RatheronfireOn the subject of music, I'd also like to thank https://twitter.com/Gfdgsgxgzgdrc who surprised me out of the blue with some incredible remasters of the compressed tracks from the Flash version. Their new versions I think really help make the whole package feel complete.
You can see more of their work over at their Scratch page: https://scratch.mit.edu/users/CoolGuyBug/
I'd also like to thank Souperion and Wassup Thunder for allowing me to use their amazing Stinkoman remix as part of the soundtrack to the release trailer. You can check out the full thing over here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJOakHVciLE
Stinkoman 20X6 Remix: Main Theme, Final Boss
Next, I want to thank the members of my Discord server who tested the game, as well as for being generally a part of the community: fortran (https://cheeselandrestaurant.neocities.org/), ChrisHighwind, https://twitter.com/PetrarchEleven, KirbychuHRD, and retroshaffer. Thanks for all of your help.
Lastly, I want to give special, personal thanks to a long-time friend of mine, KirbychuHRD, who helped make sure this game kept moving along, even at times when I had no idea just how far I was going to end up bringing it.
He spent an unbelievable amount of time playtesting knowing that I had no real means to pay him for it, and gave me so many clever ideas and suggestions all throughout these three years, as well as helping redeisgn some of the original art to suit the new engine.
Everyone who's supported me all this time, everyone who's followed my sporadic updates, everyone whose work helped make this possible: Thank you, truly. It means more to me than you could imagine.
All that aside, what exactly is new in this version? Well... a lot, actually! Aside from level 10 in its full glory, I've also put in a whole bunch of bugfixes, QoL improvements, and extra polish all throughout the game.
I've also added a lot of different parts of the original package that didn't exist until this version - the attact mode, the manual, and a whole bunch of other minor things I forgot along the way.
Also, with this version of the game the hidden time attack and boss rush modes are now fully complete, and I've also made them and the other extras visible but locked until beating certain levels. There's also the level editor, which is still very, very incomplete.
And of course, it wouldn't be properly Homestar Runner without a few secrets hidden throughout! Most of them are pretty minor and (I think) quite a bit obscure, so I'm curious to see if anyone can find them.
So, now that the original game is finally done, what's next? ...I have no idea! I have a lot of ideas I want to pursue for this game, and I definitely want to go back and fix up the level editor, now that my main goal is finished.
There are a lot of other plans I've been floating around: a harder difficulty with new levels, console-accurate palette modes, new playable characters, a randomizer, that sorta thing. Nothing concrete yet of course, but I don't exactly want to put the game aside just yet.
As for what I'll do after Stinkoman, I really don't know yet. I've got the itch to keep going and remaster all the old Homestar games (especially since most of them are much smaller in scope), though I'd also like to do my own original projects too.
The whole reason this project began was so that I could get away from Unity and learn a new engine, so maybe I could use Peasant's Quest to learn Godot 4? Either way I think I'll take a little break - 2023's been an insane year for new games and I'm dying to dive into them.