tweaked act names

minor tweaks. see major changes in the previous section

Version 3.1 if Express Owls In: Gold Leaf Galaxy is now live!! Here is what has changed:

General:

- Online Party is now supported!
- Fixed many bugs caused by the latest version of A Hat in Time, both minor and major
- Hat Kid's Spaceship is now fully tangible
- Hat Kid's Spaceship has been scaled up to look more accurate
- Tweaked overall object placement & level design to be as fun as possible
- Increased the amount of Rift Tokens from 3 to 9
- Decreased the amount of Yarn from 6 to 4, as well as rearranged their positions
- Modified the rolling egg's movement animation to be physically accurate
- Increased the rolling egg's hitbox size
- Created a dirt path so players can detirmine where the rolling egg is travelling
- Since the developers changed how cubemaps work, reflections should look smoother
- Fixed and / or replaced some broken meshes
- Added ambient sound effects

Visual changes:

- Lighting is now (mostly) built
- Replaced materials on some objects for more clarity
- Most original materials now use PBR
- Gave the orange leaf texture a normal map for a bump-like appearance
- Added & changed various particle effects
- Gave the area a very subtle orange fog effect
- Removed seams on the orange leaf texture
- Removed seams on the rock texture

Act 1 | The Lost Golden Vault - Changes:

- Moved two vault code tickets
- Rearranged the tree segment's level design to utilize falling platforms more

Act 2 | Mad Crow Madness - Changes:

- Changed the boss arena to prevent easy cheese tactics. However, more advanced ways of finishing the fight faster have stayed in
- The layout of platforms each time you hit the boss' button have all been modified
- Placed guide pons which appear after hitting the platform-spawning button
- Adjusted the fire-rate of each cannon so that they are (hopefully) a bit easier to avoid. To compensate, all platform spawn timers have been decreased slightly
- Changed the positioning of the boss' cannons
- When hitting the button, a guide camera activates for a breif moment
- Delayed how long before firework projectiles can start tracking you
- Repositioned the platform-spawning button
- Readjusted the flamethrowers in phase 3

Act 3: Dweller Fruit Climb | Changes:

- Adjusted overall level design to be more difficult
- Replaced ice crate meshes with the organic iceburgs from Arctic Cruise
- Placed a fence on top of a cliff where the act's end is

Act 4: Finale | Changes:

- Rift Pons are now the Power Pons from Nyakuza Metro. They're far easier to see, and connected lines make identifying where to go far easier
- Because of the change listed above, the Power Pon meter has been nudged to the left, preventing it from obstructing the death timer
- Added a few collectible clocks which can be grabbed to delay the death timer, making the player do more than repeating a single task. To compensate, the time limit has been reduced from 150 to 90
- Added more dialogue to the Conductor when speaking to him after the finale
- Fixed a bug where a mushroom (which was only supposed appear in the Finale) retained its collision while still being invisible

Skip/Speedrun Strats | Changes:

- All skips involving no-bonk sliding have been made far more difficult, if not impossible to execute.

This was done to 1.) prevent collision issues, 2.) Make slopes more fun to interact with, and 3.) Stop average players from spoiling the experience by simply diving against a slope.
More advanced strategies, such as creative use of the game's mechanics/actors, sprint double jumps, etc, CAN be used in place of No Bonk sliding, however.

My philosophy on the matter is: Only highly skilled players should be able to perform large level skips consistently

Conductor Bomb | Changes

- Repositioned the bomb (ONE LAST TIME!!) to a location that isn't far from the starting point area, while still being hard to find
- added an audio que letting players in on where it could be
- Re-wrote the bomb's dialogue once more to be less explicit while still describing what it does, as well as how it can be defused

Optimization changes:
- Deleted uneeded assets & kismet functions
- Reduced the resolution of some textures from 4096x4096 to 1024x1024
- Restored all deprecated actors (object scripts which had been in early versions of the modding tools then scrapped later)
- Objects that don't have draw distance now have it






Ą̂͗̎̒͌ͣ̍͋͏̝̬̣̟͇͓̰̕͢R̺̙̮̠͖̺̳͖̼͚̲̲̯̠̪͍͋͂̽̀̚̚͢͜͞͠G̸̜̻̬̠̰̬̟͖̮͍͉̎̍̈́̒̈́ͫͮ̈͛̈́ͧ̈́̉̌ͥ̚̚:̷̛̛̗̹̟͔̠̲̺̯͉̖̩̣̦̺͆̅ͨͤ͑͗̉͑̐̆̂̽͒̄̑̏̎́͞ͅ

à̶͜͞͝d͢͞҉̵͞d̵̢̀͘e̵̶̕d͘͠͏͢ ̸̨̢͞a͝͞ ̴̢͜͏s̡̕e̵̢͢͢c̴͏r̵҉ȩ̷̵̛t̢̀͜͝ ̴̡̛b̷̧͠͏̶̕͡҉̧ ͟͏̷͟g̀҉̧̛́o̸̢̕ ͜f̴̴̨͝ì̵͜͜͢ń̸͝d̴̢̧́͢ ̧i͝͡t̸̨͢͏!̡҉́͠

fixed a major bug where time pieces would reset in Act 4

.

Minor Patch

General:

- Now supports Local Co-Op!
- Act 4 has been reworked entirely! After collecting every other Time Piece (Acts 1-3), you will be tasked to collect 100 Rift Pons within a set period of time! This change will make gameplay more streamlined
- Now supports a Chapter Screen! However, if there are bugs, this change will be reverted
- Act 4 adds a new music track
- There is now a proper ending for the Chapter. Complete Act 4 to see it!
- Objective markers have been added for each Act
- Due to Act 4's redesign and how it ends, the warp pipes between Hat Kid's spaceship and Gold Leaf have been removed
- Renamed Acts 1 & 3
- Re-arranged the Act order

Act 1 | The Lost Golden Vault -- Changes:
- Tweaked the layout of leaf platforms on the large tree
- Moved certain Vault Tickets
- Adjusted the collision of some large metal blocks

Act 2 | Mad Crow Madness -- Changes:
- The Mad Crow boss fight's music has been changed to the Megahammer theme from Super Mario Galaxy 2, complete with dynamic blends as the fight progresses!
- Added boss-specific sound effects such as impact-hits and the ending guitar rift
- Placed two more platforms in the boss arena so that players can navigate it more easily
- Flamethrowers that spawn during the boss are now stacked in vertical pairs of two. Their rotation speeds have been decreased to counter-balance this change
- Greatly reduced the effect of an exploit where you can repeatedly homing attack the Mad Crow by launching yourself from the spikes
- Fixed a major bug where the Mad Crow can be knocked off of his platform. He will now instantly teleport to his original location as soon as you touch him
- Added a 5-second damage cooldown between hits, preventing rapid attacks (especially for ability mods like FLUUD)
- Added a non-damage death zone below the boss arena in case someone falls off by mistake
- Further increased the size of the boss' hitbox
- Minor adjustments to the arena's design
- Corrected a small issue where the player wouldn't turn around after landing an attack

Act 3 | Dweller Fruit Climb -- Changes:
- Cut down on the amount of Dweller Fruits in the level as they were uneeded
- Removed the weeds below each Dweller Fruit due to its texture never loading
- Tweaked the Act's level design
- CAW Agents finally remember what you say to them!
- Changed the frozen crate's material and mesh. In addition, these objects can no longer be climbed, preventing easy shortcuts (Being able to glide using the No Bonk badge has been untouched, however!)

Visuals:
- The Mad Crow's arena is now a pool of lava rather than spikes
- The colors of each balloon have been changed from red to blue. This is so that they stand out against the environment
- Added nails on the Mad Crow tower
- Additional cubemaps have been placed for more accurate reflections
- Cannons no longer cast dynamic shadows which clip through the floor

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a problem where Hat Kid could phase though a tiny portion of the level and go out of bounds

Misc. Changes:
- Hid the Conducter's Bomb in a far more secluded location to, (once again), prevent casual players from activating it by mistake. It is now classified an Easter Egg rather than a gimmick.
- Made an Easter Egg's clue less cryptic
- Tweaked the collision of certain wooden logs
- Adjusted automatic camera triggers

A minor update (v2.2.1) for Express Owls In: Gold Leaf Galaxy has been released. Changes:

- Changed the mod's thumbnail image to include the current version number. All of my future level mods will have this feature from here on out: People will no longer miss any updates!

- The new thumbnail also includes a fanmade "A Hat in Time MODS" icon, provided by JerseyXS97 (Someone let me know who created it so I can give them credit as well).

- Further re-written the bomb note's dialogue as players were STILL accidentally activating it without knowing what would happen.

It now straight up explains that you must collect a Time Piece to deactivate the bomb, and that you should come back after completing all four Acts.

- Another change to bury this design problem entirely; the "Yes" and "No" options have been swapped to act as a fail-safe in case someone presses A by mistake.

- Usual maintenance to enure no one runs into technical issues!

Gonna say this once more: Thank you all so much for the continuted support over the past three months! Expect a New Game+ variant of Gold Leaf as well as Co-op support once Gears for Breakfast releases them!

A minor maintenance update (v2.2.0) has been released. Details:

Bug fixes:
- Re-cooked the map as an attempt to minimize crashing.
If you're still crashing after downloading this update, try verifying A Hat in Time's cache by right-clicking on it > Properties > Local Files > Verify Integrity of Game Files! For further help, try going to Gears for Breakfasts' Support Page: https://support.hatintime.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003329214-A-Hat-in-Time-has-crashed-Help. If enough people have trouble, I'll investigate myself.

- Moved Act 4's Time Piece to prevent a clipping bug that would occur if the player warped from a secret easter egg area beforehand.

New things:
- Changed the Express Owl's costumes to give them more variety
- Applied MekuCube's PBR shader update by re-building lighting. Shiny objects should now look a lot smoother!
- Because the new shaders made the Golden Vault look orange, it has now been re-named to the Bronze Vault.

Future plans to this mod:
- New Game Plus support once it releases
- Online Coop support once it releases
- More maintenance updates like this one
- More quality of life / design changes