Update from the Team

Hello River Dwellers

We are a month out from Midwest Gaming Classic, which means that this is the last big update for the next two(2) months. We do have quite a bit of clean up before MGC, but we wanted to present as much as we could there. So this update has quite a few things in it, which you can of course get a summary below. There is alot that still needs to be touched up. Those are going to be the main goals for this month so that the presentation at MGC will be as clean as possible. Since we still have our day jobs we are trying to avoid crunch time for the week before MGC, which is why this is the last big update for a while. Once we have things touched up we will likely push a mid month update so that the version at MGC is in sync with the version on itch. This way if someone doesn't have the opportunity to play at MGC they can come back and play at their convenience.

On a different topic, we have previously said that we are eventually going to move from a web demo to a downloadable version. This is because we know at a certain point the game will no longer run as well in the web. We swear we are trying to keep the game optimized, but at a certain point the web demo doesn't reflect how the game will perform on your hardware. Additionally as we clean up Cedar Root and start to write the official story dialogue we want to start preparing the game for Steam. Currently we are on version 0.4.5 of Clover, and we have some big plans for the next several minor version:

Room loading to use multi-threading for smoother gameplay

Shopping Interface for restocking consumables

Water physics for under water levels

Localization logic handling (potential dialogue refactor)

Input Auto Detection and Remapping

Now with all these things planned as minor versions that would bring us from 0.4.5 (Current) all the way to 0.9.0 which feels like forever away. One year ago we demoed 0.2.x at MGC, and we hope to get these next 5 minor version done this year, because once we get to version 0.9.0 we plan to release the demo on steam, with an official release date.

We understand that 5 minor versions, and probably several patches through a year seems like a big task. Since this year we only went up 2 minor version it does seem like a tall order. We also need to throw in level design, music, boss design, and story writing into the mix. Which only makes things more terrifying. We want to believe that we are in a much better place compared to last year, since the game architecture has had a complete overhaul, which we expect to lead to less bugs being reported this year. So long as we don't have as many bugs to fix this year, then we believe we should be able to stick to our plan. No matter what happens we promise to keep you updated along the way!

Love you Pigeon people! Coo-Coo!

Game Updates

Added

Boss Fight Template with **SPOILER**
Doors that have musical locks
Item Aquired Display
Forced Dialogue for when the player first exits their house
Attack hitbox reworked to support both melee and projectiles
NEW EQUIPMENT: Apple Consumable that can be equiped and consumed to regain health
Spawner Node: Can pass in any scene/node reference and then triggered to spawn the reference
(Currently used for apples in summer)

Updated

Tilemaps have a grassy texture
Seasonal trees and bushes
Apple trees spawn apples in summer
Bounce pads are now seasonal objects with shrooms
Removed musical curiosities from around town as they were not permanent
Fixed room transitions sending the player back to the same spot incorrectly
Health container animations to reflect current health now updates on both healed and hurt

Known Bugs/Issues (We are trying to fix I swear!)

Controller on web uses incorrect inputs
Web performance is is not the best
When transition through doors the player sometimes is placed 32 pixels above the ground