Black Sand Drift
Black Sand Drift v1.4
+ Added visual feedback for Turbo Mode and Visions
+ Tweaked fonts for better clarity
+ Game runs even better after sizable tweaks to the engine
Developer Notes: After recently installing an update to Windows 10, Black Sand Drift started launching incorrectly; all that displayed was a black screen and the music! After some research, I found some folks with similar issues and some advice for fixing it. Well, now it's fixed!
In the process of patching things up, some additional changes were made to the engine that lets the game run even better and be more compatible with more machines. We also tweaked the fonts to display clearer and crisper, so that helps when following along with the story.
And lastly, we felt adding visual feedback when the player starts experimenting with the optional shader effects (and Turbo Mode) would help add a little more polish to the overall package. So when you press '6' for Turbo or '1' through '5' on the keyboard for the different shaders, you are shown the name of your choice on the screen. It's a subtle change, but everything counts!
Thank you for your time and support!!!
-Dev
Black Sand Drift v1.3
+ Fixed grammatical errors
Developer Notes: Unlocking all 25 levels from the beginning (as opposed to needing to complete the stages in numerical order), brings a huge change to the game experience in general, as well as strengthening its fundamental ethos. Black Sand Drift--and its scope--is meant to offer the player a large amount of diverse content, all of which could be experienced in its entirety or piecemeal. For example: The music, the story, the collectables--almost everything is optional. Now, with opening up the game from the start, each individual player can dig as deep as they desire into the immersive universe presented without being locked out of any content.
Perhaps a level is too difficult, or you're curious about later levels and how the game play changes; maybe you wish to see how the story unfolds over 25 levels but don't care to play them all: All this is now possible.
Still wanting the player to have incentive to actually play and finish a level, the locked extras remain. To unlock one of these pieces of concept art--1 for each level--the player still needs to complete a level as normal without 'cheating'. Of course now you can jump around and try all the levels without restriction; 'practice makes perfect', as someone somewhere said sometime.
On one other note, stages were designed in such a way where they don't necessarily get increasingly difficult as the game goes on; each level is just another challenge. Players will experience levels differently based on on their own individual skill, so it made the decision to open all levels that much easier.
Updates come as the vision becomes more focused and refined, and this seemed like something that needed to be addressed the more we obsessed over it.
-Dev
Black Sand Drift v1.2
+ Controller instructions on file-select-screen
+ Controller instructions when paused
+ Super-Turbo Mode for even faster cut scenes
+ Optimization tweaks
Black Sand Drift v1.1
+ Game warns you before quitting
+ Turbo Mode for quicker cut scenes
+ Postcard mode for taking neat screenshots
+ 5 user-changeable shader options
+ User-changeable brightness/hue/saturation options
+ Added loading screen