Known issues and changelog (demo)

[DomAnt]

This is list of presently known bugs, crashes or other weird behavior. Subject to changes as patches and updated builds get sent out.

13/7/2023 - 1.0.3b (initial Steam release)
For changes and patch notes, refer to here:
https://www.tumblr.com/gravitycircuit/722747811202990080/changelog-from-demo-to-full-release

==================================================================
========= CHANGELOG BEFORE THE FULL RELEASE BELOW THIS LINE =========
==================================================================

DISCLAIMER
I'm generally looking to fix any game breaking issues (crashes, softlocks, etc). So while I'll make sure to address any issues listed here for the full game release, the fixes may not find their way into the demo, due to differences in code between demo and current production build. Thank you for your understanding.

January 2023 Changes - as of January 17th

Note: hard mode is not present in the demo, as its implementation is still work-in-progress.
Note: This is a non-exhaustive list of changes.

GAMEPLAY

• Wall-jumping simplified: You can now climb up along a single wall, as opposed to being forced to alternate between two walls. This should prevent frustrations when hitting a wall out of a hookshot swing, as well as give players more freedom to move about in levels.
  
• Actions can be cancelled to sprints: By holding down the sprint button, you can now sprint out of various actions. These include wall-jumping, jumping out of a hookshot swing, regular attacks, and others.
  
• Sprinting carries less momentum: Self-explanatory. It is now possible to do tighter turns (both on ground and in air) than before, since players didn't appear to like how much momentum sprinting used to carry.
  
• Regular attacks can be cancelled to other actions: You are now able to act out of various regular attacks much more neatly, like jumping out of a standing jab, start walking forward from a crouching jab, or even throw out your hookshot after a jab. This should make dealing with bosses and certain enemies less frustrating.
  
• Player's attack range slightly increased: Slight increases across the board. The range extending chip also received a buff, too.
  
• Hazard damage altered: If player is in post-hit invulnerability (blinking after receiving damage), hazards (spikes, lava, etc) do not cause any damage. If player is not in this post-hit invulnerability period, hazards cause damage normally. The intention for this change is to prevent frustration if a player were to take a hit from an enemy and fall into spikes as a result, possibly taking more than half of their health in the process. Previous behavior of hazards always damaging player upon touch is now reserved for hard mode.
  
• Hookshot delay while swinging removed: Previously, after letting go of the hookshot during a swing, there was a small cooldown before you could shoot your hookshot again. If you held the hookshot button down, the hookshot would come out on the earliest possible frame. Because players perceived this delay as a bug, or button ghosting issue, this cooldown has been removed. With this change it should be easier to hit diagonal angles while swinging around, too.
  
• Hookshot shoots out faster, returns slower: This change was done so that hitting diagonals is easier, when doing back-to-back hookshot swings. The overall duration of hookshot is largely the same.
  
• Receive full stocks of burst energy on stage start: Previously, player always started stages with no Burst Energy available. This felt somewhat restrictive, so this has been changed. However, should player reach a checkpoint and die, player needs to pay for the repair station charge to get their energy to full. The "free" fill of burst energy as such only pertains to start of stages, before any checkpoints.
  
• Increased Burst Energy gain: Self-explanatory. Previous values felt just a bit restrictive, making Burst Techniques less fun to use.
  
• Thrown objects can now break breakable walls: Self-explanatory. Previously player had to damage walls themselves for them to break open.

BOSSES

• Difficulty mode changes: On easy mode, bosses act slower, taking more time between actions. On hard mode they take less time between actions.
  
• Hitboxes shrinked: Bosses' collision boxes (the boxes that cause contact damage) have slightly been shrunk. In addition, when bosses jump, their contact damage is briefly disabled (varies on a case-by-case basis).
  
• Better feedback when bosses are invulnerable: Bosses now have better VFX and SFX when they're invulnerable. Previously there was none, and this was a major slip up.
  
• Contact damage disabled at "midway points": When you manage to drain half of a boss' health bar, they will be forcibly launched, and drop some Burst Energy. After this, they will strike an angry pose and activate their Desperation Technique. Previously, while the bosses were posing, their contact damage was still enabled, possibly making it difficult to collect all the Burst Energy safely. Now the bosses will have their contact damage briefly disabled, until they activate their Desperation Technique.

GENERAL / OPTIONAL SETTINGS

• Burst energy tracker: An option for a buster energy tracker has been added, which show's player's current available burst energy and stocks next to the character. This can turned off or adjusted via options, in the "system settings" tab. Duration options include disabled, short duration, medium duration, and "always-on-screen".
  
• Arrows added to pause/options menu: This was done so that it's clearer that there are more tabs on these screens.
  
• Command Run now set disabled by default: Self-explanatory, as this led to many accidental misinputs when players were tapping left/right to align themselves. Previously, this was always turned on by default, because the tutorial didn't adapt to player's current settings. The tutorial has been fixed to account for this.
  
• Changing controls is easier: See issues 3 and 17 below, in 2022. These have been fixed.
  
• Health pickups' visuals tweaked: Health pickups have been made bigger, and even given some sparkles, so that they're easier to notice.
  
• Health drops more often from orange breakable crates: Previously, the drop rate for a health item upon breaking these orange boxes was only a flat 20% rate. The rate has been adjusted to use a more pseudo-random rate. In other words, these health drops are more likely if player is low on health, and the rate at which they drop is based on when the last drop was.

LEVELS

• Various level tweaks, smoothing out some of the problematic areas in the demo.
  
• Power Plant stage now contains a Burst Energy Booster (allowing you to get up to 4 burst energy stocks), while Steelworks still contains a Health Booster (allowing you to get up to 20 total max health).

BUGS

• Several issues, like 21, 41, 43 and 44 listed below have been fixed.
  
• A bunch of other little smaller bug fixes.

-------------- 2022 changes and known issues below this line --------------

STANDING BUGS OR ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED IN FULL RELEASE

• [3] CONTROL MAPPING SHOWS WRONG ICON(S): Sometimes, the game may display an incorrect icon/label for the assigned button, when reassigning controls. The controls should still work as intended, however. Will be addressed for the full game.
  
• [17] EASIER METHOD FOR SWAPPING CONTROLS: When reassigning controls, one by one, the game doesn't let you to "smartly" swap two buttons around; instead playing a little error sound that a given button is already in use. Understandably, this can cause some confusion. Will be addressed for the full game.
  
• [21] PLAYER SLIDES ALONG THE FLOOR AFTER PICKING UP A STAGE CLEAR ITEM - IF HE HAS MOMENTUM PRIOR TO THE PICKUP: Just a silly little thing, that has no real consequences for the demo. Will be fixed for the full game, however, as it can cause issues in any non-standard "box" boss room.
  
• [41] GAME SOFTLOCKS IF PAUSE IS PRESSED AT THE START OF A BOSS FIGHT: There seems to be an unfortunate bug involving pressing Pause when a boss fight is about to start. Haven't been able to reproduce the bug in development builds just yet, making it harder to reason what the cause is. Needless to say, this issue needs to be tracked down for full release.
  
• [43] SOME BURST TECHNIQUES MAY SOFT-LOCK IF YOU JUMP AT THE RIGHT FRAME UPON THEIR ACTIVATION: Rather self-explanatory. Issue has been fixed for the full release.
  
• [44] HOOKSHOT SWINGING INTO A DOOR CAN CAUSE A WEIRD DOOR TRANSITION: Essentially, while swinging with the hookshot, player can get stuck in the top corner of a door transition. This makes the camera pan to the next room, but player won't move along with it, player then drops down, and triggers another room transition. Thankfully, this has no big soft-lock consequences, it just looks weird. The issue has been identified and fixed for full release.

GAME TWEAKS TO EXPECT FOR THE FULL RELEASE

• [31] MAKE IT MORE OBVIOUS THAT PAUSE MENU HAS MORE TABS: This is a bit of an oversight in the pause menu's design. Some extra indicators will be added.
  
• [32] ADJUST HOW BOSSES' INVULNERABILITY PERIOD WORKS: This is more of an overall combat adjustment, requiring many moving parts, so demo's combat will remain as-is.
  
• [34] MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO BETTER RETAIN YOUR MOMENTUM OUT OF HOOKSHOT SWINGS: Rather self-explanatory. This is going to require significantly more thought, so it's better to do this in private, and see what might work best in the end. Do this too much, and the speed becomes somewhat unwieldly, and do it too little, and it will still feel 'stiff'. A reasonable balance needs to be found.
  
• [35] MAKE PICKUPS EASIER TO DISTINGUISH FROM ONE ANOTHER: Money, health and burst energy each should be more visible. This requires some adjustments to assets, so better to leave this for full release.
  
• [36] ADJUST HOOKSHOT'S EFFECTIVENESS IN BOSS FIGHTS: This goes along with [32], as the demo currently has the hookshot as a rather obvious "superior" option. Some care needs to be put in place to better account for this.
  
• [37] ADJUST PICKUP BOXES' DROPS: Currently, pickup boxes can have a chance to drop a healing item when player is below eight points of health. This chance is 20%, and the size of the health pickup is random (small, medium, full heal). This could be better weighted in player's favor.
  
• [40] MAKE THROWN OBJECTS BREAK BREAKABLE WALLS: This just never crossed our minds to implement, until it was pointed out. Thanks for your feedback!

--------------------
-- CHANGE LOG --
--------------------

FIXES AND CHANGES IN BUILD: 2022-08-30-045252

• BUG FIXES
  
• [42] HEALTH BOOSTER CAN DESPAWN IF CERTAIN CONDITIONS ARE MET: If you fall into the spikes in Power Plant stage in a particular way, while going for the Health Booster pickup, it may despawn - preventing you from grabbing it afterwards. This relates to [28], which sought to adjust enemy respawns, but unfortunately affected Boosters as well. Health Boosters now use the old respawn method, preventing this bug.
  
• Set the default Master Volume in options to 80%, so to perhaps blow out players' ears less. Of course, this could reasonably be set lower.

FIXES AND CHANGES IN BUILD: 2022-08-29-025953

• BUG FIXES
  
• [18] CROUCHING WHILE WALKING AGAINST A WALL DOESN'T WORK: There was an issue where player was considered to be "walking", even if player was up against a wall. Issue has been fixed.
  
• [19] FIX AN ISSUE WHERE AIMING THE HOOKSHOT MAY BE ONE FRAME BEHIND PLAYER'S CURRENT CONTROLLER STATE: Player object maintains a separate "held direction", so to account for situations like game pausing, or player not holding any direction at all. This led to one frame of lag in places, possibly making aiming with hookshot more finnicky. A more direct method to check the controller state has been applied.
  
• [20] STATIONARY JUMP DOES NOT GIVE RUNNING SPEED IF RUN BUTTON IS HELD: Oversight because the game assumes you run along the ground for at least a frame or two before you'd get running speed into your jump. This is because the game was made with double-tap-to-run in mind ("Command Run" in game's settings), and the run button was a later addition.
  
  
• GAMEPLAY TWEAKS
  
• [22] INCREASED RANGE ON "HEAVENLY PILEDRIVER" BURST TECHNIQUE: This burst technique admittedly had a fairly poor range. Now it has slightly increased hitbox for the "catch", travels further (about ~1.8x more from before), and the initial "catch" lasts couple frames longer.
  
• [33] INCREASED RANGE ON PLAYER'S "REGULAR" ATTACKS: Players perceived that the game's bosses are hard to close in on with melee combat. As such, attack hitboxes have gained a slight buff, making them reach a bit further than before.
  
• [23] ADJUSTED SFX VOLUME LEVELS FOR BITS: Bits (ie. the money pickups) now have slightly lowered volume levels. About 20% for bounce and moneytracker sfx, and about 5% upon pick up.
  
• [24] HOOKSHOT SWINGING NOW REFRESHES DOUBLE JUMP: Double jump refresh is granted if player jumps out of the hookshot swing (and player has the corresponding chip equipped), or lets go of the hookshot button. This should open more interesting movement options.
  
• [25] MAKE WALL-JUMPS MORE CONTROLLABLE: Height gain from wall-jumps can now be adjusted, based on how long you hold the button.
  
• [38] WALL-JUMP DETECTION ADJUSTMENT: While jumping, the game prefers to check for ledge-grabs first if legible, hopefully leading to fewer accidental wall-jumps.
  
• [26] RETRACTING THE HOOKSHOT IS NOW FASTER: Speed of retracting (holding up or down while swinging) has been increased from 2.0 to 2.5. Did not want to adjust this any further for now, in fear it might become too fast.
  
• [27] FIX "COYOTE TIME" FOR WALL-JUMPING WHILE CARRYING AN OBJECT: While carrying an object, the game wasn't giving the player extra buffer for wall-jumps, that it normally applies when player doesn't have an object.
  
• [28] ADJUST ENEMY RESPAWNS: Enemies don't respawn right at the edge of the screen anymore, making certain unfair sections little easier. The Power Plant stage in the demo had a particular nasty point involving a shielded Virus Soldier, where this was most apparent.
  
• [39] RUN IS EASIER TO INITIATE WHEN (RE)SPAWNING: When the run button is held, along with left or right direction, it's not easier to start running as soon as possible. No need to manually time your button input, if you're speedrunning, or just wanna go fast.
  
  
• [29] ADDED "EASY MODE" OPTION: At the title screen of the demo, you can toggle between "easy" and "normal" difficulty. On easy, player takes less damage, and has 1.5x longer invulnerability period upon taking damage. Further changes could be made, but they would require more time to implement - so it's better to leave these extra adjustments for the game's full release.
  
• [30] ADDED "RESTART LEVEL" OPTION: This one is for the speedrunners. This will appear on the right-most tab of the game's pause menu, if the "on-screen timer" has been enabled in the game's settings, so to prevent accidents for more casual players. For this demo, this option resets your level progress (rescues, health upgrade pickup) and money, but retains your equipped Booster Chips and Burst Techniques. Happy speedrunning!

--


FIXES AND CHANGES IN BUILD: 2022-08-26-113416

• BUG FIXES
  
• [12] TRANSITIONING FROM HOOKSHOT SWING TO LEDGE GRAB CAN SOFTLOCK PLAYER CHARACTER WHEN TAKING DAMAGE: There was an issue with how the game handles exiting ledge grab state under certain conditions. The issue has been identified and fixed.
  
• [13] CRASH WHEN RELEASING AN OBJECT FROM HOOKSHOT GRAB: This relates to issue [11], but from different conditions than what the fix for [11] did. Additional fail-safes have been added to prevent this condition.
  
  
• GAMEPLAY TWEAKS
  
• [14] HOOKSHOT CAN NOW BREAK BREAKABLE WALLS: Self-explanatory.
  
• [15] LEDGE GRAB CHANGES:
  -> Ledges can now be ignored by holding any DOWN direction (down, down+right, down+left)
  -> You can now drop from a ledge grab by tapping any DOWN direction (down, down+right, down+left)
  -> You can not accidentally wall-jump out of a ledge grab anymore! Previously, during a ledge-grab, you could do a wall-jump by pressing LEFT+JUMP or RIGHT+JUMP, depending on which side the wall was on. This caused confusion among players, so any JUMP input will make player character just do a simple hop. No weirdness. If you want to perform a wall-jump out of a ledge-grab, hold DOWN+LEFT/RIGHT, to start a wall slide, and during this wall slide press JUMP. Hope this clears the controls up!
  
• [16] HOOKSHOT WILL NOW AUTO-GRAB AN ENEMY IF BUTTON IS HELD: When using the hookshot offensively to poke from afar, if the enemy is "stunned" (starts blinking gray), they will be auto-grabbed if hookshot button is still held down.

--

FIXED IN BUILD: 2022-08-25-174309

• [6] HOLDING PAUSE KEY TO SKIP DIALOGUE CAN LOOK ODD: You can skip dialogue by holding the Pause key. However, if you keep holding the pause key, the game may loop a screen dimming fade out repeatedly, until you let go. Issue has been identified and fixed.
  
  
• [7] HOOKSHOT SWINGING IN BOSS ROOM AFTER BOSS DEFEAT CRASHES THE GAME: Simple oversight in code; rather self-explanatory. Fix has been applied.
  
  
• [8] LEDGE GRAB + ATTACK MAKES YOU FLOAT IN AIR WHILE HOLDING ONTO A MOVING PLATFORM: Pretty self-explanatory. Issue has been identified and fixed.
  
  
• [9] VISUAL OFFSET BUG ON ONE ENEMY TYPE WHEN USING HEAVENLY PILEDRIVER: Weapons Platform, a big "tube" enemy that launches projectiles, has a little oversight that its sprite doesn't get properly flipped on Y axis when Heavenly Piledriver is used on it. The correct offset value has now been set.
  
  
• [10] EMERGENCY WARP CAMERA BUG IN STEELWORKS: In the Steelworks stage, in the vertical climb after the third checkpoint, taking lethal damage from the spikes can respawn you back to the checkpoint, with weird camera behavior. This has been fixed with an additional respawn point in the appropriate place.
  
  
• [11] HOOKSHOTTING GUARD BROKEN ENEMY'S SHIELD CAN CAUSE A CRASH: A bit of an edge case, but the issue has been identified and some fixes applied.

FIXED IN BUILD: 2022-08-25-022731

• [5] WALL JUMPING MADE LESS STRICT: Wall jumping was rather strict, requiring you to be right next to them, and hold a direction towards the wall to register the wall jump. Now, after you let go of a wall, wall jumping has a bit of "buffer", or "coyote time", during which wall jumping registers. This buffer lasts few frames.

--

FIXED IN BUILD: 2022-08-24-210543

• [4] WALL JUMPING MAY CAUSE A CRASH: A problem that arose from the hurried fix to the issue [2] in previous build.

--

FIXED IN BUILD: 2022-08-24-200317

• [1] REMAPPING CONTROLS CAUSES A CRASH: If using the "remap all controls" feature, the game begins a count down. If you do not assign a button before this count down finishes, the game restores previous bindings. This "restore bindings" code had an oversight, leading to a crash. Issue has been identified and fixed.
  
  
• [2] CHARACTER DISAPPEARS WHILE WALL JUMPING ABOVE DOORS: A visual bug relating to the wall jump animation. Issue has been identified, and fix has been applied.

[Prof.McStevie]

Groovy changes