After many weeks, I finally have an update! This is the most significant overhaul since February (pun intended) where the world components were redesigned to store multiple layers of data and the world generation algorithm was rewritten to accommodate that. Yes, I spent my summer refactoring the whole gameplay loop. No, I don't regret it!
The level of polish on this patch isn't where I would like it to be, but this is essentially all the features for the next public demo release. Expect a few more patches in the coming days to smoothen out the experience, adjust balance and remove bugs.
Player abilities, keybinds, and gameplay
Various mechanics have been updated to reduce friction and introduce interesting decisions.
February now has the ability to respawn at the last checkpoint at will. This is intended to encourage smart exploration and deliberate decisions to respawn. This will also prevent softlocking in scenarios where the player has no stamina left.
Dropdown keybinds are now set to DOWN + JUMP to be more consistent with other platformers at the cost of being less consistent with Smash Bros. February no longer needs to be stood still to drop through a thin ledge.
Coyote time after completing a grab has been removed.
Movement correction when the player jumps and collides with a ceiling is adjusted to behave consistently for all surfaces, angles and speeds.
Knowledge fragments are now auto-magnetised to February.
Player VFX
New player animations/VFX have been added:
February now loses all colour when she cannot dash.
February now visually stumbles when the player inputs a jump while standing on plantlife tiles.
February now leaps into a world instead of walking out of a portal (known issue – this only happens for the first world after loading in from the menu screen).
A handful of the player animations/VFX have been updated:
February's fall animation.
February's run animation.
February's wall grab pose.
Adjusted February's shadow colour on her back leg.
Enhanced the low stamina effect to communicate to the player even clearer.
February now correctly renders in front of the sepia regions, retaining her saturated colours when she can dash or greyed out appearance when she can't.
Core Gameplay Loop
The core loop has been overhauled to be more focussed on February as a character.
The adventure map has been removed for now, but will return in a future patch.
February now enters a hub area between each explorable world where she can shop by talking to a fairy.
The reward screen has been replaced with a choice between portals. The underlying effect and choice is the same, but is presented as a direction or challenge instead of as a reward.
Tiles
Sand tiles have been reworked to feel more forgiving and balanced:
February's running speed increased 50% -> 75%.
February's jump height from the surface reduced 4 tiles -> 2 tiles.
February's dash can now be used on the surface.
Aether tile textures have been replaced to look more visually distinct from grass, specifically in the sepia zones.
Checkpoints:
The checkpoint now sets stamina to 100% on contact, to provide an island of relief in the sepia zones.
Checkpoint tiles reskinned to be more visually consistent with the world aesthetic.
Aether bubbles have an additional visual indicator to better communicate how they work visually without needing to explicitly tell the player how they work.
Blinkpoints are 600% bigger, and are easier to grab onto.
Launch Crystals:
Launch crystal is resized to match regular tile collisions stopping the player from colliding with them unnecessarily or causing the player to fall when walking onto them.
Grabbing different launch crystals can now be chained together. A regular grab is prevented until the player has touched the ground.
Launch crystal is resized to match regular tile collisions stopping the player from colliding with them unnecessarily or causing the player to fall when walking onto them.
Hidden fairies have been removed. All fairies spawn fully visible.
HUD
In an explorable world, the HUD displays values for the current world:
Fairies collected; fairies needed to open the portal; and total fairies awaiting rescued.
Aether collected in this world.
Knowledge fragments collected in this world out of the total amount possible.
In a hub world, the HUD displays values for the run as a whole:
Total amount of fairies rescued for the run.
Current balance of aether.
Current balance of knowledge fragments.
The base stamina colour in the HUD now matches the accent colour of February's diamond and hand glow.
Notifications have been updated to be more visually loud, so that the player notices them. There's still some work to do here.
Prologue
Fully rebuilt the prologue using the new architecture which allows the prologue to span multiple worlds. Each world has it's own dedicated teaching points and an emphasis on showing instead of telling. Various dialogue text within the prologue has been changed to better match the new flow.
Misc
The loading screen now features lifetime data and an animated portal.
No more eye floaters: debris that renders in front of the player is no longer affected by parallax.
The "Start from prologue" checkbox on the main menu is now hidden before the player has completed the prologue to reduce confusion.
Multiplier to convert remaining time into aether is now set to 1 by default (previously 1.5).
Reduced load times by only loading the differences between each successive world.
Bugfixes
Fixed a bug where the player's jump was unintentionally queued when the jump key is released before the jump starts. Jump needs to be held to be queued.
Fixed a bug where launch crystals can no longer respawn on top of a player, preventing all movement.
Fixed a visual bug where values on the world summary screen are visible by default the second time the player is shown the screen without exiting to the menu. This happens only when the player has mashed "A" through the summary screen the first time.
Fixed a visual bug where tooltips would appear in incorrect locations at resolutions other than 1920x1080.
Fixed a visual bug where the background for the worlds wouldn't resize correctly in ultrawide.
Fixed a gameplay bug where the player would snap to the centre of a bubble on reentry after failing.
Fixed a gameplay bug where fairies with dialogue couldn't be interacted with again until the player walked away and walked back.
Fixed a visual bug where glowing borders could be seen before moving closer to the entity.
Fixed a visual bug where notifications would appear empty when keybind icons wouldn't render quickly enough, and would hold up the rest of notification text from being displayed.
Fixed a visual bug where February's arm would jiggle.
Fixed a visual bug where February's echoes would appear incorrectly when blinking to a different tile.
Known Issues
Stability bug: The game becomes unresponsive in the loading screen while world generation runs. The loading screen is not updated.
Visual bug: The game occasionally starts loading before the loading screen has been rendered, causing the game to appear as if it’s crashed when loading into a new world.
Visual bug: HUD doesn't resize correctly when the resolution changes and is bigger than 1920x1080px, resulting in text that is too small
Misc bug: Keyboard keybinds are activated on the Steamdeck when the touchscreen is used.
Misc bug: Neighbouring buttons in the shop aren't always in the intuitive direction using a joystick or arrow keys.
Visual bug: February’s entrance animation doesn’t play when she enters subsequent worlds. The camera stutters and the model blinks in and out of visibility.