I assume most people who have bought The Top know about my YouTube channel and will know that this has been released, but just to cover all my bases, I've released a ~22 minute long documentary/post-mortem discussing the story leading up to me starting work on The Top and the design philosophies and practices I followed. I hope you find it interesting.
Aside from that, there is now a demo released for the game. If you know anyone who may be interested in the game, the demo is the best place to point them first rather than telling them to blindly spend their money. Also, the game is 20% off for the next few days.
I've also released a small patch that fixes up some lingering inconsistencies and bugs. Let me know if you have any issues with the new version.
Controller Rebinding
Previously you could only rebind keyboard controls through the pause menu, but now, if you're using a controller, you will be able to rebind gamepad controls through that menu instead. I decided to not allow rebinding of movement from the d-pad/left control stick, but everything else is available for you to change. This also means the ability to use either trigger/bumper interchangeably for dashing won't be an option anymore, but I decided these compromises are worth it.
At this point I've implemented every technical feature I think the game should have, so until I notice/am notified of a bug somewhere, this will likely be the last update like this I release. Let me know if you have any issues with the new build and I will fix them as soon as I can.
Some Minor Improvements
This update mainly brings small bug fixes and under-the-hood changes. If you notice any of the changes, it will likely be the changes made to player movement since I've rewritten much of the code to do with that. There shouldn't be any huge changes like higher/lower gravity or different movement speed, and if anything, input should feel a bit more responsive thanks to the tweaks I've made. The other "major" change is that I made a slight tweak to a level early in the caves to make it more interesting for speedrunning, assuming you use the new route it opens up.
Let me know if you run into any issues with the new version.
Speedrun Update
This update mainly brings improvements to the speedrun timer and associated systems.
NEW FEATURES:
- The pause menu now has another page for speedrun settings. In the new menu you'll find the already existing speedrun timer as well as two new options.
- With the speedrun timer enabled you can also enable a second timer that tracks your time in each level that resets at the end of each level.
- The other new option is infinite levels. Rather than moving to the next level upon reaching the end, this option will make the level reset instead. This is helpful for practicing individual levels and keeping times for individual levels. If you have the speedrun timer enabled as well, the game will display your final time and wait for your input to continue.
- Upon reaching the end of the game, your final time and deaths will be compared against your previous best time and fewest deaths, which is now recorded upon your first completion of the game. Note that if you use an older save file you will need to finish the game again to record a time to run against. Fastest times and fewest deaths are also stored separately for both endings.
Also, another note for those who play with a save from a previous version - in upgrading to the latest version of Gamemaker, an issue with the original build was fixed where some level indexes were out of order. This is now fixed, but because of this, if you load an already existing save you will likely be a few levels back from where you were before this update. If you're very unlucky the game might get stuck crashing on startup, and if this does happen, please get in contact and I can help with that. Other than that, using an already existing save file should have no other issues.
Please let me know if there are any issues with the new build.
- Fixed speedrun timer not scaling properly with window size - Improved the "new player experience" (More info below)
Below is a more clear explanation of the last patch note, which contains major spoilers. Don't read further if you haven't completed the game.
When I first released the game, whenever the game ended it would wipe your progress on secrets, such that you would have to finish them all in one playthrough in order for them to count. This led to some people playing through the game three separate times and getting one secret each playthrough, which is clearly a design flaw that serves to just waste time. Because of this, the game should now save what secrets you've completed even after the game restarts after the credits, but if you've already gotten all the secrets and seen the secret ending, you will then have to get all three in one playthrough to get to the secret ending again.
A Small Patch
Thanks to everyone who has given feedback and reported bugs, I've got a small patch that should address most of it.
- Fixed Outskirts achievement - Enabled Steam screenshots - A slight tweak to the last Mountain Side level - Very minor proofreading for the text in the cutscene between Caves and Mountain Side.
That should be everything for now, please let me know if you run into any more issues.
