0.2.5

Changes/Fixes this version

• There is now 3 levels of zoom on the player's camera and you can swap between them using select rather than the clickable "Z" button in the top right corner. Added a far away zoom to the two existing one and reworked every level's O.o.b to fit it. This is already proving to be a must for orientation and I should have done it earlier
• Polished the recently added Journal stuff and replaced the "Z" button mentioned above with a "J" one that open the Journal from outside the Pause menu (the game isn't paused while reading the journal using the J button). You can still access the Journal from the Pause menu (the game is paused while reading the journal from the pause menu.)
• Fixed a ton of bugs, some leading to soft locks and crashes. I might have introduced new ones but I'm feeling confident given the amount of things to fix on my list. (exs: 2 holes leading o.o.b in two rooms, a random crash upon being killed by projectiles, a bug where some enemies landing on your head pinned you to the ground preventing you from jumping and effectively softlocking the player,  the player's collisions modifications introduced in 0.2.4 leading to a bug with the wall spikes tilemap [...]) given In the state the project is in, bug fixing is taking more time with each version.

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Background work

Took all the time I needed to add a ton of things that will be used for 0.3.X and beyond. Most of the content is in the game files and scenes already, it is just inaccessible for now.

• Adding rooms to the Golden Fortress. I also added some art and world items that fit the fortress. This area is now mostly making levels and adding to the challenge in fun ways, it's not just a concept anymore. I might be able to "finish" it before 0.4.0.

Barebones, W.I.P room in the Golden Fortress

• Modified the few playable rooms of the Sanctuary, especially the soultree room right before the Final Time screen. 1/3 of the new art and sound effects from the past month went into fleshing out what the Sanctuary's mood and style will be like as well as a bunch of story related environment stuff as well as the "basic" angel boss fight. This angel fight has two phases with the phase switch happening at the end of the boss's first HP bar. The second phase refills it's HP to full and transforms the boss's appearance. Those bosses are fought in dedicated rooms/arenas that took a while to make ( I also added a unique mechanic to randomize the HP potions/armor bits loot every time one of this room is entered). The angel awaiting the player will have a different name and title every time as well as one of three random melee weapons. Upon death these basic angels drop an angel tear, the rarest item so far. The first encounter will be early on in the Sanctuary and I will add it sometime during 0.3.X.

Sanctuary soultree room with the added murals AND at the new zoom level

Editor view of the "basic" Angel boss

• The rest of the time went into the first phase of designing the Arcane Academy. I implemented some of the lore in the journal logs, NPC dialog and UI descriptions of things throughout the world and made a ton of sprites, sound effects and added to the concepts list. Being the most peaceful and alive place in the game as well as where most humans dwell, it took a lot of time to come up with every detail of every room and character and executing it all but just like the Golden Fortress, I getting close to the end of the concept phase. I could details eveything I added but this will come in time after the demo.

A round of sprites for the Academy

Misc sprites for all areas

Academy's street with player and NPC

Entrance of the inhabited parts of the Academy

Editor view of Oda, an NPC tied to a special story interaction

Jar God's secondary residence in the Academy with his mask above the door, the player and inhabitants walking around

An angel door, one of the few oddities I'm working on

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The goal now is to finish the current demo phase, not adding anything above until it's fixed and polished and shared around for play testing again a couple of times.  I will leave a demo version for download when moving to 0.3.X and beyond as things will probably be jank during that time, everything in the "background work" section will be added then. I will keep updating this page with playable versions until I reach 1.0.