Come around, come around, we have much to tell!

Aha, I see you have stumbled upon our passion project! (it is also school related but that has nothing to do with this)
If you came here for make-up or nail polish advice, you're not in the right place honey!

While the artists have been busy making the face look better, the programmers have been busy to add more charisma to the game.
No new features have been added but old ones have been improved upon and perfected, let's have a little looksie!

Programmers:

• Shooting always felt a bit too static, that has now been fixed
  • Particle effects have been implemented and updated, destroying a block never felt as good
  • Camera moves up and down with you when you aim freely
  • When using the DPad upwards for shooting, the camera will pan upwards after 0.5 seconds

• Camera shaking has been rewritten and implemented on several events in the game, more responsive than ever

• The entire flow of difficulty has been revisited and restructured for a more balanced and fun experience
• Lava now feels more dangerous than before, creeping up faster depending on the difficulty
• A space block and extra hell block have been implemented for a more balanced flow of progress
• Linked portals now spawn more regulated with a corresponding color
• More diversity in the spawning of obstacles
• The way many particles work has been improved on the backend
• Space panel tiling is added for an infinite level experience
• Jumping is more responsive than ever with some quality of life fixes
• Shadow casting of the falling blocks is now a solid shape instead of their half seethrough silhouette for more clarity
  
• 3 cans of bugspray have been emptied 

Artists:

Big boi optimization

• Cleaned up the topology of all meshes
  • Environment meshes
  • Tetris blocks
  • Special blocks and icons

-> This resulted in over 100k Poly's and 170k verts being removed/optimized on the individual meshes alone!!

Spices from all stages have been imported to make the game extra juicy!

• Added an extra block in the hellscape, smoothening the transition between stages in the level

• Adjusted and updated the dangerous-looking blast icon and swapped it out for the more inviting and friendly-looking double arrows (don't worry, the boosting block still does exactly the same thing)
  
• Added the special block versions from our new hell block to the game as well

An exclusive exterior look on the styx level

• Adjusted the styx stage pretty heavily, fitting the camera angle of the game better

A small step for the artists, but a giant leap for Ascension²

• Added extra variety in the space-scape backgrounds, together with the countless floating space themed assets we showed off last post it will truly feel like there is no end to this stage (because there isn't muahahahah)

• Added our first bit of post processing, giving that extra bit of flair to the game and separating the fore- and background more! (we will adjust and refine these accordingly when we do our final lighting pass of the levels)

• Reworked Particle Effects to give that extra oomph!

• Added new more sparkly Particles

• Added a jetpack, emitting flames when jumping to the Nameless Character, making it clearer where his front and rear are at all times

What you can still expect from us during the final week(s) ?

• A more refined lighting pass on all stages
• A new and improved HUD
• Level adjustments in styx, making it look extra fancy
• Further refining and implementing of particles for extra flair
• Game balance
• Many more extra SFX, adding to the experience
• A new soundtrack per stage (hell and space)
• Refining of the early starting screen when you start out playing the game
• Another 3 cans of bugspray
• And much more quality of life adjustments!