Hey! Thought I should do a quick little update on some features to come, and some acknowledgement regarding some of the bugs in the current build of the game.

Starting with the bugs, I realized three bugs currently happening in Alpha 0.4.9. 

The first one being that on occasion, if Pouchie gets hit, he suddenly starts being able to break crates or squash enemies in front of him unprompted. Essentially, after his invincibility frames are done, Pouchie's Mallet collision snaps on, causing him to essentially become safe from all harm, as well as unlocking some special unlocks that he shouldn't have access to until AFTER he gets the Mallet.

Bug number 2: Pouchie can't use his Mallet immediately after getting it. This problem is instantly solved after Pouchie leaves the boss level, so it's not a big deal right now, but it might confuse players that just got it, as they can't immediately swing it around. Discovered that one when changing the level design after the boss, where a player will now be forced to understand the Mallet mechanics before moving on.

Final major bug: Spores released by the Fun-Guy are harmless. This is probably the worst offender at the moment, as those spores are supposed to teach Pouchie to be wary of them when fighting the boss of World 2.

All of these bugs have been patched in the unreleased version, and players will be able to experience those mechanics as intended when the new update's ready for release.

Now onto some upcoming features!

LEVEL SHORTCUTS: One problem for both me, the developer, and veteran players as well, is that starting the game over from scratch can be tedious when you just want to skip to the new content. So there will be one level per World that'll have a key, which when obtained, can be used to unlock a door. This door will unlock a secret exit for that level, leading Pouchie to a shortcut that allows him to skip *most* of the remaining levels of that world. These shortcuts will be represented in-world as ladders.

WORLD LADDERS: Not only are there some ladders for level shortcuts, there will also be ladders to represent next and previous worlds in the game. Once a new world is unlocked, Pouchie will be able to go back and forth between unlocked worlds using those ladders. Technically, you could do this already through the pause menu, but not everyone thinks about using the pause button, so having this as an extra, visual option can be helpful to those players.

WORLD 2 - LEVELS 7 & 8: Level 7 is now 100% complete! Level 8 is in development, and just like World 1 - Level 8, it will be more of a dungeon-style level in aesthetic, and will feature the same level music. Once again, it'll have a door which will trigger the boss battle, and the boss battle will be accessible after opening that door without having to replay Level 8 from the top. Especially with how dangerous the second boss fight is.

That's all that's in the works that I'm comfortable sharing for the time being. There are some other things being worked on, but not all of them will be finalized.