Ravenhaul

my game froze :( and i was almost ready to accept the queen's patronage too D:

PS this has happened a few times, and my progress doesn't save when i reload or close the tab

Is there a list of known bugs somewhere? Because like... I'm very charmed by this game, and I'd like to try to finish it, but I've had to start over a couple times now because it froze or crashed, both times pretty late in the game.

The first time, it froze right after I accepted Silvermane Trading as a patron, while playing it in the browser.

The second time, it crashed right after I accepted the Silvermane Trading parcel contract for the first time. I'd already done their letter contract a few times at that point, and I was playing the Windows desktop post-jam version.

I kind of still want to try to get to the end, but like.. It'd be nice to have a list of common causes of crashes so I know what actions to either avoid, or try to get out of the way early so if it is going to crash, it'll at least do it early in a playthrough.

EDIT: Ok, I've had the game crash out on me 5 times now.

I'm not sure it's worth trying again until the next build release, but I think I'm at least *starting* to notice a pattern; it only ever happens after I unlock Silvermane Trading as a client. It doesn't happen *every* time I unlock them or sign contracts with them, but every time it's happened, it's been a fraction of a second after I close the contract window; it lets me move for a couple frames, then I hear the squeaky pulley sound, and it freezes. And I *think* it might have to do with the parcel contract specifically.

EDIT 2: Ok, I tried a seventh time and I just decided to skip out on Silvermane Trading as a client entirely; this time I got a lot farther, but I'd accepted Queen Isadora as a patron, and I was gearing up to finally accept Queen Isadora's contract when it crashed AGAIN when I accepted a variety of contracts from other clients.

I was looking for unique management games and this one became one of my favorite ! It's simple yet fascinating, I've been playing at my own pace for 2 hours now ! 

I'm on the browser version for now, and I just wanted to ask if it was normal that I can't move the birds ? I wanted to make some space for more nests, so I waited for the merchant to come and I clicked the "move for 50 currencies" button. But my cursor highlights the tiles on the wall and not the nests, and clicking on them does nothing. Do I have to wait for the birds to be in them first or is this a bug ?

how do you load the saved game instead of starting all again?

This seems to be a hidden gem after scrolling through thousand horror games here. I love this game, the design, the music, the game play, everything. Thank you for creating this.

Btw, somehow my character kicked parcels and letters into the contract room or departure hall, I couldn't pick up these parcels to deliver so I had to pay the penalties many times. Hopefully the developers will take note of this point

do the birds die if you dont feed them

the game have save?

i don't know how to carry two letters, pls someone teaches me how to do it

New comment for new version! :)

I installed the PostJam version (dated: 2023-05-23) using the itch.io app on Windows 10.

First general comments: WOW, this is way different from the previous version... a lot more streamlined and with some information management made significantly easier, though I will note that the extra information and how some of the old information now matters more means the information handling load is pretty heavy, though due to the extended play time (WITH NO SAVE) caused by the need to get each patron on the list rather than skipping some is useful for teaching more about how the system work and working on that muscle memory but also makes it less likely that I have a play session long enough to finish the game... so the end game will not get play tested or only one or twice I'm afraid.

I'll also add that the absolute need to get the range numbers right due to tightening up the speed and distance requirements make it possible to stuff yourself going onto a new patron... I couldn't deliver anything for the smiths for ages because I had to save up for birds that could do the work and the fastest apothecary note was also a long term saving project (made worse because I over committed due to not realising that one of my crows didn't have the range and not correctly sequencing things).

I appreciate being able to see how my birds are flying as well as being given times for sleep and return though the jump in speed of sleeping between minimal and short is rather big, no? It definitely makes getting some birds to minimal or just not bothering to upgrade that at all and going for speed as long as they have enough range. I think overall this part of the game is the hardest as I've already had to sell one bird (and extend my playthrough) because the upgrades I made didn't match what I later needed from said bird - I like that it was feasible to do this but maybe not the reason (a lack of information about what ranges are actually needed - can I suggest that either the birds' and delivery items' range be listed in the same way as sleep and not to require exact numbers (do these birds really count the exact kms they fly?? or change the patron list to include a maximum range in numbers for them?) Also see below...

Bugs:

I can no longer get trapped in the shop thanks to every overlay screen properly pausing the action and time and note being able to click on the shop once it is leaving *yay* but I did get trapped in the shop when I went to sell a bird, then hit cancel without selecting a nest (I planned and then decided against selling a bird right then) the overlay screen went away but I could not click on anything or us keys when later started causing beeping, as if they were being queued? However I accidentally pressed right click and everything started working again... so not a soft lock unless you don't know to press a button never used in the game! ;)

The predicted arrived time for one note said I would be late but my bird made it anyway... I sent it just after it ticked over from being unlikely to arrive in time but never-the-less it made it just fine... so the predictor is inaccurate despite having three possible outcomes; arrives in time, might arrive in time, definitely won't - I didn't have a choice with that one as I had a spare bird and it would be late with any other I might send it with hence sending it anyway...

I went into debt by almost a 100 credits when I bought the kernel silo upgrade for 500 credits when I had over 850 credits... it looks like it charged me for the grain I already had in the silo as well as the silo upgrade?

I ran out of time to test more but I am worried that I will have to sink a lot of time in to discover why herons have such long ranges even though so far that is useless as the only long range deliver is a note that has to go super fast (and therefore by pigeon).

Anyway, the PostJam version is way better overall even though it might have become worse in one or two ways and also exacerbated the lack of saving quite a bit!

Best wishes and although I hope for more updates to this I am just happy that you appear to enjoy your work here enough to stay in contact with your players! :) - it seems to be a little rare and unfortunately a lot of those who do also don't seem to have the time to do much about bugs (especially in anything but their most recent game *sigh*).

<3

Right, this is an amazing game but could be so much better if there were not so many weird GUI issues, bugs and two odd choices.

GUI: Mixing the mouse and keyboard feels weird to start with and gets downright horrible later on with lots of birds, even the keyboard is objecting since pressing two keys at once often/always locks the vertical movement out and you slide awkwardly along the horizontal. Having to go to the bottom and then to each bird (especially pigeons) for each message (even when messages are grouped) is cute to start with but gets frustrating fast with lots of messages and birds... I spent more time giving messages than I did anything else in the game and paying attention to deadlines was not worth it beyond half-way through the game... make sure your birds are upgraded and just send them with the right size package plus don't take on the apothacary or the other short deadline patron... not worth the trouble because there is too much time just trying to get message to birds in the roost.

Bugs: Upgrades to birds cost nothing despite what it says. Birds taking twice as long as they should (occassionally but impactfully in the case of multi-parcel deliveries, especially with the queen given the hit to reputation is at least twenty well sent packages... plus the time it takes to do so given the decline in reputation over time. Looking at the bird seller screen when they leave the page makes it so you can't leave that page ever again... this is a HARD RESET BUG. Kernels seem to jump in price by ten times once you go into buying them individually (whatever the price marked) - I was within days tens of thousands in debt due to having run out of kernels... no the price being charged for kernels was not matched by what was being charged automatically. Going into debt doesn't end the game? It is not possible to leave debt though as the cost of kernels far outstrips your ability to make money.

Design choices: keyboard plus mouse. no save function. little to no information on the main stat in the game (reputation), it seems to be impacted by debt status, failed packages (by a huge degree) but not improved for delivering early or for larger deliveries (because four stork delivery a day ahead of time is entirely normal for a forge!?! Never mind four note deliveries over 1400kms on the same day - and that wasn't even a short deadline!?!?)

I have to say this feels a lot like a game that was always playtested from beginning to end (given the lack of saving this is even less surprise) and therefore the start of the game experience is very good and then the end of game experience is a terrible mishmash because little problems magnify to become big problems because the choice of "difficulty" curve was "all of them" (more packages, more reputations to maintain, more birds, less time (caused by a slow and inefficient UI) and way too much information that just can not be parsed in time... I would challenge you to create an automated bot to play this game to the end without having the same issues as human players (which given their speed suggests that the mechanics of the game themselves are the problem, not human skill).

Anyway, I have to say that this game starts out great and I could see it doing well in competitions where completion is not necessary but remember that fans will complete your games and may not stay fans if the game drops off in quality as one progresses through it... this is a real problem in clicker games, time blocking games and AAA games that playtest only the first few hours of their games because after that no refunds are possible.

All the best and keep on improving :)

This game eats GPU like nothing else. Is it just the web version? Because it leaves gpu at 99% and nothing else can be done on my pc. Nvidia RTX A3000 6GB Vram