Hello everyone, time for another update.
The most extensive change in this update is improvements to the Laser Swords Extra. It's a very popular feature so I decided it'd be fun to give it some extra flair: they now cast a faint light onto the environment, create coloured sparks when clashing, burn grass, create glowing wounds on enemies, and players can select their own colours from the Extras menu.
By request I've added Brightness and Contrast to the Options menu, this will hopefully help people calibrate some of the darker stages on their displays.
I've also addressed a bunch of bugs and other oversights (thanks PersonGuy, and others who have documented this stuff).
It has been pointed out to me (thanks Cheshire) that there was a bug with the anti-cheat function, so some of the leaderboard scores are probably unreliable. This was pretty demoralizing, and I'll probably have to reset the leaderboards at some point to make things fair again. I've decided not to rush this though, since it gives me an opportunity to adjust the scoring system and some of the stage layouts.
I've also added two new Arcade stages: Ninja House and Falls. Ninja House uses the assets from the Tunnel Scenario, and Falls features a new water distortion effect.
Finally, I've disabled the unpopular 'emote guard' AI function on difficulties below Hard. This is the function later-stage enemies can use to guard themselves while emoting.
Thanks for playing, I hope you enjoy the new stuff.
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Version 1.27
Gameplay Tweaks:
The unpopular 'emote guard' AI function to prevent later-level from enemies from being cheesed while drawing/emoting is now disabled on modes below Hard.
Bugfixes:
Fixed an issue preventing the anti-cheat score function from activating.
Fixed the cloaking effect behaving differently when 'Internal Resolution' is set higher than default.
The on-screen score will now tick up when both players are dead in Ring Out mode. The internal score would increase for the player who died second without updating the score counter on-screen, now it does.
The player can now pause when 'AI only' mode is enabled.
Fixed a sprite error at the base of the bamboo shack.
When a zombie spawns on its knees and its arm comes off, the arm will now spawn at the correct height.
Adjusted zombie spawn states so that they will arrive and ambush properly.
When any zombie Extra mode is enabled, the boss-pause feature is disabled.
Zombies will no longer try to fight in Scenario Mode if scripted to (like in Town).
Fixed an issue causing distant enemies to retreat off-screen when the player cloak is enabled.
FINALLY fixed that weird halo effect that sometimes happens when you cut someone in half.
Any enemies remaining when the timer stops in Scenario Mode will now flee (or die, if a zombie), regardless of whether they were spawned by European Yabai mode or not. This is for situations like Sunset Act 3 where killing the EY-spawned enemies would count towards the boss target and then leave some of the normal enemies remaining.
Other Changes:
Added Brightness and Contrast options to the options menu.
Added Ninja House arcade stage using assets from the Tunnel scenario.
Added 'Falls' arcade stage.
When Laser Swords are enabled the player death marker is now a smoking handle instead of a sword.
Adjusted the lighting system so that foreground objects will mask the lighting layer. Laser swords are now occluded by things in the foreground like pillars.
Adjusted the lighting system to add an extra layer of lighting to the background - the light cast on the shack in Nightfall will now actually fade as the fire goes out instead of being baked in.
Laser swords now cast light on the background and on the wielder.
Adjusted the smoke effect from bodies cut by laser swords.
Wounds from laser swords will now glow briefly. This can be disabled from the Extras menu.
Laser sword collisions will now produce coloured sparks. This can be disabled from the Extras menu.
Lasers swords will now char the grass when it is cut, staining it black and producing smoke.
Players can now choose the colour of their laser swords in the Extras menu by pressing select on the Laser Swords option for a sub-menu.