God Jul everyone! In Sweden, we celebrate Christman on the 24th, and so our Christman newsletter will too! So Here are some Christmas lore!

It’s Christmas! And now is your chance to glimpse into the future using some old magic. But first, you must all face Gloson, the ghostly boar of terror.

To do this, you must fast in isolation for a whole day. After your fast, you must head to your nearest church. No one can see you, or the magic will be ruined. While hugging the church wall you must walk three laps counter-clockwise around the church. While doing this, you will start to see visions of the future, and supernatural beings will appear around you. You must be careful, for they will try and stop you.

When you are on your final turn, you will meet Gloson, the ghostly boar of terror. Her back is razor sharp, and from her mouth comes smoldering fire. If you are not fast enough, she will run through you, and split you in two on her razor-sharp back.

I will personally NOT be seeking out Gloson this year! Instead, I will be enjoying the food, drinks, and the company of my family. Merry Christmas to you all!

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What I've been working on
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The last quirks of the new platforming system are finally done! And the sonic placeholder sprite is sadly no longer in the game. On the other hand, we do have an actual animation now!

Another thing I’ve worked on is another feature asked for from the playtesting. Which is resizable text, So I worked on that This week. This actually meant I had to implement a whole new text renderer, and so it took quite some time to do.

I have also worked on the boss fight hinted about in the last update. And it’s going to be a really cool one.

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Implemented Features This Week
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• Resizable text.
  
• Platforming fully implemented.
  
• "Secret" boss fight.

Merry Christmas!

🎄 News and Christmas Event!🎄

Christmas or ‘Jul’ as we call it in Sweden is closing in and we would like to do a Wish-for-a-ingame-feature-for-xmas event!

Are there any features you would like to see in Vessels of Decay? Tell us about it in the comments and your feature might end up in the game!

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👷 What I've been working on👷
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This week I’ve continued to work on the platforming. I have also implemented some new audio effects and done some visual improvements.

The platforming bit is mostly technical and makes level design easier. To put it simply, there are two separate objects for platforms you can climb and “edges” you can only fall down.

The audio effects are something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time: reverb. That is, when you enter a building, all sound effects have a reverb to them (like a soft, immediate echo). This improves the atmosphere in the game immensely and really makes it feel like you are moving through old abandoned concrete ruins.

The visual improvements are also something I’ve been thinking about for a long time: do I use side walls or not? I feared using a forced perspective like that wouldn't fit the game's graphical style, but I finally decided to try it out, and I think the change is for the better. (this also makes a certain boss fight waaay better!)

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📰 Implemented Features This Week:
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• Reverb for SFX when inside buildings.
  
• Side walls for better depth perception (Visual only).
  
• Minor tweaks for the new platforming system.

Until next time!