Sound Effects Day, complete audio pass, and viruses are back, Salty Demo v0.9.8
Salty Demo · published
The water has a voice now!
The demo just updated to v0.9.8. This one is mostly for your ears: a full sound pass across the menus, the combat and the water itself, plus a set of virus changes so the threats in the reef read clearly and behave the way they look.
Audio
Ambient water bed. Two long underwater recordings alternate beneath the music, crossfading so you never hear a seam. With the music style set to None you still hear the ocean. The dark jelly cave switches to its own dripping cave loop as you swim in, and hands back to open water as you leave. [
Every menu clicks. Hover, press, release, toggles, sliders, dropdowns, windows opening and closing. Click something you can't afford yet and you get a low "uh-uh" instead of silence.
New combat sounds. Dedicated samples for virus strikes, the jellyfish sting and Noctiluca shock, prey wrenching free of your engulf, prey dissolving in the endotoxin gas, a virus bursting, and a proper death sound when your cell gives way. Sounds that happen far across the chamber play quieter.
Achievement chime. Unlocks are no longer silent.
Viruses
A red halo, always. Every virus wears a wispy red haze from the moment it spawns. When one locks onto you, the halo pulses outward. That pulse is your warning; the old red flash ring is gone.
They attack other cells too. A virus that bumps into a prey cell sticks to it and drains it: two strikes, then it bursts. Viruses do not hunt prey, so this only happens on contact, but a cell between you and a hunter still soaks it up.
No more swimming through you. A drifting virus that touches your membrane wakes up and attacks, even if it had just given up chasing. When your three receptor sites are full, extra viruses wait pressed to the outside of the membrane instead of passing through.
Death is a break. While your cell is reforming after a death, every virus breaks off and drifts. Nothing attacks the empty spot.
Controls and demo rules
Tentacle grapple is now Right-click; the Endotoxin burst is E. The tutorial cards and the Controls menu reflect the change, and you can rebind either in Settings → Controls. Gamepad bindings are unchanged: Y grapples, LT vents the toxin.
Death costs nothing in the demo. You reignite at the origin with every organelle and resource you had. The full game keeps its checkpoint rewind.
Tell us how it sounds
Every level in this build was set by the numbers first and by ear second, so if the menu clicks are too loud, the water bed too quiet, or the virus strikes too sharp, say so in the comments or on the discussion board. The virus halo and the pulse timing are tunable too. Wishlist the full game if you'd like the multicellular chapters when they arrive.