With my beta build, my game is basically complete, which is really exciting to say! It can now be played from start to finish with all of its intended features such as full title and end screens, four unique NPCs, and a randomization aspect to make the experience unique for everyone.  It's been so fun bringing this experience to life and I'm looking forward to polishing everything up to make it the best it can be for the final product.

I had a notable learning moment as I was implementing one of my NPCs. This specific character is a child that runs around the library and is supposed to be caught and returned to their parent by the player. In my original plan, the child was only going to stay by the picture books as I thought that'd be a fitting place for him to be. However, as I was working on his AI, I unintentionally gave him the ability to roam everywhere in the library, and my friend pointed out how funny it looked seeing the character dart around the whole building. I decided to keep it the way it was because of that; sometimes the best ideas just come up by accident!

I also spent lots of time reflecting on the realism of my game, specifically with how the book cart interacts with the environment. As it stands, the book cart has no collision with the environment, which originally I did not want to be the case. I worked on a simple solution, but as I playtested it, I didn't like how it felt. Having the cart bump into walls and other objects around the library felt too stiff and made getting around more difficult. I decided to drop that idea and keep the cart collision-free because I really wanted to prioritize smooth gameplay and ease of access over realism, especially since this was not a game-breaking issue.

For the final release, I just have to polish up the environment, certain sound effects, and the title/end screens. With that being said, I've packaged and attached the beta build of the game so that anyone can play! Please enjoy and stay tuned for the final release!

(EDIT: The final release is out now!)