Howdy! It's been a long time coming, but I finally have the new build for you! I've added and changed *a lot* since the last build, so I hope you enjoy it! I have several things to talk about, so please read on!

Shield Cat Expanded Playtest

The Shield Cat Playtest build has been going great, and I appreciate everyone testing it out as I work toward the next major demo (which will really show off what the game is.) In the last build of the game, I allowed people to explore the Abandoned Mines and River Path areas. In this version, these areas have been removed. Fear not though, as I'll be opening the Expanded Playtest soon enough. This will allow you to access these stages as well as others that will be in the demo. The River Path has been significantly expanded too, so there will be a lot more to explore! If you want to join the Shield Cat Expanded Playtest, please do the following:

• If you're not already, join the Shield Cat Discord: https://discord.gg/shieldcat
• Go to the #assign-roles-zone and get yourself the "Shield Cat Demo Beta" role.
• That's it! When I open it up, you'll be the first to know.

I am excited to open up the rest of the playable area for the demo for you guys and hope to receive a lot of feedback over it. I want to make sure that this next demo is the best that it can be.

Patch Notes

So many things have happened since the last build that it's difficult to pick out anything in particular to talk about, so here are the patch notes in full. Thank you!

===== IMPORTANT =====

• LANCE Letters have been changed out for Big Jewels. They follow the same convention (5 jewels to a stage.) This change was made to make it easier to keep track of them and calculate the total number of Big Jewels you have.
• The LANCE Letters you've collected will automatically be converted over to the corresponding Big Jewels when you load your save file with this version.
• On the title screen when loading the file, it will say you have 0 Big Jewels. Once you load the save file, this will be corrected by the stats calculator.
• If you find any part of the game that refers to LANCE Letters, please let me know!
• Also, in order to streamline how upgrades are acquired and change the way it all works, several ability upgrades have been removed. This most likely wont affect you, but if you have any of the removed abilities, they will show up in your items menu as "Depreciated Ability" and you may sell them to O'Fox.
• In this version of the game, your save position will be reset to Lance's house when you first load up the game. This is due to some changes in how the Playtest is being handled to prevent you from being softlocked.
• In the Playtest version, you will no longer be able to access the Abandoned Mines and the River Path stages. Please don't worry, as I'll soon be opening up the extended playtest which will allow you to go to these stages as well as others. Thank you for your understanding and patience!

===== NEW =====

• Much of the game's configuration information as well as instructions on how to play, controls, etc. have been consolidated into an Instruction Manual! This includes files that were included with the game, as well as information that was on the (extremely outdated) wiki. Please check it out!
• There's a brand new title screen with new animation! (I'll be making new music for it too eventually.)
• There's also a new intro cinematic. It's unfinished but should work to establish the story and what's going on.
• User markers have been added to the map screen. Now you can place your own markers on the map and (hopefully) never get lost.
• These markers will also appear on the minimap to help guide you to where you want to go.
• Mr. Railway is now in the game. Even if you have played the game already, it's recommended to talk to him.
• This version of the game will update your map screen accordingly so that you can progress correctly.
• Black bars have been added to the top and bottom of the screen during dialogue sequences.
• New icons have been added to show if you've applied any cheats and what cheats you've applied.
• An indicator has been added in the corner to let you and others know what difficulty you're playing at (doesn't appear in normal.)
• Echo effects have been added to certain screens (mainly inside caves) that give the space a bit more ambiance.
• However, if it doesn't work on your machine, causes garbled sound, or you just dont like it, a new option has been added in the "Audio" submenu that disables the echoes.
• An accessibility option has been added that makes the game run at half speed during gameplay. You can use it to get past particularly difficult segments, or if you just want to be like Neo from The Matrix.
• Another accessibility option has been added that reduces all damage you would take to 0.
• Boss characters will now show their health in the top right of the screen, along with an associated portrait of the boss.
• New speedrun options have been added that increase the speed of menus and transitions between screens.
• Please note that "Fast Transition" will not work when you're playing the Marcus' Adventure minigame.
• Also please note that, since the playable area intended for the demo is incomplete, there's not really anything to "speedrun" to yet. I'm just getting these options in in advance.
• A Dialogue History has now been added! You can view it by opening the pause menu and pressing the button shown in the bottom right of the screen, or during dialogue sequences. Use it to review what was just said, and don't miss anything!
• Speaker labels have been added to dialogue boxes for named characters.
• You can now adjust the contrast for the game image (requires graphics preset set to Custom and "Hi Res Rendering" to be enabled.)
• You can now adjust the brightness and contrast used for the Retro Palette filter (these are separate controls and will not affect the game's standard brightness and contrast settings.)
• You may now restart any Marcus' Adventure by using the pause menu and selecting "Restart Minigame."
• You may now toggle drawing markers on the map screen by using the Toggle UI button (Analog Stick press on gamepads, Ctrl on keyboards - the game will tell you on the map screen what button to press.)
• New Cat Coins have been added to existing stages. Please look out for them!

===== IMPROVED =====

• The map screen has been improved with higher resolution sprites when you're zoomed in.
• Additionally, map markers will no longer be drawn unless you're zoomed in (with the exception of Willow points, locked doors, ? spots, and Train Stations) with the intention of decluttering the map.
• Map Markers will also no longer show on the minimap (except those mentioned above, for the same reasons.)
• Improved loading time of 3D files by using caching.
• Improved loading time between rooms by caching tall grass generation.
• Improved blur to be much better looking at lower settings while still maintaining good performance (which has actually been improved.)
• Locks will now tell you what kind of key to expect (will be useful later when there are different kinds of keys.)
• "Teleporters" such as stairs and whatnot will now indicate where they take you to so you can tell where they are and where they'll take you.
• Additionally, "indoor" areas such as caves inside waterfalls and whatnot that you can't really "walk" to because they're in a different position on the map will now reveal their location to you. They are marked in gray to indicate that they're subscreens and you can't walk there.
• Made optimizations to the map screen drawing routine. It had the capability to cause lag spikes on lower end hardware when drawing/redrawing, but it should be much better now.
• The music for the Abandoned Mines has been re-arranged and enhanced.
• The Deep Woods now has a more detailed image shown when you zoom in on the map. Please let me know what you think about it.
• Added some lookup tables to the code to improve performance across the game.
• Added and improved NPC dialogue, as well as added additional NPCs.
• The map screen now has the total game completion percentage in the bottom right corner.
• Minigames involving Cat Coins (such as Marcus' Adventure) will now show if you have the coin or not right next to the prompt for starting the Minigame.
• Added some additional debug commands for enabling audio debugging, if you're into that sort of thing.
• There are also debug commands for showing details over Lance during gameplay.
• Made various tileset improvements.
• Improved the transition between stages by adding different graphics to the background depending on where you're going.
• Cylinder Light Beam puzzle elements will now show an indicator of their current status when offscreen.
• The Autumn Grove is more or less complete! If you have access to the state (Retail version only) feel free to check it out!
• Improved the update rate of objects on the River Challenge by making them more distributed. Should help increase performance on lower-end hardware.
• The Debug Console now has commands for finding out more information about flags, and will also tell you the name of which flag you've toggled (if the information is available.)
• Improved the animation for unlocking a gate.
• Circle Locks now have graphics matching the key that you put in them.

===== CHANGED =====

• The radius around Lance that he can see before the blur is applied in rooms that have blur around the perimeter of the screen has been increased (you can see more around you now.)
• The leaderboard view has a much more compact design now.
• Steam usernames have been removed from the leaderboards (you can still see them in the Steam Community.)
• Leaderboard viewer objects will not show up if you're playing in the "Custom" difficulty.
• Updated the SDL GameControllerDB (sorry I forgot to update it for a while, if anyone has any tips on how I can automatically update it on my computer let me know.)
• Credits for using the SDL GameControllerDB have also been added within the game itself.
• The game will now specify which version of the game you're playing (For now, it's the difference between the retail and Playtest versions of the game.)
• Changed the first Red X on the map to indicate the location of Parker's house instead of just inside the gate. (This is where Mr. Railway is.)
• Changed the physical location of Parker's house and two cave subscreens in the Lignum Village's Gamemaker room, which means that 9 scales were reset. You'll have to collect them again for it to count (sorry.)
• The River Path stage has been expanded significantly! However, you won't be able to access it in the Playtest build.
• The Autumn Grove stage has also been expanded and reworked slightly. If you have access to it, check it out! (It's not in the Playtest build.)
• The Quick Reset function (with F2) has been removed entirely.
• The old menu system has been removed from the game. All references to it have also been removed, but there's always a slim possibility that I missed something. If the game crashes saying about the unknown object "obj_menu" please let me know.
• All gameplay timers that keep track of time you've been playing the game have been switched to use real time passed instead of depending on the game's framerate (this does not affect minigame timers, such as Marcus' Adventure or the River Challenge.)
• Updated all copyrights in the game to say 2018-2022 instead of 2021.
• Removed Linux support. (I would love to have it back again but Gamemaker's current exports for Linux do not work for me, so it's impossible for me to make a build.)
• The "Dev Build" message no longer shows on the pause menu.
• Removed grass caching routine as it was too dodgy and also didn't provide any tangible loading improvements.
• Lance will no longer start moving if you initialize the spin while standing completely still.
• The game's "real time" counter will no longer increment during loading sequences (which can have variable times depending on the speed of your hard drive, etc.)
• A treasure chest which previous contained the Wave upgrade for the Shield has been replaced with a Cat Coin.
• The "Ability Upgrade" submenu for each ability has been removed.
• All "Ability Upgrades" have been depreciated. You can sell them at the O'Fox shop, if you have any.
• The "Dagger" ability has been removed. If you had it, you can sell it at the O'Fox shop.
• The "MoveTech" submenu has been removed. Lance will be sticking to spinning, at least for this game.
• Passive Abilities are now just standard upgrades and will be automatically equipped when you acquire them. They also cost 0 magic to equip.
• Passive Abilities that are stackable now have a more straightforward upgrade path. For instance, the Magnet ability will become Magnet+ when you get another one, rather than just showing two Magnets in the menu.
• Whenever you get an Ability for the first time (ie when you buy the Shield) the game will automatically make it your Active Ability.
• The areas accessible with the Playtest have been reduced in anticipation for the Demo Beta, which will allow you to playtest the entirety of the demo. Please see Roxy in the village for more information.
• Please note, the above does not affect players with the Retail version of the game. These players already have access to playtest the entirety of the demo.
• The speedrun options in the Game submenu have been moved to a Speedrun submenu within Game (I figure you won't be changing those as much during a game so they don't need to be right there.)
• Lance's idle and spin sprites have been adjusted to bring them more in line with other sprites (mainly on the eyes.)
• Mr. Riverman will now give you the Cat Coin directly when completing the River Challenge with 100%, rather than having to go fetch it yourself.

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

• Fixed inconsistent behavior in what happens when you collect bombs while Lance is already carrying the maximum amount he can carry. In this case, Lance will simply drop the bombs back on the ground.
• Fixed a bug where debug menu would despawn immediately in 3D stages.
• Fixed a bug where the leaderboard was configured incorrectly for the letter toss minigame. (Fixed 23rd of January, required a steam configuration change)
• The game now actually enforces what it says about not giving achievements if you use the custom difficulty.
• Fixed a bug where solving one of the light puzzles in a specific way actually caused it to not solve at all.
• Fixed a bug where the minimap would not update properly when going between screens in large rooms.
• Fixed a bug where Lance loading into a stage in the water would not immediately put him in the water, and there was a single frame in which you could spin.
• Fixed a bug where Lance's swimming audio wasn't being played positionally based on where he was.
• Fixed a bug where enemy destroy sounds weren't being played relative to where the enemy being destroyed was.
• Fixed a bug where supporter names did not properly fade out on the intro screen.
• Fixed a bug where circular lock pieces did not check if they had been collected before, allowing you to collect them again.
• Added additional checks to hopefully prevent the game from crashing with really, really weird input configurations.
• Fixed a bug where loading your game at the save point in the River Path stage wouldn't play music until you left the stage.
• Fixed a bug where the game would not give you the Cat Coin for collecting all the Jewels (formerly LANCE letters) in a stage, despite playing the animation.
• Related to the above bug fix, the game will now check when you enter the stage if you obtained all the Jewels but did not get the coin for it. If the game finds this to be true, it will give you the coin it owes you.
• Fixed a bug where the line puzzles initialized by hitting the raising cylinders would continually reset the line puzzle each frame (you couldn't see it, but your CPU sure could.)
• Fixed a bug where the game trying to prevent Lance and NPCs from intersecting with each other (Lance not standing in the NPC's hitbox) could cause the game to freeze as it's never able to resolve Lance's position.)
• Fixed a bug where the total game percentage was not recalculated until you went to a new stage. Now it is calculated whenever you open the map or stats screen.
• Fixed a bug where EnemyDamageMult was mispelled in custom difficulty files. (You will have to re-set it if you're using Custom Difficulty.) (Also I had spelled it as Damange and I have no idea how that happened)
• Fixed a bug where the minimap would incorrectly mark you as having visited the map screen in the top left corner of the stage, even if you hadn't been there. (Unfortunately there's no way to fix this for existing save files.)
• Fixed a bug where a few of the map markers were not correctly placed.
• Fixed a bug where pressing the button during a stage transition would cause the animation of sprites on screen to "skip" to a different frame.
• Fixed a bug where the game was loading the save file preview on every frame while the save file menu was open.
• Fixed a bug where the save file preview wasn't being shown.
• Fixed a memory leak where files which were loaded asynchronously (such as configuration files) were not properly cleaned up.
• Fixed a related memory leak where files which were saved asynchronously were also not properly cleaned up.
• Fixed a bug where the options list would offset your current choice weirdly when enabling the retro palette in the Custom settings.
• Fixed a bug where the Post Processing option segment for Retro Palettes did not have a header on it when using the Retro Presets.
• Fixed a bug where you couldn't buy bombs from O'Fox once you owned one.
• Fixed a bug where two treasure pots were using the same flag in the Abandoned Mines.
• Fixed a bug where Cat Coins given to Lance by Marcus would appear glitched before Lance collected them.
• Fixed a bug where Lance could stand beyond the edge of a moving platform, making him appear to stand in the middle of the air.
• Fixed a bug where the Gold Fish Statue spawned by the Mushroom Boss would not pause when pausing the game.
• Fixed a wall that you could get stuck on in the River Challenge.
• Fixed a bug where the minimap was redrawing more than what's necessary (it was like 6 times between rooms and like, yea nothing's changing then)
• (Hopefully) fixed a bug where the minimap wouldn't update properly after certain events took place. If you see the minimap not updating still, please let me know.

Thank you!

Thank you to the following people who support me as well as everyone who helps make this possible: @buny, ARKYmouse, Ahty, Shadow8t4, Alicia Goranson, Arron Savage, Barbara Fregia, BenTheDragon, Bizarre Machinist, David Wolfpaw, Caliburn Absolute, Circlingnugget, Clover Arizona, DarkJoule, Vix-N, DimSumthing, Dizmus, Sweep Dreams, EZGames69, Erica 'digifox' Kovac, Cloud Hop, EveryZig314, Fao, FaultBat, Flake, FoxyDude, Nutalie Frost, Galuade, Gri, Goronhead, Holly 'Frinkel' Lotor, JD Laclede, Jack O'Connor, Jammy, Joanna Jones, Johann Pfaffinger, Jyrki, Kaylex Deer, Hulex Fox, Kirbizard, Kohaku Katou, Krazinsky, Trash, LF, Lorxus, Lulla, Luna, Luna Hyena, Luna Moona the Little Kahuna, phantomsqueaks, Mark Cope, Marlyn, Mello the Ferret, OrobaSpyro, Nenekiri Bookwyrm, Axel Husky, NovaSquirrel, Nuck, Philip Garzieri, Raegal Boggart, RawrParty, Roger Tyranny, Ryunohito, Cam D'Arcy, Saxxon Fox, Scylla-Leeezard, Ansel Geisel, Snout, Spyduck, SplotchDoggo, Spoony Doodle, Carlis A. Moore., Stitch The626th, Swirlate, Tala Cuthbert, Tarocco, Tarsus Endri, Tenma-arekussu, Touku, Upscale Furry Trash, DJ Otters, Vectrobe, Vivee, William 'Kenku' Swiftfoot, Xkeeper, Legiayayana, breakthetargets, caseJackal, Kazy, khr, meerm, megaRammy, morgan `indrora` gangwere, raine, rainedoe, Foxxhoria, ubuntor, wulfy83, sol I have a feeling that I'll be making patch builds in the coming days as people find a million bugs with this build, so I'll see you very soon!