Hello hello!

I originally thought this month had been pretty unproductive but after checking the logs, I've actually done a fair bit.

This month has been very heavily focused on the third area (again) and coming up with mechanics and content. This mainly involves trying to think of fun enemies and objects that are different to ones you have already faced in the game.

The visuals for the third area have also had a significant touch up. We're at a place where we don't need to fiddle with them much more which is a massive relief because I was dissatisifed with the art for this area for a long time.

Anyway, I digress...

On with the show!

- Added new slime enemy with two different variants
- Added worms. Very deadly, be careful
- Added gates and levers
- Improved the art for all sprites in third area
- Added the ability to interact with things (see 'interactivity' below)
- Added 4 new levels to the third area
- Added a nicer/consistent way of doing "tweens"
- Rejigged how events are handled which should in turn improve performance



This is perhaps the biggest change in the update and one of the biggest changes in the game!

For the longest time, Mr Figs could only run and bomb. To interact with things he would simply walk into them until they do their thing. This felt a bit clumsy in some cases. For example, you could accidentally push a rolling ball when you didn't mean to.

Now, you have to explicitly press a button to interact with an object. Currently there's not many things that can be interacted with as it's quite a new mechanic but expect it to grow.

That's all for now, see you next month!

Howdy howdy,
Without furher adieu, let's dive straight into this month's updates!

This month has centered around content for the third area of the game.
This means making mechanics, making levels around them and seeing how they feel.
Ultimately, a lot of ideas get scrapped because they might sound fun but when you actually go to play it, it doesn't translate.

This is by far the most frustrating part of the game's journey but it's necessary so we can eventually find the diamonds in the rough and build good levels off of fun mechanics.

I've also fleshed out a few prior areas with a few more levels and spruced up some sprites. Overall it's been a productive month with not much to shout about.

Here are the changes:

- Added more secrets
- Added ability for music "themes" in levels so we can have different atmospheres depending on level vibe
- Added rotating turrets to third area
- Added 2 new levels to the second area
- Added 4 new levels to the third area
- Redid the walls/floor art for the third area
- Made gelatinous blobs on second area bombable
- Improved portraits for certain characters
- Improved mine sprites and added visual effects when they're stepped on
- Improved first area's turret sprite
- Improved performance of bullet collisions a bunch
- Improved performance of pressure plates massively
- Properly fixed rotating to a sprite (this affects ballistas)

If you want to follow this journey a bit more closely, you can join us on Discord. I frequently post snippets of works-in-progress there.

That's all for now, I'll see you next month!