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WHAT'S NEW?!

Version 1.2.0 introduces new Game Modifiers, that allow you to spice up the game, and provide additional challenge! When starting a new save (or New Game+), after choosing which difficulty mode you want to play on, you can choose up to five modifiers to enable. These modifiers were made based on some player suggestions or feedback.

The modifiers are as follows:

MASTER LEVELS: Remixes the game's levels to provide more challenge for those who have mastered the game's movement.

RUDE ENEMIES: Changes up enemy and boss behavior to make them all, well, ruder. If this is picked in tandem with Hard Mode, bosses have more health.

DOUBLE HAZARDS: Makes the game's hazards (spikes, lava, crushing) deal double damage. Ouch.

SINGLE CREDIT: Levels need to be beaten in a single go from start, and no restarting from checkpoints via the Pause Menu. Death sends you to the Guardian Corps HQ (or beginning of level if you haven't reached that far yet). Can not be enabled with Iron Circuit.

IRON CIRCUIT: No saves until the game has been cleared, and no restarting from checkpoints via the Pause Menu. Death sends you to title screen. Can not be enabled with Single Credit.

FLIP WORLD: Walk on... Ceilings? Who's the joker that asked for this? (Note: doesn't necessarily flip everything)

Game Modifiers become available upon completing the game on any difficulty, or by inputting the following code on File Select screen: LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN, BURST! A legend has it that if you beat the game with any of these modifiers enabled (or when "Everyone is There"), you might even see something little extra? Only one way to find out! ...Just make sure Speedrun Mode is disabled!

Of course, this is not all. Below is a list of other things that have been added, tweaked or fixed!

QUALITY OF LIFE ADDITIONS

Added a checkpoint menu in the mission select screen. This allows you to warp to checkpoint in a previously cleared level, as well as toggle any in-level cutscenes to play again (like boss confrontation dialogues). Mission rewards and certain challenges are disabled if this feature is used.

Added an extra toggle in the game's settings, which determines if speedrun mode is enabled by default or not when starting a new save file. If the setting is set to "default", speedrun mode is enabled by default when accessing file select screen. Otherwise, it's off. However, even if the setting is set to "off" or "default", you can manually toggle speedrun mode on/off on the file select screen, like you have been able to do up to this point. The intention is to remove any confusion caused by some players wanting to have the on-screen timer on during normal play (which determined if the speedrun mode was toggled on/off when launching the game).

Added an additional setting for enabling an aiming arrow that appears around Kai, which can help with aiming the hookshot during platforming sections or similar. There are three different settings for its behavior. The aiming arrow is disabled by default.

Added a toggle for adjusting double tap tolerance.

Mission Complete screen now shows the target values for max rank in relevant categories in square brackets (clear time, enemies defeated, damage taken). Rescues, if available for the level, are displayed with the icons as usual.

GAMEPLAY CHANGES/TWEAKS

Made it possible to cancel to divekick (down+attack while mid-air) from air jab (attack while mid-air).

Made it possible to gain sprint speed if the run button is held down, or "inverse" run button behavior is in use, when exiting quick warp portals in cyberspace (Warehouse Area).

Similar to above, certain aerial Armor Paint abilities are refreshed when exiting a quick warp portal.

If Loadout Swap button is assigned to the same button as Accept or Cancel, the Accept and Cancel buttons override the Loadout Swap button on the pause screen (ex: when exiting out of the pause menu with Cancel, the game won't do double input by closing the pause menu, and also swapping loadouts).

Fixed an issue where pressing attack after a wall jump might lock you out, and prevent you from moving back towards the wall. The game was simply treating like you were still in wall jumping state, and as such was applying some forces onto you.

Fixed an issue where crumbling blocks (Ore Mines) may sometimes block the hookshot from going through them when they've been crumbled.

Retracting metal spike blocks (final level) have had their hittable boxes increased in size, making them easier to clear out.

Fixed an issue where Kai did not gain sprint speed if he jumps out of a crouch while run button is held, by releasing the down button roughly on the same frame as the jump input is detected.

BURST TECHNIQUES

Burst Spark's hitbox has been increased to hit a larger area. Does damage ticks slightly faster, duration slightly shorter. Essentially you're stuck in place for a shorter duration (overall duration reduced by ~25 frames, or ~0.42 seconds).

Support Platform has been buffed. Creates three platforms to cover a wider area, the platforms take few frames longer to start falling, side platforms do slightly less damage than the main one. You can still perform the original version by holding the Burst button during the startup.

Cycle Kick can now be cancelled with a jump or hookshot at any point. Can gain sprint speed out of it if run button is held down.

ARMOR PAINTS

Hot-headed Red Armor Paint's Float Beam now does its damage ticks faster. How it affects boss invulnerability times has been adjusted.

Heavy Orange Armor Paint now grants a slight damage boost for hookshot on top of its other effects.

Scheming Pink Armor Paint can now be set to activate by pressing and holding jump while holding up, or double tapping jump while holding up. The setting can be found in the controls menu. Shop description changes to match the selected setting.

Fixed an issue where the "powered up" state of certain Burst Techniques (Heavenly Piledrive, Surface Render, Catch Interrupt) were not handled correctly if they whiffed, or Kai got struck by hazards, when using the ability of a certain Armor Paint. Similar fix was applied for Powered Walker's Self-Destruct ability (Ore Mines).

ENEMIES

Contact damage has been removed from Flip Panel Turret enemies (City Center).

Crystal Floater enemies' contact damage has been removed (Cyberspace).

Fixed an edge-case game crash involving the Battie enemies. It was unlikely to happen, but there was some potential for it.

Fixed an issue where the Virus Zombie and Turret Zombie enemies had their usual behavior code running when they were grabbed by the player (normally, any normal behavior is paused on grabbed objects). This led to some weird interactions at times.

BOSSES

Trace's (Patch Circuit) Burst Technique can now hit her own minions. This is so to prevent situations where her minions might cause undodgeable damage.

Fixed an issue with Ray (Optic Circuit), where after a certain action he always jumped towards the wrong direction from what was intended.

Fixed an issue where Crash (Break Circuit), in rare circumstances, might wind up defeating themselves due to some of the larger falling blocks.

Fixed a minor visual error where certain bosses' mugshots in their lifebars got mirrored on the horizontal axis during their Burst Technique activations.

Fixed Crash's (Break Circuit) mugshot to have a "weak flinch" animation during his boss fight. He can now properly feel pain.

And a few [SPOILER] worthy changes...

[SPOILER] Fixed a phantom hitbox from one of the later game bosses, where they grabbed an object off of the floor, and threw it. During this throwing animation, the boss would have a hitbox beneath them for one frame, that could hit the player if the boss jumped before the throw.

[SPOILER] During the Final Battle, if you have gotten to a certain phase, the transition to the next happens much faster. This behavior happens by default on Speedrun Mode. If you hold down the run button before the transition were to occur, the transition plays normally without any skips.

[SPOILER] During Final Battle, if you have gotten to a certain phase, on subsequent attempts the game will drop little health before the transition described above occurs. You know you'll be receiving the health drop if your opponent is different color from before. This behavior only occurs if you are playing on Easy or Normal Mode. Hard Mode won't see this extra drop. The intention for this change is to make the Final Battle little easier for first time players, by giving them a little token of encouragement on subsequent attempts at the final portions of the game, while retaining the challenge of clearing the encounter in one go the same as before.

LEVEL ADJUSTMENTS

Adjusted the clear time goal for the main eight levels from 5min45s to flat 6 minutes for max rank.

The final level in the game has had its target clear time increased from 6 minutes to 7 minutes for max rank.

Adjusted the enemies killed goal count from 45 to 40 for the first two of final levels.

Adjusted certain enemy positions in a couple of levels to make them a bit less messy or rude.

In the Steelworks level, adjusted geometry to remove a single tile gap that was possible to squeeze into with Support Platform Burst Technique.

The final level of the game has had its level layouts slightly touched on the blue floor.

Am I hearing things in Cyberspace (Warehouse Area)?

Note: When playing levels with the Master Levels modifier (or Easy Mode), target clear times are increased by one minute. Playing with Rude Enemies modifier adds another extra minute. This is to account for the more difficult platforming, and giving players more leeway during boss fights if playing with self-imposed minimalist challenge in mind.

GENERAL BUG FIXES

Fixed Medley's (Wave Circuit, City Center) concert billboard's despawn and respawn radiuses, so it doesn't disappear if you weave back-and-forth between the screens.

Fixed a minor edge-case oversight in Warehouse Area, where in a certain portion of the level, you weren't able to drop from a ledge-grab-jab with the 'up' button, like you are supposed to. Had to press 'down', like you generally have to in all other instances.

Fixed a little oversight where during Bit's (Shift Circuit) Burst Technique, if you position yourself in certain ways, one or two of the screen slashes may not render because they're deemed "off-screen" based on their starting positions.

Fixed a scenario where if Kai is using a certain Armor Paint to carry an object, and Kai then picks an end-of-level item, releasing the hookshot button to throw the object may softlock the game entirely.

Fixed an issue where if Hardware Barrier Burst Technique was active at the same time as Emergency Accumulator Booster Chip, taking a hit would trigger both at once.

Changed the order in which certain damage calculations are applied, to fix an issue with Underflow Guard (Booster Chip). Underflow Guard is supposed to prevent you from going below 1 health if you had 2 or more, but if Function Overload (Burst Technique) is active, the damage becomes fatal anyway (because Function Overload multiplied the incoming damage after Underflow Guard's reduction by 1.2, and rounded up, meaning at low enough health any damage would bypass Underflow Guard).

Fixed an oversight where if player took damage from hazards (spikes, lava, crushing), this was not reflected in the damage number reported on the Mission Complete screen.

Fixed an oversight where when Kai grabs a stunned (gray blinking) enemy he is standing next to, the enemy may become overkilled (red blinking) from the grab action itself. This means that upon throwing the grabbed enemy it would not do any damage to other objects, due to overkilled enemies becoming intangible.

LOCALIZATION

Fixed one minor color tag issue in some dialogue in Japanese localization.

Fixed some missing text strings in Chinese (traditional) localization.

Fixed some text overflow issues in a text box in Chinese localizations.

MISC

Applied a fix that should prevent any flickering issues while streaming the game through Discord.

Wrote additional code to better ensure that, if in the event that the file that locally tracks player's challenges progress (ie. "Pat's Challenges") has through whatever means become corrupted, the game treats that as though starting from scratch. This prevents the game from crashing during startup.

Made the game crash screen little more readable with a darker blue background, as well as deploying an additional support Pat for your comfort (PC versions only).

Improved the code efficiency of various objects (ex: gray breakable crates, explosive barrels, goop dispensers, and several others). These changes help with general performance on lower-end hardware.

Now, you might be asking: why are we taking a moment to celebrate such a specific number? Well, in truth, we were planning on doing a celebratory announcement earlier, at 50K. We were on track to hit that in December, but then the holiday sales happened. Thanks to the holiday sales on various storefronts, we essentially skyrocketed past 50K, climbing all the way up to 60K before the sales were over, so didn't have the time to prepare for it! Goodness, the sales performance just continues to surprise us. All in all, the reception and feedback we have received over these past months have been overwhelming, and we can't thank you, the players, enough. You are the best. Now, you might be curious about the sales distribution among the platforms? Fret not, we have prepared a pie chart for you (based on sales as of January 18th, 2024):

Note: PS4 and PS5 are coupled together due to crossbuy. This means that if you purchased the game on one, you can download it on the same account for the other at no extra cost.

On PC, the game is available on Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store, as well as Stove (Korea). Out of these, Steam is the most popular storefront.

On consoles, the game is available on Nintendo Switch and Sony's PlayStation 4 and 5. The game is also physically available on afore-mentioned consoles, by Pix'n'Love (PEGI), Red Art Games (ESRB) and Oizumi Amuzio (Japan).

Given the amount of wishlists on Steam before the game's release, as well as us getting Steam Deck verified by Valve, PC outselling the other platforms is not a wholly unexpected outcome. Steam is a huge storefront, after all.

But after all the sales across these platforms, what about the reception? Well, even on that front, Gravity Circuit has performed better than even our wildest expectations, as shown by the collage below:

Truthfully, before the game's release some six months ago, we weren't sure about what the reception ultimately would be. As a developer, it can be difficult to distance yourself from whatever project you have been working on for so long, to see the game for what it is. So, ultimately, it was up to you, the players, to determine the game's overall quality. Needless to say, we didn't expect the majority opinion to be this good, both from critics and players alike!

To provide some background: throughout the development, there were a plentiful of sleepless nights, fueled by stress, energy drinks, boatloads of work, and constant lingering doubts about the game's potential success. Creative endeavors while on a deadline are never easy, but we soldiered on, so to try and complete the game to the best of our abilities. Now, months after release, it has been a truly humbling experience that players have enjoyed Gravity Circuit as much as they have. Such a warm reception has made all that effort behind the game worth it. Again, we can't thank you all enough.

Of course, it might go without saying that even with all this positive feedback, the game hasn't been without its own sets of issues. Especially around the game's launch we had to do multiple quick rounds of bug fixes, so to address various situations and oversights that had slipped past us during development and Q&A. While doing all this was taxing, it's perhaps thanks to these rapid, quick responses that have helped minimize any lasting impact that the various game crashes and bugs could have otherwise had.

Essentially, on that point, our policy has been to accept any and all feedback from players with open arms. Whether positive or negative, we have read all points of feedback, and even responded to them wherever we have been able. Ultimately, this back-and-forth discussion with players has then resulted in us implementing various additions and changes post-launch (Speedrun Mode, Armor Paints, Boss Rush, small quality of life additions, etc), completely free of charge. And while we do try, it's not exactly realistic to act or respond to every bit of feedback without fundamentally changing some of the game's DNA. Nevertheless, we do try our best -- and perhaps hold onto the lessons learned for any future endeavors.