082523 Shield Cat Patch


EDIT: A couple bugs were immediately found due to some last minute changes I didn't fully test out. If you've played the game and you see your save file says something like "Fish Scales: 300/0" you've got the bad version, so please restart your Steam client (if you're on steam) to fetch the latest version. Sorry for the inconvenience! This one also fixes a game crash in the video menu. Original text is as follows:

No, you don't need to adjust your set, that says Shield Cat there. I wanted to update it before the Cosmogelica demo goes live, just in case people play that and want to check out Shield Cat too. This update introduces no new content and is only bug fixes UNLESS you didn't play the Chapter 1 update from January and ONLY played the SAGE 2022 demo. In that case, I did do a lot of QoL stuff in January, so feel free to check it out!

The interesting thing about Shield Cat and Cosmogelica is that they share quite a bit of code, so bug fixes I did on code from Shield Cat I was able to backport back into Shield Cat. I also wanted to add Fullscreen Borderless, because Gamemaker didn't do it at the time I put the Chapter 1 update, but it does it now.

This paragraph is for Linux players only! If you're not on Linux, you can skip this paragraph! The final thing I want to note in this segment is that the Linux version is back. If you're playing on Steam, and the game won't launch after updating, it may still be using the Windows version. Try uninstalling and re-installing it, and if that doesn't work, try going to the game properties and toggling "Use compatibility tool with this software" on and then back off (even if it's off anyways.)

Updating the game to a version of Gamemaker that's like 8 months newer introduced a lot of bugs, so I think I'm just gonna do a runaround on the game every time I update Gamemaker just to see if it's broken anything or not.

So, does this mean I'm working on Shield Cat again? No, I will be finishing Cosmogelica first. Please look forward to Cosmogelica's demo in SAGE 2023 on September 1st! I'm making this update to Shield Cat though to fix some bug reports I got from the Chapter 1 demo, to fix bugs I found from porting the code to Cosmogelica, to add the Fullscreen Borderless mode (highly requested feature) and just to let people know that yes, I still want to make Shield Cat. I didn't abandon it! Hopefully I will have some news for you guys after Cosmogelica. We'll see!

Anyways, here are the patch notes:

===== NEW =====

  • The game now supports fullscreen borderless.

===== IMPROVED =====

  • Optimized the loading so that it loads much faster, while also fixing the game not giving proper loading feedback for people without SSDs.

===== CHANGED =====

  • You can now use both action buttons to dive in the River Challenge.
  • The Minecart Challenge has been changed to use a Perspective FOV projection instead of an Orthographic one.
  • This change actually was required because there's a bug introduced by GM 2023.6 with tilemap culling, but I think it looks better the way it is now, so whatever.
  • While I was in there, I made the Minecart Challenge track a little easier, at least for the first half of it.
  • The game now starts in fullscreen borderless by default (because of some changes, any previous display preferences from before this version are ignored.)

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

  • Fixed a bug with the way displacement map effects were applied.
  • Fixed a bug with the CRT shader where the blur/smear wasn't applied properly.
  • Fixed a bug where the star collectibles in the Minecart Challenge didn't face the camera properly.
  • Fixed a Marcus barrier in the Abandoned Mines that pushed Lance out in the wrong direction.
  • Fixed a bug where the "Last Saved Point" glow would draw even if you had markers off or were looking at the list of Cat Coins.
  • Fixed a bug where XBOX Series gamepads could register twice when wireless, causing issues.
  • Fixed a bug where the dialogue box would sometimes draw on top of Lance when showing the "You got a treasure!" overlay.

===== NOTES =====

  • Fullscreen Borderless/Exclusive Fullscreen only in Windows. In Linux, it's Windowed and Fullscreen Borderless (referred to as Exclusive in game.)

Thank you!

I did a full playthrough of the game and didn't see any other bugs introduced by updating Gamemaker, but please let me know if you find anything weird or odd (especially in Linux!)

See you on September 1st for Cosmogelica's SAGE demo!

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