Happy Saturday, everyone! 

We promised you a 1.2.1 hotfix, but we ended up adding more things than just hotfixes, so we decided to just call this a 1.3.0 release instead of a Hotfix release!

You can find the full changelog at the bottom of this article. Keep reading if you want more information about what changes you might find in today's version of the game!

🏃Speedrun Mode

Speedrun Mode Showcase

So… Our game is now on Speedrun.com!

And, as requested by Vaiann and Gaminator3333, there is now a Speedrun Mode.

This mode starts a timer whenever you load into a level, and automatically pauses/unpauses whenever it is appropriate to do so. The timer will also include info that can be used to validate a run and also includes splits for the levels you’ve beaten.

This timer is designed to be used in professional speedrunning, such as when submitting a run to Speedrun.com. Although, even if we have our timer for speedrunning, make sure to always read the rules of the moderators. If they say don’t use the in-game timer, tag along! We won’t mind at all*.

* Not a factual statement. We will mind a little. We spent vacation hours working on this mode.

🖐️Pick-Up System Refreshed!

Pick-Up System Showcase

We explained this in more detail in our What’s Cookin #6 post, but we’ll go over the changes we’ve made to the system as quickly as possible.

The Pick-Up System now has “Near-Object Transparency” - Some big objects, such as cubes, now become slightly see-thru whenever they are picked up, and get increasingly more transparent the closer it gets to the camera.

Showcase of Adaptive Pickup Target (the yellow diamond is the actual target the cube is following)

Another thing that has been implemented is how picked-up objects behave when being held - If a picked-up object cannot reach its intended target location when picked up, say a wall is in the way of the intended location, it’ll instead adjust to the environment around them and find an appropriate location to hover at, hopefully preventing smaller objects from getting stuck more often.

❤️Quality of Life changes

Showcase of QoL changes

Not a lot of noteworthy QoL changes, but here are a few of them anyways!

• One-Time “Thank You” Pop-up: To try to thank players and inform them about the game’s future and how to get engaged in it, we’ve added a pop-up that appears in the main menu only once after getting through the credits sequence.
• The outline has been changed: To better work with the updates to the Pick-up System and to look more visually appealing, the outline when hovering over interactable objects has been updated to a newer method!

Friendly Reminder, we have a Discord Server!

If you’d like to talk about the game alongside other creative and like-minded individuals, feel free to join!

We’ve recently gotten a lot of actual professional speedrunners joining here to talk about the game and different speedrun tactics for it, which has been incredible to be part of! They’re the reason why we built Speedrun Mode, so you can have them to thank for when you find yourself raging at a keycard getting stuck on a tipped-over chair in 1-4.

If you wanna join in with these people, and talk not only about the game but other cool creative ventures, please do come along with us!

Full Changelog

[1.3.0] - 2023-06-24

ADDED

• Speedrunning Mode: As requested by speedrunners Gaminator and Vaian. This mode activates a separate timer that automatically pauses between level loads and end screens. It also dynamically adds and displays splits for each level completed, and also shows other information that can be used to validate a run.
• Near-Object Transparency: If a large object is picked up, it gets more transparent the closer the object is to the player's camera. (Thanks to everyone who pointed this out as a problem, especially GonbadGames who I think was the first to point that out!)
• One-time “Thanks For Playing” popup added to Main Menu, shown after seeing the Credits for the first time. This is to hopefully drive more people to give the game more engagement via positive reviews and ratings.

CHANGED

• The Pick Up Target now adapts to the game's environment: The target gets closer to the player's camera if something is in between the default target location and the player’s camera. This is to hopefully avoid objects from getting potentially stuck on static objects in the game world.
• Outlining method has been changed to both work with Near-Object Transparency, and to look more visually appealing.
• Time Trials in certain levels have been adjusted to be more accessible to newer players.
• Changed wording of button leading to Keybinds in the Settings Menu.

FIXED

• ML-1: Bounds of Stage End Trigger on the last stage extended to prevent players from skipping past the trigger and causing issues with the Level End Screen.

KNOWN ISSUES

• Outlines most likely won't render if the game is running on the Vulkan API. We’ll try to see if we can fix this, but we can’t guarantee anything.

Changelog formatting is partly based on  [Keep a Changelog] (https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/). Version numbers are formatted as such…

• MAJOR.MINOR.HOTFIX
  • Major releases tend to include extensive visual & technological additions, or overhauls of major systems that might invalidate older game versions, such as save files.
  • Minor releases include changes that are significant but either not do not include anything that may invalidate older versions of the game.
  • Hotfix releases include Quality of Life changes or fixes to other bugs and issues.