So, I guess it's been a while since I last updated this thing, huh? Has it really been over a year? A lot has happened since then: my Covid gap year ended, I graduated college, and, if you haven't heard already, I got a job at Yacht Club Games as a junior programmer (which I'm starting tomorrow)! While I had originally planned on releasing a much larger version of the game by the end of 2021, that didn't wind up shaking out, as I got pretty burnt out towards the end of my Covid gap year. I spent the rest of my gap year exploring a bunch of different interests, including improving my drawing skills and starting an art Twitter, which I'm pretty proud of (you can check that out here). Then my senior year of college started, and I barely had time to work on this game, though I put in some time here and there.

Now that I'm starting my job at Yacht Club, I can't really work on this project anymore, so I decided to put together one last update which includes a bunch of the new features I've been working on. Not everything made the cut; a handful of new enemies and obstacles wouldn't fit without significantly expanding the level and adding new areas. But, all-in-all, I'm pretty satisfied with the current state of this release, and it's in a place where I can feel comfortable calling it "done."

Here's a rundown of all the changes:

• Added the new Blood Burst super move, with 3 different levels depending on how much you fill the meter
• Added shops where you can buy upgrades with coins strewn throughout the level
• Added 2 new enemy types, a small and large version of cyan slider
• Added multiple difficulty options (Easy, Normal, and Hard)
• Added a new "invisible mode," which makes it so you can only see the parts of the level you've colored in
• Expanded the level with a few new bonus rooms to find
• Rebalanced some areas and arenas
• Rebalanced healing so you draw in blood droplets over time instead of all at once
• Made a plethora of bug fixes, including a fix to make the final boss more consistent

Thanks to everyone who played the game: it really does mean the world to me. Wish me luck in my adventures at Yacht Club!