Knuckles Quest v0.5 Update

Sonic Amateur Games Expo 2025 is right around the corner, and if you expected a new version of Knuckles Quest to arrive alongside it, you'd be correct! (Some of you reading this may even be lucky enough to be playing this a few days early!) The latest version, 0.5, has arrived, and with it comes plenty of cool changes.

• Added new stage: Sanative Skyway
  • Serves as a tutorial for the basic controls and mechanics, complete with Omochao telling you them, but has plenty of secrets to find
• Redesigned Molder Forest
  • Doesn't have the key/door mechanic but is larger and less enclosed than the original version, with some new mechanics and many more placements for the gems
    • Made mosquito enemy faster
    • Added particles to leaf platforms
• Added custom Knuckles and Rouge models
• Added new general objects: Balloon Items, switches, and Spike Traps
• Replaced emerald pieces with a different sort of gemstone
  • Updated UI and textures accordingly
• Updated logo and title screens
  • Added title music and replaced title logo
• Various other fixes and tweaks
  • Backspace can be used to pause the game and back out of menus
  • Player no longer always jumps at max height when carrying an object
  • Fixed glitch where gemstone collection effect doesn't follow player sometime
  • Fixed bug where auto camera angles don't work after respawn
  • Fixed softlock when pressing "escape" while quit menu appears
  • Fixed bug where pause menu could briefly be interfaced with while restarting level
  • Running attack maintains speed if it is above the normal maximum
  • Reprogrammed launch springs and dash rings
  • Add button prompts for hints in the pause menu
  • Added music loops specific to the Web build
  • Changed Linux graphics API to Vulkan; should fix certain graphical issues
  • Rings cannot be collected at all during "defeat" animation
  • Slightly slimmed hint monitors' appearance
  • Tweaked capsule break and lightning shield particle effects
  • Tweaked options menu appearance
  • FPS Check asset updates faster
  • Other things I may have forgotten

EDIT: In addition to those, a few days after uploading v0.5.0, I received some feedback and decided to patch some additional things for v0.5.1 before SAGE begins proper:

• Drill move carries horizontal momentum depending on if a direction is being held
• Reduced vertical momentum carried into glide
• Can cling to walls for a brief moment after letting go of a glide
• Changed radar coloration
• Fixed glitch with SA1-style radar appears in Sanative Skyway
• Slight level design tweaks (not much, one object was added and two were moved)
• SAGE logo appears in WebGL build 

Play the game in your browser now, or download it to your device of choice!

Anyways, you may be able to guess from the change log, but designing the levels was a priority for this particular demo. With many of the game's main features in place in the previous version, my goal has been to simply work on the rest of the levels and story, as well as perhaps some alternate game modes. However, the way I intend to structure this game, I don't think that I can implement these things in a way that I can drip-feed them to players through public builds.  What this means is that there likely will not be any more major content updates until the game is in a finished state. I may do some additional updates based on player feedback or to polish certain things (case in point, v0.5.1), but you're going to have to wait for things like new levels.

However, if you're concerned about this game going dark, fear not! Through the dev logs on this very page, I will still show off progress updates of the game as I'm able, and I also sometimes show teasers on my Bluesky page for those who are extra curious. Over the past year, despite some hardships, my desire to work on this game has not faltered, so you can expect me to keep you all updated in the year to come.

Thanks to all of you who have checked out and given feedback and comments on this game! It's been really rewarding seeing other people be just as, if not more attracted to the idea as I've been, and it's a large part of why I'm convinced not to give up on this project.