080922 Shield Cat Build + Demo Date Announcement! (Patreon)

Howdy! Coming at you today with what is hopefully the final Shield Cat build for the demo! I will not be adding or changing anything else and will only update if/when bugs are found with this build.

September 2nd, 2022

This is the date of the new Shield Cat Demo! Shield Cat will be part of the Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE) 2022. This is the first proper demo since the March 2021 demo, and I'm very excited for everyone to finally experience more of my vision for this game. There will be 6 stages packed with collectibles and things to do. Please look forward to it!

If you're reading this, and you want to help beta test this final build, please join the chatroom and hit me up. I can help you out!

As always, here are the patch notes for this build:

 ===== IMPORTANT =====

• I did a lot of cleaning up on the code, removing unused/depreciated code and assets, and all around just general spring cleaning on the game to make it easier to work with in the future. This may cause some bugs to come up, so please let me know if anything weird happens!

 ===== NEW =====

• A new cutscene was added in the Autumn Grove station. If you're somewhere else and go there, the cutscene will play normally.
• An achievement toast has been added to the non-Steam versions of the game. Now you can keep track of your progress in all versions!
• New NPCs have been added and all existing NPCs who didn't have dialogue should now have dialogue.
• A little star was added by Lance when previewing the save file in the file select menu if you've beaten the demo. This works retroactively, so if you've beaten it already, the star will show.
• Houses with fireplaces now have chimneys.

 ===== IMPROVED =====

• All of Willows sprites have been redrawn and upgraded.
• This includes saving overlay graphics, as well as the graphic/animation for when Lance runs out of HP.
• Made several tileset improvements to improve the overall presentation.
• Improved the display of the results of the minigame for the Minecart and River challenges.
• NPCs now react to the world change state. After a certain point, you should go back to the village and see what's changed.
• All hard-coded ability strings should now use language strings. If you see anything like lang_ability_shield, let me know.
• Added a hint nearby one of the popbox switches in the Autumn Grove to give a better clue as to what to do there.
• Sparklies have been added to the popbox switches.
• Added an additional fade to black on all screen transitions to enhance the effect and also help fix small quirks.
• Improved the sprites for the small enemy crabs.
• An extra sound has been added to destroying boulders.
• Redid the graphics for the stars in the River and Minecart challenges.
• Also redid the graphics for the big key.

 ===== CHANGED =====

• Screenshots made of the game during your previous play session will now be blurred. (They are pre-blurred and then have the in-game blur stacked on top of that. Older save files *may* be un-blurred, but that will be fixed when you play the game again on that save file.)
• The drawing of inactive menus has been changed to make them less opaque.
• The demo version has been changed to use a separate update check to prevent further updates after the demo from incorrectly implying there's a new demo update when there isn't.
• Removed the button prompt from the title screen (as any button will go to the next screen.)
• Near the beginning of the game, the Lignum Train Station will now be dark when no one is in there.
• Depreciated abilities which formerly showed up as "Depreciated Ability" in the "Surplus Abilities" menu have been fully removed. If you didn't sell them in a prior version of the game, they will be removed from your save file when loaded with this version. You will not receive Pretty Petals for them.
• More Fish Scales were added in the Lignum Village. Please keep a look out for them!
• The "Click'n'Drag" mouse mode has been removed, as well as the option for it. Now the game will always use these controls: Left mouse as spin, right mouse as ability, and middle mouse as pause.
• Adjusted graphics on signs to hopefully make them more visible.
• The trigger that causes Lance to remark that he should visit Parker before exploring the rest of the village has been moved closer to the edge of the screen, to prevent accidentally setting it off.
• Added some time between making a new game and the intro story starting, so the screen popups don't overlap.
• Changed text of Accomplishments description to better convey that it's for all save files.
• You may no longer sell bombs back to O'Fox.
• Changed Willow's dialogue about saving to make it more clear how it works.
• Gave Willow a little patch of grass to sit on in the eastern part of the Abandoned Mines.
• Balanced the audio on the gate opening and shutting sounds.
• Quieted down the cymbal crash on the title screen.
• The game will no longer show you the controls when you step into Lance's house later on. Now, it'll only show them at the beginning of the game.
• Made adjustments to some dialogue sequences to improve their flow.
• Lance will now only show smug on the file select screen if you got 100% AND beat the demo.
• Popbox switches no longer have positional audio, which fixes an issue in one of the rooms where the switches (and popboxes) would have their audio fade out when you're far away.
• More enemies have been added to the path between the River Path and the Autumn Grove.

 ===== BUG FIXES =====

• Fixed several bugs related to the low health overlay showing in various spots it shouldn't.
• Steam Cloud Saves should now work with the demo version of the game.
• Swinging axes in the Minecart minigame should no longer make a ton of noise if you get hit by one and then fall off the stage.
• Hopefully finally fix the bug where you can have more than one dialogue with Parker when selecting a train station to go to for reals this time.
• Also hopefully finally fixed the bug where two dialogues with Parker would come up when unlocking the station. No more train station bugs please!
• Fixed a bug where mouse hover states could be activated when the mouse was moved over the game window when it was inactive.
• Fixed a bug where NPCs were not having random animation offsets (to keep them from all animating and updating on the same frame in sync, which looks less natural.)
• Fixed a bug where the small chance of Lance surviving an incoming fatal attack did not apply to enemy projectiles.
• Fixed a bug with the stats calculator in my version of the game, which means that stages should no longer erroneously say that there are no Big Jewels in a stage that has them.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes a small black edge would appear on water that was on the very edge of the stage you were in.
• Marcus will now show up immediately when you've made the right progress to allow him to do so in certain stages, instead of requiring you to leave the stage and come back.
• Fixed a bug where the game would unnecessarily update the configuration file whenever you went between stages or opened and closed the pause menu.
• Fixed a bug with some platforms not animating properly or moving objects along with them that are supposed to be attached.
• Fixed a bug where Lance would make way too many particles when being repositioned after falling into a pit.
• Fixed a bug where interacting with certain NPCs or objects could reposition Lance into a wall.
• Fixed a bug where backing out of deleting/copying a game could cause the game to continue showing the preview of the selected slot.
• Fixed a bug where save files in slot 10 or above would show the wrong save file preview.
• Fixed a bug where loading your game when saving at the eastern Willow save point in the River Path would play music when it shouldn't.
• Fixed a bug where cutting down a bush that contained a secret was WAY too loud. Turns out, it was playing the puzzle solve sound 4 times simultaneously (once for each tile that makes up the bush.)
• Fixed the Autumn Grove station being marked as a combat area.
• Fixed a bug where having 100% completion would show blue on the map screen instead of gold.
• Hexagon challenges will no longer appear when you're doing a Marcus' Adventure (Prevents situation in which you can't do the hexagon challenge due to the route Marcus has laid out.)
• Fixed a bumper being misaligned on a moving platform in the Autumn Grove.
• Fixed some bugs with dialogue box resizing. There may still be bugs, please let me know if you find one.
• Fixed a bug where the map screen wouldn't draw caves as the correct color when the Alternate Color Mode option was enabled.
• Fixed a bug where you could walk through Parker.

Thank you!

Thank you to these wonderful people, as well as everyone who supports me and makes this possible. I couldn't do it without you!

Ahty, Shadow8t4, Alicia Goranson, Arron Savage, AshiPaws, Bailey Barkley, Barbara Fregia, BenTheDragon, Bizarre Machinist, Boozel, David Wolfpaw, Caliburn Absolute, Circlingnugget, Clover Arizona, Colonel Sandwich, Vix-N, DimSumthing, Dizmus, DoricDream, Sweep Dreams, EZGames69, Cloud Hop, EveryZig314, Fao, FaultBat, Flake, FoxyDude, Nutalie Frost, Galuade, Gri, Goronhead, Holly 'Frinkel' Lotor, JD Laclede, Jack O'Connor, Jammy, Jennifer, Joanna Jones, Jyrki, Kaylex Deer, Hulex Fox, Kirbizard, Kohaku Katou, Krazinsky, Trash, LF, Legiayayana, Leo Gera, Lorxus, Lulla, Luna, Luna Hyena, Luna Moona the Little Kahuna, Maniko, phantomsqueaks, Mark Cope, Marlyn, Mello the Ferret, Little Egg Basket, OrobaSpyro, Moonrabbit55, Nenekiri Bookwyrm, Axel Husky, NovaSquirrel, Nuck, Philip Garzieri, Raegal Boggart, RawrParty, Vinyl, Roger Tyranny, Ryunohito, Cam D'Arcy, Saxxon Fox, Scylla-Leeezard, Ansel Geisel, Snout, Spyduck, SplotchDoggo, Spoony Doodle, Carlis A. Moore., Stitch The626th, Swirlate, Tala Cuthbert, Tarah Tamayo, Tarocco, Tarsus Endri, Touku, Upscale Furry Trash, DJ Otters, Vectrobe, Vivee, William 'Kenku' Swiftfoot, Xkeeper, breakthetargets, caseJackal, khr, meerm, morgan `indrora` gangwere, raine, rainedoe, Foxxhoria, ubuntor, sol

Now, to try to catch up on those commissions...