0.3.5

This version adds and changes a lot, last week was spent working on the game and there's a lot.

Added/Changed this version:

• Major art pass - Spent hours redrawing sprites, adding outlines, texture where there wasn't, details to where there was as well as adding new sprites at every step. This could be considered a pass as the game will look slightly different and since I'm alone doing all this. More details later down the list.

• New direction -  While planning ahead level/room templates, I noticed that the previous goals for 0.3.x where kinda misguided and needed to be reconsidered at least for the academy, the bastion of humanity and every minor areas like the 3 catacombs, the angel doors dimension, the purgatory levels as well as stuff like the player home. So I'm going to focus on the main path for those areas starting with the functionality (going through what's made of the area without the game breaking.) This is now done for the bastion as well as a significantly larger sections of the academy than I thought. The academy recently required a lot of the new art mentioned above since the inhabited parts are supposed to be quite lively compared to the desolate, torn apart, enemy-infested parts of the tower. Scenery takes a long time to draw and the added furniture/ light fixtures/ npcs visuals/ new tiles for tilemaps/ storefronts elements, the new crops and boombox related props (and a couple of added tracks for good measure), the png count is getting up there and the workload is a lot to handle alone. 
  

• New projectile/Juji shuriken & new system - The juji joins the demonslayer bolt in the secondary projectiles category.  Mirroring the  fire slash and the fireball couple of main projectiles. I've added a bunch of pickup items for the bolts and the juji as well as furniture & racks containing a lot of those pickup items. The projectile now has it's own top UI bar and counter. You can have a max of 1200 of those on you. The bolt crate pickup loot now adds a juji on top of the 5 bolts

• New input - Use L3 (press the left joystick) or MouseWheeldown to swap between secondary projectiles types (bolts and juji.) - There's a small display on the top UI near the projectiles bars that indicates the currently selected projectile type. 

• Jar God Vault changes - To accommodate the juji and as a result of playing the game a shit ton, I've decided to change the vault a bit, the A page remains unchanged but is now called "General vault". The B page, now called "Armory" still have the glow sticks and drones but now also contain the demonslayer bolts, the shurikens and armor.  These free are now fully vault-able and can be accumulated in between NG circles and saved from the item loss penalty upon death.  
  

• Major changes to the demon blacksmith -  This change also affected the demon blacksmith and his ore smelting mechanic. Now, extra crafted armor (above the 6 points max that you can have on you) will be vaulted for you. This includes the armor at the special blacksmith encounter in his workshop in the golden fortress where, not only does he also craft and vault armor but also will allow you to smelt/buy shurikens. (2 alium  ores and 50 gold for 2 shurikens, 1 in on you directly and 1 vaulted.)

• New cache type - Coffrets. In between small caches pickups and medium caches. This chests will give random items with a theme for each one. There's three right now, a rare items one, a projectiles ammo one and a wooden, mundane one. They're mostly flavor, giving items found elsewhere already but in a way where it feels less like a storage chest rather than someone's belongings. Work with a normal lock.

• Changed some the HP pickups and Armor boxes - Now Bruce's HP cells and armor box lying around the tower will only appear in NG. They will disappear once NG+1 is started. Hp potions and health fountains remain in all NGs.

• New traps - The academy has this big spell protecting it from demons and angels in the story, so the danger cannot come from the usual enemies. I focused or revamping some traps like the pendulums and added a couple like the blades/saws on a set path as well as the death eagle sections. A huge killing machine that can be scene early on here:  

• changed gold drops - playing the game a lot and opening every single cache I've hid in there left me with so much gold Midas would be jealous. So I've tuned down the amount that all kinds of chests give you. 

• Story details - Like dialogues, rooms, furniture but also the AIs talking to you through sound rather than a text box like direct conversations. The AI display and the angelic reinforcements are both something for the sanctuary later on but they can be seen in action a little already after going through the vision of gods and after certain rooms in the sanctuary.

• Factions contributions - This sounds like a new system but it's me trying to add to the planned endings (two so far.) Some places will now open an early version of the "Escape requirements" menu from which you can donate items to a faction to help them escaping the tower. So far there's one for the Olilis, the academy inhabitants and the lurker trio found somewhere in the bastion of humanity.

• Changed some bosses on minor things like number of projectiles, instances per frame stuff, 2d light stuff as well as particles. I've changed a couple of them further like the demon lord/dragon boss fight where the demon lord is now the same but way smaller (In body size) - Added a secondary boss fight called lost guardian. A normal one is now located after a death eagle corridor in the gore catacombs accessible from the lower sections. There's  also a version appearing only if you've suffered a true death before in some rooms. 

• Bastion of humanity - Even tho some levels are quite empty, the bastion's first few levels have been changed a bit to fit the new layout. The path from it to the academy is still in place just as before. The place being an abandoned ruin, I decided to focus it on story/movement & jumps and a minimum amount of bosses and enemies as a whole. I'm leaving the secondary wall demon boss where it is. 
  

• Catacombs - worked on the fortress's catacombs to an acceptable level for now, it has been extended and can now be run through. Added a lost guardian and a death eagle level to the gore catacombs of the lower sections. Made a few accessible levels in the academy's catacombs accessible from Kuros' room. The first two previously mentioned are almost finished.

• Added an instance of the blood fountain being used.

Fixed this version:

• Performance - Hunting for bugs to fix and trying to ease the performance when it comes to earlier stuff takes a while now. It would be futile to make a list but I'm still adding off screen/on screen draw logic and making sure I optimize the amount and the parameters of 2d nodes. It's also slowly paying back when it comes to instancing stuff like enemies, loot or projectiles.

• Many projectiles bugs since I added the shuriken. There's some audio/visual bugs in there that now add to the gamefeel and some upgrades/stats bugs that I cleaned up for all four projectiles as well as the fireball Devilfire upgrade. 

• Player home - Very secondary mechanic but still quite broken last time. Now the tiers should be working correctly, minus the original ones with a bunch of foreground and background furniture.

• Messed up portals -  incorrect links to rooms, messed up scripts at the beginning of rooms  and chapters and logic from area to area. This still is a wip. I restarted the game and save files a lot this week.

• softlocks - I've found a bunch of those at first and I fixed them but I have a few extra on the list and there's probably a lot of opportunity to softlock still.

• Collision bugs, there's always more. projectiles and ground position on the player still have a bunch to fix as well as the latest bosses an enemies in the sanctuary and the fortress.

Misc/background work:

• Concept/direction - The original idea for LITD, the main loop and the foundation of the "linear but with branches"   (like railroad switches or additions almost to the potential main path.) was the player's movement and the concept of a "run". From the first room to the final screen, there should be as little forceful sequences or cutscenes, just room after room. Npcs and other interactions can be ignored and most must be activated via input, Deaths and true deaths reloading the level or entire game, the NG system that is basically allowing me to add differences and added difficulty between runs, I've tried to keep the flow of gameplay bits going as interrupted as possible. It works so far but mastery of the movement really shines in the end of the fortress, the background work on levels in the academy and slowly in what's done of the sanctuary. Recent changes to enemies HP pools, player levels, projectiles stats, damage to player functions and the likes are an effort to add to the combat side of the game but I'm always trying to keep the game doable using only precise and smart movement (on the main physical attribute of the player's demon being agility) reserving combats only for bosses or instances where you need an item from an enemy. 

• Concept/direction 2 - I'm trying to stay fair in the difficulty and challenge presented by the game but it's hard to plan everything correctly and there's propably a lot of changes that will come to every boss/ enemy/mechanic added or improved recently. 

• Arcane Academy - As I talked about previously, the inhabited areas are really hard mood wise. The streets, the temple and the player's home are the biggest "peaceful" areas of the game. There's a lot of life that has to be brought into those to contrast with the other areas' general vibes - I took a break from all the progression stuff to add details to the streets, add a couple farms and scenery bits with decorations, lights, npcs, merchants and small boomboxes with tracks playing. This is fun to add, by now it keeps adding up and the academy comes along far quicker than I thought it would. I've really cranked up the presence of plants in the game, related to story but also to keep improving the visual contrast in between areas.

• Angelkind - My favorite part is making the horrors faced by the player in the game. The  major angels are supposed to be late game ones. Even simple angels encountered at the beginning of the sanctuary pale  in comparison. I've made some progress on three of those: The authority, the cherubim and the seraphim. Here's their early 2d bodies with an idle animation each -