It's been a long time, a little over 3 years in fact. I have been working on this update off-and-on in the meantime and now its finally done! Although there will likely be another update in the coming weeks to add and fix some stuff I wasn't able to finish in time.
So what's in this update? The big takeaways are controller support, revamped UI, a new Item Selection menu, quality of life, and visual polish. I also gave the game's store page a facelift in case you didn't notice.
That list isn't specific enough for you? Enjoy this wall of text then!
Changelog
Totally reworked how menus function:
Can navigate through menus using a keyboard/controller
Buttons stay highlighted during screen transitions
Buttons unhighlight when backing out of screens
Sound for hovering over UI elements with the mouse is now used for all UI selection
Added some pitch variance to UI selection sound
Can now (finally) properly click and drag scrollbars
All selectable UI elements now indicate that they are highlighted (most notable with items for sale in shops)
Can no longer move while some menus are open (this is kind of a necessary consequence of adding navigation to menus)
Changed how controls are displayed in all contexts (tutorial, shop UI, dialogue, rebinding buttons)
Removed "Exit Closes Building UI" game option; the pause button now only pauses when other "exitable" menus are already closed
Changed how skipping text crawl for dialogue is checked (text should now display instantly rather than having a short delay)
Added new Item Selection menu:
Fades in when holding the Item Selection button (Tab by default)
Fades out when letting go of the Item Selection button
Can switch items by hovering over slots with the cursor and clicking or navigating using the new UI controls
Slots will appear/disappear depending on what items the Player currently has
Controller Support and Button Bindings:
Added controller support
Changed how rebindings are saved to account for gamepad (NOTE: this means any rebindings set prior to this update will need to be set again, sorry!)
Changed the default binding for Quick Switching to G
Ranged Weapons:
Added an indicator that displays the weapon's charge and the direction being aimed towards (especially important for gamepad)
Ranged Weapons now reset their charge when switching to another Ranged Weapon or cancel the charge if switching to an Empty Ranged Weapon
Fixed new charges not properly starting in situations where the Ranged Weapon action was already being held (switching from an Empty Ranged Weapon to a non-Empty one)
Saving/Loading:
Achievements no longer save whether they are a Colosseum Achievement to file
Achievement goal values are no longer saved/loaded
Fixed some NPC data being loaded from saves twice
Greatly reduced the amount of loading done to display save slots on the main menu
Fixed the Player facing the wrong way at the start of the game under some circumstances
Achievements:
Made movements of Achievement Toasts smoother
Achievement Toasts now maintain a queue of Achievements to display if additional achievements are unlocked while the toast is already being displayed (also works for unlocking multiple achievements at the same time)
Achievement Toasts now render over most other UI (like dialogue boxes)
Adjusted the positioning of Achievement Toasts slightly
Changed the name and description of the "What Did You Expect?" achievement
Made the "What Did You Expect?" achievement discoverable
Dashing:
Player now has a colored outline while dashing
Resprited dash particles and added animations
Removed post dash invulnerability (was never actually implemented correctly in the first place)
Cooldown between dashing is now a minimum of 0.5 seconds if an attack was successfully resisted (makes spamming dash much less effective)
Status Effects:
Effect indicators now begin stacking upwards when a Creature has more than 5 visible effects (somehow)
Tweaked how the height to place effect indicators above creatures is calculated
Optimizations and fixes for effect indicators (no longer rebuilt every time a creature changes direction and instantiating them is less resource-intensive)
Fixed Effect indicators flashing along with their source Creature
Status Effects now keep track of the type of their source Creature
Fixed deaths from Burning not incrementing the "Killed By" statistic in the Bestiary
Tweaked how/where hit and burning particles spawn on all Creatures to better center them (also specifically tweaked the positioning on some enemies like Spuks and Blurts)
Blindness:
Text displaying the controls for items now becomes gray when given Blindness to ensure it remains visible
Made Blindness overlay animation smoother and adjusted the fading in/out timings
Fixed the Blindness overlay not functioning right when loading in with Blindness (this also fixes the animation/sound playing when loading in)
Video Settings
Changed default for Exclusive Full Screen setting to "false" (this means the game will now launch in borderless windowed by default)
Removed the "Toggle Nonessential UI" button (this partially broke due to other changes and it was only really useful for taking screenshots; it's possible this feature will return in the future)
Rearranged the buttons on the Video Settings menu and removed the "Other" label
Fixed the Fullscreen option button switching between "On/Off" multiple times when the "Toggle Fullscreen" button is pressed
Minions:
Refactored Minion target detection logic
Minions now only jump to reach targets when closer horizontally
Minions now only jump when necessary when targeting the Player
Minions now have different max follow distances depending on whether they are targetting the Player or an Enemy
Greatly decreased the max follow distance for Minions when targetting enemies
Significantly decreased the lifetime of Pop bullets (to 1.25 sec from 5 sec)
Decreased the damage of Pop bullets (to 1 from 2)
Minions no longer target enemies while "hidden" (like invisible thrues)
Minions are now affected by Blindness (currently unused)
Fixed Minions' health not saving correctly
Cutscenes:
Can now skip cutscenes that have been already been seen
Indicated by text telling the player that they can skip by holding the "Cancel" button
Can now pause during cutscenes (however the "Exit" button is restricted)
Bosses:
Resprited 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th boss and other sprites associated with them (there are still mixels but there are proportionally fewer!)
Made unique sprites for corresponding boss achievements by tweaking some of the boss's old sprites
Refined hitboxes associated with 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th bosses (in some cases significantly)
Changed the Bestiary descriptions for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd bosses
Changed logic of how 1st boss picks attacks so that a min of 1 and max of 3 other attacks are performed before flipping (prevents excessive waiting)
Adjusted height thresholds for 2nd boss following downward/upward
Removed unnecessary components on 2nd boss's telegraph particles
Removed unnecessary component on 3rd boss
Removed unused sprites for 3rd boss
Adjusted 3rd boss's eye spawning and shooting positions
Fixed centering of gibs associated with the 3rd boss
Fixed 3rd boss's eyes using random scaling
Tweaked animation of 3rd boss's heal eye to be more consistent with other eyes
Fixed animation inconsistency with 3rd boss's shoot eye
Changed layering of 3rd boss's bullets to render above the 3rd boss's eyes
Fixed 3rd boss's eyes getting stuck on ledges/not becoming grounded when they should
Fixed 3rd boss's heal eye moving too far out of bounds in some circumstances
Added additional animations to 4th boss
Tweaked the intro for the 4th boss (now hides UI and other timing differences)
Removed unused sounds and audio components from 4th bosss
Removed some redundant sprites used by the 4th boss
Fixed a sprite for the 4th boss's explosion animation not being used
Adjusted bullet spawn positions for the 4th boss
Major performance improvements for the 4th boss's bullet attacks
Explosions:
No longer delay and trigger hits in one instance
Now have collision that lingers for the duration of the animation and smoothly expands/contracts
Adjusted colliders to be more accurate to animations and compensate for staying active longer
Fixed explosions disappearing slightly earlier than intended
Explosions now properly keep track of their source Creature
Fixed explosions not applying damage from their source Creature (likely affected Killed/Killed By stats among other things)
Fixed Bullet Bomb bullets not applying relevant status effects from their source Creature
Dialogue/NPCs:
Tweaked wandering behavior of NPCs to prevent them from moving too quickly
NPCs now have their wandering distance capped to their max wandering distance (rather than having the distance to travel halved when attempting to wander above the max distance)
Made Lirn and Firsin wander further from their respective buildings during Lumberjack/Farm waves to mitigate accidental interactions when trying to talk
Tweaked Glab's Wave 7, 11, and 12 lines
Changed Frit's Wave 12 line
Changed Hili's Wave 15 lines
Resprited Linirt to tweak shading
Tweaked Siles Wave 12 and 17 lines
Fixed various typos
Fixed a Glab "Help" line not appearing
Added "Hide Unimportant Empty Items" Game Option:
Is on by default
Toggles whether "unimportant" empty items can be switched to
Slots that are considered to have "important" empty items are Melee Weapons, Armor, and Accessories
When on, cycling to an empty item in an "unimportant" slot skips over the empty item
When on, if an item breaks in an "unimportant" slot the previous item in the slot will be cycled to (if a non-empty one exists)
When on, if an "unimportant" slot contains only 1 non-empty item, it will be excluded from the new Item Selection menu
Added "In-Game Item Slots Are Clickable" Game Option:
Is on by default
When off, item slots outside of the new Item Selection are unclickable (prevents accidentally clicking a slot while attacking)
Lubs:
Increased launch strength by about 33%
Added a short cooldown before Lubs attempt to move or launch again after launching
Lubs now must be grounded before launching or attempting to move
Adjusted values related to when/where Lubs decide to start launching
Slightly increased Lubs' slower speed when trying to position themselves for a launch
Fixed launching attack not working (not sure when this broke)
Fixed launching attack not being treated as a normal attack (this caused a bunch of bugs/inconsistencies; most notably it would often result in the attack ignoring invulnerability frames and it would not trigger relevant Colosseum Modifier effects)
Fixed hitboxes not changing properly when launching (also contributed to being hit multiple times)
Squzzes:
Cooldown for Squzzes' beam attack now decreases even if the Squz is very close to the Player
Fixed cooldown for Squzzes' beam attack being frame-dependent
Refined hitboxes
Fixed getting stuck on ledges
No longer collides with platforms (done to fix Squzzes' "pods" getting stuck, will likely change this to be less of a compromise in the future)
Fixed beam becoming desynced
Minor Optimizations
Huxes:
Resprited shields
Refined hitboxes
Fixed shield becoming desynced
Misc. Visuals:
Added particle effects when jumping
Added particles for when Slingshot projectiles are destroyed on collision
Improved Player's "petting" animation sprites
Changed the size of item crack particles and the way they move upon spawning
Made the progress bar bigger and slightly changed its appearance and positioning
Slightly changed the positioning of the Wave Compass
Wave Compass is now hidden when entering Glab's cave
Added a brief fade in when the game first opens
Made the animation of Glab's entrance sign slightly smoother
Fixed Glab's entrance sign animation playing unnecessarily in some instances
Fixed background not updating for a frame after dying under some circumstances
Fixed idle animation playing during the Player's death animation in some circumstances
Fixed Warp Borders appearing broken upon completing a Wave in some circumstances
Items / Item Slots:
The "Bullet" of items in hand now immediately disappears upon the item breaking (rather than lingering for the normal duration of the use animation; this is most relevant for melee weapons)
Added new Tintificator UI sprites and adjusted the sizing/positioning of tint labels and durability bars
Fixed missing pixel on sprites associated with the Pants slot
Fixed incorrect pixels on sprites associated with the Ranged Weapon slot
Fixed incorrect pixels on sprites associated with the Consumable slot
Adjusted sprites associated with the Ammo slot
Adjusted sprites associated with the Melee Weapon slot
Slightly moved Boots slot UI to be properly aligned with other Armor slots
Slightly moved Pants slot UI to be properly centered between the Chestplate and Boots slots
Changed how item slot flashing looks
Fixed timing for item slot flashes (like when buying items) not being reset if slot was already flashing
Fixed item slot flash not being reset properly if slot was disabled while flashing
Fixed durability bars for slots increasing regardless of what item is currently equipped
Fixed Buy Maximum Can Waste Durability game setting being on by default
Fixed incorrect pixel in Lottery UI
Removed code/sprites/game objects pertaining to an unused dedicated "Food" slot
First Time Volume Menu:
Replaced "Back" button with a "Done" button that goes to the main menu
Added a screen fade in (and out, might have already existed though?)
Screen Fades:
Generalized how screen fades are handled
Made screen fades smoother
Tutorial:
Added a new section to the tutorial uses bullets to teach dashing/dodging
Fixed Player facing right before scene transition when first exiting Tutorial
Fixed brief loss of grounded state that could happen while walking in Glab's room
Changed some lines and timings in the Bundle tutorial
Fixed an incorrect tile in the Tutorial
Clipping:
Changed player colliders to reduce chance of clipping (clipping is still possible in rare circumstances)
Added failsafe for clipping that will readjust the player if clipping is detected (hopefully this kills any lingering clipping issues for good)
Save Slot Menu:
Adjusted the spacing of the confirmation text when deleting a slot
Fixed a typo and adjusted the confirmation text when restarting a run
Added sounds when deleting a slot and restarting a run
Fixed slave slot's sprite not properly updating when deleting the associated save under some circumstances
Misc Creature Changes / Fixes:
Refactored logic relating to Creatures dealing/taking damage
Attacks that deal damage and cause flashing now always produce at least 1 hit particle (previously attacks that dealt <1 damage produced no particles)
Moved some Creature calculations from FixedUpdate into Update (namely for Flashing and Status Effects; this also fixes some Status Effects calculating their timings incorrectly)
Fixed creatures' knockback multipliers being ignored in some situations
Fixed enemies not being destroyed when exiting to the title screen under some circumstances
Refined Blurts' hitboxes
Fixed inconsistencies with how and when Creatures take knockback when resisting damage
Fixed/refined logic determining when Spuks take damage (should make dealing contact damage from behind much more reliable)
Fixed Rupts getting stuck on ledges
Tweaked the logic of how most enemies decide to jump
Removed unncessary "destroyOnSetup" tag from enemies
Minor optimization when clearing leftover enemies after failing a Wave
Fixed logic issues with how some enemies chose random actions
Misc Optimizations:
Changed mesh type of sprites to tight rather than full rect (should result in some performance improvements? probably?)
Camera now uses occlusion culling (might make rendering a bit less resource intensive)
Removed some unused offscreen decorations on the main menu
Removed some unnecessary wrapper objects
Minor performance improvements from disabling "Use Player Logs"
Removed a bunch of unused assets from the files (sounds, sprites, old prefabs)
Removed/disabled a number of unused packages/modules
Miscellaneous:
Removed Unity splash screen
Fixed Player uncrouching delay using Time.fixedDeltaTime rather than Time.deltaTime
Removed buttons for rebinding "Toggle Full Screen" and "Quick Switch" (will likely return in a future update along with a rework of the Controls screen)
Adjusted timings and fixed a typo in the Wave 20 cutscene
Fixed Steam achievements not being given/updated consistently
Added a minimum delay to volume sliders' test sounds to prevent sound stacking/peaking
Fixed the text for shop item displays having being targettable by raycasts
Adjusted the hitboxes for the Lumberjack and Farm
Fixed Interaction Indicator flashing when Player is attacked or heals
Made music fades and scene transitions smoother
Adjusted positions and offset ranges of crops
Changed Auto-Pause toggle label from "Auto-Pause" to "Auto-Pause on Lost Focus"
Many post-game content changes and fixes
Colosseum:
General:
Reworked the flow of the Colosseum with both Modifiers and Prizes being chosen every Round (rather than alternating)
Changed the Bestiary descriptions for all of the Minibosses
The Buy Prize, Reroll, and Commit buttons are now disabled when unusable (such as when you have insufficient points)
Streamlined interactions with Ini (less confirmations needed, reordered dialogue choices offered, this is still something that needs improving)
Edited some dialogues to make them flow better
Colosseum Assets are no longer unloaded and reloaded every time the game returns to the Title Screen
Can now properly exit to title screen to interrupt first time intro sequence
Tinting:
Selecting an item to tint no longer requires a confirmation
Can now press Cancel to exit out of the Tinting selection menu before selecting an item to Tint
Modifiers:
Fixed Enemies not checking if their attacker was the Player for Adherence (could allow Minions to deal damage)
Changed Conflicted to only activate on every other dash
Fixed Conflicted not being removed properly
Damage from Consequences now ignores invulnerability
Tweaked description of Critical and reduced uncrouch cooldown to 0.5 seconds (down from 1.5)
Adjusted how Downfall checks to start charging and made it work indepedent of actually crouching (now works with Rigidity)
Fixed Downfall not giving effects to enemies properly
Tweaked description of Drained
Fixed long Duplicitous Modifier combinations having their names cut off
Fixed Duplicitous occasionally offering Modifier combinations that are mutually exclusive
Exlcuded Duplicitous from appearing when less than 2 Rounds from the final Round
Teleporter Entrances now produce particles when removed by Escape
Changed how *Excessive* interacts with Modified
Reworded the description of Gluttony slightly
Removed the 2x dash delay from Guarded and reworded the description slightly
Fixed Guarded visual not being properly removed if Modifier was removed while it was active
Fixed Incendiary not affecting Minions
Incendiary should now work properly with all sources of explosions/bullets (for both enemies and the player)
Fixed Instinctual visual not being properly removed if Modifier was removed while it was active
Excluded Investment from appearing when less than 4 Rounds from the final Round
Fixed Effect indicators being rotated when dashing with Lofty
Fixed logic for rerolling Modifiers with Modified
Fixed Nostalgic bullets not giving effects to enemies properly
Adjusted hitbox of Nostalgic bullets
Adjusted positioning of Nostalgic bullets when crouched with Detached so that they do not collide with the ground
Made Overflowing and Sacrifice mutually exclusive
Fixed Outburst bullets not giving effects to enemies properly
Fixed Outburst bullets not synergizing with Detached (also gave them unique spacing to help increase their range)
Fixed Z-fighting on Outburst bullets
Made Perfectionism and Nostalgic mutually exclusive
Perspective now affects Minions (as a result of Minion aggro detection changes)
Reworded the description of Redo slightly
Fixed Reduction not counting damage taken from bullets
Some bools pertaining to Repetition are no longer saved
Repetition now gives +20 points but now also subtracts 2 from the current Round (up from 1)
Excluded Repetition from appearing when current Round would be lowered below 1
Fixed Restlestness not spawning particles when the Player is damaged
Fixed Rigidity and Weak Spot not actually being mutually exclusive
Fixed Unknown not working properly with Modified
Reworded the description of Unsnippable for consistency
Vacant now also removes all items (done to prevent it from being a consistently safe/boring option)
Fixed incorrect point calculations for Vacant in some situations (especially with Modified)
Fixed Vacant being activated when loading back into a run
Reworded the description of Vapid
Pobs:
Fixed Pob shoot sounds not playing and being stored incorrectly
Decreased the lifetime of Pob bullets (to 2 sec from 3 sec)
Miscellaneous:
Split up the logic for free Prize and Modifier rerolls
Affecting the number of free Prize/Modifier rerolls given per Round now properly affects the free rerolls remaining for the current Round
Fixed it being possible to get Modifiers randomly that were meant to be restricted (notable for modifiers like *Unknown*)
Fixed some Modifers not being in proper alphabetical order on the Modifiers screen
Minor optimizations when loading into the Colosseum
Slightly adjusted positioning of Prize/Modifier buttons to be more flush with other UI elements
Changed the sprite used for an unlock screen
Fixed the text flash on the Modifier display using the wrong timings
Fixed the scrollbar on the Modifiers screen and adjusted its appearance slightly
hasChosenModifierThisRound and totalModifiersApplied are no longer stored/saved
Fixed potential issue removing modifiers with a quantity greater than 1
Current Modifiers UI no longer flashes when loading back into a run
Changed how Stucks spawn and how Committing works
Increased the point value of Stucks to 3 (from 1)
Fixed being able to see out of bounds in some instances
Cleaned up the transition after beating the final Round
Fixed Befriended enemies hurting other Befriended enemies