I just finished and uploaded an update for ArcherOpteryx that adds, polishes, and fixes quite a bit. Below are some of the highlights.

Little gif clip

A little example of what the update looks like. :)

Meta

• Title Screen: There is now a title screen. A feather drops on the title screen, and collecting it starts the game. Hopefully a simple way to introduce the significance of the feather as the goal collectable.

• Icon: Windows 32 and 64 versions now have a custom executable icon image, of Stelvie hugging a blue feather.

Help

• Help: In-game help and instructions are displayed just before starting a game, are optionally skippable, and can be accessed from the in-game menu at any time.

• Spring-Jump Training: There is now an in-game visual training system to help new player’s gain an understanding of the spring-jump mechanic. When you land on the ground, an icon will flash under Stelvie, indicating the status of your spring-jump. A blue chevron means a 1st level spring-jump is available. If you jump immediately after seeing that chevron, you’ll do a spring-jump. Then next time you land, a blue double chevron will flash under Stelvie, meaning a 2nd level spring-jump is available. If you execute a second spring-jump and land, an “X” will flash under Stelvie, to indicate that spring-jump is not available. (Spring-jump only chains twice in a row, though air-jump will break any spring-jump history, meaning that on the next landing you’ll have a 1st level spring-jump ready, instead of an “X”.)

Environment Visuals

• BG: Background painting improved and finished.

• Foliage: All the foliage sprites have been re designed.

• Atmosphere: The new map has a number of environment effects, like waterfalls, sun rays, and fog effects at the bottom and upper terrace, among others.

• Visual Variations: The type of foliage, time of day, and overall color and atmosphere of the map are randomized each time you restart. Also randomized is the vertical offset of the background image (low, middle, high), so sometimes the background will look very jungly, and others it will look more open and canyon-like.

• Contrast: Improved contrast between Stelvie (the little archaeopteryx) and the background.

• BG Parallax: The scaling and parallax system for the background image has been completely redesigned, and should allow for more of the image to be visible regardless of screen size, aspect ratio, or zoom level.

Gameplay Visuals

• Stelvie: Stelvie’s animations have been added to and generally improved. She will point her wing in the direction attacked. Her eyes will track things that interest her when she’s not in the middle of attacking or sighting for her next attack. Feathers in particular will tend to hold her attention. She has a much nicer walk cycle, though her legs are only really visible against bright backgrounds.

• Phantoms: Phantoms have been redrawn, they now have patterned tail disks and glassy little phantom faces, with glowy eyes. Phantoms also now have a non-linear tail dragging algorithm, that causes their tail discs to bunch up less when moving slowly.

• Bow: When Stelvie fires an arrow, her bow will briefly become visible before fading and vanishing. There will also be a luminous afterimage frozen in the location she fired from, and this too will fade away.

• Arrow Trails: The arrows now leave a blue trail as they fly, but only when they have the required speed and direction of travel to deal a lethal hit.

• Arrow Glow: Arrows also briefly glow blue-violet after being fired.

• Spring-jump Particles: When spring-jumping, a particle effect will spring up under Stelvie, dark blue for the 1st spring-jump, and bright blue-white for the 2nd spring-jump.

• Landing Particles: When landing, a faint little white poof will … poof to either side.

• Feather Rays: Feather glory rays, which make it possible to locate the feather if it’s nearby, but off-screen. This means you don’t have to get your screen to touch the edge of the map, just to see if the feather is right against the wall.

The Map

• Larger Map: The map has been expanded, and now includes some new areas.

• Newcomer Accessibility: Like the previous map, all walkable terrain is reachable using only basic jump and air jump. Also like the original, many shortcuts and alternate routs through the map can be exploited by using more elaborate jump combinations.

• Rewards Movement Mastery: The new map puts a greater emphasis on rewarding jump combos, and figuring out jump rhythms and sequences that work well in various areas.

• Spread Out Spawners: There are now three spawners rather than one.

• Fixes: Some asymmetries and collision bugs were fixed from the original map.

Gameplay

• Heart Shards: Heart Shard mechanic added. Just after striking a phantom with an arrow, if you manage to hit another phantom quickly enough, you’ll receive violet heart shards, which recharge your arrow bar. Faster consecutive strikes yield more heart shards, and feedback in the form of a much more intense impact sound. In this way chaining hits together can considerably extend the number of arrows you can fire in quick succession.

• Scaling difficulty: As time passes the spawning rate gradually increases. Every 5 minutes, the spawn rate will have grown by 100% of the starting rate.

HUD

• New Metrics: The HUD now displays the number of phantoms destroyed (teal), and the number of heart shards collected (violet). These values appear whenever they increase, and fade out gradually when they aren’t changing. Both will become visible after defeat.

• Arrow Status in Reticle: The aiming arrow will change color to indicate your arrow charge status. Blue means 2 or more shots remaining; Blue to Violet means 1 shot remaining; and Red means less than 1 arrow worth of charge remaining.

• Arrow Ready Sound: When you transition from having no arrows available to having one arrow available, a metallic clink will sound to indicate that you have an arrow ready.

• Reticle update: The Arrow reticle design has gotten a minor update, which makes it a little more streamlined looking.

Menu

• Help: In-game help and instructions are now accessible from the menu.

• Spring-Jump Training: In-game jump training icons can be toggled with the “H” key (or a key of your choice).

• Screenshots: Screenshot key (experimental). Automatically pauses the game while prompting to save.

• Menu Sound: Now has sounds, to make the buttons feel a little more tactile.