061923 Cosmogelica Build

Boy howdy, I'm really putting these out there huh? I've been tweaking a bunch of stuff and improving it based on feedback, as well as taking some time to fix up bugs. My goal is to come out with a demo, so yea, that's what I'm working towards now. I'm still looking for prototype testers if anyone is interested! I've gotten plenty of feedback already, but I can always use more. Check here if you are interested.

The highlights of this build are that I've completely overhauled the title screen, as well as several other graphics. The game is starting to look a lot more polished! (Especially considering that I've also fixed various visual bugs.) This version also has Skye's portrait on the menu screens, finally filling in that blank spot in the bottom right corner (if you wondered why that was there, now you know!)

The other highlight is that I've written the proper formation generator now! No more of the computer just randomly coming up with stuff, and (hopefully) no more weird difficulty scaling, where it goes from "too easy" to "oh man what." Overall, this build brings the game much closer to the high-quality, polished experience I like to have with my demos. (But, we're not there yet!)

As always, here are the patch notes:

===== NEW =====

• The title screen has been overhauled. I think you'll notice the changes quite easily hehe
• Skye's portrait has been added to the game's menus.
• You now recover health every 10 phases.
• New sounds have been added for when you take damage that results in you being low on health.

===== IMPROVED =====

• The "Weapons Loadout" menu is back now as the Character Setup menu. You can change your starting weapons there, as well as pick the character you play as (although for now, it's only Monica.)
• The graphics for the various powerups have been updated (No longer will you be just looking out for a large M in space heh)
• The proper formation generator has been added. No longer will the game just throw stuff at you, now there's proper predefined formations.
• Because of this, the game's difficulty has been balanced significantly. Hopefully it won't be just a case of "no enemies" or "extreme amount of enemies" with no in-between.

===== CHANGED =====

• The chance that Extra Fuel will drop has been increased.
• Orbs that leave gel on the playfield have been changed to snails.
• Enemies in endless mode now have a staggered spawn, so they don't all just come into the playfield at once.
• Boss phases now occur every 20 phases instead of every 10. Instead, on the 10/30/50th etc phase, you will fight more normal enemies.
• Debug/Unfinished menu options such as the unfinished Story Mode stage are now locked behind an option to display them. To show them, press F9 and then go to "Game->Show Debug Menus on Title."
• Some files that aren't used anymore have been removed. They shouldn't cause problems, but you never know with these things.
• You can no longer pause the game during long transitions (this was done to fix an animation bug. I'll hopefully be able to enable pausing during long transitions again, but everything I tried didn't work so this is how it is for now.)
• Dialogue in the game has been rewritten from Skye's perspective (where appropriate.)

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

• Fixed a bug where the wrong value for overall game volume was being read at startup.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes, showing the sprite for an input would crash the game.
• Fixed some bugs with the game window size not restoring properly in certain configurations on the next run, or otherwise just being stretched weirdly.
• Note: There are still some edge cases where the game is stretched weirdly, but this seems to be a weird Gamemaker quirk. You can still fix it by just resizing the window a little (doesn't seem to happen in fullscreen mode.)
• Fixed a bug where the game would be offset weirdly in the window if Landscape was off and you also had a screen rotation applied.
• Fixed a bug where player stats would seem to reset to 0 when pausing the game.
• Fixed a bug where going between screens (ie. from the title screen back to the intro splash) would cause a distortion effect.
• Fixed a bug where sometimes the gel/scene would swap well before it was supposed to, making jarring changes during certain transitions.
• Fixed weird graphics when restarting/abandoning a run.

Thank you!

Thanks to the following people and everyone who makes this possible:

11Natrium, Ahty, Shadow8t4, Alicia Goranson, Arron Savage, AshiPaws, Barbara Fregia, BenTheDragon, Bizarre Machinist, Boozel, Brandt Howard, Spyduck, Cactus Bat, Caliburn Absolute, Circlingnugget, Clover Arizona, Colonel Sandwich, Daniel Rotwind, Dare Looks, Darkonius Mavakar, DimSumthing, Dizmus, DoricDream, EZGames69, EveryZig314, Fábio Fontes, Fao, FaultBat, Flake, Flaki, FoxyDude, Galuade, Gri, GloopQueen, Goronhead, Goupilleau, Gray Bell, Hazel Stagner, Holly 'Frinkel' Lotor, Jack O'Connor, Jammy, Jo Polaris, Joanna Jones, Jyrki, Kabit, Kaylex Deer, Hulex Fox, Kirbizard, Kohaku Katou, Krazinsky, Kulkart, Trash, Legiayayana, Lorxus, Lulla, Luna Moona the Little Kahuna, Maniko, phantomsqueaks, Mark Cope, Marlyn, Maxine Red, Mello the Ferret, Axel Husky, NovaSquirrel, Nuck, Okesska, Piper Malone, Raegal Boggart, RawrParty, Rhaen, Vinyl, Roger Tyranny, Ryunohito, RAVE_R0Ak, Cam D'Arcy, Saxxon Fox, Scylla-Leeezard, Ansel Geisel, Sharb, Some Egrets, Carlis A. Moore., Stitch The626th, Swirlate, Tala Cuthbert, Tarocco, Tigersonalex, Touku, Upscale Furry Trash, Vectrobe, William 'Kenku' Swiftfoot, Xkeeper, darkwitchclaire, green, caseJackal, indrora, Luka 'Lumia', meerm, megaRammy, raine, rainedoe, Foxxhoria, ubuntor, sol

Usually I put something at the bottom here, but I can't think of anything. So, see you soon!