Another 6 months have passed since the last release. Crazy, I know! I'm finished my degree, so you'd expect I have all the time in the world to work on this... but it's been quite the opposite. Turns out the job market sucks right now-- might post more on that later (probably not). Without a source of income, work on the game has ground to a halt. I've had the pleasure of showing the game at a few events over the past months, but it can be grating to hear the exact same feedback every time and have no practical way to implement it. Of course I want to add indicators, and animations, and tutorials, and Mac support, etc. etc. etc. but I am just one very tired, hungry & stressed person. One day I'll get around to all those things but for now all I can handle are little bits and pieces.

So, did I fix all known issues and/or implement the planned changes for this version? Not even close. But I realized that it was about time to update the game with the pile of quality-of-life changes that I've been building since last spring.

Here's the changelog:

Major Features:

• Actual Player Sprites
  • No more default RPG Maker protagonist! Natalia (my wonderful artist) and I went back and forth on him for a while to hash out the style and ended up with something I think looks pretty good. The rest of the game still needs a fresh coat of paint, but ideally this guy's around for the long haul.
• 8-Directional Movement
  • Along with new player sprites comes the ability to move diagonally!
  • Enemies are still locked to cardinal directions, but will catch up by the next major version.
• Fullscreen Mode
  • The game is much cozier now that it's in exclusive fullscreen by default.
  •  For those who want more control over their experience, it can be toggled back to windowed mode by pressing 'F' while paused or on the main menu.

Balance Changes:

• Enemies deal 2 damage per hit, which should make learning the game far more forgiving.
  • Eventually, enemy damage will scale with difficulty and game progress... so if this version feels too easy, just you wait!
• Some really strong tiles have had their damage nerfed to prevent instantly killing enemies regardless of what word is formed with them.
  • Rough damage indicators are planned for the next major version so that you're no longer purely guessing how effective your word is.

The Rest:

• The 'Quit' button in the pause menu has been replaced with the option to return to the main menu.
  • This makes demoing a lot easier for me and it means you don't have to intentionally die to return to the main menu!
• You can now use Backspace to remove the last selected letter.
  • Typing to submit words is planned, but it's much weirder to handle than I had thought.
• Swap Mode no longer requires confirmation, meaning swaps will occur instantly upon clicking any hand tile.
  • The ability to execute a swap in the opposite order (by selecting a hand tile and then the swap button) is planned.
• Entering Attack Mode now auto-targets an enemy within range.
  • Currently, it prioritizes from top right to bottom left, but is intended to work according to the player's facing direction.
• Players should now face the direction of their target and vice versa.
  • ...except for when they don't. Failure to do so is a known bug and should be patched in the next update.
• Double-tap dash has been disabled from the previous version due to uncontrollable speedups when quickly changing directions. 
  • It should be re-implemented by the next major version.