Yep, it's more powerups, and a progress report! (Patreon)

- We're currently adding stuff like parallax scrolling and the powerups to the C++ build; the parallax itself might not be in the next demo build, but the powerups will be (we've selected 10 out of the current 50 to implement, as a good deal of them require additional features like health orbs or mana that isn't implemented in the game yet).

- In the meantime, Triangulate is continuing to do animations and art and such as usual; he's also doing a bit more tiles for the Ice Level so I can make the maps look even better.

- Cheshire is inputting the code for all these new features, etc.

- I'm continuing to flesh out the maps for the July demo, as well as work on templates for cutscenes and other features we have coming down the line.

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, clockwise from the top left, we've got a "negative" powerup and then four stand-alone 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 kiwi to eat, etc.

#1 - Nutrition Cube (Negative Powerup)

So this is one of those "weird" powerups again that might not really make sense out of context (or without spoilers), but if you look at all the previous updates, you might start to see a picture forming here. ;)

The boost it gives is "Talia's life bar constantly drains as long as she has this, at a rate of 5 HP a second, down to 1 HP (but she won't be killed by having the powerup). She also cannot utilize any movement or health-increasing-based powerups, either. However, all healing orbs now heal her for 200% of what they normally would." Being a negative powerup, this obviously has some pretty severe drawbacks; it's also one of only two or so negative powerups that also DISABLE other certain powerups!

#2 - Kiwi (Utility Powerup)

This one, being a standalone powerup, was meant to represent a country that wasn't represented too often in the other powerups, so this one actually represents China, as it was the birthplace of the fruit AND the national fruit of the country as well! (You'll find a few other food-based powerups in here, and there's even another one today; believe it or not, these all tie into the storyline too.)

The boost it gives is "Mana regeneration rate is now doubled for Talia." As mana isn't introduced in the game yet, the impact of this one may not be that significant, but this will allow you to bust out your special utility moves and your special charge shots twice as fast!

#3 - Playing Cards (Utility Powerup)

Falling in line with #1 up above, this is another powerup that's a bit of a spoiler if I explain why we picked it. It also doesn't represent any country in particular. (I'll give you one hint though; while there are four "types" of powerups, storyline-wise, there are three "categories" that all the powerups fall into. #1 is one category, #2 is the second category, and #3 is the third category.)

The boost it gives is "Makes all powerups in the game that you find twice as likely to be a higher tier." To clarify, all the powerups will eventually get "tier rankings" when it comes to how powerful they are in-game, after we've tested them all out (as well as all of you giving your feedback on how powerful they feel). Very high tier powerups will essentially be a few shades away from OP, whereas most powerups will fall in a lower tier. We're aiming for 4 tiers; the average stuff (tier 4), stronger than usual (tier 3), pretty damn strong (tier 2), and nearly OP (tier 1).

The stronger a powerup is though, it'll usually require more skill to use it to its fullest potential; for example, the two powerups below might be tier 2, at first glance.

#4 - Ensaïmada (Utility Powerup)

Here we are with another food powerup; this one in particular is representing the Philippines!

The boost it gives is "Talia now gets pushed in the opposite direction when firing in the air, and gains the ability to fire downwards as well." This introduces a whole new level of utility to Talia's movements; this will allow you to not only attack enemies below you while jumping, but you'll be able to get much more distance horizontally on your jumps, which could lead to some pretty neat sequence break stuff in maps.

#5 - Bishop Chess Piece (Utility Powerup)

This one is representing India, where the game is believed to have originated in a different form from what we know it as today, but all the same, that's where it came from!

The boost it gives is "Talia can now fire diagonally while on the ground." This one represents the usage of the piece in chess itself, being able to move diagonally. This will allow Talia to aim her shots diagonally to hit foes below her on lower platforms, or upwards to hit foes crawling on the walls or ceilings, or flying! (As you can imagine, this powerup is more useful in some levels than others, but that goes for most of the powerups.)

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