This build is a huge step forward. The death sequence – what happens when you die – was completely reworked and is much more theatrical now. Blue orbs, that revive you on spot if your blue orb bar is full, are much better placed now and the whole life/death system now makes much more sense. The magpies behave differently now: they will steal the shard, if you happen to carry one, and throw it to one another. Some other birds were also placed in different spots so that the whole game feels much more balanced. The rune translation table got improved a lot and now clearly shows the last rune you've collected. On the technical side we've been able to get rid of the stuttering that sometimes plagued the game when objects were dynamically created. We've also improved the Linux version so that it handles dual-screen setups more graceful and better supports Xbox 360 gamepads. We wish you fun with the game and according to our schedule, this will be the last alpha version. Transitioning to beta means that we're ironing out details from now but most likely will not include any more content except a few more levels that are already being implemented right now. Also, the shard destructor will soon look completely different. We'll keep you posted about our progress. Here's the full list of changes:

• New magpie behavior: passing shard to one another.
• Staging sequence for the death of the player (WIP).
• Improved bird placement and progression.
• Improved rune progression HUD.
• Tuned blue orb distribution throughout the game.
• Dynamically spawned objects don't cause the game to stutter any more.
• Fixed that the blocking branch in the daw level didn't break in corner cases.
• Fixed stuck statue pieces after carrying the to an other level.
• Fixed minor glitches in the Destructor level.
• Various visual and gameplay finetuning.
• Linux: Improved dual screen handling on Linux.
• Linux: Worked around incorrect productID from xboxdrv to correct Xbox 360 controller mapping

This build is a huge step forward. The death sequence what happens when you die was completely reworked and is much more theatrical now. Blue orbs, that revive you on spot if your blue orb bar is full, are much better placed now and the whole life/death system now makes much more sense. The magpies behave differently now: they will steal the shard, if you happen to carry one, and throw it to one another. Some other birds were also placed in different spots so that the whole game feels much more balanced. The rune translation table got improved a lot and now clearly shows the last rune you've collected. On the technical side we've been able to get rid of the stuttering that sometimes plagued the game when objects were dynamically created. We've also improved the Linux version so that it handles dual-screen setups more graceful and better supports Xbox 360 gamepads. We wish you fun with the game and according to our schedule, this will be the last alpha version. Transitioning to beta means that we're ironing out details from now but most likely will not include any more content except a few more levels that are already being implemented right now. Also, the shard destructor will soon look completely different. We'll keep you posted about our progress. Here's the full list of changes:

• New magpie behavior: passing shard to one another.
• Staging sequence for the death of the player (WIP).
• Improved bird placement and progression.
• Improved rune progression HUD.
• Tuned blue orb distribution throughout the game.
• Dynamically spawned objects don't cause the game to stutter any more.
• Fixed that the blocking branch in the daw level didn't break in corner cases.
• Fixed stuck statue pieces after carrying the to an other level.
• Fixed minor glitches in the Destructor level.
• Various visual and gameplay finetuning.
• Linux: Improved dual screen handling on Linux.
• Linux: Worked around incorrect productID from xboxdrv to correct Xbox 360 controller mapping