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Hey guys, it's been half a year since my last devlog post here, and it's about time I show what I've been up to!

Basically, the game's been completely revamped from its state in the current demo. If you checked out that previous devlog, you'll have caught some things that I mentioned were issues and focal points for an upcoming update. 

However, things have been taken a bit farther, so I'll try to just give a quick list of what's actually different.

Every major asset is updated, or in the process of being updated.

>>(https://i.gyazo.com/4f5921e479a0abb00cd3ea04483a9fe9.mp4)<<

Basically, "I got better at pixel art".

Movement is much more fluid.

>>(https://i.gyazo.com/90bacaddcd82ae19822247948e263a52.mp4)<<

Every action has a bit more momentum and weight to it, and it feels entirely different from the current demo. No more abrupt dashes; no more Megaman X wall jump; no more floaty regular jumps;  No More Heroes; etc. 

Tons of backend stuff has been done to try to make movement feel as responsive as possible (such as being able to walljump despite briefly pressing the opposite direction while on a wall). QoL things that you shouldn't notice if they work, but you always will notice if they don't.

You can also now wallrun upwards briefly. Thanks, Sonic Lost World.

Combat and its animations have been reworked, for the player and enemies alike.

>>(https://i.gyazo.com/3f69cde75607cb73f336d6ee7b1674b2.mp4)<<

>>(https://i.gyazo.com/e0f23c3bbe6f68464563d14ff4ce3216.mp4)<<

Basically, "enemies hit you with real attacks and Neon has some semblance of real animations for their moves now." You can even see that across these two clips, some of the animations and fx got updated. Stuff on the backend's been streamlined so that enemies only need a sprite, a defined hitbox, and a script telling the enemy or player what to do when attacking. If you're wondering "isn't that how it should work?" or anything similar, my answer is "yes, but I made it way too complicated early on."

Levels have been completely remade.

Basically "level design takes longer than a week."

The ones I have in the current demo (0.1.3F) aren't really much to talk about in terms of design anyhow. The levels this time around had a ton more time put into them and are a bit more expansive. As I mentioned before, with movement being much more fluid, the levels could not stay how they were. 

 Here's an old wip of the new version of the second level. I actually marked where Neon starts (bottom left corner) and where the level ends (near top right corner). Frankly I probably made the level too big, but I'll leave that to you guys to give feedback on soon.

Because of this new approach though, the next demo I put out will have only two main levels, meaning there'll technically be less content available in this update than the previous ones. 

But said content this time should be significantly better by virtually every metric. Hope you understand. 

With that in mind, the updates to release after this demo will revolve around finishing up and refining the first area, including (re)introducing the game's first major boss. Hope you guys are looking forward to this update!

>>(https://i.gyazo.com/1cead2fd1f3380ff2d494dd6a12e6e82.mp4)<<

If you want more frequent updates about development progress, be sure to check out my Twitter account!