Update #10 - Operation Health

Long time, no update, eh? Flower Crown Chaos is BACK in a big way. The project has taken a backseat as life and school got busy, but seeing as the time has come to apply for jobs, I might as well finish the changes I had in the works along the way. While this update doesn't add much in the way of content, I can assure you FCC has never felt, looked, or sounded better to play! 

But first, a quick announcement about the use of the term skinwalker in FCC. It was brought to my attention that the term could be insensitive due to its origin and importance in the beliefs of the Navajo people. While my use of the term was inspired by the recent upcropping of the term on the internet and the Analog Horror community, I do apologize for any offense I have caused. All references to the term have been removed from Flower Crown Chaos, and the freakish children creatures are now known as Replicants. I have taken this change in stride, and have come to prefer the term replicants (shoutout Blade Runner and NieR), so I hope you can embrace the change as well!

Here's what's new:

• Sound Effects - I finally overcame my fear of creating and implementing sound effects - with some help from online, royalty-free libraries. While there may still be a few missing here or there, I did my best to incorporate full sound support for the player, flowers, enemies, NPCs, and menus. The cool part is, I made most of them myself! If there are any that stick out as jarring, immersion-breaking, or even just too damn loud, please let me know! I plan to incorporate a settings menu with sliders for all audio in the next update. 
• Three Original Songs - Speaking of overcoming a fear, I finally bit the bullet and attempted to make my own music. I was originally going to use some royalty-free tracks, but scouring the internet resulted in little success. Plus, the tool BeepBox made the process simple and easy. As with the sound effects, if you don't think these tracks fit the vibe of FCC, let me know! I plan to spend some more time experimenting with music, so improvements may be coming anyways. If you DO like them, please let me know that too :)
• New Money System - Money has been completely changed in Operation Health, now appearing as an in-game pickup. When a player completes any task that results in a monetary reward, coins will now burst from that object and land for the player to pickup off the ground. The amount will now appear in the same location, rather than via a pop-up notification. Any money not picked up by the player will not be added to their balance at the end of a shift - so make sure to pickup as much as you can!
• Enemy Spacing - At last! The technology has been found to allow for an ironically game-changing capability - personal space!  Rather than standing on top of, or inside, one another as in past releases, enemies will now jostle around, but respect each other's shadow as an independent object. This should improve the usability of crowns, as well as your immersion. 
• New Research Opportunity - Replicant Repellent - Another big addition is the ability to survive close calls by way of a spray repellent. Rather than just adding more lives for the player or a death defiance system, Repellent Mode will activate when an enemy is in danger of eliminating you. Time will slow, allowing you to use any charges of repellent you have to dissipate a replicant crowd and reset. These repellents are unlocked through the investment of essence seeds in a research drive.
• New Catalog Upgrades - Replicant Repellent comes with new opportunities to upgrade its power, including its spray time and effective time. The spawn rate of rare flowers can also be increased - all new upgrades are available in the Catalog.
• Spacing of Crafting Flowers - A new system has been introduced to deny flowers to overlap one another while crafting. This system is also much more responsive, so your crafting experience should feel much more satisfying!
• Sprite Layering - A subtle, but important, change to the visuals of the game come with sprite layering. Now, all in-game objects should be displayed in the order of their y-axis appearance, meaning that objects in the foreground will display over the top of those behind them. This should help increase immersion and will be improved in future updates. 
• Speech Bubble Spacing - The dialogue boxes should now stretch and contract based on the length of the displayed text. No more floating text!
• Enemy Scaling Changes - With the changes of enemy spacing, I had to completely rework the way I was moving enemies to a physics-based system. This means enemy speed has seen some adjustments - let me know what you think. This also means I now have the opportunity to add knockback (coming soon TM)!
• Unique Character Voices - The Flower Guy's dialogue sound now belongs to him, with new dialogue sound effects for each other character. Thank you to my ever-amazing sister Ada for voicing Jill Frye!
• Save Data Updating - I believe all prior saves should be compatible - if it is not, please reach out and I will implement a fix for future updates. 
• Performance Improvements - I figured out how important the FixedUpdate function is, and thus have lightened the amount of scripts updating every possible frame. I have found the game to perform smoother, and hope to look for other opportunities to improve this in the future. 
• Various bug fixes and improvements
  • The Bully now takes damage and status effects from special flowers
  • Enemies should pay out more on death
  • Some catalog prices and values have been tweaked
  • Catalog values should properly round to 2 decimal points
  • Flower Head hitboxes are now much larger to allow for easier crafting
  • Crown Art has been updated - all menu instances will be adjusted in the next update
  • The Essence Seed Counter in gameplay will only appear after the player picks up their first seed. It will then appear permanently (this is actually true now)
  • Shadows will now always spawn on the menu flowers
  • Fixed an infinitely scaling number of research opportunities in the Almanac
  • The Almanac is now unlocked much earlier
  • Definitely some other things I forgot

What's next for FCC?

• New Flowers
• New Replicants
• Post-Boss gameplay
• Mastery??

This update marks a critical turning point for Flower Crown Chaos. Not only is it the tenth update for the game, but I believe it is now a relatively complete experience. As I now to turn to apply for jobs in the games industry, I am happy to present FCC as a capstone of my many hours of dedication to the project. This does NOT, however, mean that FCC is finished. Spurred by my recent, crippling addiction to the Binding of Isaac, I would like to continue adding content until I get bored of the project. With many of the core systems now in place and scalable from the back-end, I hope to add new content, unlocks, and features as time allows. It may be a couple months, but I hope it will be worth the wait!

As always please fill out the feedback form with any bugs you find or suggestions you have. Your input has already helped transformed this game far beyond what my imagination could have come up with - thank you so much! I'm going to go play Isaac now