Hello everyone!
Over the past few weeks I've been collecting player feedback after the demo's release to understand what needed improvement. It's finally time for a major update! Below you'll find the biggest changes included in this patch.
COMBAT REWORK
The combat system received the most criticism, so I spent the majority of my time improving it. My goal was to make combat feel more dynamic, responsive, and enjoyable.
Here are the major changes:
Added over 10 new animations for enemies and weapons.
Iris can now block enemy attacks by using the Right Mouse Button.
Every enemy can now be staggered and knocked back during combat.
Enemies now react differently depending on where they are hit.
The knife now features multiple attack animations.
Knife attacks are now significantly faster.
Enemies have been rebalanced and behave more intelligently.
The Longing now fires physical projectiles instead of using instant hit detection, making combat feel more intuitive and allowing players to dodge incoming shots.
Iris attacks more slowly while in a critical condition.
Both incoming and outgoing damage feel more impactful.
Combat is now accompanied by music.
INVENTORY
An inventory system with item previews has been added.
Many of you pointed out that the game needed at least a basic inventory. Now you'll always know which item you've picked up, even if you missed the pickup notification.
MUSIC
The game's audio atmosphere is very important to me, so I made several improvements:
Rebalanced overall audio levels.
Added music to the pause menu.
Reworked the music management system.
CONTROLS
Controls are now more intuitive.
All menus can now be closed with ESC.
Notes can now be closed with the Left Mouse Button.
TUTORIALS
New on-screen tutorial prompts have been added to make the game easier to understand.
INTERACTIONS
Iris is now much more talkative, and many new interactive elements have been added throughout the game.
PUZZLES
Several puzzles have been redesigned to make them clearer, more logical, and easier to understand.
There are also plenty of smaller improvements that I won't list here, but I'm confident they'll make the overall experience even better.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about this update!
This is the first and last update of this scale for the demo. From now on, my full focus will be on developing the rest of the game.
Time for me to get back to work.
Thank you all for your support, and I look forward to hearing your feedback!
– Rosemary
⚠ IMPORTANT ⚠
Save files created in previous versions of the demo are NOT compatible with this update.