Update v.32 release! (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Sorry I didn't post an update yesterday at the usual time, but I had a busy day and I was so close to finishing the update I wanted to just hold off until I could. Now, though, v.32 is officially finished and available for download! As always, I'll be posting the download link to $10+ Patrons after this post, so that the update information can be public, as well as messaging the link to anyone who pledged at the $10 tier or higher during the development of v.32. Let's get into it, shall we?

v.32 MAJOR CHANGES

-New, updated CG artwork added for Warped Soldier CG scene
-Difficulty selection added when starting a New Game (Easy, Normal, Hard)
-Handful of secrets/challenge rooms added around the game, with more to come in the future
-3 blaster chip types added (Auto Shot, Seeker Shot, Siphon Shot)
-8 new environmental conversations added, bringing the total up to 11
-Some rooms in the Caves and Summit have been updated with new level design
-Options menu can now be accessed from the main menu, allowing the player to change their settings BEFORE playing
-Unique animations added in various cutscenes to make characters feel more alive during them

That's all of the biggest changes that happened in this update; as always, the minor stuff will be listed at the end of this post. Right now, I'm extremely focused on trying to finish The Great Rework, so I apologize for the lack of new content in this update and the next one. My main goal right now is pushing to get new content back on the menu, and to try and get a public demo out so that we can hopefully get our Patreon numbers up and Orexius can start working on CPE full time. I cannot stress how much of an increase it would be in our general productivity; since we live close to each other, whenever he has a day off we can meet up and work together in person, which is when we stream together. That's why we only stream twice a week, since he has his dayjob every other day, but streams are when our productivity is at its highest, so being able to stream together almost every day would be nuts. Enough about that though, let's move on to our goals for v.33 shall we?

UPDATE v.33 GOALS

-Finish The Great Rework™
-Implement more challenge rooms and secret collectibles around the game
-Add in more environmental dialogues
-Continue reworking older H-scenes, possibly add new H-scenes
-Finish reworking and updating older CG artwork
-Rework the level design of earlier areas where necessary to make exploration more interesting and difficult
-Prepare a new public demo with about the same amount of content as v.13 (ending after the 2nd boss)

As you can see this next update looks a lot like the previous one. The main reason for that is that I really want to focus a few of these things down, like hiding secrets around the game, adding more conversations, and generally just polishing up that early chunk of the game to a radiant shine in preparation for a public demo. Ideally, after this update, I want the beginning chunk of the game to be at a point where I never have to touch it again, or at least where future changes will be pretty minor in comparison, which is why one of the goals this update is to FINISH The Great Rework™. Not to say we're going to be done reworking things forever, that's just not how game development works, but I want to get a healthier balance of reworking things and creating new content after this.

There probably won't be any streams this week, just so everyone knows - I'm going to be taking a short break to enjoy my birthday week, and plan things on the sidelines before diving into v.33 development. Starting next week, I'm going to be trying to stream at least twice a week, whether or not Orexius is available (though hopefully he will be now that he's done with his IRL stuff).

Until then, thank you all so much for your endless generosity and support. Crisis Point is finally back on track and I cannot wait to start making real forward momentum again, I haven't been this excited for our future in a long time. Thanks so much for sticking with us, everybody - can't wait to show you what the future of CPE holds!

-A42

UPDATE v.32 MINOR CHANGES

-Audio levels now load properly based on your previous session when you load into the game
-Boss 2's Tar Rain sound has been made quieter
-Fixed a handful of minor bugs that caused music volume to be inconsistent after/during certain events
-Fixed a bug causing audio levels to max out again irrespective of the player's audio settings after an environmental conversation played
-Certain environmental dialogues (specifically ones that are very limited, like boss fight dialogues) now cancel other dialogues if they're active when the higher-priority dialogue tries to start
-Fixed a bug where environmental dialogue ending would remove a buffered Jump input, causing extremely rare situations of the game "eating" your jumps
-Player can now no longer make the 2nd boss shrink faster by continuing to shoot him after he starts his death animation
-Boss 2 could not die during the Tar Rain phase; this has been fixed
-Environmental dialogues can no longer activate in the middle of boss fights (unless they're specifically for that boss)
-Fixed issue where non-piercing bullets could sometimes hit Boss 2's eye multiple times in one shot
-Implemented rough stagger animations for each enemy that can be staggered, so they're no longer plain hitboxes when staggering
-Dashing under a low ceiling no longer causes the player's head to become visually stuck in the ceiling, and instead forces Alicia into a crouch as expected
-Boss 2's arena in the Summit now connects to the map properly
-Major cutscenes are now skippable by holding the Pause or Escape keys
-Fixed a minor bug where Alicia's vertical speed continued for 1 frame after the player dashes, rather than stopping instantly
-Enemies should no longer be able to catch on fire during an H-scene, so H-scene Flare Shot crashes should no longer happen
-Walking into the shortcut room from the Summit to Caves, even from the wrong end, automatically moved the pillar blocking the shortcut. Now it must be moved properly.
-Added some text to Birch after the first boss fight, to clarify that the player should explore more using the Force Shot despite Birch telling Alicia to come back to camp
-Masturbating while under a low ceiling no longer causes Alicia to stand up, which allowed you to walk and jump, the latter of which would get you stuck in the ceiling, softlocking the game
-Changed colors used in the game's map and minimap to better represent the areas' color schemes
-Fixed an issue where, if the player stayed in a room with a dialogue trigger until the dialogue was finished, then touched the dialogue trigger again, game audio would permanently dim as if dialogue was playing despite no dialogue being present
-Doors no longer play their "opening" sound effect multiple times if hit by multiple bullets in the same frame
-New visuals added to destructible environment blocks, instead of having slightly different colored versions of normal blocks
-Swapped the locations of a Skill Piece and Health Upgrade Piece, to make at least 1 Skill Point obtainable before fighting the first boss
-Moved/removed/added several Skill Pieces, Health Upgrade Pieces, and other upgrades around the game
-Added proper visuals and sound effect for Boss 2's tarbeam attack
-Numerous sound effects added around the game
-Raised minimum and maximum damage of Charge Shot (min from 0.5 to 0.75, max from 2.5x to 3x (charge time is the same))
-Fixed numerous instances of misplaced or missized collision boxes in the Catacombs that lead to things such as bone platforms being larger than they appear, or dashing against ceiling slopes causing you to stop moving
-Attempted fix for crash during Boss 2, haven't been able to replicate said crash so not sure if it fixed or not
-Fixed bug with Boss 2 where the laser beam would sometimes hit Alicia if she was standing on the ground, even if it didn't visually touch her
-Fixed minor visual bug in the Status menu
-Fixed some lingering issues with the Debug menu's HP changing options
-Fixed bug where arrows in Debug menu were not lighting up when that menu option was selected
-Fixed bug where certain menus would still allow you to move up and/or down after selecting a menu option that should hold the cursor in place