Howdy gamers and welcome to the Kickstarter November Update! If you don't follow me on [url=https://bit.ly/Windswept-Twitter][b]Twitter[/b][/url] (you should), I mentioned November is my birth month. I've spent most of the time taking my foot off the pedal to chill for a bit (feel free to comment happy birthday - it was a week ago though so it's whatever!) You know where I'm going with this - it's time for a relatively short update for a slow-ish month! Most of the time was spent cleaning up existing systems, it's hard to make that sound interesting but let's give it a go... [h1]Screen Transitions[/h1] Transitions add so much to a game when used effectively - Windswept had a couple but they were very rigid in their execution, so I needed a better solution. [img]https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/043/115/534/c2021af4eec051b7f6512e154e0e48aa_original.gif?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=700&fit=max&v=1700386488&gif-q=50&q=92&s=fb452f670859bc4963c20a9a6a983453[/img] The old transition system was sort of like the gif above, where the fade-in to fade-out were a fixed duration and the game just sorta waited for it to finish before continuing. The new system lets me determine the duration and specifics of every step in the process. If I want the screen to stay black until another system tells it to proceed, I can now! [img]https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/043/115/532/f04b0c0a80b8301c2a06bf246131f680_original.gif?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=700&fit=max&v=1700386469&gif-q=50&q=92&s=420a58956e44dd38ee8795b17dbd7f5e[/img] Additionally, I can specify different graphics to cut out of the blackness. I can also lock-on to a specific target to draw more focus to it. This will come in handy for Laamp's coin search service and any other situation I need to move your eyes to another part of the screen more naturally. [h1]The Scoreboard[/h1] [img]https://ksr-ugc.imgix.net/assets/043/115/562/366c8b34795b7cd6e1b8cbd55b970499_original.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=700&fit=max&v=1700386978&gif-q=50&lossless=true&s=f7bb526cd292ed648979c52e606d1f82[/img] Support for achievements is baked right into the game for situations where the platform hosting Windswept doesn't support them natively. The goal will be to have pixel art icons that can be reused for Steam's achievement icons. I'm particularly fond of the memorable icons used in [url=https://www.mariouniverse.com/wp-content/img/sprites/snes/yi/level-icons.gif][b]Yoshi's Island[/b][/url] to give players a clear understanding of what each stage is without having to play it. Be sure to give [url=https://twitter.com/Woodspixl_][b]Woodspixl_[/b][/url] all of your energy, this job rests with her! [h1]Music and Sound[/h1] Lemme be real for a sec, professional music and sound is expensive and that part of development was one of the main contributors to why I came to Kickstarter in the first place. With Windswept being my first commercial project, I was faced with a lot of tricky decisions while using my own personal finances in the early days. 95% of the music & sound in our demo was made to help tie the project together in preparation for the KS campaign. The campaign's level of success would go on to determine the number of sounds produced and the amount of times music would repeat throughout the game. All that to say [url=https://twitter.com/Fat_Bard][b]FatBard[/b][/url] have added their first contributions to the game in over a year! Here's a brief showcase of some things they've done since returning. [previewyoutube=O-W2rFia9N4;full][/previewyoutube] There's still a bit of balancing to do and whatnot but overall it's breathing new life into the project at a time when I really need it to. Motivation is at an all-time high until the bill arrives! As the year's coming to a close I'm trying to cram in everything I need to before entering the final phase of development - [b]the content[/b]! I think next month's update is gonna be quite big, so long as I'm able to deliver on what I set out to do! Guess we'll have to wait until then, byeeeeeee!