Weekly Update #7 - Progress Saving & Homebase Overhaul

Hey all, the seventh update to Flower Crown Chaos is here! Apologies for the weeklong delay on this one, but only two of you played the last update so I don't think anyone is really complaining lol. Here are the major additions for the week:

• GAME SAVING - With the transition from a web game to a downloadable one,  I figured game saving would be a pretty important feature. Thus, I conquered the battle against json and have added save functionality to the game. With this came some pretty big changes to how I was generating and storing data, but I think it is working pretty seamlessly now. The game will autosave after any important events, such as the end of a shift, purchase of an upgrade, investment in a research drive, or a visit to the completion tracker.
  • The player may start a new game at any point from the title screen - doing so will delete all previous save data. The player will be presented with a pop-up to confirm they intend to do so. Pressing continue will allow the player to continue where they left off.
• The Homebase - Gone are the days of the ugly, immersion-breaking post-shift screen! I have completely overhauled the UI between runs, and now all menus (outside the title screen) can be accessed through this new system. The player's car is now their base of operations and will be the home to the Catalog, Research Drives, Completion Tracker and all future menus and mechanics. 
• Shift Reports - After each shift, the player will be presented with a Shift Report breaking down their accomplishments and statistics over the course of the run. In addition to presenting the player with how much money they made and an updated balance count, shift reports will keep track of personal best scores when it comes to time survived, money made, and other stats. These shift reports are stored with the player's data, so players are able to access and examine the results of past runs when in the Homebase.
  
• Story Developments - I have done away with the description page in favor of an in-universe explanation of the concept and plot. The player will be greeted by dialogue in the Homebase initially and at critical moments between rounds. I have also added a transition from gameplay to the Homebase that makes that flow much smoother and avoids breaking the player's immersion.
• Menu Progression - With this update, the player will gain access to the various menus and their associated mechanics over the course of multiple shifts. This change is intended to allow players to come to terms with each mechanic before being introduced to the next one. It also presents more opportunities for dialogue and world-building between rounds. There are requirements that must be met to unlock each of the menus, but these are very simple and should be conquered within the first couple shifts. Players will see their inventory of items expand in the Homebase as they gain access to new mechanics.
• New Character - Jill Frye - As the story of Flower Crown Chaos expands with more opportunities for dialogue, I decided to introduce a separate character to handle the research aspect of the game. Jill Frye is the head of the Research and Development division of the AAAT, and will grant the player access to the Research Drives menu when they have earned it. She is an eccentric personality with a popular (and cancelled) television program under her belt.
• Crown Colors - Flowers now have an associated text color which will appear whenever text directly associates to that flower. Most notably, flower crowns titles will be colored to reflect the flowers within.
• Resigning - The player can now press escape to quit their training or finish a shift before dying. A pop-up menu will pause the game and allow the player to confirm or cancel their request to do so.
• Completion Tracker Improvements - The completion tracker will now indicate how many new crowns the player has discovered since they last checked it. Additionally, newly discovered nodes will pulsate until hovered over or the completion tracker is closed. Nodes will now be ignored when in motion so that the player can examine a crown's information without interruption. Flower colors are also reflected in the completion tracker in both the flower tab and when hovering over crowns. More improvements to the completion tracker will come as its importance for progression increases in future updates.
• Tutorial Replayability - The training tutorial can now be accessed at any point from the Homebase. The dialogue has not changed to reflect subsequent training, but I intend to revise it later down the line.
• Crown Hitbox Adjustment - The shadow hitbox on the flower crown is notably more round to avoid the issue of skinwalkers absorbing all projectiles when colliding with the crown at certain angles.
• Various bug fixes and improvements
  • An bug where crowns would spawn duplicate projectiles when intersecting with multiple enemies at once has been removed
  • The Flower Tab in the Filters menu of the Completion Tracker no longer disappears at certain levels of zooming
  • Nodes in the Completion Tracker will now always end up at their final destination instead of getting stuck partway through their path, leading to a less than round appearance
  • The "Show Selected Only" checkbox now works as intended in the Completion Tracker
  • Flower Crown Announcement Text now says"discovered" when discovering a crown and "constructed" when a crown has previously been discovered
  • Removed a legacy feature where pressing escape would kill the application. Doing so now will prompt the player whether they would like to exit or cancel whenever applicable.
  • Flowers in the intro sequence are now animated and populated based on save data (if save data exists)
  • The phone sprite now reflects whether the player is being called by someone they have spoken with before or not
  • Probably some other stuff I'm forgetting

What's coming next week?

• New Flowers!
• New Skinwalker Variants!
• More Sound Effects
• An Overhaul to Crown Augmentation
• Floral Mastery or an Almanac for information on each flower

You decide! Fill out the form featured by the QR code at the end of the game by clicking on it or scanning it. One of the questions will allow you to give input on what comes next. I have a couple of plans in the works, but I would love your feedback!