I've tried going through the code to see if I could fix it myself, but alas I don't have enough experience with Ren'Py (all I did so far was fixing some code breaking typos and editing text for parody screenshots).
Viewing post in Crescendo 0.3 Now Avaiable! comments
HiHi, Googs here. I watched someone play the new update today as well as trying replicating this error through speedrunning the whole thing multiple times without any success.
The error in question is due to the script not being able to fetch the required image. In practice this means that A. This could've been a temporary error.
B. Your download was corrupted.
C. Something got moved around while you were editing the game files.
In this case, I highly suggest you to redownload our build and try again. In case the error persist, please let us know^^
Oops, Sorry. I didn't notice you've moved to using .rpa archives. I just copied the contents into the existing folder. Haven't tried it yet, but my guess is that that's what caused this.
So, yeah. It was just a PEBKAC. What a way to make me feel like an inconsiderate idiot.
But regarding point C: I didn't do any edits in Crescendo, I just peeked into the code (I was actually looking at the old code, that's why I probably didn't see spot the error, but I did notice that notepad was sending me to an incorrect line when I told it to go to line 48. Also I should have spotted the CG and sprites missing. Or I should have spotted the .rpa files.). The edits I talked about were done with other VNs. As far as I remember it was fixing a typo in Blackgate's code on Gruff's route quite a while ago and trying to one up someone who used image editing software by doing a text edit in Minotaur Hotel - it was an edit of Asterion saying "There are very few things better than a good book.", they photoshopped it into "There are very few things better than a good dick.", I edited it into "There are very few things better than a good company throughout the day and a nice cuddle in bed at night." (You know: naughty, horny vs wholesome, romantic.)
Edit: Yep. It works. Now I feel like a total piece of trash for wasting your time.