Last minute features, fixes, and full changelog coming to v0.4. (Patreon)

Hey everyone! This week was a lot of last minute cramming. The main reason for the rather late post here. I put in the base for several new features, though they are not well fleshed out yet. I've written up the full changelog which I will add at the end of the post. Well! Let's get into it!

I started the week off with some extensive polishing... a lot of things were still pretty messy. I added the healthpacks to the Ocean planet (Which I decided to rename to Pearlus at the last minute). I ensured all the scenes were properly connected.

I decided to add some little "silhouettes" to the catwalks to give off a better feel of the civilian population.

I added a bit of water splashing with enemies emerge from the water.

I added checkpoints to each level. Each level will have 2 checkpoints. One will be roughly half way, and the other will be just before the boss. You may restart from here after dying, or by selecting "Retry". You also have the option of restarting the whole level.

I added a little "Level Splash" at the start of every level.

With the implementation of Checkpoints, I felt that dying was less consequential, so I overall, raised enemy damage slightly, along with the damage you take when colliding with obstacles. I also lowered the amount that health packs heal, as Siren's active is a heal as well.

Along with this, I made it so enemies will "lead" their shots. this means enemies off to the sides, or at awkward angles will have a higher chance of hitting the player. This was mostly implemented due to the fact that the water bug enemies in Pearlus, being on the surface of the water would struggle to shoot "Up" at the player, as they would always end up shooting behind them.

I also added a simple "Loadouts" menu to the party select. There aren't too many options right now, but this is basically where you can choose between the new Gatling gun/Flame Wave, or the basic loadout.

I added a menu where you can now utilize "Player Affinity" (When Aether gets affinity. These stat points will give minor boosts to either health or thrust. They can also effect gender bend aspects further down the road.

I changed the "Flame Wave" visuals a little bit. They are still definitely placeholder, mind you.

I also added an option to review Nova's Hscene via the "Hscene Room" in the hub.

I made a change in the main menu. Instead of just going to the hub, there is now a "New Game" button and a "Continue" button. Be aware that if you select "New Game" your data will be immediately overwritten after selecting your loadout.

With the implementation of Aether's Affinity, he will now receive some for completing levels.

On top of that, several SFX were delivered by our sound man, Lewd K! Unfortunately They will mostly need to wait until next build, but I did put in a few of them which you may notice while playing through.

Another small bug I noticed is that if you went through conversations too fast, sometimes you wouldn't get the affinity boosts from the dialogue options. That should be fixed up now.

I added Aspect Locking to Hscenes, much like in SpunkStock. I ran into some similar issues I had with it in SpunkStock initially, but thankfully in my old "to-do" lists, I wrote down the solutions to any bugs/issues I came across, so I was able to make short work of that!

There was also a really strange bug that popped up with Molbon's boss rendering him almost unkillable (I really hope that was a bug that wasn't in v0.3 and I never noticed). Either way, it spawns it's tentacles in a bit of a different way now to ensure they are all functional.

The last thing I did was set up the Transmission sequences so that they can hold audio clips... basically they are set up and ready for VA implementation. It will just be a matter of slotting them in.

With that, I'll jump into the changelog before going into what's on for next week.

Major Changes:

-New Level: Pearlus
-New Ally: Siren
-2 new Hscenes with Pix
-New loadout options: Gatling gun, and Flame Wave
-You can now use Aether Affinity for minor increases to stats
-Added volume options
-Added Sensitivity options along with a Y invert option.
-Added Checkpoints

Minor Changes:

-Added an option to review Nova's Hscene via the SexPod
-Some new SFX by Lewd K.(Only a few atm)
-Added point indicator "pop ups" when killing enemies
-Added a controls window (Though they are not customizable yet)
-Overall made enemies and obstacles do more damage, and reduced the amount of health that health packs recover. (This is largely due to the fact that Checkpoints are implemented, and Siren offers a heal as her active.)
-Changed how enemies aim at you. They now "Lead" their shots. This means enemies will be more likely to hit you.
-Made "Power" shot (Your basic 3-shot burst), have 2 separate colliders. A large one for enemies, and a small one for Obstacles. This is to help give a generous hitbox while not having them be sensitive to hitting obstacles.
-Ally's "Help me" sequences should no longer shoot at enemies if you fail to save them. -Added level "headers" when starting a level. -fixed some bugs with Molbon's boss.
-Added a "Locked Aspect" to Hscenes. It should letterbox to 16:9.
-Introduced "New Game" and Continue" from the main menu. "Start in Hub" has been removed. -Aether now gets affinity when finishing a level.
-Weeble's position was bugged, he floated before... he shouldn't now.
-Fixed a but with Affinity where if you blasted through conversations too fast you could miss out on some affinity gains.

Alright! Next week will be a busy one. v0.4 will be launching on the 1st obviously, but aside from that I will be setting up the base of the Desert level. I'll also be trying to put in the rest of Lewd K's SFX.

Thanks again everyone! I'll catch you in a couple days with v0.4's release!

-Regulus