NEW DEMO UPDATE! - Bug Fixes, Additions, Balance, QOL & Tweaks

First of all thank you so much to those of you who have left constructive feedback and positive messages, supporting myself and the remake. I appreciate you all for wanting this game to be great and showing your love for it! That being said, here is an update that addresses a lot of issues and feedback while I prepare to move on to the rest of the game going forward. BUGFIXES:

• Enemy AI has been reworked from scratch to be more consistent across various senses.

• Enemies no longer stop moving after performing an action with movement such as dodges or melee.

• Enemies can no longer attack the player while under the effects of the Twister spell.

• Enemies reset back to their original rotation as the effects of the Twister spell come to an end.

• The Deviant Grenadier will no longer cause damage to themselves by shooting at a target while moving forward.

• The Rock Golem boss can no longer fall into the spike hazards below.

• Allies no longer blend into an idle to run transition when they start walking.

• Captain Lamat's idle animation now loops correctly rather than stopping abruptly.

• Poison pools no longer block a vault or climb from being performed.

• Vaulting a railing no longer causes the player to get stuck inside or teleport through it.

• Running up to a high obstacle and vaulting no longer causes the player to fall back down.

• Diving or rolling off a ledge and onto another no longer grabs that ledge and maintains momentum.

• Diving and rolling no longer reset the player's stance while those actions are still being performed after a landing.

• Falling to the ground and taking damage now correctly sets the characters stance to standing.

• Hanging from a ledge and then falling from it now accumulates fall distance correctly and therefore fall damage.

• If the player is holding aim during a landing transition they will now aim correctly after the transition rather than during it.

• If the player lands after a long jump and then immediately performs an action, they will no longer break that action.

• Player movement speed is no longer slower if they are running across a set of stairs rather than up or down.

• Player diagonal movement speed is now consistent with forward and backward movement.

• Player torch no longer blocks the crosshair while aiming with the camera flipped.

• Breakable floors now take unarmed damage (crouch melee now deals damage to them).

• Upgrades and Extra Lives can now be picked up if the inventory is full.

• Scrolling through items or spells within the inventory no longer causes scrolling to become stuck if using a mouse wheel.

• Inventory & radial item icons are now visible when loading a save from a fresh boot.

• Menus that are open now close when entering a save point.

• Look axis values are no longer tied to frame rate and should be more consistent across various inputs.

• Pressing the "Accept" keybinding while hovering over a save game slot now works correctly.

• The menu keybindings for navigation now function correctly.

• Loading a save now correctly sets the last save active allowing the player to "Continue Game" from the main menu or reload the previous save after a Game Over.

• Mouse cursor no longer moves to the player's secondary display while they are navigating the radial menu outside of their inventory.

• The Dualsense controller is now correctly detected on game launch rather than after an input change between mouse & keyboard and controller.

• The Dualsense controller now resets the LED colour back to default upon quitting the game or returning to menu menu.

• Pre-rendered cutscenes are now precached to prevent them from hitching shortly after loading.

• Added additional blocking volumes after the mountable turret section to avoid the player being able to get outside of the level.

GAMEPLAY ADDITIONS:

• Enemies now have an accuracy modifier allowing them to lead their shots towards the target based on their distance and velocity.

• Enemies with burst fire now have a spread modifier allowing their extra shots from a burst to be less predictable.

• Wild enemies such as bats and rats now eat corpses that are nearby while outside of combat, eating regenerates their lost health.

• Walk forward has been implemented to allow the player to walk closer to ledges without the fear of falling (gradual stick on gamepad, hold left shift on keyboard).

• A player dialogue popup for ledge descent and using the torch can be seen in the prologue section of the game to avoid potential confusion.

• Players can now press the jump key to grab a ledge or ladder while falling after a drop for a short window.

BALANCE CHANGES:

• Recreated all enemy melee attack animations so that they are easier to dodge pre-emptively.

• Enemies no longer dodge forward while in melee range to avoid them spreading passive damage to the player after being hit.

• Deviants have a lower rate of fire due to the new accuracy and spread changes, rate of fire also takes their burst count into consideration.

• Flying enemies such as bats now prioritize the player while playing as Solaar instead of their bird companion.

• Turrets do less damage due to plasma build-up multiplying their intended values, they also have slightly lower rate of fire, rotation and projectile speed to allow for more strategic positioning under certain conditions.

• Passive damage applied to the player from fire and shock has been reduced by 50% while mounting a turret.

• Player Zapper range has been increased by 50%.

• Player ledge climb speed for up and down has been increased by 10%

• Solaar's bird companion no longer spreads passive damage to breakables or enemies.

• Solaar's bird companion has reduced melee acceptance range to allow the bird to close the gap before attacking.

• Solaar's bird companion now has reduced health due to AI improvements.

• Mine and Grenade spawns have been swapped around for the "Sorcerer" loadout to help with early game range.

QUALITY OF LIFE:

• Player dialogue now displays an input icon underneath them if they are hinting at performing an action.

• If the player has a passive active such as burn or shock damage they will no longer be able to pass that damage onto another target while dodging.

• If the player is playing as Solaar they can no longer shoot their bird companion.

• Holding the change stance button will now descend from a ledge regardless of the current stance.

• A new HUD icon can be seen next to the players current equipped weapon that will show if they are in active combat or not.

• Navigating from a skill tree icon to a skill slot icon now selects the first skill within the active tree.

• Upon gaining an upgrade, each skill tree will now display how many upgrades the player can afford to spend.

• A save file is created upon starting a New Game to avoid the player having to recreate their character every time they get the Game Over screen before saving for the first time.

• "Continue Game" now shows the player if they have a recovery save active or not. "Continue (Recovery Save)".

• The controls menu now switches to the active input method along with its unique settings.

• On screen popups no longer duplicate if they are caused by a user error.

• The player can now unassign favourites from the radial menu.

• Opening the radial menu now resets the mouse cursor to the centre of the screen to enhance muscle memory during selection.

• The radial menu now resets the player camera's momentum after closing it to help alleviate cases of over shooting the camera while using a controller.

• The radial menu now displays the player's Energy, Mana, Ammo, Equipment and Weapon status.

MINOR TWEAKS:

• Made a readability adjustment to some PC keybindings.

• The PC keybinding for "Return" is now the Tab key by default.

• Corrected the spelling of "Clense" to "Cleanse".

• Corrected the spelling of "Sorceror" to "Sorcerer".

• Compass description has been updated to include the radar.

• Slightly increased the player's push speed/velocity.

• Added a similar OG animation to the Sector 02 arrow leading to Sector 06 once the elevator is activated.

• Wooden pillars in Sector 05 have been adjusted due to fall damage being fixed.

• Adjusted a couple of stone pillars in Sector 06 to avoid the player getting stuck behind a door.

• The Turrets within the platforming section of Sector 06 have been repositioned to coincide with the new gameplay changes.

• Turret glow colour has been adjusted to match their current damage type (plasma), keeping consistency with other enemy types.

• Added a glowing light to the Deviant Grenadier's weapon to match their current damage type (fire).

And that's a wrap! I may do more updates in the future for this demo that add additional fixes and content as the game continues to evolve, until then please keep providing your feedback and support!

Thanks again!

Daniel, Creative Director & Founder, Anchorcite Games LTD.