hello again Urn denizens, the first update following Early Access, packed with vital Quality of Life features, is now available. There were nearly no content additions (I was strictly fixing and polishing things) so it gets a minor patch number "0.5.1", despite the amount of other additions.
See below for details:
all skeleton hand trials are now replayable, track best times, and support leaderboards. There are a total of 8 leaderboards right now. They will reveal themselves when first completing a trial, and will likely reset each time major updates are released.
leaderboards might have issues as they're basically brand new and empty. Please fill them!
(minor spoilers) the Solarium levels now have long-form skeleton hand trials with their own leaderboards. these longer trials are "sandboxed" which currently means you start them with no ammo. also the Solarium door in the Library area should now unlock after two maps are collected to make these more accessible.
(minor spoilers) the Bell Tower Disciple boss encounter is now replayable (look for the red skeleton hand within the Chapel). I noticed some players desired a way to replay bosses without starting a new game, so this is working towards that for all bosses in the future.
additionally, as requested, key fragments now persist as semi-transparent "ghosts" after collected.
just one core-gameplay tweak made it in: the Slide Skim move can now happen from the mid-air idle state while holding down crouch and moving a bit faster than run speed.
this is something the smooths out the movement kit, and is very useful when gaining speed with the grapple hook. it was even suggested by one of you, kudos!
a lot of work for controller support was done before launch, except for the settings menus, which I have now entirely rebuilt with controller navigation in mind. I'll be adjusting the game configuration to ensure controllers are mostly supported and work with Steam Input. Many font sizes have been adjusted as well. All this works towards getting Steam Deck verified one day.
I still encourage using mouse+keyboard when possible for the best experience!
the Map menu interface has gotten more attention: better camera control, a keys list, a compass button to control perspective, a player focus button, icons for keys and lantern posts and map unlocked state.
there is also now a Patch Notes menu, which you can find by clicking the game version in the main menu.
there is now a leaderboards menu at the top of pause menu (see above section)
there are now two game settings assist options (see below section)
to aid in the climb of the last main area, "flagpole" checkpoints have been added that will mark your respawn point if you fall.
the Bell Tower Disciple boss now has state animations (this was cut from first release)
the first two assist options are now available:
Game Speed can slow the game as low as 50%
Damage Reduction will impact all damage taken
and of course a large chunk of the latest fixes are included.
Admittedly, bosses have a few major balance issues that I wasn't able to address with this update. Expect the next major update to have something for those.
Many collision issues that have been reported tend to be elusive, but I have made good progress on that front, expect more fixes going forward as issues come up. Hopefully more regularly as well, I want to make use of that new Patch Notes menu if I can.
Lastly I will do my best to update the status of overall development:
1. bug fixes and balance adjustments (ongoing)
2. QoL (mostly done) - improving menus (done), controller support (nearly done), Steam Deck compatibility (ongoing), optimizations (ongoing)
3. next update starts here here -> polishing existing areas and content, finishing side areas
4. updating the demo (projected before end of summer)
5. new weapon(s?): starting with bolt-action
6. introducing new side area(s)
7. adding a final area
very roughly aiming for most of this to be playable by the end of this year. Grateful to confirm that it does appear that the game already will fund me through that period if all goes well. Thank you so much for your support!
remember to join the Discord to stay up to date!
Time to get to finishing work on those new areas. Until then, please enjoy climbing the leaderboards.
Fan art by caffiness in the Discord
(also available in-game inside the new Patch Notes menu)
0.5.1 Quality of Life After Death update
- hand trials are now replayable, track best times, support leaderboards
- updated Solarium levels with long-form, sandboxed hand trials
- changed Solarium door to unlock after two maps collected
- key fragments now persist as ghosts after collected
- map menu interface improvements: better camera control, keys list, compass button, player focus button, icons for keys and lantern posts
- reworked settings menus to support controller input
- adjusted startup screen visuals and behavior
- adjusted font size in various menus
- added fall-recovery flagpole checkpoints in Mountain area
- added animations to Bell Tower Disciple enemy
- updated Bell Tower Disciple encounter to be replayable
- added two assist options: game speed, damage reduction
- added three new menu key bindings: Menu_ZFunc, Menu_PrevPage, Menu_NextPage
- added patch notes menu to main menu
- added leaderboards menu to pause menu
- added ability to Slide Skim from air if moving a bit faster than run speed
- updated Slide Skim move recollection
- tweaked wording of some recollection descriptions
- tweaked some level loading logic to reduce chances of issues
- tweaked sight radius of Marshes zombie just outside Library
- fixed wood posts enabled at start in far side of chasm
- fixed collision bug when wall-running under an overhang while crouching
- fixed stability and various issues with grabbing/surfing enemies
- fixed an issue where screen text would sometimes not animate
- fixed some issues with grapple hooks and moving wood platforms
- fixed a moving platform sound issue with adjusted footstep logic
- fixed an issue with belltower door state
- fixed an issue with resetting arena state
- fixed recollection text sometimes not displaying input glyphs correctly
- fixed pause menu key totals not showing correctly after map collected
- added 'clearrecords', 'buildinfo', 'loadout' commands
- various tiny fixes and adjustments