Hello everyone! It’s not every day that a game like Pivotal that was built for a game jam gets a big update, but here we are. I’ve decided to take this one due to a renewed interest in the game that I have had as well as the desire to make sure that the game is seen in the best possible light. I’ve noticed that the jam version really feels like it was made in a week with disregard for things like polish and the like. As such, this update addresses pretty much everything that I wanted to address, and as a bonus, I wasn’t able to complete every level that I wanted to for this build, but I at least have included one, with new mechanics. I guess that means I’m going to make more updates for the web version? Oh well. Check out the list of patch notes below!

Note: I’ve had this patch in the works for six months - I worked on it a bit after I finished the jam version and initially wanted to release it then, but then life got in the way and here we are. Nonetheless, this patch list may not be completely exhaustive of all of the changes that I’ve made to the game.

Summary

• Polished many portions of the game, including menus, gameplay, and graphics
• Player movement has been tightened and sped up for more enjoyable gameplay
• New level added: Terminal Velocity
• Completely removed scoring system in lieu of a best time system
• Medals have been added as well - you can earn up to three medals for different feats

Player

• The player’s acceleration speed has been increased (0.6->0.9)
• Rotation time has been sped up considerably (0.17s->0.1s)
• Number of hits before death has been increased (6->8)
• Changed rules for what counts as a “hit”: player must now be at a certain percentage of their terminal velocity (70%) or higher for the hit to damage the player
• Hits in water no longer count towards
• Made inputs feel snappier and less likely to miss
• Added some game juice to make the player feel better to move around

Medals

• Added three medals: Flawless (yellow), Ultra Flawless (blue), and Dev Time Beat (red)
• Flawless medals are earned for finishing a level without dying
• Ultra Flawless medals are earned for finishing a level without taking a single hit
• Dev Time beat medals are achieved by beating my best time

Level adjustments

• Adjusted graphics for multiple level objects such as portals
• Renamed the first level to Turning Peaks
• Fixed weird geometry in many levels
• Removed the last thank-you section of Gimbal Locks
• Made some portions of both levels more fair

Menus

• Added full support for mouse navigation (fun fact: I’m stupid and forgot this)
• Added instructions for menu navigation where it would make sense
• Revamped most menus for mouse navigation
• Moved credits to a separate screen
• Replaced all of the fonts in the game with newer, cleaner fonts that fit the aesthetic a bit better (the same one I’m using for this devlog!)

Technical nitty-gritty

• Cleaned up a lot of unused assets
• Built smarter using a newer version of Unity (should mean less bugs and smaller file size)
• Optimized a lot of code
• V-sync enabled by default - to conserve power, menus run at half your monitor’s refresh rate (locked itself to 60fps before)
• Removed Herobrine

Miscellaneous

• Added additional credits

Thanks for playing Pivotal! Any feedback you submit is appreciated :) ~ Billy