Neon Noodles #11 - The Companion Update

Important: this update is currently on the beta branch only!

This is quite a significant update, but some things are not finalized, so it only goes into the beta branch on Steam for now.

Here are the major changes:

1. Completely new Companion - this covers all the "non-game" part of the game, and it sets the stage for how the story will be delivered too.

   • Full mouse, controller and keyboard support for the companion

   • Dynamic color change based on level

2. New tutorial - this is a video-based approach, vaguely inspired by Frostpunk.

   • New levels/introduction to key concepts

   • A read/unread flag for all of the tutorial entries

   • Tutorial entries available for later viewing in the Companion

3. Level start transitions - a "scanline" approach to fading the levels in that provides depth, while being very performance focused

4. Performance improvements - some of this was for the new stuff, but lots of work went into performance. Timeline performance still needs addressing, but that's a bigger piece for a future update.

5. Some UI/look changes and working towards eventual consistency and what buttons are and how they behave across the entire game.

6. All music is now back into the game (currently just randomized, not location-specific)

7. Lots of other small changes, including shadows/lighting improvements, bugfixes, etc.

Here's an example on how the "scanline" transition looks for the Asian location:

And a poorly compressed gif of the companion showing the perspective and color change: