players with significant game knowledge.
- Reworked the farms ending where the player transfers the baby to a wounded Avery to communicate what's going on more clearly, and bring it in line with our original vision.
Earlier Episodes:
- Added a confirmation screen before taking The Roads Untraveled route in Episode 2, with in-universe narration suggesting that the player might miss out on things by staying at the Estate. We think this route provides a compelling perspective on certain characters and events, but it also makes the game’s social elements harder to navigate, and it makes it easy to miss context around Avery and Julius. We think it’s best to take this on a second playthrough, but we also don’t want to fully restrict players from taking options that feel correct for their characters. Hopefully this nudge balances things out!
- Expanding on the above, the player now has the option to return to the Estate in Episode 2 after visiting town, allowing for more exploration (General Store + Diner) without committing to the Stella/Kaneeka library route. This opens up Avery’s content and Julius’ introduction in the diner while still allowing the player to roleplay as avoiding danger and respecting Tabitha’s wishes.
- Removed the Street Smart requirement for giving Isaacs the player’s contact information specifically for The Roads Untraveled mines route. This should both open up more story avenues for players taking this path, and serve to boost player relationships compared to the default route. Snitching on the strike should give the player an opportunity to avoid Tabitha’s hangout without taking a further penalty to her relationship, and also opens up an opportunity to take a hangout with another character.
- Avery's scene in the general store in Episode 3 now occurs across all playthroughs, instead of just serving as a catch-up scene for players who didn't meet Avery in previous episodes.
- New rare resolution to the clinic in Episode 4.
There'll be more to find than the above, but we'll leave of that to fan discovery :]
Writing for Episode 6 is also well under way!
Cheers,
Tony and Abby
