Hello! For those of you who saw the placeholder version of this update, thanks for bearing with me. For those who didn’t: I was too busy to update in full on Sunday and posted a placeholder instead.

• Menus are shiny clean for future releases. You can now load from three save slots in the title menu, select an episode to start from the beginning, and change settings, per the usual. I also added a bit of a gradient to the title select options as the player is navigating. This was a MAJOR quality of life addition and I’m glad to have it behind me. The only thing left to add is a toggle for text effects.

• The in game menus also saw a lot of improvement. You are able to save to any file, see your progress in other files, and return to the title screen to select a new file to play or close the game. There is also a scrolling select instead of a snapping one, and a visual cue when an option has been selected for more satisfying and responsive navigation. 

• The map menu now includes the current objective. This is a concept I shared with players that was met with universal enthusiasm and was an easy addition. It’s also a bit nicer to summon the map menu (as well as the pause), both have seen cosmetic fixes and a roughly half a second cooldown to combat spam-opening menus.

• Aside from menus, I’ve started writing the script for track 2 and managed to get past a writing block that was stagnating me. My goal is 500 words a day on the draft from here on out.

• I’ve also gotten track loading working! This was by far the most exciting part of this past week: selecting track 1 from the tracklist successfully loads the correct intro screen and cutscenes into rooms. The same goes for the Overture. This is accomplished with a pair of scripts that check each room for track-specific assets and load in the correct dialogue. I’m very proud of this and am now focused on moving the overture into the engine now that I know it’s working. With the script already being almost entirely reformatted and mass-importing assets from previous projects now available to me, I’m feeling a lot more optimistic about this move happening smoothly. 

That’s all I have to share! I’ll be back next MONDAY with an update!

Mantis