012.441

Additions

• Physics Areas

  • Added Physics Areas to the Level Builder.
  • Physics Areas allow regions of a level to temporarily override character movement physics while the player is inside them.
  • Added configurable Gravity.
  • Added configurable Jump Strength.
  • Added configurable Coyote Time.
  • Added configurable Jump Buffer timing.
  • Added configurable Move Speed.
  • Added configurable Ground Acceleration.
  • Added configurable Ground Friction.
  • Added configurable Turn Strength.
  • Added configurable Air Control.
  • Physics values default to normal game physics, allowing areas to selectively modify only the properties needed.
  • Physics Areas are invisible during normal gameplay.

• Weather Areas

  • Added Weather Areas to the Level Builder.
  • Weather Areas update the active level weather when the player comes into contact with them.
  • Weather can now change dynamically during a level as the player moves between different Weather Areas.
  • Added Clear weather.
  • Added Rain.
  • Added Acid Rain.
  • Added Hail.
  • Added Lava Rain.
  • Added Snow.
  • Added Sand Storms.

• Poison Clouds

  • Added Poison Cloud areas to the Level Builder.
  • Poison Clouds create hazardous fog regions that can affect the player while they remain inside them.
  • Poison Cloud regions are defined independently from normal weather, allowing them to be placed exactly where needed.

• Poison Water

  • Added a breathing limit while submerged in Poison Water.
  • The player's available breath drains while submerged in Poison Water.
  • Breath begins recovering after the player leaves the hazardous liquid.
  • This gives Poison Water its own gameplay behavior instead of functioning only as a visual liquid variation.

• Script Cinematics

  • Added Sound Effect actions to Script Blocks.
  • Added Sound Effect support to + AND... actions so sounds can be combined with dialogue, camera movement, waits, filters, and other scripted actions.
  • Added Crickets and Sad Violin as script-usable sound effects.
  • Added a reusable Script Sound Effect registry so additional game sounds can be exposed to Script Blocks more easily.
  • Added Visual Filter actions to Script Blocks.
  • Added Normal and Black & White visual filters.
  • Added Visual Filter support to + AND... actions.
  • Added an editable Camera Zoom Transition time in milliseconds.
  • The default camera zoom transition is approximately 715ms to preserve the previous camera feel.

• Talking Animation

  • Added a new talk character animation for conversational scenes.
  • Talking characters now gesture with alternating hands while standing still.
  • The animation returns each hand to a resting position between gestures.
  • Added subtle head and body movement while talking.
  • Added the Talking emote to keyboard shortcut 7, alongside the existing emotes on keys 1–6.
  • Spark can automatically use the Talking animation while displaying dialogue and otherwise standing idle.
  • NPCs can automatically use the Talking animation while delivering scripted dialogue and otherwise standing idle.

• Speech Bubbles

  • Added a small pointer to the bottom of speech bubbles to visually indicate the current speaker.
  • The speech-bubble pointer uses the bubble's black background with a white outline.

Improvements

• Weather & Liquids

  • Improved interactions between weather effects and liquid regions.
  • Weather-driven liquid changes now refresh affected liquid chunks correctly as conditions change.
  • Improved hazardous-liquid behavior so Poison Water can track whether the player is actively submerged.
  • Improved liquid-state transitions when entering or leaving different environmental regions.
  • Improved icy surface movement with reduced friction for more natural sliding behavior.

• Physics Areas

  • Physics overrides are applied only while the player is inside the configured Physics Area.
  • Leaving a Physics Area restores the appropriate normal game physics.
  • Physics Areas can modify individual movement properties without requiring every physics value to be changed.
  • Physics Areas can be used to create low-gravity rooms, heavy-gravity sections, slippery movement, stronger or weaker jumps, altered air control, and other movement variations.

• Script Dialogue

  • When synthesized Script Dialogue is enabled, scripts now advance as soon as the spoken voice finishes instead of continuing to wait for the speech-bubble timer.
  • When synthesized speech is unavailable or disabled, scripted dialogue continues to use the normal speech-bubble display timing.
  • Script sound effects are now tracked by the scripting system.
  • Script sound effects are immediately stopped and reset when the next script step begins.
  • Script sound effects are also stopped when a script finishes, resets, is interrupted, or is cancelled by a world transition.
  • Visual filters automatically return to Normal when a scripted sequence finishes or resets.

• NPC & Scripted Movement

  • Improved automatic obstacle jumping for NPCs and scripted Spark movement.
  • Characters now consider their actual movement destination before deciding whether an obstacle needs to be jumped.
  • Characters no longer jump simply because a wall is nearby when their destination stops before the wall.
  • Characters can still jump onto or across large platforms when reaching the destination requires passing the platform's blocking edge.
  • The same destination-aware obstacle check is used by the collision and movement-stall jump fallback.

• Dialogue Presentation

  • Raised character speech bubbles approximately 20 pixels so they sit more clearly above the speaker's head.
  • Spark dialogue continues to use blue text.
  • NPC dialogue now defaults to white text, making it easier to distinguish who is currently speaking.
  • Reduced the speech-bubble pointer size for a subtler appearance.

• Talking Animation

  • Adjusted the Talking animation so both arms rest in a lower, more natural position similar to the normal idle pose.
  • Reduced the height and angle of raised hand gestures so characters no longer appear to raise their arms straight into the air.
  • Slowed the raising and lowering of each arm for more natural conversational movement.
  • Slowed the secondary hand gesture that occurs while an arm is already raised.
  • Adjusted the secondary raised-hand pose to create a smaller conversational emphasis gesture.
  • Slowed and softened head and body movement during the Talking animation.
  • Movement, jumping, attacking, carrying, and explicit scripted sprite actions continue to take priority over the automatic Talking animation.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed NPCs and scripted characters unnecessarily jumping when approaching an obstacle even though their destination was before the obstacle.
• Fixed an initial destination-aware jumping implementation that could cause NPCs to run directly into large platforms instead of jumping onto or over them.
• Fixed scripted collision fallback jumps bypassing the destination check and causing unnecessary jumps.
• Fixed long Script Sound Effects such as Crickets or Sad Violin continuing to play after their script step had already ended.
• Fixed weather and liquid changes not always refreshing the affected liquid regions correctly.
• Fixed some environmental physics transitions not restoring or updating the expected movement behavior when entering or leaving special areas.