Howdy guys! Coming at you today with a new build of Shield Cat! This build brings *huge* changes to the graphics as well as many new and improved features! Without further ado, let's get right into it!

===== IMPORTANT =====

• Significant changes and upgrades have been made to a lot of the tiles in the game. Please let me know what you think about the upgraded look!
• Changes and improvements were also made to the dialogue engine. All dialogue should still work, but if you encounter issues let me know!
• Because of the aforementioned changes, NPC dialogue progress has been reset for many NPCs. Many apologies for the inconvenience, but NPCs now have new dialogue so please enjoy it!
• The shop dialogues have been improved considerably! Details are noted below.
• Also, you can now buy and sell items! Please see below for this as well for details.
• Many of the game's saving and loading routines have been switched to be asynchronous. This means that they should be much faster without interrupting gameplay, but issues may arise from this. I've tested it all out the best I can but let me know if anything weird happens!

===== NEW =====

• You can now buy items from the Caf! This means that the "Items" entry of the menu finally is being used. These new items will help you out when you get hurt or fall in battle.
• A "Magnet Strike" feature has been added. Lance will automatically snap to the closest enemy you can hit if you attack while close enough to the enemy. Now you can attack different enemies and build up a big combo bonus!
• A new font "Amaranth" has been added. This font has been made the default for most parts of the game.
• You can now use F10 to enable the debug overlay without having to enable debug mode. Usually you only want to do this if I instruct you to, but you can also feel free to check it out anyways.
• You can now disable debug mode by using "disabledebug" in the debug console. However, this will not reset the fact that you used any cheats on the save file.
• Added copyright information for the included Linux libraries in the Linux build.
• Added a "Feedback" menu item on the pause menu with updated information.
• There are now large boulders in the Autumn Grove. If you have access to that stage, be sure you have the bombs!
• A new minigame is available! See if you can find it... (Not available in the Playtest build for now.)
• You can now visit more houses in the Lignum village.
• A new option has been added that allows you to exit stages from the pause menu.
• The river challenge minigame now has music as well as proper UI elements (rather than just debug text)
• A small bit of confetti has been added whenever you grab a major collectible (cat coin or LANCE letter, for example) (but only if you haven't collected it already)
• When you first start the game, if your saved data was somehow deleted but a backup exists, the game will be restored from the backup.
• You can now sell items at the O'Fox shop.
• Bombs will now spawn in grass and from enemies if you've owned bombs at any point in the past. Currently, bombs are not available in the Playtest build (sorry!)
• The game will now show a small notification if you've picked up something to tell you what you've picked up.
• Offscreen indicators have been added to show the location of boss enemies as well as certain things like the ravens attacking you from off screen or objects that have been activated offscreen (like gates.)
• However, if you don't like them or find them distracting you can turn them off.

===== IMPROVED =====

• Graphics have been updated for the entry blockers to make it more obvious when they are raised or lowered.
• Several improvements to tiles, graphics, and tile placements.
• A new running animation has been added for Lance when he's running at full speed.
• Improved the loading time of the river challenge.
• Updated the documentation that is included with the game installation.
• Significant upgrades have been made to the dialogue system to allow for more immersive conversations with NPCs.
• However, I had to reset the flags that keep track of which NPCs you've talked to to work correctly with the new NPC system. This version will automatically correct any issues that may arise, so you don't have to worry.
• Though not required, there is some extra dialogue that can only be seen before you've beaten the mushroom boss. You may wish to start a new game to see it.
• Rewrote and improved the display of supporter's names on the title screen.
• The camera will now only move out to show out-of-sight things when you face toward the direction it expects.
• Improved the way water is rendered, adding an occassional shimmer to it.
• Read/Write access to the computer's hard drive has been significantly optimized.
• Better indicators have been added to show when the game is working in the background (ie copying files or saving your game using the menu.)
• Because of the new async saving, saving with Willow can be much faster than before.
• The shop menu has been upgraded significantly by porting it to the new menu system! This introduces new features (listed below) as well as fixes bugs.
• The shop menu will now show any item you can't buy for any reason as grayed out.
• Items in the shop are now grouped by category.
• The shop now shows the amount of magic a passive ability will take, as well as the current amount of magic you have (so you know if you can equip it or not.)
• This also means that all menus have now been upgraded to the new menu system.
• The combo system has been changed and improved. Now a small chime will play whenever you are building up the combo, but you have to strike different enemies to build it up (you will not get a combo bonus for hitting the same enemy over and over.)
• A "back" button has been added to the input remapping menu so you don't have to hold a button to go back if you don't want to.

===== CHANGED =====

• The amount of time you need to complete the river challenge has been increased by 5 seconds.
• Lance running when you fully tilt the analog stick has been disabled by default. This version of the game will also automatically disable the function when you first load it, but you can turn it back on if you like.
• Big enemy bat health has been reduced from 2 to 1.
• Adjusted a puzzle so you don't have to stand so close to the edge to see what you have to do.
• The default font has been changed. As long as your font settings are on "Default" you don't need to do anything.
• Changed some graphics for the input sprites.
• Adjusted the amount of whitespace that occurs in the menu.
• New installations of Shield Cat will now run in Windowed mode by default. You can change this to fullscreen later, and the game will start fullscreened.
• There is now a petal counting sound when you do a transaction involving pretty petals.
• Many file operations have been converted to async functions. This should make the game perform better (especially in menus) and should futureproof the code. However, this *may* cause some issues that I wasn't able to find myself during testing.
• Blockades have been added to the village in the Playtest build to better define the boundaries of where you can go.
• Debug functions are no longer available in the Playtest build.
• The upgrade path for older versions of Shield Cat have been changed. All necessary upgrades from previous versions will now be automatically applied without user input. If you haven't played Shield Cat in at least 3 months, the game will reset your input configuration. If you've been playing it frequently, you will not be affected.
• VSync is now enabled by default again. It will be turned on when you first load this version of the game, and you can use the menu to turn it off.
• The structure for storing items has changed in this version. If you had used debug features to test out the items, you'll have lost them and will have to get them again. (These items were otherwise unavailable prior to this build.)
• The Video AutoAdjust option has been moved to the top of the Video menu. It has been improved and thus, changing the graphics preset and VSync options will not be allowed when it is enabled. If you wish to change these options, you'll have to turn AutoAdjust to "Off."
• The time you can activate a combo has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.
• The game no longer autosave so frequently (this was a bug.) Now, the game will be saved every 5 minutes, or whenever a major event occurs (grabbing a big collectible, opening a gate, going to a new stage) unless the game has autosaved in the last 10 seconds.

===== BUG FIXES =====

• Fixed a bug where the bomb explosion radius was really small when it came to hitting objects.
• Fixed a bug where you couldn't close the menu that you opened with escape by pressing escape again.
• Fixed the interaction between bombs and treasure chests. The chests will now blow up in one hit.
• Fixed a bug where loading into an unknown save location would unintentionally crash the game (fallback code was broken.)
• Fixed a bug where UI elements would show at the end of the river challenge when they shouldn't have.
• Fixed a bug where signs that just showed their text overhead when looking at them could draw off screen if they were too close to the edge.
• (Hopefully) fixed a bug where a random part of the stage could be shown during transitions between areas.
• Fixed a bug where the debug menu was still present in the minigame submenu.
• Fixed a depth sorting issue with the bumpers.
• Fixed a bug where NPCs would stop animating during dialogue sequences.
• Fixed a bug where Lance would become really wide sometimes after taking damage.
• Fixed a text rendering bug involving word splitting and newlines.
• Fixed a bug where a few supporters weren't being shown on the title screen.
• Fixed a depth issue with some scales in the Autumn Grove.
• Fixed a bug where the river challenge would not give you double petals if the Double Petals passive was equipped.
• Fixed a bug where some text in the menu was drawn using the incorrect font.
• Fixed several bugs relating to the shop menu (multiple menus, moving Lance around while in the shop etc.) by porting the menu to the new menu system.
• Fixed a bug where Lance's Tubular Twister (the spin) was technically not equipped.
• Fixed a bug where health fish and pretty petals would not go toward Lance correctly in certain circumstances.
• You can no longer have an obnoxious amount of bombs (sorry, I didn't want to fix this one but I had to.)
• Fixed a bug where you could get out of bounds in the Autumn Grove stage by simply walking into the out of bounds area (The floor mechanism to keep you out wasn't working.)
• Lance will no longer walk around to the back of fridges to interact with them.
• Fixed a bug where Lance would recover health by going to a new stage or going indoors/outdoors. (This was never intentional I just hadn't gotten round to it yet.)
• You can no longer break out of a cutscene (ie getting a gold fish statue) by pressing escape or pause.
• Fixed a layering issue with input prompts in the menu that indicate you can open a submenu.
• Fish scales will no longer appear to be "hovering" over solid objects such as moving platforms.

Thank You!