It’s important to me that players trying the demo get an accurate idea of what Under a Desert Sun is like to play. So, once again, I’ve taken the time to bring many of the improvements and fixes made to the main game after launch over to the demo as well.
Thank you again to everyone who has been playing and sharing feedback, ideas, bug reports, and just general kindness. So many of you have already taken the time to play the game, enjoy it, and sometimes help me find something that could be better. It genuinely helps me improve the game.
Controls & Input
- Improved switching between controller and keyboard/mouse. Connecting, disconnecting, or reconnecting a controller should now be handled much more reliably.
- Fixed controller and mouse cursor conflicts that could cause the physical mouse to freeze or fight with the controller-driven cursor.
- Improved the Force Keyboard & Mouse option. When enabled, controllers are now consistently ignored throughout character selection, gameplay, menus, and the skill tree.
- Improved local co-op controller handling. The game now deals more gracefully with a player's controller disconnecting.
- Updated control hints and status displays so the UI more clearly reflects your currently selected input setup.
Menus & UI
- Improved opening, switching, and closing menus across the inventory, skill tree, map, conversations, and readable objects.
- Fixed situations where gameplay controls could reactivate while a menu was still open.
- Fixed duplicate inventory-slot click handling.
- Added additional safeguards to the map UI to prevent missing-reference errors.
- Improved the start screen, including clearer button wording, tooltips, and controller information.
- Improved virtual keyboard text styling for better readability.
Dialogue & Audio
- Dialogue voice-over now automatically plays only the first time you visit a dialogue node during a conversation. Returning to an earlier node no longer repeatedly plays the same voice line.
- Added a Replay button so you can manually listen to the current dialogue line again whenever you want.
- Corrected 11 dialogue voice clips that contained excessive silence or were unnecessarily long.
- Cleaned up two conversations that could display options that weren't actually assigned.
- Added a missing dungeon sound effect.
Gameplay
- Corrected the sawed-off shotgun's damage. Its damage per shell was higher than intended and has now been brought back to the correct value.
Credits
- Updated and expanded the credits with additional portraits, tester acknowledgements, and visual improvements.
This brings the demo another step closer to the current Early Access experience. I'll continue bringing suitable improvements back to the demo where it makes sense — because if this is your first time stepping into Under a Desert Sun, I want that first impression to represent the game as it is today.
Thanks again for playing. ❤️