This is another pretty significant update to the game, mostly in regards to stabilizing how it appears on hardware but also some visual effects, a small story update, and crunching down the size because I am rapidly approaching the 32KB PRG limit for CNROM (there is still plenty of room for game script, just can't add too much more in the bells and whistles department). It now works reasonably well on actual NES hardware.

There's a special graphics buffer in NIGHTENDUSHI's original visual novel engine, which I use too because it's mainly how the whole thing works (or at least the ability to simulate printed text to the screen, which I think is a cool enough effect I want to hold onto it). The issue is that it is really easy to overflow it, and once it overflows the graphics explode into nonsense. So I've had to plot out how different parts of the screen are updated during different parts of the clock cycle so it neither overflows nor drops any text. But there is also one tricky line of code that compiles down to:

68        PLA
91 2F STA ($2F), Y

That is constantly spamming garbage into memory registers it shouldn't, to the point where it interrupts CNROM bankswitching and I have to NOP it out in the compiled ROM. Once I have figured out where the hell that piece of code is buried it's going to be a joyous day.

Of course this means nothing to nobody that isn't a lunatic programming 40 year old hardware, so on the player end you will see a cool police light effect, less graphics glitches, a character from the original demo is back in the game, and an update to the story that Portland Indie Game Squad play-testers said, and I quote, "made them sad." Enjoy!