[i]I'm excited to share this update with you. It is mainly about the music and the synchronized visual effects. As always, you can choose to stick to the previous version by selecting it in the beta branch. There are only insignificant balance changes, so the leaderboards won't reset this time.
At some point I'd like to do an in-depth devblog post about the game's audio systems and how it all works, but for now here's the update notes:[/i]
New Features:
- Better support for music structure. Instead of escalating and reaching a plateau early, a run is now divided into music phases that allow changing things up further into the run.
- Support for lots more variations in looping sounds like drums (instead of simply looping sample A until it's time to loop sample B over and over, it's now possible to play e.g. AAABAAAB before changing to playing CDCD)
- Seamless audio transitions between the menu, pre-game and post-game screens to keep you in the flow
- Support for dynamic pattern and rhythm changes for the flashing backgrounds
- Support for flashing arena boundaries that can adapt to events
New Content:
- New sounds in both the EDM and ROCK SoundSets
- New dynamic sound effects that change the music as stuff happens (e.g. while the arena is in a shrunk state and while the big screen-wiping beam is active)
- Variations for looping sounds
- New harmonic progressions ( the guitars / the synth in the background)
- New: flashing boundaries, as well as new background flashing patterns
Bugfixes:
- In some cases tutorial enemies could follow you into the pre-game area. No more, They Shall Not Pass!
- The previous minor update broke the Spinning Beam tutorial. fixed.
- Various audio playback issues fixed.
What's Next?
[i]I'm thinking I'll finally tackle the third game mode, "Progress Mode" for the next update. I intend to squeeze in a smaller update before that so it's not such a long wait, since I also will invest a bit of time in the Nintendo Switch port in the next two weeks.
I'm looking forward to doing another big audio pass and iterate in the future, because there's still a lot of unused potential in the existing systems (and some rough edges).[/i]