Thank you for all the bug reports!

So a couple of things to clarify and resolve.

First the game does require the VX rtp.  Any dll issues is caused by that not being loaded.  You'll see it on the right under downloads.

The brothel will only get customers in areas that pose a threat to you.  Walking around town will not trigger the customer event.  I will be reducing the number of steps that it requires in final though.

Restructured the Tram conversation topic in final.  Should resolve any issues with the final credits not playing after resolving Vanessa and Ariel.

Many other fixes.  I still need a few saves to go along with reports so I can figure out what went wrong.

Harem 0.6b Public Beta released!

Harem 0.6b has reached public beta!  Much thanks to all of my hard working testers, you caught so many bugs that would of made the game not playable, as well as many small ones which had slipped through the prior releases as well.  This should be the cleanest, most legible version of Harem ever!

A few notes :
-Initially 0.6b was about 160mb large which is too large for the VX packager.  So I compressed the images and audio down quite a bit and made the package only 70mb.  I might of been a bit to aggressive in the compression so I'm also uploading the uncompressed media.  If you want to use it, download it and over-write the graphics and audio folders with the other images.  Should work just fine.
-There was a bug in the encrypter so this is my first version in a very long time that's unecrypted.  Not quite sure why I always encrypted it anyways.  If you want to see how Harem is made you can dig around in the game files (VX required of course) but be warned.  There are spoilers, false flags and much randomness inside the code and if you have programming experience it may cause you to scream in pain.
-When I do a 'final' release I'll be doing the usual email to mediafire option for those people who can't get RG/FF/BS to work.  Please don't e-mail me about it until then.  I will try to add more hosts over time.
-I'm still working on providing saves to skip existing content.  They will be provided in the next week or two (certainly before 0.6b is final).
-I am calling this a public beta.  I got all the bugs that we found, but I'm sure have slipped through.  If getting a bug would be traumatic to you, wait a few weeks for the 'final' version to be released.  There will not be any content differences between them.
-Install the RTP if this is your first time playing a RPG maker VX game.  Instructions on the side as well as in the readme file

Links obsolete

I'm going to ask anyone who wants to give feedback to use one of the linked forums on the right instead of the comments here.  The blog was created to reduce the fluff posts in my threads there as well as to give a less annoying place to the 'status update please' posts but I think it's gone too far and the threads are getting less traffic then I'd like.  The threads are how new players find the game, so if you think that it's worth playing, well please tell them that it is where they'll read it!  Bug reports can be emailed, commented or posted in the forums.


Patch notes : (spoilers in white font, highlight to read)

-Retcons - Vanessa met you in Denai, regardless of path.  Both paths she told you to flee and then you don't see her again.

       -Denai wasn't burnt to the ground.

-Numerous map and faces upgrades

-Climax of Terra's arc.

-Resolution of Vanessa's disappearance and Ariel/Cecilia will make an appearance.

-Complete removal of the random encounter system with a random event system in its place.  While this isn't used all that often in 0.6 content it will give me far more flexibility with random encounters in any zone.

-The id ring has resumed some functionality as a guide, pointing the player to the next step of the main plot.  Very much in beta stages and needing feedback for when it doesn't work properly.

-Fenja has been reclassified as a minor (or inventory) slave.  Her quest will remain as it is but after she's captured there isn't any additional content for her.  Essentially it allows me to create minor slaves at the end of an optional segment or when the character would normally buy/acquire a new slave but without the burden of really creating a character or weaving her into the plot.  While there will still be more major characters introduced it gives me more flexibility in writing.

-Over 90% of people in the survey voted yes to letting me break old saves, so that will be done.  Saves will be provided whenever 0.6b final is released.

-Continued editing and polishing.  While the Corsix edit is still a few months away, Western Corsix and before should be much cleaner.  Along with a change in workflow to increase accuracy it should be far easier to read  Thanks to Hirotono on this.

-New faces.  While this isn't complete, TheEye92 showed me a few issues with my workflow in creating faces that was creating the heavily pixelated look and new faces should be much smoother.  Over time I'll work on going back and replacing as many of the old faces as possible.

-Donna's first two scenes on the dark path have been completely rewritten and imaged.  That was some of my very early rough work and really needed to be updated.  Feel free to [politely] suggest other scenes/events that could use a rewrite and I'll put them on the list.

-I haven't counted precisely yet, but 0.6b should bring on another 100-150 pages of text and another 30 scenes or so.  Wow I really am developing like Valve.

-Rebalancing of characters to make combat more enjoyable and smooth.  This has been going on for a few updates and has gotten to the point where old saves must be junked and new games must be created.

-Made it easier to find the fights to do the hunting quest

-Finding Terra's memories in her mind is a bit easier to do now

-Removed timer from Corsix quests.  It never worked properly.

-Added quite a bit of new music

General timetable

A few people have asked for release dates, which I normally hate to do.  A developers schedule quickly turns into a promise in the minds of the reader and a schedule is nothing but numbers written in sand on the beach.  But I'll lay out what I think will happen.

This is all guesswork and needs to be taken as such.

-In this week I hope to move from alpha testing to private beta testing.
-If the private beta goes well it should last 2-4 weeks.  It'll depend on the level of response I get from my volunteers, the number of bugs that alpha missed, the severity of those bugs and my ability to find and fix them.  Then we'll move into public beta (buggy release).
-Depending on how the alpha and private betas go, the public beta may be fine and be upgrade to final within a week or two.  Depending on how much slips through testing the public beta may go through several releases (ala 0.6a) pushing the 0.6b final into early next year.

After 0.6b goes final I'll probably disappear for a few weeks and then start doing some polls, help wanted posts and gathering general feedback to help develop later versions.

Beta invites sent out

Thank you to everyone who applied to help test 0.6b.  Unfortunately it'd be completely impossible for me to manage the number of people who offered to help so I only took a small number of applicants to be part of the beta.  No offense meant to anyone who didn't get the invite.

Beta apps by end of day 10/28

Thank you to everyone that has applied to help me beta test 0.6b.  I apologize that I won't be able to respond to everyone who did but I'll be deciding who'll be part of the program Wed morning, so have your app in by the end of Tuesday if you want in.  Probably only going to have 5-6 testers out of the 30 or so that's applied so far so don't feel bad if you didn't get chosen.

Help Wanted : Scripter

Hey all.  My current scripter just bowed out so I need some help from someone good with the scripting language of VX.  SVN experience is preferred but not required.  Please apply at haremrpg@gmail.com

10/30 position filled - Thanks to Scripter9

0.6b entering alpha testing

So nearly finished up with content for the 0.6b version and moving into the favorite of times, testing!  I'm starting with an alpha test which is essentially me making sure that everything works if the player behaves exactly as I expect them to.  There is a lot of new content in 0.6b and changes to existing content (ie the complete scrapping of the random encounter system) which I need to play through to make sure that it works at all.

I will be taking applications for the private beta test phase currently.  Players don't always behave exactly as I expect so I need people to play through the content without much guidance to see if anything doesn't work or leaves the player hanging without any real guidance as to what to do now.  Particular emphasis will be placed on the 0.6b new content of course, but combat balance feedback will be important as well.

I'm hoping the private beta phase will start in about 2 weeks.  I will be sending out a link to download the 0.6b test content through e-mail and might try to create a thread somewhere for it.  Trying to teach the testers how to access the game through the SVN really didn't work last time so I'll be sending out packages for conventional download and testing.

Requirements/expectations.
1.  The free time to do so.  I'm expecting to start testing in 2-3 weeks and have it run for a few weeks hopefully, but no more than 4 weeks.  But during that time I do expect people to be able to put in some fairly serious testing.  Plan on committing about 5 hours a week at least.
2.  The patience and wherewithal to actually do testing.  This isn't a public demo, this is a testing phase.  The game is most certainly broken at the moment and it's your job to poke and prod every crevice finding the spots that it's cracked.
3.  You must be fluent in English.  I understand that people from all over the world play Harem, but for testing I need to be able to communicate easily. 
4.  No prepackaged saves will be available for testing and prior saves will not work so you'll have to play from the beginning.
5.  Be willing to communicate bugs and give a fairly detailed report and attach a copy of a save if necessary.  This isn't a demo.

If you are interested, send an e-mail to haremrpg@gmail.com including the following.
0.  The subject must be 'Harem Testing'.  If it is anything else (or less or more) I will automatically delete it without reading it.
1.  A few sentences on how testing is different than playing.
2.  Any experience you have working with RPG-VX
3.  Any experience you have in game design or testing previously.
4.  An idea of how much time you'll be able to put in over the next few weeks for testing.
5.  If you are comfortable with SVN deployments let me know and I'll link you to the repo and you can join in the alpha testing.  Keep in mind that fully recursive it will be over a gigabyte worth of content.  I will not try to walk anyone through SVN configuration, sorry.

Thank you to everyone who applies in advance.  Please understand that I am intentionally keeping the number of testers fairly small so I can manage the team and with the number of e-mails I'm likely to receive from this, I won't be able to contact anyone but those I chose.  If you don't get a response, sorry.

There will probably be a public beta after the private.  0.6a's release took a few attempts and some people got frustrated with the number of bugs in it, so I'll be releasing a 0.6b bugged version publicly then following up with a 0.6b final when it's ready.  Essentially saying that if you want to play it early there may be some growing pains.