May 19, 2022

Heavenly Bodies - alex2pt

Hey everyone!

Alex and Josh here, the devs on Heavenly Bodies. I hope you’re all travelling safe and well.

First and foremost, we want to give our biggest, most sincere thanks to everyone who has given Heavenly Bodies a play. It’s hard to express just how magical it feels for us to see so many people enjoying (or, even better, absolutely despising) their time in space. Heavenly Bodies took a monumental amount of time and energy for our tiny team to develop over the last few years, so to see it well received makes it truly worthwhile. Thank you.

We’ve needed a good rest to get our heads screwed back on, so we admit it’s been a pretty quiet start to the year and we thank you for your patience! Today, however, we’re pleased to announce that we’re rested up and, guess what? We’re starting the process of designing more content. Yep, additional Heavenly Bodies gameplay is on the way!

We do have to stress that at this stage, the plans are very loose and that we can’t say what it’ll be yet, or when it’ll happen. However, we’ve been listening to all your wonderful suggestions (thank you!) and we’re looking to create some extra content that we know you’ll love. All good things take time, and we’re committed to making something worth your while, so we appreciate your patience while we get the next chapter sorted out!

In the meantime, we’re of course still working on improving general stability and other gameplay issues such as controller support. We thank you all for helping us fix some surprisingly complex issues, and, as always, if you do experience any problems we kindly ask that you send us an email at help@2pt.com.au. We’ll do our very best to help you out.

We're keen to be a little bit more open with development this time around, and we'll be posting development screenshots in our Discord! We welcome you to join us there or in the Steam forums and encourage you to share your thoughts on what you'd like to see more of in the future of Heavenly Bodies.

That’s about all for now! Stay tuned and stay safe. We can’t wait to share more with you as things develop.

May 19, 2022

Backpacks with lights and new fun items

Breakwaters - Soaring Pixels Games

v0.5.13 is live and contains some fun items I wanted to highlight for you.
Check out the details below about new tools, new weapons, new backpacks, and new food recipes.

One of my favorite updates is an option to build a backpack with a light attached. I love running around the world while the light swings from its rope. There are two types of light: torches and firefly lights. Torches can be a bit more temperamental because they go out when you swim in the water, but will light themselves again after they dry out a bit.
Both types will keep any animal that is afraid of fire from getting too close.

There are also 4 new food recipes, and two new food ingredients in the world, some of which are found in the world and some are sold by merchants in the village.

For weapons there is a grab bag of new items.

A Repair Hammer has been added to the game by popular request. You can now repair your built contraptions with just a few magical hits.
A rare Blue Crystal Axe (sickle) can be found in the loot of sunken bubble treasure. This item is constantly shedding water which lets you harvest Fire Flowers without them exploding.
There are three new rare swords and a rare bow which have been added to the crowdsource weapon list. The bow provides a new feature to the game, which is multi-shot.
The last item is something I wanted to add just for the fun of it. It's a Frying Pan. You can wield it to attack NPC and knock them out for a short time. It doesn't do a lot of damage, but it takes them out of the fight for a little bit.

(yes, that is a sword with a rat for a handle)

10 new Story Pages have been added to the world. They are broken down into three different story chains which each describe different things about the world. One of the chains are Captains Log files from a previous explorer. You can find these story pages washed ashore in bottles.

As with any other update, there are a bevy of bug fixes, improvements, new features, and additions to the game. Check out the build notes below for details.

v0.5.13

Fixed mission windows sometimes not correctly selecting the default button when using a gamepad as the input
Increased text animation speed in mission dialogs
Setup animated mission text to let the user press the Cancel button to auto complete the text animation
Setup a mission reward feedback in the mission menu
Improved wood floor placement logic
Fixed broken health bar setup where blue health would render incorrectly
Improved Archaeologist, Roshi, and Shu character setup for ground detection
Fixed clothing wetness so it will turn off at the same rate no matter how deep the player goes underwater and the gradient is correct
Improved Health bar locations for wood walls, stairs, floors, and stone walls and doors
General bug fixes and stability improvements
Fixed a bug when exiting a hammock using controller where it would activate the kick attack and damage the hammock
Setup Story Pages to drop randomly from bottles. Pages will drop in a specific order and only once per world per character.
Setup Repair Hammer so you can repair your contraptions
Setup Blue Crystal Sickle for harvesting Fire flower safely
Setup Fry Pan as a stun type weapon (can be found as a random drop in sunken bubble crates)
Setup Backpack variants (Torch Backpack, Firefly Backpack) with lights on them to drive away some animal types and to provide night time light that isn't an equipped weapon.
Setup Blue Crystal Weapons to not cause Fire Flower to explode on death. (this includes the new Blue Crystal Sickle, and Blue Crystal Arrows)
Setup new Kickstarter weapons (can be found as a random drop in sunken bubble crates)
Setup new Kickstarter recipes (can be found as random drops from bottles)
Improved combo cool down to remove the delay from most sword attacks after the third strike making combat smoother
Improved Backpack visuals
Setup additional min spec hardware checks to provide more feedback to users if their machine is below spec

May 19, 2022

051922 Shield Cat Build

Shield Cat - Roxanne

Hey guys! Coming at you today with a new build of Shield Cat! This one doesn't really add much in terms of new content, but it does have quite a few important fixes and improvements. Specifically, if you had trouble with input devices on Linux (especially remapping controllers) please try this build and let me know if it works now.

As always, the patch notes are below here:

===== NEW =====

More collectibles have been added to existing stages. If you had 100% collectibles in some stages and now you don't, it's not a bug!
There are new Hexagons to collect! Grabbing them all within the given time will get you something nice...
Some Fish Scales have learned how to camouflage themselves. You'll have to keep an eye out for these crafty collectibles.
A new XInput display option has been added for generic/non-console specific graphics.
A new Retro Preset has been added that reduces the colors significantly for that vintage console feel.
A new song has been added to most of the small caves in the game.
There are small enemy crabs on the beach now! You can target their weakpoint for a little damage.

===== IMPROVED =====

Bumpers are now larger and easier to see and interact with.
Social Media links have now all been organized into a submenu, as well as with new links to additional social media.
The Debug Overlay (with F10) has been improved significantly.
Color blending has been adjusted throughout the game.
Adjusted some drawing routines to hopefully be more efficient.
The River Challenge now has a custom palette when using the retro shaders.
It is now better conveyed when you find a secret spot.
Music handling has been improved when going between different screens. It will no longer cut off awkwardly as it did in certain scenarios (hopefully.)
Music has also been adjusted and re-looped, which should remove fading issues as well as intro pops that sometimes occur.
The Performance Information that used to draw on the bottom of the screen has switched to a different display with graphs on it.
Updated the game's copy of the SDL Gamepad Database. I've written a script that keeps it updated so the game should now just come with the latest version at the time I put the build out.
The game's app icon for the Steam page has been updated.

===== CHANGED =====

Removed the hitstop effect when breaking open a Mystery Orb.
Changed the drawing of the animation when getting a treasure from a Mystery Orb. Now it wont suddenly light up the screen when getting a treasure in a dark place.
The functionality of the Escape key on keyboards has been changed. It will now open the pause menu, unless there's already a menu or something open, in which case it will bring you out of it.
The "Escape" key continues to be a special key, however, and cannot be remapped.
A warning message has been added if you attempt to open the speedrun options on the New Game menu without ever having played Shield Cat before, to discourage you from doing this.
A similar message was added if you attempt to turn up the difficulty on a New Game without ever having played the game before.
Lance will now always pick up bombs, whether or not he can actually use them (the amount he can hold is still capped at 10.)

===== BUG FIXES =====

Fixed a bug where you could open the Notes panel while getting an item from a Mystery Orb.
Fixed a bug where the Debug Overlay could be accessed if you hadn't opted into it properly.
Fixed a bug where the graphics auto-adjust would not adjust to the lowest possible preset, nor engage 30fps mode when the performance target still isn't being met.
Fixed a potential memory leak when going between stages.
Fixed a bug where map boundaries wouldn't be drawn on certain parts of the map.
Fixed a bug where the Notes pane would sometimes draw text offscreen in certain graphics configurations.
Fixed some bugs with Retro text rendering (still needs some work but unsure what to do with it at this time.)
Fixed a bug where enemies wouldn't spawn right in higher difficulties. Now a big raven will come and attack Lance when he steps out of his house, as intended.
Fixed a bug where Lance's reflection would draw very very very slightly on the grass (I bet nobody ever noticed it.)
Fixed a bug where you couldn't move the map on the map screen all the way right or down.
Fixed some screens not having echo when they should have it.
Fixed a bug where analog inputs were too sensitive on the input remapping screen, only requiring a light tilt to register. Now, you have to tilt it pretty far to get it to register.
Removed dialogue from a sign that says you can double-tap to run as, while this is true, the functionality is now disabled by default.
Fixed a bug where Willow would show the wrong message for starting a new game.
Fixed a sequence break where the player could obtain a key and use it on the wrong door in the forest path to get out of bounds easily (The area is still unfinish, but now you are blocked from exploring it, sorry.)

===== NOTES =====

I've added a subsystem that allows the game to ignore input on specified analog axes, with the default having it ignore axis 5 and 6 (shown internally as 3A and 3B) to attempt to solve issues with the game reading analog input off the gamepad triggers when in a resting state.
What this means in layman's terms is that, in Linux, you shouldn't have any issues using the input remapper anymore.
You can use F10 and go to the Input tab to configure this, though most likely you shouldn't have to do this. Please hit me up if you have more input issues, especially in Linux.

Thank you!

Thank you to the following supporters and everyone who makes this possible!

@buny, ARKYmouse, Ahty, Alex Stenzel, Shadow8t4, Alicia Goranson, Arron Savage, Barbara Fregia, BenTheDragon, Bizarre Machinist, David Wolfpaw, Caliburn Absolute, Circlingnugget, Clover Arizona, DarkJoule, Vix-N, DimSumthing, Dizmus, 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, Johann Pfaffinger, Jyrki, Kaylex Deer, Hulex Fox, Kirbizard, Kohaku Katou, Krazinsky, Trash, LF, Legiayayana, Leo Gera, Lorxus, Lulla, Luna, Luna Hyena, Luna Moona the Little Kahuna, phantomsqueaks, Mark Cope, Marlyn, Mello the Ferret, OrobaSpyro, 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, Tenma-arekussu, Touku, Upscale Furry Trash, DJ Otters, Vectrobe, Vivee, William 'Kenku' Swiftfoot, Wulfy, Xkeeper, breakthetargets, caseJackal, Kazy, khr, meerm, megaRammy, morgan `indrora` gangwere, raine, rainedoe, Foxxhoria, ubuntor, sol

I think I said before that I wanted Julie to be in the next build, and she's almost done! But I wanted to get these improvements out there because some of them are really important. You'll be able to see Julie soon though!

May 19, 2022

051922 Shield Cat Build

Shield Cat Playtest - Roxanne

===== NEW =====

More collectibles have been added to existing stages. If you had 100% collectibles in some stages and now you don't, it's not a bug!
There are new Hexagons to collect! Grabbing them all within the given time will get you something nice...
Some Fish Scales have learned how to camouflage themselves. You'll have to keep an eye out for these crafty collectibles.
A new XInput display option has been added for generic/non-console specific graphics.
A new Retro Preset has been added that reduces the colors significantly for that vintage console feel.
A new song has been added to most of the small caves in the game.
There are small enemy crabs on the beach now! You can target their weakpoint for a little damage.

===== IMPROVED =====

Bumpers are now larger and easier to see and interact with.
Social Media links have now all been organized into a submenu, as well as with new links to additional social media.
The Debug Overlay (with F10) has been improved significantly.
Color blending has been adjusted throughout the game.
Adjusted some drawing routines to hopefully be more efficient.
The River Challenge now has a custom palette when using the retro shaders.
It is now better conveyed when you find a secret spot.
Music handling has been improved when going between different screens. It will no longer cut off awkwardly as it did in certain scenarios (hopefully.)
Music has also been adjusted and re-looped, which should remove fading issues as well as intro pops that sometimes occur.
The Performance Information that used to draw on the bottom of the screen has switched to a different display with graphs on it.
Updated the game's copy of the SDL Gamepad Database. I've written a script that keeps it updated so the game should now just come with the latest version at the time I put the build out.
The game's app icon for the Steam page has been updated.

===== CHANGED =====

Removed the hitstop effect when breaking open a Mystery Orb.
Changed the drawing of the animation when getting a treasure from a Mystery Orb. Now it wont suddenly light up the screen when getting a treasure in a dark place.
The functionality of the Escape key on keyboards has been changed. It will now open the pause menu, unless there's already a menu or something open, in which case it will bring you out of it.
The "Escape" key continues to be a special key, however, and cannot be remapped.
A warning message has been added if you attempt to open the speedrun options on the New Game menu without ever having played Shield Cat before, to discourage you from doing this.
A similar message was added if you attempt to turn up the difficulty on a New Game without ever having played the game before.
Lance will now always pick up bombs, whether or not he can actually use them (the amount he can hold is still capped at 10.)

===== BUG FIXES =====

Fixed a bug where you could open the Notes panel while getting an item from a Mystery Orb.
Fixed a bug where the Debug Overlay could be accessed if you hadn't opted into it properly.
Fixed a bug where the graphics auto-adjust would not adjust to the lowest possible preset, nor engage 30fps mode when the performance target still isn't being met.
Fixed a potential memory leak when going between stages.
Fixed a bug where map boundaries wouldn't be drawn on certain parts of the map.
Fixed a bug where the Notes pane would sometimes draw text offscreen in certain graphics configurations.
Fixed some bugs with Retro text rendering (still needs some work but unsure what to do with it at this time.)
Fixed a bug where enemies wouldn't spawn right in higher difficulties. Now a big raven will come and attack Lance when he steps out of his house, as intended.
Fixed a bug where Lance's reflection would draw very very very slightly on the grass (I bet nobody ever noticed it.)
Fixed a bug where you couldn't move the map on the map screen all the way right or down.
Fixed some screens not having echo when they should have it.
Fixed a bug where analog inputs were too sensitive on the input remapping screen, only requiring a light tilt to register. Now, you have to tilt it pretty far to get it to register.
Removed dialogue from a sign that says you can double-tap to run as, while this is true, the functionality is now disabled by default.
Fixed a bug where Willow would show the wrong message for starting a new game.
Fixed a sequence break where the player could obtain a key and use it on the wrong door in the forest path to get out of bounds easily (The area is still unfinish, but now you are blocked from exploring it, sorry.)

===== NOTES =====

I've added a subsystem that allows the game to ignore input on specified analog axes, with the default having it ignore axis 5 and 6 (shown internally as 3A and 3B) to attempt to solve issues with the game reading analog input off the gamepad triggers when in a resting state.
What this means in layman's terms is that, in Linux, you shouldn't have any issues using the input remapper anymore.
You can use F10 and go to the Input tab to configure this, though most likely you shouldn't have to do this. Please hit me up if you have more input issues, especially in Linux.

Thank you!