This is a general improvement patch with various QOL and technical changes, focusing on tasks which have been collecting in the backlog.
Performance Improvements
The biggest performance improvement came from optimising the 2D character animations. This will eliminate big performance drops occurring when multiple characters appear or characters with many animation bones show up (such as Factory area enemies, Daemon etc.) UI is also updated with object pooling and re-making some of the poor-performance layout components the game engine provides. In screens where many elements are shown (such as the Archive), there should be much better performance.
Level Generation Improvements
There has been important changes to the level generation and placement of events and scenery. Before this patch, scenery blocked paths very frequently, if another alternative path existed. While this sometimes resulted in interesting layouts, most of the time it just limited choices during exploration and made the levels more linear. With the new changes, static scenery and blocker events won't be placed in a way it locally disconnects the map.
The new "corridor" tag will now detect corridor shaped rooms and mark them as such. Enemies have a lower chance to be spawned in corridors, which should reduce the amount of inevitable encounters.
Save Backups
I received a few reports of saves being corrupted due to power outages and hardware problems. Seeing these problems, I realised it wouldn't be so hard to prevent this issue by simply backing up the save file and restoring it in case of a corruption. Even if the backup is inaccessible for some reason, the game will just create a new save file instead of crashing and getting stuck in the black screen.
Other Changes
There has been many small changes which are hard to group under a title. Please check out the patch notes below to see all of the changes.
Status Update
I'm fully focused on preparing the final content and getting the game ready for the v1.0 release. This may mean that this patch will be the last bigger patch before the release. I'm planning to continue releasing smaller patches for fixes and non-content tweaks until the v1.0 update, but I want the last update to add a good amount of content at once so that people who exhausted the EA content will also enjoy the newer content in the full version. If you don't care about being spoiled, and want to help test the new changes before the release, keep an eye out on the experimental branch; I'm planning to have it updated with the new stuff.
The v1.0 update will add a whole new area with new enemies, second part of the story, new hero, 2 new companions and many events and items. The release date is still not final, but I will announce it very very soon™. For now, I can roughly estimate it as between the end of 2022 and start of 2023. Thanks for hanging on so far!
Update Notes for Patch v0.9.1
Improvement
- Improved 2D animation performance. This significantly improves performance during both exploration and encounters.
- Added object pooling to many parts of the game, improving memory management and performance.
- Added a new component for handling grid layouts. This significantly increases UI performance where these layouts are used (such as card lists etc).
- Added save file backups. Save files are now automatically backed up, and restored if a corruption occurs. The game will also launch with a new save (instead of crashing) if the save file is corrupted.
- Removed unnecessary last steps with no additional information or story shown when leaving decision events.
- Added detection for corridors during level generation. Encounters have a higher chance to spawn in rooms rather than corridors. Some events/scenery won't spawn in corridors.
- Added detection for scenery obstructing paths during level generation. Scenery now won't obstruct paths.
- Guard condition will apply the damage with its damage type to the guarding entity. Defence value of the guarding entity is considered for directed damage. Guard damage will also combo with and trigger conditions such as Dodge.
- Pressing the button for opening character edit window will also close it if open.
- Health bar added to the character edit window.
- During decision events, it's now possible to view character edit screen with a button.
- Changed "point-and-click" walking to right click by default instead of left click. This is to prevent accidental walking when trying to click UI elements. Left click will cancel walking.
- Arrow buttons will show up when items in the inventory overflow the info bar. Clicking the arrow buttons will auto-scroll to show overflowing items.
- Added an option to buy a refresh for the Second Hand Shop.
- Shops will always have all weapon types for sale.
- Added sorting and filtering to shop window.
- Added an animation when cards move between draw and discard piles.
- Draw and discard piles are separated into different pages (categories) during card selection effects which allow card selection from both piles.
- Library window is now accessible during runs through the ESC menu.
- Added a door to starting rooms, representing level entrance.
- Encounter event icons are changed to be different colours depending on encounter type (orange for elite and red for boss encounters).
- Added tooltips to companion choice buttons in the Fireplace event.
- Added an alert when weapon required for cards in deck isn't equipped while starting a run.
- Added a notification message when a companion is added to the party as bystander for the first time.
- Added various decals, and a new level generation step where these decals are placed.
- Improvements to level generation to reduce generation duration.
- Added a delay to tooltips shown when hovering over entities during encounters.
- Added card count to rest deck arrangement window.
- Decision event window layout is changed to allow more text to be shown and improve readability.
- Improved readability in the equipment edit window.
- Added more lighting to the encounter rooms of some of the areas where it was too dark.
- Swapped cards are now highlighted while arranging cards during resting.
- Data collection will now be off by default for new saves.
- Added an option to always show hero intros at the start of runs.
- All equipment now shows as unusable (highlighted with red) for Leo.
- The game will now start in windowed mode at first launch.
Content
- (Item) Antique Metronome: Looks at all damage types dealt during a card's activation and increase the combo counter once per card played. Overall, it's easier and more intuitive to keep the combo going. Non-damage moves won't break the chain.
- Minor adjustments to some notes and decision event texts.
- Added various scenery objects.
- Added new room type to Residence (toilet).
Fixes
- Fixed scroll panels not scrolling with scroll wheel when not hovering on an item.
- Fixed Heroic Moment and various other cards/items affecting cards with other damage types.
- Fixed Lever event not being marked as blocker (therefore blocking paths).
- Fixed Scientist event not spawning in the Hospital.
- Fixed Block not being removed at the end of encounters.
- Fixed Rotten Lemon triggering every 3th card instead of 4th.
- Fixed Handicapped status animation running at the end of encounters due to equipment cards.
- Fixed character getting stuck while walking after abandoning a run.
- Fireplace event will have its sides empty (no enemies close).
- Typo fixes.