Hey everyone, before I post this week's weekly update here, I wanted to apologize for not having any weekly updates here the past two weeks - we had weekly updates as usual on Patreon, but they were barebones and not a lot happened, partially due to the nature of v0.42 (being a mostly level design-focused update) and partially because I was struggling a bit mentally (thanks 2020), so I just never bothered posting them anywhere else. I'm feeling better this week and we got more done, though, so here's the update - and sorry again that I left you guys out of the loop for a bit!

(The following is (mostly) a copy-paste from our weekly public update post on Patreon! If you like what you see, consider supporting us!)

Hey everyone, time for another weekly update! Honestly, I don't have much more to show you this week than I did last week - most of our work is still on non-visual stuff, or too heavily WIP to be worth showing off. That said, though, we got a lot more done this week, as well as some streams, and I'm feeling a lot better because of it! Sometimes there's just not a lot of interesting stuff to show off in game dev, and since v0.42 is focused on almost entirely level design and boss 3, it has a lot of that less interesting work. Ah, the joys of a Metroidvania.

I spent most of my time this week designing levels (one of which you can see in the video up above, showcasing one of the obstacle courses I've created with the new warp hazards), as well as tinkering with some background assets. I have an upgrade planned for later in the game that will require tweaking the visuals of some areas, so I've been thinking about how I want to handle that, even though the upgrade itself is still a ways off. Before you ask, yes I'm being intentionally vague, and no I won't be explaining it more than that :^)

I'm probably going to spend some time in the near future revising the Summit area a bit; there are some obstacles (like the arrow traps) that are really underutilized, and with the Wire Shot changes from last update, I've gotten multiple comments asking if I would be adding in more spots to use the Wire Shot, which is great to hear! Everyone is enjoying the new Wire Shot so much more, it was definitely worth the effort of reworking it. As you can see in the video, I'm already utilizing it more for platforming challenges, but I'd like to add in more uses around the Summit in general too, now that it's so much more fun to use.

I'm gonna be doubling down on level designs and trying to get as many as I can done for the rest of this update, but there's also some dialogue I want to write, and some other stuff I've been putting off (like hiring a new voice for Lucas). In any case, I expect the remaining weekly updates for v0.42 to be pretty light on visuals, but I'll at least include another level design video or gif like the one posted in this update.

Alright, that's it for this week! Thanks for reading, and we'll see you in the next one!