Welcome to the second set of fixes of Fech The Ferret's Early Access!
On this update we focused on addressing major bugs that were still present in the game - such as the infamous second rhythm ara freeze - while carrying on with zone design tweaks, visual updates and general optimization.

HIGHLIGHTS:

2022-10-27 The quarry zone is shorter and flows better thanks to a major level design change
2022-10-27 Snappy position syncing of players online. Delay between peers has been cut down to the sum of their pings
2022-10-28 Added rails to the start of the ferrest (only visual)
2022-10-30 Progress is saved to a file. Power plant level completion and NPC challenges are saved now

CHANGES:

-Improved and optimized the grass detection algorithm to support compressed textures
-Massively reduced polycount of out of bounds river poplars. Performance improvements expected on systems with old or integrated GPUs
-Improvements to occlusion in the river
-Small visual improvements to raindrops in the river
-Added raindrops to props in the river
-Camera lags behind Fech when entering an enclosed level
-Loading of enclosed levels is slightly faster now
-Any time Fech clings to a wall the view aligns to it. Previously it would only do so at the start of a walldash
-Two new tunnels were added to the quarry to make the level flow more nicely and cut down on repetition
-The new save system enables more flexible progress saving
-New bridges in the power plant make the level look nicer
-Small visual improvements in the sewers
-Added more bridges in the river zone
-Made the start of the ferrest more accessible
-New nicer looking river waves

FIXES:

-Fixed MAJOR oversight. The sewers are visible and accessible again
-Small menu settings fixes
-Fixed a NPC prop in the quarry
-Properly set variables for the comically oversized radio rat challenge
-Fixed stamina recharging bug
-Life HUD no longer displays while Fech is sleeping
-Fixed major bug that would prevent from loading the second ara in the ferrest. It was caused by another scene load happening concurrently
-Added zone card to the third rhythm ara

KNOWN ISSUES:

-Some longtime issues related to climbing and sliding down walls
-Infrequent camera collision issues, mostly tied to underpasses
-Every time there's a scene change, the mouse cursor seems to mysteriously reappear
-Some jank in in enclosed levels
-Be careful with autosaving in the river zone. The river itself is a valid save point

This is the last update of the 0.7a cycle! Next update will be a major one (0.8.0a) and it's scheduled for the end of the year. You can get an idea of what's to come with the roadmap here below. See you next time!