Hi all,
Another batch of wildly scattered additions and changes from all around the game:
Trailer done
Finally, some moving images on the Steam page 😊
Demo done
You’ll be able to play the tutorial, 3 levels of sector A, 3 levels of sector B and 2 levels of sector C. This means 8 out of 42 levels (= 19%). That might be a bit much content for a demo. However, it allowed me to create a demo without reworking the overworld or creating (and maintaining) a separate demo-overworld etc. And there is still quite a lot of stuff not included in the demo: Several skills, hardcore mode, many achievements, full-version leaderboards, 3 sector mechanics, all of the optional dark/x0 levels, i.e. 34 levels not included
It brings a subset of the full version achievements, stats and even leaderboards
RGB lighting support added (off by default)
Have your RGB hardware light up in the levels background colors, flash / play effects when skills are used, you die, etc.
Working for all manufacturers which support Windows dynamic lighting (e.g. Logitech and Razor) + Corsair
Quality-of-life features
Everything is skippable! This includes Splash Screens, Intro, Outro, Credits, Level start animations…
On-screen messages have a progress bar like indicator so you know how long the message will stay on screen
Pause screen offers a “Next song” button, though I’m not sure if this is necessary since all songs are great (really great job by my music guy @Wenner)
Steam’s dynamic cloud sync implementation
The game used auto cloud sync before, now it is dynamic.
I.e.: You can now suspend the game on the Steamdeck, continue playing on PC, then get back to Steamdeck and not lose progress by doing so 😊
Players have the option to continue with the outdated data from Steamdeck though
A typical “saving-in-progress” icon in the bottom right corner added to give an indication when progress is saved
Nebula graphics improved
Background nebulas looked like this before:
Now they are a lot more detailed and (at least for my eye) interesting:
Accessibility improvements
First start of the game shows a brightness and contrast adjustment screen
Options menu shows a live preview of brightness and contrast changes
Size of several texts increased so it’s easier to read on small screens (e.g. Steamdeck)
Performance improvements
As it turns out I’ve HAD quite a few actions running on every physics tick (120Hz), even though they did not change anything or did not need to update 120 times per second. Solid beginner mistake there.
The game was running at stable 60fps on Steamdeck before. Now it’s faster / uses less power 😊
Playtesting started by a selected group of people
Even though it just started and it's not a lot of people testing, there have been plenty of bug reports, suggestions etc. already.
Additionally, I’ve had some time during the last vacation to thoroughly test the game (on Steamdeck). This resulted in a to-do list of almost 100 fixes, improvements and changes.
A lot of those reports and my own 100 item list is already implemented/done 😊
Big thank you to everyone who’s putting effort into making Skippy’s Grand Escape better ♥️
Misc
Steam store and library graphics reworked. Previous ones looked a bit stiff
Even more songs added to both (relaxed and time attack) playlists!
Native Linux build running - which makes Steamdeck usage a little bit more comfortable
Cheers,
Inv1s1ble