v1.3 - Prism speech, aiming help, auto-walk rebuilt

What's new in 1.3

This is the biggest update since 1.0. Three changes stand out:

• Speech now goes through Prism instead of Tolk, and follows your screen reader as you start or quit it.
• Aiming help talks you onto an object once you are standing next to it.
• Auto-walk was rebuilt around the player's real size and eye height, measured in the current version of the game, and its map of the house was rebuilt from the game's June update.

Around those are many smaller fixes, grouped below by what you will notice.

Thanks to Cricket, whose pull request brought the speech, aiming help, mod tutorial and many of the auto-walk and object-list changes.

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Speech

• Speech goes through the Prism library. It works with NVDA, JAWS and other screen readers, notices if you start or quit your screen reader while playing, and uses the Windows voice when none is running.
• Characters who speak in beeps instead of a voice line have their lines read aloud.
• The new-game form reads its fields and their small print.
• Closing the phone menu is announced.

Aiming help

• Press Alt+O next to an object, or let auto-walk arrive without the object selected, and the mod talks you onto it: "a little up", "far left and down", "step back". It finishes the last few degrees itself.
• The accessibility settings (Ctrl+F1) have an Aiming help choice: spoken directions (the default) or the original aiming tone. Starting it stops a running Ctrl+O guidance tone, so the two never play together.

Auto-walk

Where it takes you

• Routes are planned for the player's real body: about twice as wide and much taller than the mod assumed before. Routes keep a proper distance from walls and furniture instead of scraping along them.
• The map of the house was rebuilt from the current game, including the June update's changes.
• "Can I see it from here" checks use the game's own interaction ray from where the camera really is, aimed at several points across the object. Spots that would need a steeper look than the camera allows are skipped.
• The stairs are walked up and down along the steps.
• When one piece of a character can't be reached, auto-walk tries another piece of the same character in the same room only (the cookie cupboard no longer sends you to the laundry room).

How it moves

• Steering is recalculated every physics step, so turning no longer wobbles and corners are taken cleanly.
• On machines where looking around turns slowly (seen under CrossOver), turning speeds up to compensate.
• The last stretch of a walk slows to your movement speed setting, so it stops where it should even at the fastest setting.
• If you are crouched at the lowest movement speed setting, where the game does not let you move at all, auto-walk says so instead of trying.
• Pressing W, A, S or D stops auto-walk so you can take over.

Doors

• Auto-walk follows a door's real locked state.
• It stands clear of a door's whole swing before opening it, which fixed leaving the office in the tutorial and the laundry closet door that refused to open.
• Doors and sliding panels left stuck half open are closed and reopened from a clear spot.
• The paired sliding doors of the upstairs closets (gym and bedroom), which open over each other, are slid out of the way when one is in the path. These closets could trap auto-walk or make their contents unreachable.
• Walks go through the middle of doorways, and a walk to a door ends facing through it.

When something is in the way

• If auto-walk bumps into something the map does not know about, it works out what it hit, marks it, and plans a new route (up to three times per walk).

Finding things

• Ctrl+O first offers a situational datable close by, then undiscovered datables in the room you are in, then the nearest room with an undiscovered datable.
• A new game starts with an empty known-objects list; discoveries from your other saves are no longer carried over.
• The known-objects list (O):
  • Passage doors are always listed.
  • Rooms are grouped by floor.
  • Cupboards are grouped.
  • The game camera no longer moves while the list is open.
• Things are listed only once you have found them:
  • The crawlspace trap door and its ladder stay out of the list and the room scan until the office closet rug has been moved, or you are in the crawlspace.
  • The attic stays hidden until you have found it.
• Names and rooms:
  • The laundry closet has its proper name.
  • The key box is listed in the upstairs hall instead of Bathroom 2.

Other

• A spoken mod tutorial runs alongside the game's own; H repeats the latest tip.
• On the office bulletin board, PageUp and PageDown step through the photos.
• The package ships Prism instead of Tolk. Reinstalling with Install-DateEverythingAccess.ps1 no longer nests a second BepInEx folder inside the first.
• The mod's log now lists the keyboard layout and key bindings at startup, which helps when keys misbehave on someone's setup.

Known limitations

• Some objects can be walked to, but the game does not select them from where auto-walk stops: chiefly things inside cupboards and drawers, ceiling lights, smoke alarms and vents. Aiming help can usually finish the job.
• The crawlspace has very little standing room under its beams; walking there has not been tested much.

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Portable package: DateEverythingAccess-portable-v1.3.zip already includes the BepInEx loader and Prism, so there is no separate mod-loader install. Run Install-DateEverythingAccess.ps1, or copy everything into the game folder. See README.txt inside the ZIP for setup.