Hi! It's been a while, exactly a year today. So.... entropoly took a while. Reading back my last update, thinking it would take 1 month was beyond naive. I ended up releasing it in March, then a major update in July, and it took an enormous amount of crunch to get there.

I'm really proud of the work I did on this game, and it feels really good to just have something out there that I can point to. Thank you so much to everyone who bought the game, entropoly is sitting at a 96% positive rating on steam which is crazy!

After the last entropoly update, I began working on recursor again, but all that time away and new experience under my belt, gave me a whole new perspective on it. I knew a lot had to change about recursor's design to make it feel like a real cohesive game instead of just a sort of tech demo toy. One thing I knew for sure I needed to do is redesign the main character. Unfortunately character design is not in my skillset, so that new design will have to wait. One thing I can do is determine the rendering style.

3D: Since the game is completely orthogonal, we don't actually have to put a 3d model in the game, when can instead flatten it and use it like a spritesheet. The difference is you get a normal map spritesheet for free, meaning each pixel can reflect light accurately with no work required. Also having a 3d model for animations, means you can easily grab bone positions, or even swap skins with different geometry or texturing.

2D: Theoretically you could just draw all the normal maps for any sprite, but having tried that and spending ages one a single frame and it looking terrible, I will conclude that unviable. The only way to automate it would be to limit it to the edges, with the extra compromise that it's not really accurate. Also, even though not entirely exclusive to 2D, having pixel to pixel control of emissions (the glowy bits) is a huge plus.

I don't hate the 3D, and the benefits are tempting, but I reckon it will be difficult to make it sit nicely in the scene. So 2D it will remain with the new extra flavouring of edge lighting and emissions.

After a lot of tweaking, I think the edge lighting looks great, and although I only have emissions on the visor currently, I know the future design will make create use of them.

The above screenshot also shows a few other art updates. The virus vines now have more detail, connect to the foreground and spawn particles. Likewise there are lit dust particles all over and a subtle texturing on the light rays. The lighting now supports light emitting from a line instead of just a point, meaning those fluorescent light bars are looking much better. Finally a new bloom shader accentuate all the bright objects with a warm glow.

But wait, what's that in the bottom right?

Items! Recursor finally has real items! Using the dpad, you can pocket up to 4 different items and equip them on command. Guns are now items and have limited ammo. I really wrestled with guns for a while trying to find a good home for them. They felt way too strong before, but this way I can make whatever crazy guns I want and can balance them by ammo and spawn rarity. I briefly experimented with 360 aiming, which was really cool but absurdly busted. Turns out the smash gun item design fitted them perfectly.

With guns now being items, I have moved shine to neutral-b (sorry spacies, it just makes sense this way), down-b is now dive (old dair) and added a new dair (it's marths lol).

I've had to break the game apart a lot for this stuff, so I've disabled versus and timetrials in this build till I figure out how they need to change. I don't have any new levels anyways, so I can't imagine anyone will miss them. Also I've been experimenting with movement tweaks like variable jump height, no walk and higher traction.

Thank you again for your continued patience, I will try my best to maintain more regular updates