Posted October 26, 2023 by upliftinggoat
**Bigger Notable Changes:**
- DrBossKey now has flapping wings just like the heavens of supernatural mischief intended!
- Player bullets now draw behind the player so you no longer need to panic when not being able to see your weak spot
- Reorganized HUD for improved readability of super meter, health, monster trophy medals, and lives.
- Balancing and tuning passes across the weapon sets
- Various gameplay tweaking and tuning across the levels to improved difficulty for newcomers and shmup veterans
- Two new music pieces have been added!
- Fixed spawn portals not appearing when enemies were teleporting in
- Updated the visual indicator for the super weapon ready VFX surrounding the player weak spot.
- Updated gun portal animation and added second gun type for missiles
- Performance and optimization passes across the game. We’re running at a stable 60fps on a Steam Deck!
- Changed extends to not grant extra lives every 5M points, but instead are now tied to difficulty select and activating pacifist mode
**Music and Sound:**
- Added music fade-down before boss battles.
- Added warning sound effects for boss warnings.
- Adjusted boss battle music to sync with track text appearance.
**UI and Visual Improvements:**
- Moved the help image in difficulty selection to align with the left screen UI border.
- Reduced boss name display time by a second or two.
- Updated the weak spot graphic color to purple in the tutorial.
- Centered the SC logo on the logo screen.
- Improved weapon room functionality and second section for better weapon testing.
- Removed the score from the level select secret.
- Added an airlock sound effect for the ship entrance.
- Improved weapon spread for top weapons at the origin spot to enhance point-blanking with spread shot weapons.
- Tutorial and level select environments have been updated to reflect cosmic soup.
**Level-Specific Changes:**
[b]Tutorial:[/b]
- Slowed down the parallax of the grid by half.
- Updated HP help arrow in the tutorial to point to the new location.
- Moved monster hint and spawn to the left in the tutorial.
- Adjusted monster trophy hint text in the tutorial.
[b]Level 01:[/b]
- Level 01: Located the extra ship at the end of the level near the boss.
- Investigated an issue where collected secrets didn't count on the rank screen.
[b]Level 03:[/b]
- Fixed secret found logic and rank collection.
- Fixed advanced monster trophy hint to ensure it's attached to the actual monster trophy.
[b]Level 04:[/b]
- Fixed drawing order for secret guide circle.
- Investigated dark wellspring flames not appearing for dark avian mage spawns in Level 4.
- Adjusted pacifist mode in Level 4 to leave the initial spawned state for 1.5 seconds more before moving down into the dark wellspring. I also added a big teleportation indicator to keep from accidentally collecting pacifist powerup too soon.
[b]Level 06:[/b]
- Ensured that the monster trophy spawns after pacifist mode and hid the player until the boss defeat sequence is complete.
- Fixed the monster trophy in challenge level 6 after the last long undead dragons appeared if the previous enemy criteria were not complete.
[b]Level 08:[/b]
- Hid the helper circle VFX for tentacle spinner flesh tendrils.
- Weapon plate before long flesh wall spawners adjusted.
- Tuned miniboss encounter and monster trophy spawn requirements
- Adjust some power up flows
**Rank System Updates:**
- Improved conveyance by swapping the negative mark with an X.
- Added Monster Trophy counts for each level to indicate how many can be collected.
**Visual and Audio Adjustments:**
- Updated the miniboss visuals for Frozen Shadestress, Spider Demon tank, and Robonoid.
- Audio balancing for music and sfx.
**Other Changes:**
- Added a Discord QR code to the title screen.
- Changed the back key message on the Title Screen to "Escape."
- Restarted ranked music in the credits.