This project is not dead an neither am I. If you were hoping for more level content with this update, then I'm sorry to say you will have to wait a bit longer. This update brings a lot of QoL features will be very useful as the project expands.

Gameplay Tweaks

There was a bug in the previous version where two blocks could move into the same tile in a single turn, potentially causing one of the blocks to have its collision permanently disabled. This has been fixed in (I hope) all cases by giving priority to certain blocks during a push; i.e. if two blocks want to move into the same tile, the one with priority will take the tile, while the one without will stay put. However, I don't expect (and don't want) players to figure out how this priority is given out, so I guarantee that no puzzles will ever be designed around this mechanic; it's only supposed to be a "just in case" kinda thing.

The camera has been adjusted a bit in some levels so that people playing fullscreen on 16:10 displays will still be able to see everything. If you're still rocking a 4:3 display, uh, well... If your display is ultrawide, gameplay will be fine since the camera always matches the screen's height; but if you want to use the HUD, do note that the displays are anchored to the screen corners, i.e., they'll show up far away from the actual game.

Level 5 and Level 8 were slightly tweaked to better guide players on the intended solution; and yes, Level 5 is possible to complete without detaching any arms. Level 10 has been completely changed since the original version was only meant to be a test level. So I guess I did actually add a new level after all.

Options Menu

Out of all the new features, this one definitely took up the most development time, but it probably didn't need to. Unity already has some decent built-in menu and UI assets, but they are all mouse operated and I wanted buttons that were only navigated by keyboard. I'm positive I could have found a package if I looked hard enough, but for some reason I figured I'd just make my own system from scratch. So that's what I did. And it took a long time. But I'm actually very pleased with the results in the end, and the system is robust enough to use in future projects.

Save System

This was my first time implementing a save system, and it ended up being surprisingly simple. At the moment, the only thing being saved is whether each level is unlocked or solved. In the future, I would like to be able to write the state of the player's current level, so that quitting mid-game will allow the player to resume where they left off. This would require finding a good way to serialize the state data; I'm already halfway there with the undo function, but more work will necessary to be able to write to and read it from a file.

Also important to know, once the next update drops, your save file might not transfer since the level structure will be vastly different. It'll be up to whether I want players to start from the beginning or not.

Level Select

Given I had both a menu and a save system implemented, creating a level select menu would be seemingly pretty straightforward. However, since the menu opens by having the camera pan to it, all the buttons have to be rendered in world space instead of screen space. This is basically a non-issue for people who know how to properly use Canvases in Unity; I was not one of these people at the time of creating this, so each button actually uses a SpriteRenderer instead, meaning the menu system I was so proud of needed to be extended to work with SpriteRenderers.  Uh, it works though, so I'm not going to touch it.

HUD

I wasn't too sure if this was entirely necessary to make, but I figured I needed more practice making UI elements. The idea was to have a clear, readable way for players to see exactly what actions they had available to them at any given turn. I had already designed (and redesigned) the hands to be distinguishable at a glance, and entering detach mode already highlights which arms can be released; but I think having the action display there can sometimes help players who are stuck try new courses of action that they didn't realize were available to them.

Along with the action display, the HUD also includes undo, redo, and reset prompts, and a display for the level number and turn count. In the future the turn count might become more prominent as a way of scoring each level.

Future Developments

The next update planned will be the big "Version 1.0" release. I will definitely be expanding the gameplay beyond that, but this will be the first version that I consider a full game. Here's what's in store:

• More levels, of course! I have around 10 levels in mind to mix in with the current levels, which together act as tutorials for all of the games current mechanics. Then I plan to create about another 20 levels after those, which will require knowing how to use each of the mechanics learned, giving a total of around 40 levels.
• There will be more sound effects added for all of the UI elements that I added in this update.
• If I feel inspired enough, I will perhaps make a single BGM track for the levels. If I do, I'll try to make it long and varied enough to not drive you insane while trying to solve stuff.

Thanks for reading all my ramblings again. Stay tuned for more content!