Howdy guys! Today I'm bringing you a preview build of what I want to put for SAGE for the public demo! If you can, please check it out and let me know if you can find any bugs! You can also now use the key that you got in the last update, and you can go to see the results screen of how well you did!

There's also a number of bug fixes and improvements in this build. Here's the full list!

IMPORTANT

This build of the game was made with the new Gamemaker 2.3. There shouldn't be any weird issues introduced but if there are please let me know about them. I changed around quite a bit of code and I'm pretty sure everything is working right, but you never know with these things.

 ===== NEW =====

• You can now beat the game!! (technically, I put in a results screen for the SAGE demo. Check it out!!)
• There are now brand new title graphics!
• The game now features more frequent autosaving. When you see "Saving..." in the bottom left corner of the screen, do not turn off your computer.
• There's now music on the title menu, as well as in the place where you play Cosmic Defender.

 ===== IMPROVED =====

• Particles are now better animated when the screen is transitioning.
• The camera's code is now more efficient.
• Shadows have been improved and broken tiling has been fixed.
• An arrow will now indicate if the help pane on the pause menu has more dialogue in it.
• Shield Cat should now correctly scale on monitors that are larger than 4k (the largest the assets support,) but I personally don't have a way to test this so let me know how it goes.
• The right mouse button will now cancel dialogues and also use Lance's second ability.
• Font on the speedrun clock has been changed to be less obtrusive but also more visible.
• Numerous improvements to the forest tileset.
• Willow has her own soundbyte and message box style instead of using the default one.

 ===== BUG FIXES =====

• Fixed an issue where the wooden plank would still leave a strip of "pit" tiles, so Lance could still fall even if the plank has fallen.
• Fixed an issue where Lance's Shield would be able to go between certain types of collision and break through walls it shouldn't be able to.
• Fixed an issue where Lance would appear to be behind a Golden Gate, but would actually be in front of it.
• Fixed graphical issue where text in the pause menu help pane could draw outside the bounds of the text box.
• Fixed some dialogue string parsing issues.
• Fixed some dirt that had the grass environment assigned to it, as well as some areas that had no environment attached to them.
• Fixed an issue where merely speaking to Willow would set your save location. Now you have to open the save dialogue to change it.
• Fixed an issue where Roxy wouldn't remember talking to you. Now she will always remember that you talked to her.
• Fixed a bug where canceling out of the dialogue with Willow would open the Load Game screen instead of ending the dialogue.
• Realigned planks so they're no longer misaligned when they fall on the ground.
• Fixed issue where Lance's Health/Magic meter that appears whenever he loses health or magic would misalign when using an ability while on the edge of the screen.
• Fixed issues involving cutting grass on the very edge of the room causing out-of-bound errors.
• Fixed issue where gate would give feedback when stepping into the room after having opened it already in the previous play session.

 ===== Known Bugs =====

• Sometimes grass will cast a shadow on Lance, even after it has been cut.
• The Ability 2 Toggle currently doesn't work (for Lance's Shield.)
• If you played the previous build, some Fish Scales you collected will show up, and others that you haven't collected yet will show as collected. This is an issue with the way the game enumerates and assigns IDs to Fish Scales in the room, and can't be fixed.

A big thanks to the people below, as well as everyone who supports me, for making this possible!

Accalia, Shadow8t4, BeepSterr, BenTheDragon, Caliburn Absolute, Chris Badger, Clover Arizona, David Wolfpaw, Spyduck, Cloud Hop, Fao, Flake, FoxyDude, Nutalie Frost, GamerRat (Jan), Gri, Goronhead, Holly Hoppet, Jyrki, Hulex Fox, Kirbizard, Kaypar, Trash, LF, LexiTheTT, Lorxus, Luna, Luna Moona the Little Kahuna , Durk Vash, Markus Joseph Kitsinger , Marlyn, Mello the Ferret, Midori, Leon P, Nenekiri Bookwyrm, Axel Husky , NovaSquirrel, Ripp_, Rix, Otarine, Cam D'Arcy, Saiai, visneKedi, Saxxon Fox, Ansel Geisel, Susan Tolias, Tabby Cromarty, Vivee, jay jorts, Kazy, keeri, megaRammy, raine, SUSHiCLAWS

Download

If you're a patron at $5 or above and haven't already, click this link to gain access:   https://roxyfoxrab.itch.io/shield-cat/patreon-access

Otherwise, you can download it from here or using the itch launcher!

I will probably put one more build before the SAGE demo with any bugs that are found, as well as any fixes or improvements I do between now and then. See you guys soon...