Buckle up, folks!  Been a long time since the last update, so this patch notes is gonna be a long one!  Here we go!

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General

UI and Menus

• A loading graphic appears when the game is loading.
• New demo title screen.
• Cooldown was increased on holding left or right to switch scoreboards on the high score screen.  If you press left or right, it will ignore the cooldown.
• Darkening the background also reduces the color tint effect on the in-game characters.
• Gameplay interface elements no longer appear while the player is in a cutscene or dying.
• Reduced the opacity of the dark bar on the top and bottom hud.
• Dialogue box damaged shader visuals have been changed to be a bit easier on the eyes.
• Game Over menu has been updated.
• Chapter Complete screen has been visually redesigned.
• Stage title cards have updated visuals.

Gameplay

• Default control scheme has been changed to the experimental "Streamline Style", a style that emphasizes immediate swaps and using spells.
• Bullet rendering code has been reorganized to allow for more rendering styles.
• Made some adjustments to how enemies calculate damage taken.  There should be no visible difference.
• Visual feedback added to hitting shields.
• Destroying a boss' shield will set their health to 1 if the shatter would normally kill them.
• Shine on pickup items is more visible.
• When starting a level, the game will wait until the fade in finishes before auto-pausing if the window is not in focus.
• Fixed a bug where music sometimes starts at the wrong volume.

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Player Characters

All Characters

• Player characters start and end all levels in a cutscene state.
• Player movement smoothing value has been reduced to allow for more precise movement.
• Movement boundary lines are now visible when you are close to them.
• A spell can be activated if it is within 3 frames of finishing cooldown.
• The cooldown of partner characters moves now ticks down at a rate of 16.6% of the normal speed.
• Cooldown has been removed from swapping characters.
• Direct character swaps now immediately use the character's spell.  The controls menu has been changed to reflect this.
• Player direct swap frames reduced to 4.
• Player cycle swap can cancel into a spell on frame 5.
• Energy gain from small pickups increased to 1.5.
• Energy gain from large pickups increased to 15.
• Item pickups will always move to the player when they enter a cutscene state.
• Item pickups now disappear if the player is dying.
• Death bomb window has been increased to 22 frames from 15.  The animation remains the same length.

Synergy Boost/Synergy Break

• New particle effects during Synergy Boost and Synergy Break.
• Landing a Synergy Combo hit will subtract 50% of the total cooldown time from the partner characters' cooldown timers.
• Synergy Break now activates on the bomb charge up instead of the bomb itself.
• Synergy Break power level is no longer locked during S-Break.
• The background now has a blue tint and a glowing vignette border during Synergy Break.

Gale

• Spread shot is visually different while in S-Break.  Gale's fire rate also increases during S-Break.
• Critical strike will immediately end the stun effect on an enemy hit by it, unless the stun effect was caused by Flash Burst.
• Base damage of Flash Burst (before multipliers) has been reduced from 32 to 20.

Fia

• Tracking Beam is visually different while in S-Break. 
• Increased base damage of Tracking Beam to 1.0.
• Fixed a bug where Temporal Warp would not initiate i-frames right away upon finishing.
• Added background visuals to Shooting Star.

Casey

• Charge Fireball is visually different while in S-Break.  The fireballs are always full charge and max speed during S-Break.
• Dragon Fist now has less exaggerated sprite offset for charge up and release.
• Explosive Punch now breaks all on-screen enemy shields the moment the punch lands.  Shields broken in this way will deal only 25% damage to their parent enemy.
• Dash speed of Explosive Punch increased to 42.
• Reduced max damage cap on Explosive Punch to 600.
• Modified visuals of Explosive Punch.
• Aiming at an enemy with Explosive Punch will make the background light up.
• New sound fx for Explosive Punch.

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Levels

Training Room

BOSS: N/A

PLANNED STAGE BOSS PATTERNS: N/A

CURRENT PROGRESS: Fully Playable

• Updated placeholder background.
• BGM: "Break it Down for Me" has an updated arrangement.
• Basic Training now includes a "Start Here" label in the menus.
• Synergy Boost's label has changed from "Advanced" to "Recommended" to reflect the increased emphasis on the mechanic.

Ch 1: The Steel Butterfly Appears

BOSS: Prisma

PLANNED STAGE BOSS PATTERNS: 5

CURRENT PROGRESS: Fully Playable

• Increased the spawn rate of popcorn enemies in the first wave.
• Increased health of smaller enemies during Fia's section.
• Increased health of heavy enemy during Fia's section.
• Decreased shot wind-up of heavy enemy during Fia's section.
• Added a second column of heavy shield enemies during Casey's section.
• Increased health of heavy shield enemies during Casey's section.
• Duel Lock popup is now animated.
• Adjusted health values and scripting of various enemies.
• Misc modifications to background visuals.
• Modified visual effects on tunnel exit cutscene.
• Prisma comes up from below instead of spawning on-screen.
• BGM: "Wings of Sharpened Steel" has been replaced with a new arrangement.
• Altered Ring of Execution to be more interesting visually.
• Increased health of Impenetrable Shield Wall to 1500.
• Altered Impenetrable Shield Wall with higher bullet density.
• Increased health of Wrath of the Steel Butterfly to 2500.
• Adjusted the speed and patterning of some sections of Wrath of the Steel Butterfly

Ch 2: Pulling the Strings

BOSS: Maggie

PLANNED STAGE BOSS PATTERNS: 5

CURRENT PROGRESS: Fully Playable

• Modified background visuals.
• Background sky color changes slightly as the stage progresses.
• Maggie has a dialogue reaction to Gale using her bomb spell.

Ch 3: The Steel Butterfly Appears

BOSS: Maya

PLANNED STAGE BOSS PATTERNS: 6

CURRENT PROGRESS: Fully Playable, but missing 1 boss pattern.

• Adjusted health values of various enemies.
• Misc modifications to background visuals.
• Minor dialogue tweaks.
• Fixed a bug where an enemy spawn would be skipped in the level's second half.
• BGM: "Deadly Charm" has an updated mix.
• BGM: "Beware the Deep" has an updated mix.
• Maya has a dialogue reaction to Casey using her bomb spell.

NEW CHAPTER!!!  Ch 4: Metamorphosis

BOSS: Dr. Umbra

PLANNED STAGE BOSS PATTERNS: 6

CURRENT PROGRESS: Mostly Playable, needs more polish, boss is missing 1 pattern.

• NEW ENEMY TYPE: Revengers - These enemies will detonate into a bullet pattern on defeat.  If left alive for a certain amount of time, they will detonate on their own.
• The Dr. Umbra boss fight is now in prototype form, with 5 of the 6 planned patterns.
• BOSS GIMMICK: Disruption Field - Dr. Umbra can place area-of-effect circles that slow the player's movement and change the trajectory of hazardous bullets upon contact.   

  
  

  • Yellow Bullets slow to half speed while in the bubble.   
    
  • Purple Bullets aim for the bubble center on entry.   
  • Red Bullets aim away from bubble center on entry.
• Dr. Umbra is not your final challenge...
  

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Known Issues

• Some varieties of controller are causing Input to crash the game.  We think it might be related to PS controllers. (This bug is still being investigated)
• Button prompts in-game do not change with control bindings. ( I plan to eventually update the Input system, and this will be a part of that task. )
• Backgrounds should stop scrolling when in game over state
• Overlapping textboxes during gameplay
• Bosses dont pause animations during time stop
• S-Break Bonus shouldn't reset on level transition if it's still active from the previous level 

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