As promised, here is the update to The Betweenlands Demo. I showed this version off at EagleCon this weekend, and I'm so glad so many people seemed to love it! We got a small speedrunning community going by the end, although I still hold the record by a large margin hehe.
With this demo update, I will return to mostly working on the full game, so the demo might not be updated again (at least no major updates). I know there are still a few bugs in this version (like the fog, grappling crumbling stone), but I want to move on and tell the full story of Mori and her world. There's so much I've learned from working on this demo that I want to start applying to the full game.
For a bit of a teaser, here's some info on what I plan the final game to look like. First of all, it will be much much bigger, with each major area being at least as big as this entire demo. The areas will also be much less linear, allowing for more exploration and environmental storytelling. Speaking of which, there will be a much larger focus on the story with more characters and dialogue and lore.
Anyway, here are the precise patch notes:
Audio:
- New music by Benjamin Borthwick!
- Pulley sound effects
- Crumbling stone sound effects
- Some ambient sound effects
- Grappling sound bug fixed
Graphics:
- Background art improved
- Lots of particle effects
- Dynamic fog
- Post processing
- Glowing crystals
- Bigger checkpoint flags
- Various sprites improved
- 2 Dialogue portraits added, others tweaked
- Grapple and pulley rope texture
Gameplay:
- Completely reworked Morewell area
- Added special camera zones to some Greenwall areas
- Made the "Greenwall Hell" area more forgiving
- Minor level tweaks all over the place
- Option to detach grapple with jump input
- Option to automatically enable new checkpoints
- Remappable controls
- Reset (respawn) button
UI:
- Death counter (enabled in options)
- Speedrun timer (enabled in options)
- Announcement banner when entering a new area
- Controller menu navigation fixed
- Buttons and menus cleaned up