Welcome to Castle on the Coast’s 3rd major update! This one features a new dimension for the forest level! The game's steam page is also live for its eventual 1.0 release. Also, more bug fixes!

NEW DIMENSION!

Deep in the forest, a portal has opened to a magical, lucid place. The air itself feels light upon your shoulders, and the ground beneath your feet swells and shifts with the breeze...

I was always bummed the forest level didn’t have a dimension of its own, so I decided to use some extra dev time to fix this. I went all out on this one to make it feel far different than the rest of the game.

You can find the dimension in the forest ruins where you meet Aleandra the first time...

WISHLIST US ON STEAM!

I spent some time getting a proper Steam edition of the game working! As a Steam user myself, care was taken to support its many features including:

• Cloud Saves
• Remote Play
• Remote Play on Phone
• Them pretty library images
• Them pretty achievements

We won’t release here for a bit due to logistics. We would like to acquire a publisher first, then give them time to work their marketing magic before a 1.0 release.

If you are interested in beta testing the Steam release, hit me up on Discord! Obviously, I retain the right to accept or deny key requests for any reason.

FREE DEMO!

The game has a free demo! You can download it on Itch.io or Steam. It takes you through one of the more open platforming levels: the Rainy Cathedral.

ECHO ECHO ECHO

Some light reverb was added to the entire world, with a heavier treatment in caves and enclosures.

Now you will really FEEEEEEEL like your spelunking.

All soundwork has gotten another balancing pass. A focus was placed on making sure every sound had equal loudness before dialing the knobs up and down. No longer will Vendrick sound too quiet, while an NPC yells into your ear.

BETTER FILE STATS

I added more info to the file stats on the main menu to be more helpful.

Stats for collecting stars were added. The number of them you’ve collected has become more relevant since there are Steam achievements associated with getting them all.

I replaced the petal count percentage with a simple number. That is a stat I don’t want people feeling obliged to 100% as it would be extremely tedious, possibly maddening given how many flowers are hidden in the world. Collecting all costumes gives plenty of incentive to grab as many as possible.

Upon beating the game, the location picture changes!

RANDOM STUFF

• Removed Steam VR plugin, among many other plugins. Before Steam VR would keep opening.
• Upon re-entering a recently completed game, George now spawns at the front of the castle.
• Aleandra and Vendrick NPCs now show up on dock upon completing the game.
• Aleandra and Vendrick NPCs now have VO lines.
• Replaced mesh bridges in cauldron puzzle area with wood/brick bridges.
• Tuned ocean current wall to only effect you in water.
• Speedrunners rejoice! Diving will no longer slow you down if you have some momentum built up.
• Rolling ball has its own camera setup now instead of borrowing the player's. This means it has an auto-follow mode and is positioned better.
• Replaced unfinished naval mines with sharks.
• Unstable pillars now play a rumbling sound.
• Added sounds to oddly quiet cutscenes.
• Added submarine ambience sound.
• Added UE4 legal text to intro slides of game so that it shows up in demo.
• Crates now fall down if you break or grab what’s underneath them.
• Added it so some dimensional flying boards fly faster than others to speed things along.
• Main Menu and Quit game button in arcade mode now behave as expected.
• Sounds added for keystones being inserted into pedestal.
• Enchanted armor fireball throw sound added.
• Credits fade out while moving at end for maximum niceness effect
• Camera adjusted to point to glass portal side when exiting.
• Forest sky doesn’t change suddenly when entering lava area anymore.
• Shortened mecha George’s skin name to fit UI.
• Removed a cut character from credits: Leonardo the art criticizer. I would like to credit Sean Fuller for the amazing voice still :).

BUG FIXES

• Replaced ocean invisible walls with the standard kind that supports deactivation.
• Death area under crystal dimension is no longer removed when turning off invisible walls.
• Raziel the rain kid now has his missing VO lines plugged in. Whoops!
• Removed mysterious wall slide collisions above NPC heads.
• Removed some stray sand landscape in the rainy cathedral.
• Removed a bunch of random stuff from 0,0,0, on the map that mysteriously showed up.
• Removed a 2 stray platforms in Periculo.
• Fixed random invisibility of file buttons after deletion.
• File buttons no longer stay large randomly when un-selected.
• Menus no longer freak out when holding down two directional inputs in perpendicular directions.
• George now receives damage from eggs.
• Fixed climbability of trees in forest area.
• Swim sounds corrected in credits, they now sound underwater.
• Music can no longer be reset by getting game to spam sound effects.
• Star on library slide stays loaded in when ocean is loaded.
• Fixed NPC Vendrick’s speech bubble.
• Ocean waves no longer cut out in intro cutscene.
• Expanded explosion radius of Aleandra's rolling fireball attack, this ensures George takes damage upon being hit by it.
• Corrected switched-around images of keyboard and gamepad in input remapping settings.
• Removed an invisible wall from the keystone/tower entrance room.
• Every song in the game loops seamlessly now.
• Added missing song credit for the final cutscene.
• Chickens now spawn hearts on defeat.
• Sharks now spawn hearts on defeat.
• Fire rings that have been previously collected no longer show their grab message upon loading a level containing them.
• Stunt Park spotlight arches now reliably have references to their spotlights to turn on and off.
• Trees no longer snap george to the bottom temporarily when grabbing them from the tippy top.
• A part of the wizard tower’s roof  wasn’t totally connected to a wall… now it is.

WRAPPING UP

Update is available on PC and Mac. For the few who have Steam Beta Keys, the update is live on Steam as well.

For players with save files in the forest ruins area, there is a small possibility you will be unable to progress in the game after updating. Players who have already completed the forest ruin area will probably find themselves unable to enter the new dimension as well upon revisiting. I recommend starting a new save if this is the case.

WHATS NEXT?

Boring stuff like bug fixing and nitty-gritty polish.

A lot of work has been done to secure a publishing partner to expand the game’s reach. Should that journey end happily, we hope to have an exciting announcement on that. If not, it won’t stop Castle on the Coast from seeing a full PC release.

Have fun UwU. More polish to come OwO.

-Peter