Update v.30 release!

Hey everybody! Today I'm super happy to finally bring you the v.30 release! This update is mostly about general polish, a complete UI overhaul, finishing up the 2nd boss fight, and implementing the new H-scene mechanics (I've gone over those before, but the basic gist of it is that now H-scenes are manually activated, they heal you, and you can control them much like the gallery mode). I'll admit this update is a bit on the untested side, so please forgive me if there are any issues remaining - you've all been waiting so long I wanted to get it out asap. If there are any major crashes or bugs, I'll fix them via hotfixes as always. With that said, let's get to the update notes!

UPDATE v.30 CHANGES

-Continue The Great Rework™
-Finish reworking all of Alicia's basic animations
-Update all of the menus with new design, UI, and better functionality
-Finish the 2nd boss fight rework
-Implement H-mechanic changes
-Continue preparations for new public demo release
-Fix more minor issues

There are 2 particular things I want to note about these... notes.
First, Alicia is still missing I think 2 new animations, her melee attack and her swimming animations. The melee is nearing completion, but ended up being more complex to animate than anticipated, so it didn't make it in quite yet. The swimming animation on the other hand, is something that's used so rarely we didn't feel the need to rush it; we're still considering whether we want to just do an anatomy update, or a complete rework of that animation, as well.
The second thing I want to note is that the 2nd boss, while fully functional, is still missing sound and special effects - one attack in particular is just a plain red hitbox at the moment. Next update should hopefully have the remaining sounds and special effects for him, but he's completely functional, so hopefully you'll have a much better time fighting him now! Personally I think he's way better than the original version of the fight. On to the next update!


UPDATE v.31 GOALS

-Continue The Great Rework™
-Finish menu rework
-Implement Skill Trees and Skill Points systems
-Implement in-game CG gallery (maybe sprite gallery too)
-Start implementing the storyline
-Give Alicia new, more useful melee attack
-Implement stagger/stun mechanic on enemies when meleeing or using heavy hits (will likely use temporary graphics)
-Add at least one new, unique BE/Duo H-scenes for certain enemies
-Continue preparing for new public demo release

Alright, so this next update - as you can probably see - should be a pretty hefty one. I'm being perhaps a little overly ambitious about it, both because I want to deliver you guys a really good update after the last batch of mostly-polish updates, and because I want to kick my ass into high-gear after the slow progress of updates lately. There's a lot to go over, so I'll just touch on a few things here, and we can talk more in detail about some of the coming features in future updates.

First off, for the storyline, I don't plan on going too in-depth just yet - I need to code a real cutscene engine for the game, so it's likely we won't have too much in the way of story just yet, but I hope to at least try for the return of a certain somebody we haven't seen in a while.

For the stagger/stun mechanic, most enemies will lack animations for that for a while - they'll likely be using either plain blocks for those animations, or super rough temporary art, because I want to get that mechanic implemented sooner rather than later. Stagger and stun will be caused by heavier or rapid-fire hits; things like a heavy melee hit or an explosion from the Force Shot should affect enemies a lot more than they do now, and I've been wanting to make that happen for a while so those attacks will be more useful, but it's a big animation workload, so for now I'll just be using temporary art.

The unique BE/Duo scene I mentioned is the return of new H-content for Crisis Point! Since we already have CGs for every existing enemy, we're going back to the H-scenes again to replace some of the old, non-unique animations, such as the Slime and Flying Alien BE scenes, which are just the normal scenes but with larger breasts. I can't say how many new animations will be in the update, but we'll get at least one in - maybe we'll hold a poll to see which one will be worked on first.


Alright, I think that's about enough out of me for today. As always, to those of you pledged at $10 or higher, I'll be posting the download link in a separate post after this one - to those of you who WERE pledged at $10 at some point during v.30's development but no longer are, make sure you check your Patreon messages! I'll be sending you a download link very soon. Thank you so, so much for all of your support and patience, everybody - it means the world to me, and I can't wait to continue paying it back!
-A42




UPDATE v.30 MINOR CHANGES AND FIXES

-Attempting to load a save from an older version of the game will now give you a warning about potential incompatibility before loading the game
-Alicia now stays in the proper animation when pulling things using the Wire Shot
-Alicia can no longer pull movable walls on top of her by standing right up against them on the opposite side of their target, then using the Wire Shot through the wall
-Scientist H-scene should no longer cause a crash when the scientist dies during the scene (such as from fire damage or the boomerang shot)
-Changed some instances of jumps across the game that the player can ALMOST make but are impossible without future upgrades, so that they are more obviously unreachable with your current moveset
-Pressing caps lock will no longer repeat the last typed letter when writing map notes
-Added an animation offset to the UI animation on the title screen so it looks a bit nicer
-Changed various fonts around the game to be pixelated, fitting the game's aesthetic better
-Improved text alignment on the intro text screen
-Smoke effects added to Alicia's jumping and landing
-New special effects for Flare Shot
-The smaller orbs in Boss 2 will now always drop health items when destroyed
-Buffed damage output of the Boom Shot blaster chip considerably