Plangman v2.6.0

Plangman v2.6.0 is now live. It's a significant update and includes the following changes:

• Added 26 Lost Levels, featuring a new double-jump (aka "broken jetpack") mechanic.
• Added a two-player "Challenge a Friend" mode, where one player can enter a word for the other player to guess.
• Modified the Level Editor to store its words/levels as text files on disk, which means they can now be edited via an external text editor (instead of the sometimes clunky in-game editor).
• Added a title screen.
• Revised and expanded the story.
• Revamped the game ending.
• Added a new music track ("Neutron Star"), which plays starting on level 10.
• Revised and improved many of the existing visual clues.
• Added many new possible words to guess, each with its own visual clue.
• Modified the handling of space and Esc so they advance the story text if it's still being printed, instead of clearing it. (You can still move or jump to clear the story text immediately.)
• Fixed V to no longer look like a U.
• Added a simple enemy animation (blinking and grunting).
• Added enemy smash onomatopoeia (POW! BAM! SOCK!).
• Made the background starfield infinite.
• Added alphabet titles for the main levels (Level A, Level B, etc.).
• Added auto-saving of the visibility of in-game instructions (which can be shown/hidden via the Esc key).
• Reduced enemy sprite overlap.
• Modified square enemies so they move faster and no longer avoid drops.
• Completely revamped the symbols used in the Level Editor so they can all be typed on a standard en-US keyboard. All letter symbols are now case-sensitive. For the complete list of symbols, please visit https://plangman.com/how-to-use-the-level-editor/.
• Added a new Level Editor symbol -, which represents either a clue atom or a zoom star, depending on whether the word has a visual clue or not.
• Nixed mapping Y to Reset for controller input (it was too easy to accidentally hit).
• Reordered Input mappings, and removed those that weren't being used.
• Revised and simplified the zooming rules. Now guessing a wrong letter zooms in one unit, guessing a right letter zooms out one unit, smashing an enemy no longer affects your zooms, zoom question blocks contain a max of three zooms instead of five, and once you deplete your zooms an automatic reset occurs after three consecutive negative zooms.
• Adjusted the distance rolloff of the sound effects to prevent them from becoming too quiet when you're zoomed out.
• Slightly increased the contrast of Plangman relative to the background.
• Slightly increased the contrast of the background clues relative to the foreground.
• Slightly increased the moving platform speed, removed moving platforms from some levels, and created alternate routes to reduce the amount of waiting in the game.
• Updated the Settings menu so that the current setting is displayed.
• Fixed bug where you couldn't detonate a bomb while holding down select. Also added support for bombing more quickly by only enforcing a delay between detonations when the key is held down, not when it's released and pressed quickly.
• Fixed bug where falling offscreen while getting hit by enemy would decrement two zooms.
• Fixed bug where unspawning with a block on your head would catapult the block into the stratosphere, never to return.
• Fixed bug where spheres would sometimes ride on top of enemies instead of smashing them.
• Fixed bug where jumping off the edge of a rising platform sometimes did not add the platform's velocity to the jump.
• Fixed bug where the Level Editor levels used the saved zooms/bombs from the main levels instead of the edited levels.
• Fixed bug where you could still collect stars/bombs/etc. even after touching an enemy.

I'm also switching to offering a basic version of the game that's playable in the browser, and a Deluxe Edition that requires payment to download. The Deluxe Edition includes multiple extras not included in the regular game, such as the Epilogue, the Lost Levels, and the Level Editor. But you can still play the main storyline for free.

I hope you enjoy it!