Hey everyone!
First off, a big thank you to everyone who played the Horse Runner DX demo, shared your thoughts, and posted gameplay videos on YouTube. Your feedback has been incredibly helpful!
With Demo Update 0.8.2, there are several improvements based on your suggestions and bug reports:
Gameplay Improvements
- Acceleration at the end of the level: If you don't want to read the bonus information and challenges at the end of the level, you can now jump to accelerate immediately.
- Improved biome variety: Biomes are now alternated more evenly so that each landscape appears with a similar frequency. This means that challenges to reach a certain landscape are now much fairer.
- Adjustment of night brightness: Since the night was a bit too dark for some, the brightness was increased slightly for accessibility.
- Improved controls during gameplay: The pause menu can now be opened and closed with the start/options button. In the game, the X button can now be used in addition to A. On a PlayStation controller, Square can now be used in addition to X.
Technical Improvements
- Improved support for non 16:9 resolutions: At some resolutions, there were black bars on the edges due to the pixel-perfect display. Now the game is displayed as large as possible and (almost) without borders, even at unusual resolutions.
- Improved retro filter: The scanline shader has been reworked to look better even at unusual resolutions.
- New hotkeys for music: There are now a few handy hotkeys to control the background music - mute music (F6), previous song (F7), next song (F8).
- New hotkeys for screenshots and display: Create screenshot (F9, My Pictures folder), hide UI (F10, e.g. in the pause menu), toggle full screen (F11).
- Improved controls in the settings menu: To switch a setting (e.g. English >) you can now also press right (keyboard/controller). Pressing left no longer jumps out of the current setting item.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed notification text that was difficult to read at some resolutions
- Fixed localization issue in the power-ups menu
- Corrected text for the power-up "Points +20" (previously +10)
- Fixed edge case that allowed jumping out of water
- Fixed info at end of level for the power-up "Faster"
- Fixed poor landscape display on narrow screens
- Fixed missing landscape on ultra wide screens
I’ve also spent time reviewing your gameplay videos to better understand how you play and what parts of the game bring the most joy (or challenges!). These insights have been invaluable in shaping the next steps for Horse Runner DX.
As always, I'm eager to hear your thoughts on the update! Feel free to share your experiences, post screenshots, or drop suggestions in the community hub.
Thank you again for being part of this journey – your support means the world to a solo developer like me. 🤗