Hello everyone! Happy belated one-month launch anniversary!
Today I'd like to take a sec to talk through the newly released version 1.0.4! This version seeks to adjust and improve a few things (based mostly on user feedback) that took some time and learning on my part to implement. Thank you for your patience!
Firstly, this update sees new button icons for Xbox and PlayStation controller layouts. The previous controller icons were a sort of mishmash of Xbox and Nintendo Switch icons, and I wasn't fully happy with them (they weren't perfectly accurate to either one, and of course did nothing for people using PlayStation controllers) so the game will now detect your controller type on boot (or the first time you plug in a controller) and show the correct icons. Right now you can't swap between controller icon families once you've chosen a controller for the session, but it's an issue I'd like to fix in the future.
Secondly, there are a few new options in the Video Options menu that let you swap between a couple of screen modes and resolutions (based on your current screen's resolution). This was the first time I'd ever dealt with this sort of thing, so while I think I got it right, I can't be 100% sure! I can confidently say... I think it works!
Lastly there are a few minor fixes and a set of balance changes I'd like to talk about! These balance changes concern the Menu Time stat tracker; basically, there were two different targets (one for the Art Gallery and one in the Stats screen) that required you to amass multiple hours of time in the menus in order to unlock them (one hour for the Art Gallery item, two hours for the Stats star). These were numbers I put in there as numbers for completionists and honestly it seemed like an innocent enough thought at the time, but in truth I don't think anyone other than myself ever playtested it and so I never really got any feedback on it before launch. Ultimately I've reduced both Menu Time targets down to thirty minutes. It just wasn't a fun thing to do, and that was my bad! To everyone who already idled in the menus to unlock these... I'm sorry!
Anyways, for anyone interested in the nitty gritty, here are today's detailed patch notes;
Garden Guardian 1.0.4
CONTENT
- A new illustration has been added to the Art Gallery.
ART
- Added stroke effect to all button icons to improve consistency across UI.
- New button icons added to support Xbox and PlayStation layouts.
MISC.
- The game will now detect whether the user is using an Xbox or PlayStation controller and display appropriate button icons.¹ Non-Xbox or PlayStation controllers will default to the Xbox button layout.
- Title screen messaging updated to reflect supported controllers.
- Data is now saved whenever a series of Notices is completed. This prevents users from seeing the same Notice repeated multiple times under certain circumstances.
- Adjusted unlock condition text for Award "You do You" to provide more clarity;
- "Finish a stage with any Options setting set to 0" -> "Finish a stage with any Options setting set to 0 or "None""
- Adjusted unlock condition for an item in the Art Gallery;
- "Finish a level after surpassing one hour of menu time" -> "Finish a level after surpassing thirty minutes of menu time."
- Adjusted unlock condition for the Menu Time star on the Stats screen;
- two hours of Menu Time -> thirty minutes of Menu Time
- Improved punctuation consistency for many of the unlock conditions for Art Gallery contents.
- The text indicating your current selection for options in the Video Options menu no longer triggers mouse hover behaviour.
- User can now change the Window Mode in Video Options between three settings;²
- Full Screen
- Full Screen (Windowed)
- Windowed
- User can now change the Window Resolution in Video Options. This will allow the user to choose from a selection of resolutions lower or equal to their current screen's resolution.³
¹Note that there is currently a known issue where the buttons icons will not update correctly when swapping to a second type of controller during a play session (other than the button icons, the game will still function properly). If you wish to change the button icons, please exit the game and reboot it with the desired controller type active.
²If your save data was created before version 1.0.4 your save data will be automatically adjusted to the following settings when you first boot version 1.0.4;
- The Window Mode option will be automatically set to Full Screen (Windowed).
- The Window Resolution option should automatically default to your screen's native resolution. Note that this has only been tested on a limited selection of monitors.
- If your computer has multiple monitors available, the game may under rare circumstances default to a different monitor than you usually play the game on. This should only happen the first time you boot the game past version 1.0.4.
³Note that when using external software or OS level controls to move windows between monitors, the list of available resolutions will not update in real time. You will need to exit the Video Options menu to refresh the list of available resolutions.
If you find any issues with the game, feel free to drop me a line at [email protected]!
Thanks again for your support over this past month!
-Liam Allen-Miller