Howdy! Here again with another patch that mainly fixes bugs, but this one also improves some things too!
Notably, the Mail Toss minigame now has a proper NPC and also has been improved to be more fun and engaging. Please try it out and let me know what you think!
Also, Marcus' Adventure and the River Challenge now count up how much time you've spent playing the minigame, rather than counting down. You now have unlimited time to play the minigame, but you will only get the achievements, Cat Coins, and bonus Pretty Petals for completing it within the time shown. The extra time though will give you more time to practice difficult segments!
Finally, a bug fix I did recently made small platforms a lot trickier than expected. I made them slightly bigger and also improved how the game handles your interactions on platforms to help you stay on them (see notes for details.)
As always, here are the patch notes:
===== Highlights =====
- The way minigames work has been changed. Now, instead of counting down, they will count up.
- The goal time will be shown. If you don't meet the goal time, you can still continue to play the minigame, but you won't get any bonuses when the minigame has ended.
===== IMPROVED =====
- The Mailbox Minigame in the Lignum Village has been improved. Please check it out!
- The Minimap display has been improved. In addition, it now shows what button you need to press to open the full map screen.
- When stepping off platforms, if you stop just a little bit beyond the edge of the platform, it will now snap you back onto the platform. This also works when backwards skidding (turning around) and should help players to stay on the platform - especially if you accidentally press a direction.
===== CHANGED =====
- The size of the smaller platforms has been increased slightly to make it easier to get on them (a previous bug fix with their hitbox ended up making them too small to deal with.)
- When doing the Red Gem challenge, you now have 6 seconds to get the next one, instead of 5.
- Additionally, it will start warning you that it's about to reset 2 seconds before it does so, instead of 1.
- The path to Mr. Railway's house has been made much more obvious, to hopefully convey better that you need to go there.
- VSync is now enabled by default. If you've already played the game, you'll have to enable it manually in the Options menu.
- Entry to the Lignum Village train station has been blocked for now, as none of the NPCs who are supposed to be present in there are present.
- Made entrance to side path in Abandoned Mines more obvious.
- Made entrance to secret area in Autumn Grove more obvious.
===== BUG FIXES =====
- [hotfix April 9th] Fixed a bug where Mr. Riverman would say he was giving you Pretty Petals for completing the River Challenge, but wouldn't actually do it.
- Fixed a bug where opening the Steam Overlay would open the Pause Menu on the Title Screen.
- Fixed a bug where Mr. Riverman would say he was going to give you something "mighty fine" for getting all the stars in the River Challenge, even if you already had the "mighty fine" item.
- Fixed a bug where the ? for one of the Red Gem puzzles was in the wrong spot on the map screen.
- Fixed a bug where there were two bombs overlaid on each other in the river challenge.
- Fixed a bug where Marcus' Crystals were animating while the game was paused.
- Fixed a bug where a beach-side screen in the River Path had music when it shouldn't.
- Fixed a bug where returning from the River Challenge would play the wrong music in the village.
- Fixed a bug where going in/out of Mr. Railway's house would cause the wrong music to be played.
- Fixed a bug where the pause screen would mention turning off VSync for non-60hz displays (this VSync bug was fixed by Yoyo Games ages ago.)
- Fixed a bug where bombs would show up in the Items menu under "Surplus Abilities."
- Fixed where some dialogue still referred to "Thrown Abilities" (they are simply Abilities now.)
- Fixed a bug where some rooms were being hinted at on the minimap that were not supposed to be hinted at.
- Fixed a bug where the Graphics Auto-Adjuster feature would disable VSync.
- Fixed a bug where you could open the Notes pane just before the Leaderboard showed up when looking at the Leaderboards object.
- Fixed a bug where gates would squeak when entering a room with a gate in it.
- Fixed a bug where one of the secret rooms in the Abandoned Mines wasn't showing as secret on the HD map.
- Fixed a bug where stage exit arrows weren't being drawn in some instances on the minimap.
- Fixed a bug where one of the hidden treasures in the Abandoned Mines didn't draw a ? if you had seen it but hadn't gotten it yet.
===== KNOWN BUGS =====
- There are several bugs relating to gamepad input on Linux that I'll hopefully figure out sooner rather than later (or not at all.)
- Specifically, I have noted that plugging in an XBOX Series gamepad causes the game to immediately crash. If you wish to use this gamepad, or have gamepad issues otherwise, you may opt to enable Proton compatibility to play the Windows version for now.
- Sometimes the Notes pane draws glitchy, but I can't reproduce it reliably. If you notice the Notes panel drawing strangely, keep in mind what you were doing recently and please let me know.
Thank you guys for continuing to try out and support Shield Cat! I have a feeling I'll be doing one more patch build before I get back to adding new stuff, so if you find any issues or bugs or have any ideas for improvements I can make to the game, please let me know!