Welcome back.

I've reworked Bast's speed and acceleration to address a couple issues I had with the movement.

1. Dash Jumping was by far the strongest move in the game by far.

   While dash jumping is still the fastest way to travel, there have been a couple of adjustments made to make other moves more useful.

   For starters, the base dash speed has been increased. This should make normal dashes, while still not the most efficient method of travel, closer to Dash Jumping in terms of speed. Dash Jump speed has been modified to be slightly slower than dash speed to make up for the lack of slowing down after the dash.

   Additionally, the player now loses speed while moving faster than their max run speed. Before, if the player was holding the move button in the direction of movement, their speed would not be decreased, meaning you could maintain Jump Dash speed for as long as you could avoid slamming into a wall. Dash Jumping is still the fastest movement option, but now optimal movement will require refreshing your Dash Jump to keep a high speed.

2. Deceleration felt both too fast and too slow.

   When moving forward, deceleration made gaining speed too slow when not dashing to full speed instantly. On the other hand, movement felt too slippery when trying to slow down.

   Now, your deceleration is lower when you're currently trying to move, meaning it's easier to gain speed as well as maintain high speeds. This also means you can stop more quickly.

I originally intended to publish one more alpha build with a high level of polish between the previous one and the game's release, but now, with the new physics rework, I think I'll publish (at least) two more alphas: one to get feedback on the new movement (with possibly some followups depending on how much needs to be changed), and a final alpha build to serve as a vertical slice of what Bast is as a game.

See you next month for another post.