many thanks to all the people play-testing these early builds! while this is not the final update before the public "version 1" release, the updates leading up to that point will likely to be polish updates (which this update also includes a lot of). translation fixes, performance improvements, stability updates... that kind of thing. that said, you never know: maybe I'll get inspired to add some new hero 🤷♀️ and depending on how well the game sells, maybe I'll make be making updates for years to come (as I did with Mysterious Space). TIME WILL TELL!
until then, here's what changed in this release!
Endless Mode
after beating the game with every character, you unlock New Game+; when winning a New Game+ run, you're now offered to continue playing in Endless Mode
and that's all I have to say about that! play to find out more!
visual updates to various screens
Sector 2 now has asteroids flyin' all over the place, for more visual flavor
Sector 3 now has goopy plasma goopin' all over the place, for more visual flavor
the hero selection screen has been rearranged, and now - finally - features a "Back" button
the inventory and piece-selection screens for shops have all been redone, including allowing scrolling through your list of pieces - for a while it's been possible that your list of pieces grew to take up more than the height of the screen, and that's especially true now with Endless Mode!
the Encyclopedia got a new table of contents screen, the enemies and relics are now in alphabetical order, AND: shop keepers now get their own entries!
the screens for changing keyboard and gamepad bindings got some little layout tweaks, including language-indepedent key labels for many keys
visual updates for enemies
hard versions of enemies now have recolored versions of their art (when you're facing a tough version of an Astral Cyclura you'll know!)
the "Pulsar" enemy effect - where they blow up columns of your pieces - now comes with particle effects and minor screen shake
new stats
the run end screen now includes your playtime, and hero stats include your fastest win
hero stats now also include the furthest you ever got in an Endless Mode run
shop keepers track how many times you visited them, and how much gold you spent at each's shop
music and sounds
two new tracks have been added to the game
when in the shop, and when viewing the hero vignettes after defeating a boss, the music gets a muffled sort of quality to it
if you have volume up/down keys on your keyboard, those can now be used to change the game's volume 🤷♀️
other stuff I can't think of a good category for
improvements/fixes to CJK character set (improves the Japanese translation)
cleaned up some pixels around Imena's hands so they look more-better
line art in characters and monsters tweaked to be more visually consistent
Messy Floor + Garbage Floor effects now combine correctly
some keyboard nav fixes, especially when buttons refresh or move on a screen for any reason
and that's it for this update - see you in the next one, and thanks again for playing and providing feedback!