Even more powerups, and another progress report! (Patreon)

- We're working through bugs in the C++ version and such; we should have things done within a few days at most.

- In the meantime, Triangulate is continuing to do animations and art and such as usual; I'd give more specifics but it's general progress as always :P

- Cheshire is inputting the fixes and such, so he's pretty busy with that.

- I'm continuing to flesh out the maps for the July demo, as well as restructure the databanks for the new databank structure.

We plan to try and release the demo between July 9th (earliest) to July 23rd (latest); if you pledge this month successfully you'll get the demo next month of course!

And from this point onwards we're going to try our best to get out monthly demos too :)

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And now, for the powerups! This time around, we've got a utility set as well as two standalone utility powerups!

If you missed the first powerups post on how powerups work, go back and look at it patreon.com/posts/4840446 there!

To note again, these objects are not the actual physical representation of these objects; picking them up doesn't actually give Talia a knife to use, etc.

So, counter-clockwise, from the upper left, the top three powerups are themed after Food Preparation.

#1 - Blender

So, believe it or not, the blender actually WAS invented in America, hence it's used for the North American powerup, etc. (It's also used more frequently here than other nations for smoothies and so forth, AFAIK)

The boost it gives is "If Talia hits an enemy while it's in a "stunned" state, she gets a small amount of mana back from each attack she lands on them." So some of the Utility powerups are going to be about getting back Mana (since the Defense ones are about Health management etc.), which is used to do Boss Powerup abilities and Boss Charge shots. The "stunned" state here refers to when the enemy reels back after being hit.

#2 - Frying Pan

The Frying Pan is obviously something used by numerous countries, but I decided to make it the European one (with how frequently it's used in numerous European cuisines, especially French). Again, a huge stretch, but when you find out what these powerups actually represent, I figure the stretching of facts might make more sense.

The boost it gives is "Landing from a jump near enemies WHILE Talia is in her "fully charged" state will cause those enemies to turn away from/ignore Talia for one second." This is somewhat of an odd powerup, but for some of the enemies that present a massive threat close up, this ability will allow Talia to mitigate the threat from them for a second. Particularly, this could be used for speed-running the levels if you manage to get good at landing your jumps right by enemies...

#3 - Japanese Knife

Obviously just about everywhere on the planet uses a knife in making certain foods, but the Japanese have a reputation of quality with their knives, so they were selected for the Japanese powerup in this set.

The boost it gives is "Hitting an enemy with a fully charged shot prevents them from attacking for two seconds." This is great for enemies that are peppering you with shots, or have an attack you just can't seem to deal with that well.

The set boost for this Utility set is:

"Talia's time to charge her attacks is cut in half, and landing near enemies while fully charged causes enemies to get physically pushed away by a bit as well. Finally, enemies also become dis-interested in Talia if they run into her as well (and she's not stunned)." With everything combined, this would allow you to time your landing jumps and attacks to effectively disable a majority of enemies in the level as you run through the level.

And now, for the remaining two powerups, the "standalone" utility ones;

#4 - Glass of Wine

If you remember me talking about powerups that weren't from a specific country of origin from the previous powerups post, well, both this and the next powerup are that way; the reason for them being in here will be revealed in the game in time, of course.

The boost it gives is "Gravity for the player is now lessened by 25%, but their movement momentum also takes 50% longer to stop as well." With this one we're hoping people will find some neat exploits in the maps, shortcuts, that sort of thing.

#5 - Wall Clock

Same as above; can't really say much more about the powerup for now. :P

The boost it gives is "For every half second that the player holds a direction without hitting any obstacles whatsoever, Talia's movement speed will increase by 0.1x, up to a maximum of 3.0x." Another "beat the maps faster" powerup, this one will take a LOT of skill and planning to use at maximum capacity. You'll likely find this one to be mostly useful on a second playthrough of the game once you know the maps, so you can plan routes and such.

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That's it for now; we'll have another powerup and update post soon! :D