Gable floats down out of her title screen. :]

A new update is out, and another should be along soon, but for now, the changes … :)

Visual

• Extra fluttery title screen gable. (as seen above)

• Speckled stone texture now has more highlighting on the edges to break it away from background a little better.

• New long hanging moss deco.

• Numerous small visual improvements to level clarity.

• New palette in palette list, seen below. I should probably name it something like “Miami Neon” or “Hologram Diskette” or “Featherlight cycles” or “Lasertag Princess” or “Jungle Jem” or maybe “Keeper of Trappers.”

Map

• Fixed missing Mantle text for tutorial map.

• Modified the Pyramid (4) and TowerCaverns (5) maps to be less precision oriented, as they’re both introductory maps, and both had specific killer points for new players.

• Improved visibility of spikes on those maps, via darker and cleaner local backgrounds. (Pyramid introduces the razorvine spikes so it’s especially important that they stand out on first encounter.)

• For the Dungeon map (secret2), I added an alternate approach for crossing the especially lethal no-fly corridor, which provides a more forgiving, but longer overall route. A heart block can now be raised to form a safe island in the carpet of razorvine. So you can break the crossing into two smaller easier flights, instead of one long precision level-flight.

• Added a new, much clearer, explanation for the mantle. (Note: In an upcoming update the Mantle will have different rules, and should just be much easier to use overall.)

Menu

• Added navigation and selection sounds to menu actions.

• Added a “Wider” view mode option in the graphics menu, which provides a modestly more zoomed out view of the game.

• Added Full FX toggle in menu. On by default. Turning this off alters some of the game effects to make them less CPU/GPU intensive, which can be helpful for tablets. This is still a bit experimental.

• It’s now impossible to bind Esc, BckSpc, and Ins, which is important because those keys grant you access to the menu.

• Audio menu now correctly displays music volume when changed via the Music Cycle key. (I think that’s this update anyway)

• Added feathery feedback for volume levels, in the audio menu. See the link below for more info from my prior post.
  https://gamejolt.com/games/Down-Ward/86985/devlog/feathery-audio-menu-q8ctqqqs

Intro screens

• Fixed mouse pointer jitter on the main menu. (This was driving me crazy.)

• Added intro help page for Keys & Gpad layouts.

• The quick keys overview page seen just after the title screen, is now labeled “Quick Keys Overview”, to make it clearer that it’s not an interactive menu page, or a page reached accidentally.

• Exiting a menu or pressing Escape no longer advances any-key-to-advance screens.

• The any-key-to-advance indicator is now just an arrow, instead of Gable’s sword, which was confusing, because her sword actually looks rather like a backwards arrow.

• The title screen now has a call-to-action. An any-key-to-advance arrow now automatically appears after 10 seconds.

Super secret miscellaneous stuff :3

• Added “spookolanterns” cheat to activate birdie pumpkins. (Though only a few maps have them at the moment.)

Many more small changes and refinements as well.
All feedback is welcome as always. :)