First Godot 4 Build now released.

First of all, I had to take the page down temporarily to set things up properly for this new release, but that should be all set now.

As the title implies. This is my first update to Firebrand Dash since upgrading from Godot 3 to Godot 4.  I plan to make a video or two going deeper into development details some day. But for right now, the long story short is I had basically rebuild the project from scratch to work properly with the updated engine.  So the game basically has a new set of physics along with a handful of other mechanics that didn't exist in the Godot 3 build. Plus there's a new set of levels that replace the old set to make better use of the physics and mechanics of this build.

On the character side we have things like wall-jumping, collectables, and checkpoints. The first two were part of a tutorial I was using to make things work in Godot 4, so I repurposed them to fit in the context of this game. The checkpoints was something I got working more on my own because I really wanted to do some complex stuff for the final few levels and it felt a bit unfair to  expect the player to get it all in one attempt. I was going to need to get checkpoints working eventually anyways, so I figured that I might as well do it now.

In addition, there's a new pause menu, along with an options menu with features including volume adjustment and keymapping. Though the later is still a work in progress. Menuing has been a pain TBH. There's still a lot I have to learn, but I'm happy with what I got for now. Basically all input mapping works fine, but trying to fully navigate it with a controller was a bit buggy so I restricted it to mostly the mouse for now.

In addition, I've been experimenting with other options and accessibility features. Though I'm not really sure what sort of accessibility features would benefit a small platformer like this. For right now, I just have an option you can toggle on or off to let you set your own checkpoints. ? It currently feels more like a cheat than an accessibility feature, but its at least something. This kind of just turned into more of an advance options menu where you toggle on certain advance tech. Like addressing feedback I got in the last build, by allowing you to cancel an air dash at any time by pressing the jump button, in addition to just going into a stomp by pressing dash again. BTW, stomp has been fixed to send you directly downwards without horizontal momentum, making it much for reliable as a dash cancel option.

Part of some of the tutorials I used included an in-game timer display. So, I decided to slightly expand that into a time-trail feature.  Though currently it doesn't really do much besides display a timer in each level.  I'll have to do some more work for it to actually mean anything. I am considering adding features to it, like actually tracking your best time in each level. But currently it's not a high priority. If people end up wanting a time trail mode though, I don't mind expanding the feature to actually be viable later on down the line.

Lastly in regards to my plans going forward, rather than direct details about the game, I think I'm going to take a small break. With plans to come back to it around May or so.  Basically I got an idea for a small game I'd like to get done for April 1st. But considering how long it took me to make and release this build of Firebrand Dash, I'm not sure if I'll be able to complete it in time. Still, I'd like to try, especially since I've already been chipping away at it here and there.  I won't say anything about it now, because I want it to be a surprise. But I'll be sure to share more details about that in April, regardless of if I was successful or I failed at my goal of completing it by then.

Also, I forgot to mention. There's also now a Windows version you can download, on top of the usual browser mode.  

The game is still perfectly free to play but I've now included a feature to include a donation if you wish.  It's more to get myself used to the concept of that being an option in the future rather than actually expecting anyone to give me money for essentially a glorified flash game.  Right now this project exists to help me learn about Godot, I appreciate you just taking the time to check it out.