Hey guys! It's been a couple of weeks, but I've been hard at work on the game (possibly too hard) since the last devlog post! Sorry for holding this out on you guys but I've made a ton of changes from the previous build, partially influenced by your feedback! I'll go ahead and give you a general rundown of what's changed.

0.1.0 Patch Notes

Hexone Territory (Preview)

This is a completely new area to be added to the game. This means having completely unique tilesets, enemies, soundtrack and level gimmicks, almost none of which are present in Neopolis. Please understand that this and each Territory thereafter will be its own endeavor to implement.

Hexone is Territory that is run on, and seeks to advance geothermal power. Being one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, the robots and very few people that reside here stay underground, or inside of the various rock formations. Volcanos are great real estate, by the way.* 

The experimentation with robots, androids and nanotechnology here have caused some unnatural bee and wasp-like organisms to take form from the flowing magma. They are aggressive and attack anything that moves, giving inhabitants even more reason to remain underground.

*No, they most certainly aren't.

Here are some of the stuff you can find in the small preview available as of this update.

NEW Enemy: Lava Trooper

• It's literally a bee.

NEW Hub World

• Every Territory is going to have its own hub world where you can access their levels from!

NEW Enem--

• Okay, Troopers are much more aggressive than other flying enemies 
• They will stay in range of you if you get close, and charge at you with extreme speed.
• They're small, annoying, but glow brightly before they attack and are destroyed easily.
  • They ALSO die immediately if they land a single hit on you.

NEW Hazard: Lava Hive

• Houses a veritable number of be-- troopers.
• Begins to fall if the player walks under it, or attacks it once.
• If the hive is about to fall, all nearby hives will as well.
• Upon impact with a surface, the troopers inside will be exposed and ready to attack you.
• A hive can be knocked in an arbitrary direction by your attacks, so you can influence where it shatters.

NEW Hazard: ROCK

• Remains suspended until the player walks under it, then it falls.
• Shatters on impact.
• Is a rock.

NEW Gimmick: Node Vein

• Similar to the Node Capsules in Neopolis, you also hit these until the green chips come out.
• These can be found inside dirt blocks, or on walls in Hexone.
• Not to be confused with Bandai Namco's upcoming action RPG.

• It's the soundtrack that plays in the trailer, and will be present in the level!
• I whacked FL Studio until something remotely rhythmic came out.

System Changes

• Tap Jump (pressing up to can now be toggled on or off for keyboard and gamepad
• Keyboard now has two default mappings available (WSAD/Space/O/P & Arrows/Z/X/C) available at the same time.
  • Remember, you can change your controls in the Options menu, and map each non-walking action to two keys.
• All collisions and physics have been reworked and optimized to take tiles into account, rather than specific objects. This greatly reduces the number of active objects in the game.
  • This also may introduce some new bugs

NEON

Attacks

• Charge attack properties have been changed; overall damage and scaling increased.
  • Neutral: Hits multiple times before an explosion dealing the fully scaled damage.
  • Forward: Blinks the player forward at incredible speed, dealing full damage to everyone in your path.
  • Up:  Now hits twice. The first hit does set knockback and half damage, while a second hit at the apex deals full damage/knockback.
  • Down: The falling phase of the attack now deals scaling damage, up to half of your maximum damage.
• All charge attacks now have a windup phase leading into the attack
  • The windup animation is skipped when performing a dash counter, going immediately into the attack when pressed.
  • This increases the contrast and impact of normal charge attacks vs those done via countering
  • And it increases the impact of charge attacks in general
• ALL normal (not charge) attacks can now hit enemies instantaneously.
  • "You don't get a fair fight; all of my options are frame 1".
  • A mechanic will be introduced in the future that slows your attacks until you begin comboing an enemy. 
• ALL normal attacks can now be canceled into jump on hit
  • There was a bug where attacks could cancel into dash, but jump was also intended to be an available action.
  • Down-tilt, jump, down air is now a true combo
• Several attacks have had their hitbox sizes dramatically increased on the first frame open more combo routes
• Barrage hitbox visualization has been updated to match its actual hitbox in the training room

Dashing

• Dash overall has less range, but moves faster at the start.
• Internal cooldown for dash restarts with each dash
  • This minimizes the cases where you can dash 3 times due to the cooldown expiring
• Dash Counter (green dash) now gives you increased time to perform your free charge attack.
  • If you don't press jump or attack, you have completely free range of movement during this time.
    • As in, you can fly for a bit
• Dashes that deal damage now turn the player trail yellow. 
  • You will notice this when going through a dash ring or are invincible.

Object & Hazard Changes

• Doors now automatically activate when you walk up to them, simply press dash once to go through.
• Combo Bombs now have a tool tip when you first find it that explain how they work.
• Laser Walls now impair your movement when you make extended contact with them, even when dashing
• All nodes outside of the default are smaller. 
• Nodes that are lying on the ground now gravitate towards you
• Enemies can no longer pass through the platforms that you can jump through from the bottom.
• [NEW] Strong Blocks (formerly purple blocks) are now Explosive Blocks
  • Still require an explosion from a bomb to be destroyed
  • However, they now explode on their own, causing a chain reaction with nearby blocks
  •  No more using multiple bombs to destroy one wall of blocks
• [NEW] Power Nodes now put the player into an entire (Super) Invincibility MODE for 8 seconds.
  • Negate all forms of damage
  • Infinite dashes
  • Dashes are somehow even FASTER
  • Dashes deal 500 damage, but cannot be used to initiate counters
  • Dashes detonate explosive blocks.
    • The only way to destroy them outside of using a bomb.
  • 70% faster attack charging
  • Movement speed increased by 75%
  • Resonance (charge attack damage bonus) is maxed out for the duration.
  • Making contact with an enemy when not attacking will deal damage
  • Become as gods
    • For 8 seconds
•  [NEW] Deflector platform; reflects bombs as well as your dash direction, while moving.

Enemy Changes

Loudmouth (Boss)

Made the ball even more hectic. He's supposed to have legs and arms (soon(tm)) though.

• Total HP slightly lowered
• Time in between attacks and actions lowered
  • This applies even moreso to second phase
• Throws bomb more frequently in second phase
  • So it doesn't drag on too long
• Now punches 3 times instead of 4 in second phase
  • I mean you get the idea after 2 punches, but 3 is a nice number
• [NEW] Enters a berserk state at critically low health
  • All his actions can cancel into other actions
    • He can double jump to shoot you from the air only to smash down after a couple bullets
  • Is no longer invulnerable without bombs
    
    • You can end the fight by outright punching him, if you can keep up.

Visual Changes

• The following have updated sprites:
  • Nodes (green triangles)
  • Energy Nodes (blue triangle pickup)
  • Power Nodes (rainbow pickup)
  • Deflectors (blue tiles that reflect dashes)
  • Moving platforms 
  • Falling platforms
  • Breakable walls
  • Strong/Explosive Blocks (formerly purple blocks)
  • Danger Zones (red areas that deal damage)
  • Checkpoints (formerly red triangle)
  • Dash Rings (now have arrows to imply dashing)

• Updated all basic tilesets; the ground is no longer the same repeating block.
• All nodes have a visual effect when picked up
• Enemies that are preparing an attack blink more intensely
• Menu backgrounds are now a lighter color to increase contrast with text
• Time now briefly freezes when you die 
  • To show your mistake to all of The World
• All attacks that deal between 500-1000 damage have orange text
• [NEW] There are a few tooltips inside of levels

Level Changes

• Adjusted layout of all levels, including training room.
  • Everything should be a bit easier to clear now, or at least more reasonable.
• [NEW] Global Hub added; this will be where the player transitions between Territories
  • In the future, once you clear Neopolis, the global hub will allow you to play every level in the game, in any order

Itch.io Page Changes - Donations Open!

• Donations are now an option with each download. 
• If you could leave any amount, it would be immensely loved.
• This project is essentially one person, self employed with 10 hour unpaid workdays out of sheer passion for all of this, so the extra financial stability goes an incredibly long way!! 

There may be some stuff I'm missing, but definitely download the new demo and tell me what you think! Any kind of support from you guys is greatly appreciated!

Have a good one, my dudes!