No way - I'm back. The fated return. It's only been 15 months.

I've had a very busy year and am finally getting back to working on this game. There was a brief period where I started to port Obbo to Unity, but certain events dissuaded me from continuing that endeavor. But now, dare I say, I am back in the swing of things! I had most of 1.0.3 ready, but still had a few crucial changes to make. I've finally made them, though!

I don't have more to say than I am eager to start work on this again! Full steam ahead for 1.0.4!

Here is the full change list:

Audio/Visual Updates

• Added new music tracks ‘Confidence’ and ‘Fever’
• Added Birds
• Added more options to the home screen
• The drop shadows of tiles are now dynamic, which makes level creation much faster, and it should be pretty well optimized.
• Hitting ‘back’ on the main menu no longer instantly quits, but there is a quit button on the home screen.
• Also, clearing your save has been made a button on the main menu instead of a keybind.

Gameplay Updates

• Added first NPCs
• Added sliding. Ground pound while already on the ground for a burst of speed! This may not be a default part of Obbo’s movement kit in the future, but I really like it so it will definitely stay in the game.
• Some spike pits are basically impossible to escape. To prevent players taking multiple points of damage from one missed jump, there is now a checkpointing system. This is a dynamic system that will save your last safe ground position. Upon landing in spikes, you’ll be sent back to that position. Enemies still knock you back like normal.

Technical Changes

• Updated List wrapper class (it now uses arrays instead of ds_lists, may provide very minor performance boost)
• Externalized many files. This should make some level of modding a possibility. Have fun! If messing with these files results in your game becoming unstable or crashing, that is (unfortunately) a ‘you’ problem. I recommend backing up game files - or reinstalling - if things get really messed up. Future updates should make files more resilient to tinkering though.
• The room system has been, I believe, completely ironed out (finally).

Modding

• Fun new section here!
• You may notice in Characters.json that animations refer to sprites in the form of ‘sCharnameAnimation’. These are in engine sprites compiled with the game (no messing with them). To reference an external file, use the ‘externalFile:’ prefix, followed by the path from ‘Folder_Where_You_Installed_The_Game\resources’ (don’t include up to resources, that is already accounted for). Point to a .json file like this:

• You also need to include the sprite sheet you are using in ‘resources’ and, like the externalFile, only include the path after resources.
• I’ll likely make a more comprehensive guide in the future, so if you are interested, keep an eye out for that.
• MovementVars.json is also editable ;)
• Have fun absolutely mangling your games!