It turns out Hindsight really is 20/20. There were lots of changes I wanted to make after not touching the game for the last several years. This update includes some new gameplay mechanics, balancing changes, lots of new visual tweaks and eye candy, and even more bug fixes. I hope to have the time and energy to put out a second large update in the coming months that will rewrite and rework the story elements.

WARNING: This version of the game is not compatible with older save files!!

Gameplay changes

- Introduced variable jumping for both the normal and double jump.

- Increased coyote jump timing by 1 frame (4 => 5) to make it easier to use.

- Tightened up the movement controls by increasing air and ground friction.

- Slightly modified hitboxes of spikes and orbs to make them harder/easier to hit respectively.

- Crouching on story bubbles now expands the player's vision radius.

- Balanced various levels to make getting the orbs less frustrating.

Visual/audio improvements

- Rewrote the engine for fading in/out objects to use surfaces, which means they all blend together much better and some visual bugs are fixed.

- Replaced the static background gradient with a shader that changes the color palette dynamically based on level and mode.

- Collecting the memory orb on a level has it now follow you around. Reaching the next level shows the orb being collected. Added sounds for collecting it and dropping it.

- Added sounds for both the normal jump and double jump.

- Modified the little creature's animation to have more natural movement when hiding, and changed how it returns.

- Crouching on story bubbles has new and smoother animation and audio effects.

- The player now closes their eyes while falling between levels.

- Hardcore levels now have spark particles flying up from the bottom of the level.

- The Beginning levels now instantly load all sprites.

- Rewrote the splash screen intro to be more animated and removed all but 1 of the quotes.

- Added chapter titles when during cutscenes.

- The loading/unloading sound now fades in and out smoothly.

Bug fixes

- Fixed the soft-lock that could occur when restarting a level while loading/unloading.

- Fixed the "super jump" bug that triggered when dying or restarting in quick succession.

- Fixed a bug where falling into the next level could reveal things wrapped vertically on the current level.

- Fixed various off-by-one level selection bugs for both normal and hardcore modes.

- Fixed player rotation angle bug during The Hole.

- Fixed bug where the controller would not vibrate during the first screen of The Beginning.

- Fixed bug with loud sound blip sound on startup even when the sound was muted in game.

- Fixed a visual bug where some decor/spikes had a faint horizontal/vertical line next to them.

- Fixed a bug where some of the decor objects wouldn't play their idle animation.

- Fixed a bug with player idle animations not working properly by rewriting the animation engine.

- Fixed a bug where blood particles were not toggled by the particles option.

- Fixed a bug where the player was not visible when pausing the screen in hardcore.

- Fixed a bug where loading/unloading sound wasn't playing continuously during The Hole.

Misc. changes

- First time playing the game will have "Begin" instead of "Level Select" available until The Beginning is completed.

- Changed some default settings: volume levels, open in fullscreen, quick spawn.

- Overall stats now show only time spent playing levels, not time spent in game.

- Renamed "Normal" mode to "Amnesia" mode, and "Normal/Reverse" to "Descent/Ascent" for the phases.

- Disabled the Hardcore Speedrun mode while it is being reworked, since it has a handful of bugs associated with it.

- Fast load the spikes and hide the level timer in The Hole.

- Generate seeds for each level deterministically so randomness is consistent on each play.

- Every level has its own individual stats, per-mode and per-phase.

- Screen shaking in The Hole does not shake the background or UI text anymore.

- Partially rewrote the save system, but not everything has been migrated over yet.