Howdy! It's been a bit since I made a new build of Shield Cat, and I think the rather long patch notes below should reflect this LOL I decided to rewrite the menu subsystem, which took a fair bit longer than I expected, so I worked on other stuff while I was doing this. As always, if the update doesn't appear, please restart your Steam client. Here's the full list of patch notes!

===== HIGHLIGHTS =====

• The pause menu is completely revamped! Please check it out!
• There are still some places across the game that use the old menu, though. These will eventually be replaced/upgraded in a future build.
• Stage 2 is now open (except in the PlayTest build.) It's not complete, but you can walk around and see what it's like in there.
• You now get a Cat Coin for collecting all letters in a stage! (Keep in mind that only Stage 1 and 2 allow you to get all the letters right now.)
• However, in order to make this work, when you load up the game it will take away the L you collected in Stage 1. You'll have to go fetch it again to get the Cat Coin (sorry!)

===== NEW =====

• The pause menu has been rewritten completely! Several notes below pertain to this, but please check it out and let me know what you think!
• A new "Higher" preset has been added as an intermediary between "High" and "Highest," which also introduces a new blur level between "High" and "Extreme." If you're using custom graphics settings, you'll have to adjust your settings back to the Extreme blur.
• Retro Presets are now on their own selection, with an additional one available that combines CRT and Palette shaders, as well as one that looks like old DOS computers. This allows additional easy configuration without having to enable Custom.
• The FPS display now is available in the "Game" submenu, instead of being exclusively a debug feature. It now also shows how long each frame took to render.
• You can now mash the buttons between stages to hurry up the screen transition.
• Private testers can now enter the cave (stage 2!) It's very WIP in there but you can still check it out. (Public testers will gain access to the cave later when it's more finished.)
• When you load your game, it will now show you the collectible counts in the stage you're loading into.
• You can now select if you'd like sound effects to play in stereo or not.
• Some menus now have a "Restore Defaults" option to them.
• There's now an option to enable holding the button to automatically activate movetech abilities when they're finished.
• The game now keeps track of actual game play time. This value is accurate even if the game slows down, and also increments if you're in the pause menu. This is only shown when you use the game play time overlay.
• You'll now get a Cat Coin for collecting all letters in a stage. To allow you to get the cat coin, the game will automatically take away the letter L from the first stage. You'll have to go fetch it again to get the coin.
• Lance will now automatically start running if you move the analog stick far enough in the direction you want to go. You can configure the threshold for this, as well as turn it on and off.
• More dialogue has been added to NPCs.

===== IMPROVED =====

• Several sub-menus have been replaced with either horizontal sliders or options that you navigate through by pressing left and right.
• Menu options are now grouped into sections for ease of access and to make the menu less confusing to use.
• You can now switch between thrown abilities and equip upgrades to them much faster (most players probably won't be able to take advantage of this right now though.)
• Dialogue scaling is now shown as a preview directly in the menu.
• Menu scaling now also affects how many menu items are shown.
• Adjusted the palette selection when using the retro palette mode to shift between areas of the stage rather than per screen, to give a more consistent experience.
• It is now even more clear when you are going to a new stage and what collectibles you'll be expected to find in that stage/that you've already found in that stage.
• Redrew dust cloud and clash star sprites (they've been the same since I drew them 2 years ago as placeholder LOL)
• Blur has been improved across the entire game, both in quality and efficiency (as always, let me know if this build actually runs slower on your computer.)
• Adjusted the sprites on the UI some for clarity.
• Added a small flickering effect to rooms that use light sources.
• Improved animation timing of color shifting effects when moving between screens.
• The debug overlay now shows the amount of Data Structures and Surfaces are active at any given time.
• Magic costs for passive abilities are now shown directly on the menu itself, rather than having to hover each ability to find out it's magic cost.
• A new meter at the bottom of the Passive Abilities menu now shows how much you've got equipped currently (both as a number and as a bar) as well as how much the currently hovered ability takes from that bar (if it's equipped) or would add to the bar (if it's not equipped.)
• Added an animation to the Pretty Petal count when you collect them.
• Voice blips for NPCs have been improved.
• Transitions between screens will now show the LANCE letters you don't have in grayscale.
• LANCE Letters will now show up semitransparent in stages they were collected in before, and can be collected again for 50 Pretty Petals. This brings them in line with the other collectibles.

===== CHANGED =====

• Made several lighting adjustments to the Lignum Woods hub and Deep Woods stages.
• All changes you make to any options in the menu will now take effect immediately.
• The menu is no longer recolorable (will be added back in in a future update.)
• The transition time when going indoors/outdoors has been reduced.
• Places where you stand and have the camera focus on a distant spot will now wait for you to stand there a bit before moving the camera (this prevents the camera from jerking around and making people sick.)
• The FPS overlay now shows the percentage of rendering overhead there is, rather than theoretical FPS. The higher this number is, the better.
• Reduced the amount that Lance can see around him without the Lantern passive enabled.
• The bumpers now have a pulse effect on them when hit.
• Lance's after-images when going fast have been adjusted slightly.
• Willow now has a pulse effect around her.
• Reduced the transition time on various debug functions.
• "Escape Key" menu has been replaced with the new menu system.
• If you have the "Radical Spin" passive from the March 2021 demo, it now restores the classic "spin to win" where Lance goes really fast. Watch your magic meter!
• Changed the color of the stones on the ground from purple to gray to make them less distracting.
• Instead of trying to disable VSync if the game is not achieving a proper framerate, the game will now go into "30fps mode." You'll still have to make adjustments to your settings, but it should be easier to do so.
• The color of hover text over signs is now more consistent with other signs in the game.
• Lance's behavior when falling into pits is now consistent (before, the animation would be different if it were a single screen room.)
• Menu text now uses language strings for future translation compatibility (or if you want to hack the game and make the menu just say "butts."
• The rotating bridge will no longer attempt to grab you and take you away if you're not actually standing on it most of the way.
• The game no longer reloads the entire stage when going indoors/outdoors. This *may* cause issues, though I think I fixed them all already.
• Increased the maximum time cap to 999 : 59 : 59.983.
• The function that shows your current game play time now has higher precision for milliseconds.
• The speedrun counter will now show even when the game is paused.
• Lance's basic spin time has been reduced to 8 frames (down from 10.)
• The code that attempts to save you from falling into a pit if you're spinning across gaps no longer runs if you're not sprinting.
• Made some adjustments to the room where you learn how to sprint to really make sure you learn how to do it.
• More scales have been added to Stage 1.
• A new sign has been added in Stage 1 that talks about health fish and what they do.
• Changed how the Distance Traveler upgrade works. Now, it increases your top speed (you'll have had to gotten this during the March 2021 demo.)
• You can now throw magic cards even when you're out of magic. However, the amount of magic cards you can throw is significantly reduced.
• The ability to customize the theme of the menus has been removed.
• Adjusted position of gear in Stage 1 to make it less likely to try to hit it and accidentally read the nearby sign instead.

===== BUG FIXES =====

• Fixed the exit from the secret cave and Lance's house pushing you weirdly under certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug in which Lance's portrait would have a white rectangle when he fell.
• Fixed a bug where collectibles and Lance's abilities would not have light sources applied to them.
• Fixed a bug where light sources would not properly clear when stepping into screens that aren't supposed to use them.
• The lantern passive actually works now.
• Lance no longer has a chance to come out of south facing doors sprinting.
• Fixed a bug where Lance's portrait and other UI elements would draw really big on the lowest graphics settings.
• Fixed a bug where rapidly changing menu options would cause a "Game is running under 60fps" error message to appear.
• Fixed a bug where you could potentially unpause the game while the input remapping screen was open.
• Fixed a bug where the mouse cursor would flicker sometimes when hovering over the menu or other things that you can interact with with the mouse.
• Fixed an issue with light sources where pixel shimmering would occur when enhanced drawing mode was disabled (by simply disabling the animation for light sources)
• Fixed a bug with drawing text on the intro screen.
• Fixed a bug where the game would sometimes show the "New Stage" information panel with the text "Undefined" when moving between some stages.
• Fixed a bug where saving and returning to the title screen would show an "Instance count is high" message at the top of the screen.
• Fixed a bug where you couldn't skip the stage transition animation in certain circumstances.
• Fixed layering on the roof of Lance's house.
• Fixed an issue where you could get out of "Save and Return to Title" and "Save and Quit" on the Escape menu by pressing "Cancel" or Escape.
• Fixed a bug where the combo multiplier would count down during screen to screen transitions.
• Fixed water being drawn below the sign outside Lance's house.
• Fixed a bug where objects with small hover prompts (ie some signs or clocks) would show even during dialogue sequences.
• Fixed a bug where objects that were attracted to you are not collectible if you go to a different layer.
• Fixed depth sorting issues with some objects.
• Fixed an issue with music loop points in certain songs.
• Fixed an issue with music swapping inconsistently when going into/out of the village area.
• Fixed a bug where pausing on the same frame a mushroom minion bounced against the boss would cause a terrible ruckus.
• The game no longer freezes for a few frames when closing the menu.
• Fixed a bug where Lance could recover from attacking enemies to attack them again way too quickly in certain circumstances.
• Fixed a bug where collecting the second Cat Coin in the Deep Woods would clear the marker for the first Cat Coin, if you hadn't collected it already.
• Fixed a bug where the game would say "Instance count is high" in between screens where both screens have a large instance count.
• Petals and Health Fish that spawn too close to the wall will no longer get stuck inside the wall.
• Fixed a bug with scales appearing too close to walls, which unfortunately caused a few of the scale's IDs to be reset. You'll have to go collect them again. Sorry!
• Fixed some issues with music fading in/out inappropriately in certain situations (mainly going between stages/indoors/outdoors)
• Fixed a bug where grass and collectibles would reset when going indoors/outdoors.
• Fixed a memory leak caused by birds being on screen.
• Fixed a memory leak when going between stages.
• Fixed a bug where Roxy wouldn't repel you properly when spinning.
• Fixed a bug where game play microtime would loop continuously if it had reached the time cap.
• Fixed a bug where Lance's magic meter would go down even if you were using a basic spin (not running.)
• Fixed a bug where sign posts would show their message even when the game was paused.
• Fixed a bug where the total number of LANCE letters in the entire game was being counted wrong.
• Fixed a bug where the analog deadzone threshold was hard-coded in some parts of the code.
• Fixed a bug where pop-up messages could be invisible if you were using a certain retro palette preset.

===== KNOWN BUGS =====

• Setting video configuration is currently disabled on the title screen, as the title screen still uses the old menu subsystem, which is incompatible with the new options.
• A few menus across the game still use the old menu subsystem. These will eventually be replaced with the new one.

Thank you!