Demo Update v1.4.0

I am pleased to announce the release of v1.4.0 of the demo for Haunted: Attack of the Dead Men.  This update brings a few new major features - expanded difficulty options and a reworked minimap. Alongside these new features, the update also brings reworked and improved enemy AI and pathfinding, a new graphics option, and many smaller improvements and bugfixes.

• New difficulty options:
  • Pistol start – same as the old setting from the Gameplay menu.  Weapons, ammo and health are reset at the start of every level, and the setting is now locked for the whole playthrough and can’t be changed unless a new game is started
  • Permadeath – locks the playthrough to a single save slot, which is deleted on death
  • Both of these options increase the score gained on every level, so two new level rankings have been added: S+ and H
• Reworked and expanded the minimap:
  • More detail about the surroundings is shown
  • It now reveals itself as the map is explored
  • It will also adjust the “floor” it shows based on the player’s position
• Reworked enemy pathfinding to be more intelligent.  They are now better able to follow the player (if they decide to do so) and less likely to get stuck
• Added new Renderer setting to the Graphics menu:
  • “Advanced” is what the default was for v1.3.2
  • Simple offers improved performance on laptops, and if a laptop GPU is detected this renderer is selected automatically
• Replaced the font for the credits and difficulty descriptions so they are easier to read
• Updated some music tracks
• Fixed a potential crash when finishing a map
• Fixed some lighting and stuttering issues in Map 4
• Updated engine to Godot 4.1.2 which brings minor stability and performance improvements
• Several bugfixes and minor improvements

Known issues:

• The blood effects don’t display correctly on the Simple renderer.  It may be preferable to turn off decals in the Graphics menu when using this renderer.  This is an engine bug that has been fixed but the fix was not included in Godot 4.1.2
• The Legacy renderer setting, which was mentioned in the last development update, has had to be removed due to some game-breaking graphical issues in Maps 3 and 4. This renderer will be re-added at a later date.