What's that? A major version with a second decimal point?

Yes I initially finished v9.6 and then realised that v9.6.1 was too different to overwrite the older version so I've decided to archive it and release this current version.

Let's get into the nitty gritty:

GOALS REWORKED

So the primary reason I rewrote most of the goal system was because implementing new goals was tedious and prone to breaking. Furthermore, this makes the system much more flexible as when I create a new goal now:

I can access its own completion status, name, description, hint and point reward.

If you're asking what the point rewards are for, they're a planned feature where I want to make each level completable with any number of goals. So rather than having to complete all goals every time, you can choose to do a bunch of easy goals and pass, or do a few difficult ones and vice versa. Each level is planned to have 1000 or so points a la THUG 2 but that might change if necessary (might add more diffcult goals that unlock once you finish the game or each individual level?)

The goal list is also updated:

The list now gets populated for each goal available, so if there's 10 goals in a level there'll be 10 on screen, and vice versa.

The descriptions and hints are now shown on a tooltip when you hover over a goal! I can literally put whatever I want there so expect some blurb sometimes (New Orleans - Big Billboard for instance hehe)

It also has allowed me to finally implement some of the lore I've been planning for the game! If you see anything in [BRACKETS] then it means it's a placeholder since I don't yet have the details fully in place.

LAG OFF

Been watching a lot of videos by Tim Cain, one of the minds behind the original Fallout (one of my top games of all time). Optimization is something he talks about and I'm not currently at a stage where I can tell how slow my code is but one thing was certain:

THE FARM WAS WAAAY TOO SLOW

Turns out my models were slow as HELL, and also having hardware raytracing on kinda just made everything slowwwww.

So now The Farm is up to par with the rest of the levels, and being the most populated I'm very happy that that is the case!

HIGH PROFILE MOVEMENT

So something that I remembered while thinking about console/controller parkour games was in the old Assassin's Creed games you could hold a button that made it so that you went from basic actions to special actions with the press of a button. This was simplified later on but I thought that I could make it so that you only turn automatically after a wall jump when holding a button

So now you can hold Right Click/Right Trigger to turn automatically when Wall Jumping! (Also applies to Sticker Slaps)

UPDATE 9.6.2

I'm thinking of making this one an update that's more focused on developing the levels more and fixing up all the systems in the game a lil more. I've added some space to the Warehouse and I'll be implementing its models in the future as well, so expect more models as well.

So as a little roadmap:

[All subject to change, this is just to help plan what to do]

9.6.3+

• Fixes and reworks for more systems (grinding, physics, mantling)

9.7

• Final level layouts and visual improvements
• New goals
• Goal points
• Rewatchable goal cameras

9.8

• Visual pass to consolidate the art style of the game
• More accessibility options
• Options menu rework

9.9

• First proper pass for SFX
• Extra player feedback (mantling angles camera down slightly, wall jumping rotates the camera.
• Might mock up some extra themes for the UI if I can get it flexible enough

10.0

• The Tower
• Goal Peds
• Collectibles

I think we'll be nearing v10 once all the levels are looking good and their layouts mostly finalised. The Tower is intended to be a special one, I want to have pedestrians that act as goal launchers and populate the place a little. But that's just me brainstorming.

The game is coming together more and more as of late and I'm very excited to show more!

That's all for now,
THWEK