Hello everybody !

The March Update is now available!

This month, significant change in game rendering, addition of new Steam and non-Steam achievements, horse improvement and many bug fixes!

Summary of the update:

This update was supposed to add a new region to explore. Unfortunately, this region is not yet complete and therefore will not be available today. The work on improving the game's graphics took much longer than expected and all previously made regions had to be painstakingly corrected in order to adapt to this new rendering.

The level of Neptune (update 0.4.08) has been greatly improved with the addition of many details and some new places to explore in order to unlock the 4 new achievements available.

The horse has also been reviewed and corrected, particularly on these animations and its behavior.

The particles around the character have also been modified (pollen, dust, insects) in order to adapt more correctly to the environments.

Update note:

Interface:

- Added smooth transition between level change. A white fade appears and the audio drops slowly.

- Modification in the basic options at the start of the game, the basic limit of FPS goes from 60 to 120 FPS.

- Updated loading images.

Graphics:

- Improved how particles work and render around the player.

- Improved taking into account of waves emitted by the player close to water. They are now only emitted when the character is in the water and not when he is at the edge of it.

- Added emission of dust particles when opening the doors.

- Improved the transition of display of vegetation on the ground, it is now smoother and shrubs, grasses or hedges no longer appear suddenly.

- Changed sun angle and time of day in Neptune level to make the level more beautiful.

- Significant improvement in the rendering of vegetation at long distances, especially with hedges, so that they blend more naturally into the decor.

- Significant improvements to the rendering, brightness and colors of the game in order to improve the overall rendering of the scenes.

- Improved rendering of rock textures and nearby cliffs.

- Improved rendering of terrain textures, with more colors and more realistic.

- Improved rendering of the horse's mane with the animation due to the wind and the movement of the horse.

- Updated Unity from 2020.3.44f1 to Unity 2020.3.45f1.

Achievements :

- Added 4 new Steam and non-Steam achievements related to the Neptune region.

Level :

- Added 3 new areas to explore in the Neptune level related to new achievements.

- Added a new Roman ruin in the Neptune level.

- Added music in Neptune's level at some point.

- Addition of a ledge in the level of Neptune at the East aqueduct in order to avoid falling into the void after a too hazardous jump.

- Changed the size of the notches for the paddle wheels in the Neptune level.

- Added many details at the level of Neptunes, rocks, trees,...

Player :

- The delay that allows the player to automatically grab a ledge after jumping against a wall has been increased, which avoids a sudden movement and starts the new jump animation.

Horse :

- Various horse idle animations now work correctly.

- Transitions between idle and walking animations are much smoother.

- Idle horse animations are no longer affected by the player mounting or dismounting the horse.

- Inactive horse animations are better mixed together and the horse no longer tends to stay frozen for too long.

- The horse now stops at a very low obstacle, it will no longer advance while remaining blocked.

- The player now takes the same amount of time to get on or off the horse.

- When the player respawns after a death, the horse is now automatically reloaded to its last respawn point.

Audio:

- Taking does not count footsteps when the player is in water or not is now more efficient. This avoids, for example, having footsteps in the water when the player is close to the water, but not yet in it.

Important bug fix:

- Fixed a bug that blocked player movement after drowning.

- Fixed a bug that allowed the player to walk underwater after jumping.

- Removed a misplaced ledge in Neptune's hell level that could get the player stuck in a tree.

- Fixed a bug where the horse could stay in running animation after being stopped due to a collision.

- In rare cases, the player could get off his horse at the wrong angle and therefore get stuck, this bug has been fixed.

- Fixed the camera bug when riding the horse animation, it could spin very quickly on it. (Edit: partial correction because at the time of my last test of this update, this bug reappeared, but less frequent.)

See you next month for the 0.4.10 update!