KatFS v0.1.3 Upcoming Changes

Hello everyone! Brief update on the state of the demo and its next patch, which should be coming this week. (possibly maintaining my streak of updates every two weeks so far!)

If you're in a rush, here's a simple and neat list of all the changes and additions:

• New file structure for settings
  
• Reworked how abilities work in the backend
• Rebalanced most of the values in the game from the ground up
• Changed UI fonts across the game
• Added localization for PT-BR and ES locales
• New game over screen

First of all, the way settings are saved has been changed, using a dictionary instead of hard data. This means that future additions to the game settings won't break your existing preferences. However this also does mean that your preferences from previous versions will break and not get loaded (just this once! the point of the change is to prevent it from happening in the future).

On the back end, the way attacks (or "abilities") are handled has been modified in line with the recent AI changes, in order to allow for more freedom in the mechanics of abilities (for Kalia and foes). Do note that currently, the existing abilities have been merely ported over to the new scripting system, but I intend on improving them further down the road.

These changes also provided me with an opportunity to do a balance pass and write all kinds of values from scratch and with just a little bit extra thought put behind them. Expect the experience to be slightly different in places, but still familiar if you have played any of the previous versions.

However the biggest addition is localization! The KatFS demo will be localized into Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish (as well as the current English). In order to support the new languages, I unfortunately had to abandon the custom-drawn font I previously had, as Unity's sprite fonts don't behave well with special characters. Luckily, I found some great replacements (which are fair to use with the game). Do keep in mind that fonts might change at any point in the future.

And of course, the localization. There's a nifty flag selector in the main menu (and the pause menu) for that. I'm considering including a similar dropdown for control schemes as well, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

What else? There's not much as this localization endeavor took a lot of effort to set up (only this time though, it should be smooth sailing from now on). Oh, right, a new game over screen. Part of an effort to get the game closer to its intended aesthetic and also a hint at some of the lore behind KatFS. ;) (Kudos to my friend @tapefilter2000 for coming up with the glyphs. Yep, the same dude who made the tunes)