KatFS Pre-Alpha v0.3.2 is out!

Hello all! It's KatFS update day!

Today I bring what will likely be the penultimate update to the KatFS Pre-Alpha demo. This is not to say Kalia's adventures will soon be over, in fact that's just the end of the beginning for them! But anyway, onto the contents of this update.

Let's start where it all started - Chapter 1 of the demo! The original plan for the setting of chapter 1 was for it to represent an ancient temple or gathering center, however as chapter 2 was developed, the idea to theme it after some sort of crystal mining cave also led to me rethinking the area in chapter 1 - it was right next to a crystal mine, it had crystal-powered devices in it, what if the ruins in chapter 1 were not that of a temple, but rather a crystal refining facility? Around a year ago, I came up with some concepts for more industrial-themed props that could sell the idea of an ancient facility more:

At the time I made these, I had too much in my hands with releasing chapter 2 and starting work on chapter 3, so I stated I had no plans on implementing these in the demo. Well one year later, with the demo about to be completed, I figured why not give chapter 1 some love after all this time? Here's the new boss arena room, as an example:

These assets have been given glowy shader support, and some of them have even been given a machine audio loop to further immerse Kalia into this ancient facility whose machinery still runs to this day! If you replay through chapter 1, you will find the new machinery populating some of the before empty areas of the level. You may also catch on to some other additional details placed at certain points.

But that's not all of the visual improvements? How does "bespoke heat ember effects" sound?

The "heat embers" that indicated progression towards setting flammable objects on fire used a random noise glow shader that would sometimes look okay but often look weird. I decided to dedicate some hours to repurposing this shader to work with hand-drawn embers instead (and then hand-drawing said embers for every prop in the game), and the result should be more impressive-looking piles of rubble burning! I should mention that for enemies that can burn, the old random noise method still applies, since it would be exponentially way more work to draw embers for every enemy sprite. 

As an extra effect, the ground decals for explosions has been redone, and a new ground decal for soot has been implemented for specific static flammable props, just to give the aftermath of those infernal moments a bit more effect.

Before we move onto the most interesting part of this update, a rapid fire of smaller implementations - a new track by my friend Tapefilter2000 for the "slime family" encounter in chapter 3 has been added to the demo! And since I linked to his Bandcamp page, I should also mention that a new "Credits" section is now available from the main menu, with links to his and other contributors to the demo. Oh, and I've added a status effect icon framework, with icons for poison, spider web slow and wetness thus far.

But perhaps the biggest improvement in this patch is to the Goblin Landship boss - its first implementation was admittedly a bit rushed in order to meet the "get chapter 3 done by Christmas" promise, but in retrospect it felt a bit static, easily cheesable and not at all the fast-paced rush that I intended it to be. This update overhauls this battle in order to change that.

Now, rather than slowly creep towards the player, the landship will rush towards one of several set spots in the arena, destroying anything in its path (and potentially hurting Kalia if she's hit!), from where it will then hold position and fire at Kalia from using its cannons. If Kalia approaches, it will be inclined to use its discharge attack or relocate, and it will try to prioritize locations where it can expose most of its cannons towards Kalia from.

The result is a fight that requires a lot more movement and engaging the landship from all sides, not just attacking from the same position while dodging the artillery shells and discharges. The landship now has to be chased around as it will try to make distance between itself and Kalia, and sticking too close is riskier as it's gotten more aggressive with its discharge and might unexpectedly ram into Kalia when it relocates. It might still not represent the frenzy that I aim for in the full release, but it's at a point I'm comfortable with for a pre-alpha demo.

That will be it for this update! So what's left at this point? Chapter 3 is still in need of soundtrack, and maybe some last improvements to the demo will be in order. But I've already been preparing to transition the project from pre-alpha to a proper alpha, and I look forward for what the future brings!