Camera, Combat, and Settings Rework!

Hello, everyone! It's been an eventful month. As I'm working on Act 2, there's been a lot of little changes that have accumulated to the point where it felt right to release a new version of Act 1 to keep the game in a good, refreshed state for as long as possible.

What are the changes? Let me show you!

The settings menu has been completely overhauled, both internally (making it far easier to add new settings) and externally (making it easier to navigate on controller and KB&M).

The combat camera has been reworked from the ground up, bringing it far closer to what I initially intended. There may be some regressions in its behavior, but overall it provides a much better base to build off of than what existed prior. The camera automatically rotates to frame the closest group of enemies, with customizable tightness allowing you to adjust it to your personal preferences.

For those who preferred the old camera, a camera deadzone set all the way to the left will give you a close approximation of the old behavior.

No more dropped comboes! Most attacks now magnetize within a certain distance, allowing much smoother combo potential, especially for moves like the Magic Book's dive kick. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

The aiming reticle on the Yoobow no longer snaps instantly, but rather smoothly tracks to your desired location over time. This change is purely visual and will not affect gameplay.

Some other miscellaneous changes include:

• Improved mouse functionality in some menus
• Added sounds to some menus
• Fixed a bug with the Artist's revenge ability making him constantly block attacks
• Gave the Artist more health
• Changed the soundscape of some cutscenes in the Constructive Criticism side quest
• Upgraded the pathfinding package used for Carter's Quest. This should result in better, more performant pathfinding
• Performed significant optimizations in the open world, these may lead to new bugs in some instances but I have personally found nothing
• Minor change to the first cutscene
• Difficulty select window now appears faster and no longer lasts into the first cutscene
• Settings are now a file (settings.json) in your save location, and can be edited by hand if necessary

KNOWN ISSUES

• Sometimes, the game audio will stop working and the game will stop rendering. I could only replicate this once and then never again. A restart or clearing of your settings file should fix this issue, but I am working on diagnosing the issue. If it happens to you, please send your log file to me!!
• The camera will occasionally point the wrong way at the beginning of an encounter, and then rotate rapidly to the correct position

As some of you may know, I recently picked up a second job. This will partially impact the development speed of Carter's Quest, but I am working diligently to make Act 2 the best it can be. The target date for release is still in 2025, but if it does slip away, I will be sure to keep the community updated on the situation. I am eternally grateful for all of the support I've received over the past 8 months and I am excited for you to finally see what I've been cooking up.

Have a great day, and until next time,
Goba!