This update catapults the engine version from Unity 2017.4.2f2 to 2019.2.11f1. With such a long overdue engine update comes a lot of plugin wrangling and bug squashing. But, revisiting outdated systems also presents opportunities to polish them up a bit.

One such opportunity—the most common UI-related issue I’ve observed players running into—has been the lack of icons for consumable collectibles (e.g., safe key cards). Players occasionally pick something up quickly and then check their inventory to see what it was that they collected. This update finally completes that interaction by presenting a rack of horizontally-aligned inventory icons at the bottom-right of the screen. Individual icons are shown when items are collected, and all icons are shown with the rest of the collectibles when the show totals button is pressed and when the pause menu is open.

As for gameplay, a particularly common issues facing players has been the lack of checkpoints in the scrapyard around the crypt and graveyard area. The crypt was always designed to be a one-way corpse chute that players would have to platform their way out of. But, without a reliable way to reactivate the graveyard shortcut after leaving the crypt, players often found themselves respawning back at the bottom of the chute, doomed to repeat their escape until they managed to stumble across another checkpoint. This update solves these problems by adding the following:

• A new checkpoint at the end of the crypt’s ghost hallway.
• A graveyard checkpoint activator in front of the crypt-to-graveyard shortcut gate (only active after the gate has been opened).
• A blanket graveyard checkpoint activator covering the entire ground level of the graveyard.

The rest of the fixes from previous versions are noted in the changelog below. And, with this maintenance out of the way, I can return to working on content.

Changelog for 3.7.0

Added

• Added GUI icons for consumable collectibles (e.g., safe key cards).
• Added build type (demo) and version labels to the title screen.

Changed

• Improved checkpoint management in the scrapyard’s graveyard and crypt.
• Added invisible ramp colliders to some steps, improving walkability.
• Added gravity smoothing on falling directly off of surfaces (0 to 100% gravity over 0.33 seconds).
• Improved the scrapyard’s shortcut launcher plant’s particle effect.

Fixed

• Fixed hitching when walking off of platforms by removing step handling.
• Fixed being ejected through certain colliders on contact at specific places.
• Fixed an unintentionally detached terrain prop.
• Fixed the corner of a web in the scrapyard’s spider colony not being attached to anything.
• Fixed some terrain texture UVs being split at certain vertices.
• Fixed fog not affecting the outer corners of two crypt pillars in the scrapyard.
• Fixed the gear-shaped screen transition not rotating when using the pause menu’s exit level or return to title screen buttons.
• Fixed an animation unintentionally playing on returning to a level after completing an objective.