Over the past two weeks since launch, I've received a fair amount of feedback about how confusing the early parts of the game are. So much so, that many players had given up. As a developer, I spent 99% of my time outside of the starting area, so it hurts to see players missing out on all the good stuff.
Here are the patch notes for version 1.1:
+ The tutorial from the demo has been added back into the game with a few minor tweaks.
My goal when developing the starting area was to have the level design be intuitive enough to where it didn't need any text to tell the player what to do. You can still play this way as the demo-tutorial is completely optional, but I already made the tutorial for the demo, so why not add it back in for players who might need the extra help?
+ Added some extra "hints" to the early stages in the overworld tutorial for extra clarity.
Once you complete the overworld's tutorial, you land on a platform a little over to the left of the starting platform. I was playing a bit of a balancing game by trying not to make it so apparent that you can skip the tutorial by going immediately to the left from the start, but in doing so players became frustrated that there was no checkpoint after the tutorial. Now, the post-tutorial platform is larger and has a sign pointing towards the origin (spawn).
+ Changed readability of fonts in textboxes and HUD.
An outline has been added to all areas using the poppkorn font. I meant to only make this change to certain areas where the text overlaps the environment, but the way Unity's font assets and materials works is a little strange, so it applied to everything. Fuck it, though. It looks better anyways.
+ Fixed dialogue at first checkpoint.
Previously at the first checkpoint, the message would say that the shopkeeper is to your right. It has now been updated to correctly say that it is to your left. I am a dumbass.
+ Changed menu text to show game version.
The text that once said "created by Jay Hawkins" in the corner of the main menu now shows the game's version instead. The corner text was added before the splash-screen at the start, so I figured it was now redundant.
Anyways, that's the update. I hope this game punches you in the *&$% a little less now than it did before.
Again, this update was made respective to player feedback, which I will continue to be receptive towards. If you want to give your honest thoughts, feel free to email me at [email protected]. (It'll also help if you put feedback or something similar somewhere in the subject line).