Unlimited Power (Until It's Not)

Clarissa here. In what's hopefully the last update before Steam Next Fest (barring any bugs -- knock on wood!), we have a handful of small improvements, and one rather significant one:

The Little Stuff (but just as important)

• Fixed a bug where, while in a dungeon that has a map (in the case of the demo, Danab Palace and Brygate Grain Mill), if you load a saved game that's in that same dungeon, the dungeon map system got reset, making the game think that there's no map for the current dungeon. Selecting "Map" from the pause/magic menu would then show you the overworld instead.

• A conversation with Hilda during the Penny quest that triggers automatically if you go to the Purple Labrys first, wasn't skippable. It can now be skipped with a button press, like any other NPC conversation.

• Fixed a bug relating to player placement after a New Game or Continue following a very specific combination of loads, boss checkpoints, and player deaths

• Added a cat in Brygate and two in Lydaea. Cats are very important. (Sorry, you can't pet them, but you can talk to them -- they'll meow at you!)

• Fixed a bug where, when grabbing a spell scroll for the first time to learn your first spell, the HUD would momentarily show "Protect", regardless of what spell you picked up. This was usually seen if you avoid "Protect" in Lydaea and instead grab "Power Up" in Brygate first.

• Refined how save/load screen slot memory works. Previously, when pulling up the save/load screen, it would automatically select the most recently-saved file. However, it determined this by looking at the file's timestamp as reported by the OS's file system, which wasn't always accurate, especially if Steam cloud sync got involved. It also didn't account for loading a save. Now, the game considers the most recent save as the last file you touched, regardless of whether it was a save or a load.

• Default sound effects and music volume on a fresh config (first run) set to 50%. Was previously 100%, which was too loud on most people's setups.

• Added a "tip of the day" style note to the loading screen letting you know that you can view or edit the controls by going to Options -> Controls.

The Biggie

• Added a Mega Man X -style tutorial/intro level!

(The rest of this post describes the intro level in detail, including how it dovetails into the opening cutscene. It's too much text to mark as a spoiler, so if you want to experience it fresh, you can safely stop reading now.)

As proud as I am of the opening cinematic, it was a pretty slow way to start the game. It's several minutes long, and the only interactive bit lasts about 15 seconds, during which you get your butt absolutely handed to you. If you're anybody but me, that just wasn't fun. It also did nothing to teach you how to play the game. Once the game's intro was done, you're thrust into the game, and have to figure it out on your own.

So now, after the opening titles, instead of walking straight into the woods where the inciting incident happens, you now have a no-risk, infinite-lives intro level. There are some easy-to-dispatch enemies in your way, and some physical obstacles to navigate. Once you get past that area, then The Incident happens and the story setup continues.

In addition, during this intro level, you're given access to the Mantle, Jump Thrust, Down Thrust, Reflect Blade, and Slide Kick skills. This helps solve several problems with the previous design:

• They're fun, first off!

• For a game that wears the fact that it's inspired by Zelda II on its sleeve, you see very little of Zelda II in Enigma Heart's demo, especially the Jump Thrust and Down Thrust moves. This is by design, of course -- they're powerful moves, and you have to learn them. I wanted to give the adventure a sense of growth over time. But it doesn't give a full picture of what the game (and Zalia) is capable of. Now it does, even if just for a few minutes.

• Being really powerful for a few minutes makes the butt-kicking you get in the woods feel even more devastating. No matter what you do or how hard you fight, you're still eventually overwhelmed.

• It also makes Zalia's memory loss feel even heavier, because you just got to feel what she's capable of -- even if she herself doesn't remember any of it.

It only amounts to about two extra minutes of gameplay, but I think it makes the opening more engaging. I hope you agree.

Thanks to everybody who's played the demo, engaged in conversation on the discussion forum, and had both kind words and honest criticism. It's all appreciated, and you're all awesome!

Steam Next Fest is less than two weeks away!

Steam post image ~Clarissa