Pre-Jam Update

Hi all. This is a minor update for Swan Song that fixes/improves/touches up a lot of very small details throughout the game. The idea behind this was for me to reassess what's currently in the game so that during the next Dream Diary Jam (which I will be participating in!) I can focus on adding new things to the game rather than fixing existing stuff. It turned out there were way more things to fix and improve than I anticipated, so it took a little while to finish. Regardless, here it is!

If you play this new version, you'll find that your experience compared to the original version is pretty much the same. There isn't a whole lot of "new" stuff outside of some added decoration in a few of the deeper worlds and some noticeably improved art assets here and there. Everything else in this update is generally under-the-hood.

Thank you to everyone who has played the game. I appreciate the support and I'm looking forward to adding more during the next jam. Also, if you happen to find any bugs in this update, please let me know!!!

New Additions: 

• Pressing [Page Down/PgDn] with the Glass effect equipped now gives a written description of the glass's contents
• Various areas in the game have had some extra decoration added (glowing mushrooms world, hospital garden, electricity world)
• Footstep sound effects now vary in pitch

Gameplay Adjustments: 

• A certain real-world NPC vital to game progression is now more likely to appear when waking up
• There is now a distinctive sound heard when speaking to a real-world NPC that causes changes in the dream world
• It's now easier to collect water from the floor fountains in the waterpark area
• A certain event in the hospital area must now be seen in its "normal" state before ever trying to show its "alternate" state
• Wake-up sequence has been made slightly faster

Graphical Adjustments: 

• The wonky animated aurora borealis sprites have been removed in favor of a much prettier static parallax background
• The city area now has a trail of spilled fluid leading to the alley, hopefully making it more clear that the alley exists
• Tilesets, character sprites, and other graphics throughout the game have received small touch-ups and improvements
• The ambient light color in the cold pit has been brightened ever so slightly, so it's no longer pitch black down there (still very dark though, you'll want the Spotlight effect)
• The ambient light in the real-world bathroom is no longer an eerie red glow being emitted from nowhere
• The RPG Maker level gauge behind the pause menu's effect counter has been removed
• The in-game instructions now highlight the fact that waking up and speaking to real-world NPCs is important (I'm still trying to work out how that could be better conveyed to the player; if you have any ideas, please share them!)
• The game has a new logo! I suck at logos but this one is better than the last one, at least in my opinion

Bug Fixes / Technical Stuff: 

• An esoteric bug involving the Glass effect has (seemingly) been fixed. After emptying the glass in the waterpark area, the game would register it as empty, but the player's sprite would sometimes still display the glass filled with whatever liquid they previously had it filled with. I've added multiple safeguards and done a ton of testing; I think it's fixed, but I'm still paranoid.
• Large maps should now be significantly less laggy on low-end machines. The cause for this was the "VisuStella Events Move Core" plugin, which apparently causes ridiculous amounts of lag on maps with lots of events. All functionality provided by that plugin has been seamlessly reimplemented with other plugins, and a performance boost has been noted in affected maps.
• Fixed a graphical issue involving the screenshake effect when punching an NPC with the Boxing Gloves in the city area.
• Fixed some broken minor NPC interactions
• Fixed a collision issue or two
• RPG Maker MZ has been updated to Corescript version 1.8.0 (nothing seems to be broken)