Howdy! Coming at you today with a patch to the Shield Cat Demo! This aims to fix many small quirks and bugs that were found, as well as make balance changes and tweaks aimed at making the game a better experience. All in all, the launch was great, with minimal problems! I want to thank all the beta testers who made that possible, so thank you!

Important to note, the version of the demo on Sonic Fangames HQ was just for SAGE, and won't be updated going forward (it's being left up for archival purposes.) If you downloaded the demo from SFGHQ, you'll have to download the update from the store pages for the game.

Here are the patch notes:

 ===== NEW =====

• Added a new sign in the Abandoned Mines that talks about a thing you can do in the game.
• You can now enable mouse cursor trails (little sparklies will come off your mouse when you move it.)

 ===== IMPROVED =====

• Puzzles which involve you throwing the Shield into a Bumper maze will now funnel the shield into the maze, so you no longer have to be precise with it for it to work.

 ===== CHANGED =====

• Made the magic platform's hitbox just a little bigger when it's in its unexpanded state.
• Removed SAGE 2022 references (as SAGE 2022 is over.)
• The map screen will now indicate when it's loading by saying "Loading Map..."
• Added more Grandfather Clocks so you can always know what time it is.
• Added a hitstop effect when Lance takes damage from regular enemies, rather than just heavy damage from bosses.
• Changed when the game will make backups of your save data, as well as the frequency in which it'll make backups, to prevent frame hitches and freezes during gameplay when the game autosaves.
• Adjusted a puzzle in the Abandoned Mines to make the objective clearer.
• Adjusted the timing of a group of magic platforms in the Autumn Grove to be easier to deal with.
• Also added a new path you can open up there so you don't have to do the magic platforms every time you go that way if you don't want to.
• Changed the text speed increment intervals to make them more balanced.
• Because the values are all different in this build, this version will automatically reset the value back to "Regular." You'll have to adjust it again from there (sorry.)
• Updated the Steamworks extension. Hopefully this fixes Steam functions not working in Proton.
• Reduced the color contrast in dialogue boxes to hopefully make them easier to look at.
• Edited some dialogue for better flow.
• Made the "Toughest secret in the game" a *little* more visible, but not by much.
• Several small stage adjustments, tilemap fixes, and depth fixes across multiple stages.

 ===== BUG FIXES =====

• Fixed the bomb collect sound being too loud.
• Fixed some platforms going at incredible speeds.
• Fixed some tileset issues.
• Fixed a bug where Willow's map marker indicating where you saved was sometimes wrong.
• Moved the position of one of the Treasure Chests in Abandoned Mines to prevent you from using it to get out of bounds.
• Fixed minor visual bug when entering River Challenge (game used wrong screen transition.)
• Barriers in the boss room for the Abandoned Mines should no longer appear again after you've defeated the boss.
• Fixed a bug where you couldn't keep the Shield+ after buying it and then saving and loading the game again.
• As compensation, players who load a save file from the previous version of the game who meet the criteria will get 25000 Pretty Petals automatically added to their total to make up for the difference. This may give free Pretty Petals to players who don't actually qualify, but it's the best I can do.
• The "Gamepad Vibration" options have been removed on Linux (as gamepad vibration isn't supported there currently.)
• Similarly, the "Enhanced Rumble" option has been removed when creating new files on Linux, or if Gamepad support is disabled/not available for some reason.
• Fixed references to Marcus "Diamonds" to now refer to them as "Crystals" instead.
• Fixed issue with the Button Prompt style option not actually doing anything (mainly in Linux, but could also happen on Windows.)
• Fixed several other related display issues with input prompts.
• Fixed a bug where new players may not be able to play the game using a gamepad on the first boot (Mainly affected Steam Deck using Linux.)
• Fixed a bug where extra long screen transitions could cause the video quality to go lower.
• Potentially fix a bug where the map wouldn't show up when running the game through Proton on specific machines (I couldn't reproduce it, so if this issue affected you, you'll have to let me know if it's fixed or not.)
• Fixed a bug where throwing magic cards at cylinders would crash the game.
• Striking gear arrow puzzle elements that aren't lit up by a light beam will no longer recalculate the puzzle.
• Fixed bug where question icons would draw over each other, which also made the hitboxes and overall spacing between questions larger when using small text (should be easier to click now, if you're using the mouse.)
• Fixed an oversight where you couldn't click and drag on screens that used the gridpane renderer to scroll (so you can now do this on screens like the achivements screen.)
• Fixed a bug where you couldn't close the notes pane with the right click button on the mouse.
• Fixed a bug where jumping off the minecart challenge track immediately at the start would softlock the challenge.
• You can no longer hop across the water in the minecart challenge like a stone skipping across the water.
• Fixed some bugs with the dialogue system.
• Changed the hitbox of one of the camera lockers to hopefully fix light leak. This may have unintended side effects, so let me know if the camera does weird stuff.
• Fixed a bug where the minecart minigame wouldn't make the "failure" sound if you didn't get to the goal in time.

Thank you!

Thank you to these supporters, as well as everyone who makes this game possible:

Ahty, Shadow8t4, Alicia Goranson, Arron Savage, AshiPaws, ctrlaltdog, Barbara Fregia, BenTheDragon, Bizarre Machinist, Boozel, David Wolfpaw, Caliburn Absolute, Circlingnugget, Clover Arizona, Colonel Sandwich, DJ Otters, Vix-N, DimSumthing, Dizmus, DoricDream, Sweep Dreams, EZGames69, Cloud Hop, EveryZig314, Fábio Fontes, Fao, FaultBat, Flake, FoxyDude, Nutalie Frost, Galuade, Gri, GloopQueen, Goronhead, Holly 'Frinkel' Lotor, Jack O'Connor, JD Laclede, Jammy, Jennifer, Joanna Jones, Jyrki, Kabit, Kaylex Deer, Hulex Fox, Kirbizard, Kohaku Katou, Krazinsky, Trash, LF, Legiayayana, Leo Gera, Lorxus, Lulla, Luna, Luna Hyena, Luna Moona the Little Kahuna, Maniko, phantomsqueaks, Mark Cope, Marlyn, Mello the Ferret, Little Egg Basket, OrobaSpyro, Nenekiri Bookwyrm, Axel Husky, NovaSquirrel, Nuck, Philip Garzieri, PicoriKirby C.A.L., Raegal Boggart, RawrParty, Vinyl, Roger Tyranny, Ryunohito, Cam D'Arcy, Saxxon Fox, Scylla-Leeezard, Ansel Geisel, Snout, Spyduck, SplotchDoggo, Spoony Doodle, Carlis A. Moore., Stitch The626th, Swirlate, Tala Cuthbert, Tarocco, Touku, Upscale Furry Trash, Vectrobe, Vivee, William 'Kenku' Swiftfoot, Xkeeper, breakthetargets, caseJackal, khr, meerm, morgan `indrora` gangwere, raine, rainedoe, Foxxhoria, ubuntor, sol

If you haven't played the game yet, please check it out and let me know what you think! Everyone seems to really be enjoying it, and I'm happy <3