Welcome to the first major update of Fech The Ferret's Early Access!

It's an unusual update, one whose main goal is to make the game feel more interactive and dense of content.

We began with visuals and level design: filling up some sections of the world with new structures and by developing new hubs - the goose one at the start of the river zone and the park at the end of it. We continued by adding an inventory to Fech's notes that can hold clothing (hats, currently).

At the same time, we also made quality of life improvements like adding a pause screen in the rhythm aras and unifying button prompts for all interactables. Lastly I continued work on the online play starting with syncing the hats that are being worn.

HIGHLIGHTS:

2022-11-20 Added a pause screen for rhythm aras
2022-11-22 Brand new ground rock texture for the ferrest
2022-12-15 Added goose hub with a new minigame, located right before the river zone
2022-12-22 More thorns in the river, they also deal damage now
2022-01-10 Fech can wear hats and hold items
2022-01-12 New elevator quest
2022-01-12 New nicer looking walls at the start of the quarry
2022-01-15 An inventory has been added
2022-01-16 Added a lovely treehouse at the end of the river zone
2022-01-23 You can now see what hats other players are wearing online

CHANGES:

-Added new structures in the ferrest
-Minor polish to the power plant visuals
-Grass polycount reduced by roughly 25% thanks to improved placement algorithm
-Overhaul of the collision detection system for most of interactables
-Updated texture for the ara door
-Updated obelisk materials
-Nicer camera shot for Fech sleeping
-New on rail camera section for the park hub at the end of the river
-Dook particle aligns with Fech's head
-Fech now stares at the camera
-Poles have been greatly improved
-Power plant is a little more accessible
-Grass is tentatively opaque
-Added much better terrain blending effect
-Visual polish to the quarry zone thanks to new textures and props
-It's no longer possible to pause while loading a rhythm ara or during level transitions
-Updated signal towers in the river zone
-An inventory now exists
-New timer for quests
-Better quarry shaders
-New leaf counter inside of Fech's notes
-Many small improvements to materials
-Redone caculations for diagetic UI. The heart indicator nicely plays catchup with Fech rolling now
-Brand new timer for the battery challenge
-New UI input prompts for interactables
-Opening Fech's notes now stops him in place
-Small changes to how Fech's underwater mechanism works
-Slightly reduced the push force of the river
-There's 2 hats in the game now
-New props and structures at the end of the river (park hub)
-Removed end of build scaffoldings
-Fech is back up standing in the Kyuknos
-Cursor becomes visible when opening Fech's notes
-The inventory gets saved (except for the leaves, they are specific to the current session)
-Increased texture contrast on the kyuknos

FIXES:

-Fixed texturing errors at the end of the river
-Tiny visual fixes in the ferrest
-Fixed bug with turning in rhythm aras
-Slight improvements in rhythm aras accuracy
-Fixed Fech position and rotation on pole, he properly snaps now
-Removed jerkiness in the spine bending of Fech. This is most noticeable at low fps
-Fixed small visual bug that would make it seem possible to roll on walls
-Small fixes and improvements to roadmap animations in the main menu thanks to the usage of tweening instead of animation clips
-Fixed animations on the river poplars
-Fixed small bug with the "connect" button on the online menu
-Fixed several bugs tied to being underwater in the river zone
-Fixed incorrect respawn points on several water bodies
-Cut down on the freeze time at the start of rhythm aras (caused by an unneeded GC.Collect call)
-Removed all references to the localization system. It wasn't active, it will be setup again later in development
-Fixed bug that would make it impossible to pause after the intro cutscene

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 mysteriously appears
-Be careful with saving in the river zone. The river itself is still a valid save point
-The new challenges are missing of their own dedicated music and sfx
-Fech's notes aren't navigable with a controller
-There's unfinished "business mode" code in the build
-Post processing seems to get turned off when dealing with some online interactions
-APPARENTLY THERE'S A GLARING OCCLUSION BUG IN THE MIDDLE OF THE QUARRY. A hotfix will be made with urgency

And here's the development plans roadmap as of now!