Hey guys! Krayfishkarl here and welcome to another Droplet: States of Matter update! Early Access 1.52 is now available! This update adds a few extra bells and whistles to help polish up the game for the upcoming 1.0 release.
Firstly, I have made another pass at the game’s mappings for controllers. Most notably, the Left Trigger is now the crouch button, taking the place of sprinting which is now set to tap mode by default. For more information, check the in-game options menu. There are three different alternate control schemes you can choose from. I’ve also taken the opportunity to improve the player’s physics all around.
Additionally, I’ve added several new options to the extras menu. Among them include the following: A filter that can emulate the look of a CRT television; several new skins that Droplet and Molly-QL can change into; and an option to enable infinite lives which serves to alleviate the difficulty if you find the game too challenging. There’s plenty more extras and other bonuses you can unlock if you manage to complete the hard versions of the time trials.
Alongside these changes, I’ve added a number of quality of life features and bug fixes. One that particularly stands out is an update to the pink crystal challenges in Xenon Lagoon and Krypton Estate. The state of the levers is now preserved, even if you exit the level or quit the game. Now, there is far less pressure to solve what may be a complicated puzzle in one go. Of course, this only applies to these two areas because they are hub worlds. In main levels, buttons and levers will still reset when you leave the area.
In other news, I’ve added some friendly NPC’s to the Galactic Science Festival. I thought it would be important narratively to depict the very people that you are trying to save from the forces of Lord Krypton. Not to mention, it would be only right if there was an audience for the professor to give his presentation to. You will also see them during the game’s title sequence, watching Droplet and Molly-QL perform.
That’s all for now, and with that, thank for you following the development of Droplet: States of Matter.
Patch Notes
Gameplay
- General improvements to player physics and collision, particularly with swimming.
- Holding crouch while in midair and then landing on the ground will now automatically make you crouch.
- Remapped controller controls so that sprint and crouch are swapped.
- Changed some of the mappings of the Type A control scheme for controllers.
- The switches you activate in hub worlds are now saved, even if you leave the area. This should make solving the puzzles in Xenon Lagoon and Krypton Estate more fair.
- Updated camera collision for a few objects.
- Enemies will no longer chase you during cutscenes.
- Fixed edge case of the wrong animation playing under certain circumstances after being hit with an explosion.
- Fixed an edge case where the green crystal obtained from defeating a boss would not spawn correctly.
- Enemy collision now gets turned off when you defeat one.
- Added Cumulus next to every superluminal scanner.
- Hardlight switches now slowly blink when they are idle.
- Minor changes to Galactic Science Festival to help players if they get lost.
- Autosave now triggers when changing levels, not just when exiting to the hub world.
Graphics
- Droplet and Molly-QL show their custom skins throughout the game, including on checkpoints and in cutscenes. (Does not apply to Reshape Mode.)
- Splash effect added when making contact with water.
- New eye textures for Droplet and Molly-QL.
- Subtle changes to Droplet’s face.
- Various tweaks to player animation logic.
- Backend changes to player character material slots.
- Minor visual bugs fixed with Lord Krypton’s boss fight intro cutscene.
- Textures added to napkins in Macro Kitchen.
- Fixed a few bugs with cutscene logic.
Audio
- Sound added for attempting to do an invalid action (i.e. selecting an unavailable option or pressing the state cancel button when there’s no state to change to.)
- New sound for beating a record in a time trial.
- Sound added for hitting your head on a ceiling.
- New sound for bombs thrown by pirates.
- New sound for activating a battery.
- The reset camera sound now only plays if the camera is sufficiently far away from its reset rotation.
- Fixed a bug where the music in the Galactic Science Festival may stop playing if skipping a cutscene.
Menus
- Added more skins to the Extras menu. Some of these skins are now available at the start of the game.
- Added an optional CRT filter.
- Added option to enable infinite lives. This is intended to more or less be a beginner mode should a less experienced player find the lives system frustrating.
- Added options to enable infinite health and ammo. This requires completing all Kray Times. (Dev note: They will not be available during time trials.)
- Fixed a bug where the Extras menu was not saving correctly.
- Unpausing then pausing will now take you back to the menu you were just at.
- A message now appears for when you discover secret levels.
- Pause Menu now slowly flashes red while hardcore mode is active.
- Tap to sprint is now the default.