I'm back from my annual summer physiotherapy session, got a few days of rest, and pushed the game as far as I could. At this point I'm only working on the game, so I have good progress as well.
So what's the first progress this summer:
Story > Dialogs: All level dialogs are now implemented in the game. Last week I added the missing ones for Act 10.
Intro: Using some of the new assets from the game's cover, I've improved the intro and made final adjustments to the timing of the texts.
Settings: Added a "Performance" section with 2 options to disable the particle systems for the ships and for the weapons.
Drops: The Powershot Cooldown and Powershot Damage drops now restore your powershot charge on pickup. The Shield Cooldown drop now has an improved effect and immediately restores 1 shield as well.
The new performance settings were added because I noticed that on extremely old (1st gen i5) or very low‑cost CPUs, the new particle systems cause dropped frames. So everyone that wants the most FPS, or just visual clarity, can turn off those effects.
As for the drops – I noticed that the later ships, which have a long cooldown on their powershot, have almost no use for the powershot drops, as they time out before you can even fire. So it just makes sense to have those drops restore your powershot on pickup.
And of course, the main one – 95% of the story dialogs are now in the game! The only ones left are at the post‑boss scene for the final boss, and of course the ending scene.