Somehow, a new patch was born! Even I didn't expect this!

Long time, no talk! How've you been? The last patch for Garden Guardian was released in October 2023, and I truly thought that was going to be the last one! The Switch version (an extremely good port, if I may toot my own horn) released on the 20th of October and since I don't have full time access to a dev kit, I really thought that would be that! Shipping updates on console is tough, and I value all versions having full parity, so I figured I'd leave well enough alone.

Fast forward to this month, where I suddenly got two weeks of access to a dev kit! I couldn't help myself! Since the game released on Switch, I've logged many hours on the go, and found more areas of the game I'd have liked to clean up, so having this rare opportunity to ship another patch was something I didn't want to let slip. There was, in particular, one really bad issue I had found that I felt really rotten about, so I'm extremely glad to have been empowered to make this happen. Big thanks to Fred Wood (https://bsky.app/profile/fredtwood.com) for empowering and encouraging me to do it.

I have a small apology I want to offer to the few Garden Guardian players out there affected by one particularly nasty bug. Since at least version 1.3.1, the unlockable Classic Gameplay UI Style has been broken, and has been scaling incorrectly. This bug absolutely drove me crazy, since what was effectively the neatest unlockable thing in the game was categorically busted on all platforms. I'm extremely relieved to have fixed it now, so I hope you can all try using that UI Style for one level before deciding that actually the default one is kind of better and changing back. That's what I do, too. Actually though, the Classic Lite Gameplay UI Style is pretty underrated in my opinion!

For anyone who has already finished up the game, this patch adds two new unlockables to the Art Gallery (they're not terribly hard- if you scored well enough in the past, one can even unlock right after you boot up the new version), so I hope you'll check them out. There's a new image by the excellent Phil Dragash (https://bsky.app/profile/phildragash.bsky.social), and an EXTREMELY jokey one by my old friend Momoka (https://bsky.app/profile/milph.mom). Shoutouts to booth of them!

Anyways, on to the patch notes!

Garden Guardian 1.3.2

CONTENT

• Two new unlockables have been added to the Art Gallery.

UI

• Fixed an issue where UI elements would overlap after dismissing a notification in the Sound Test menu.
• Adjusted placement of misaligned elements in the Classic Gameplay UI Style. Apologies for this one!
• Adjusted placement of misaligned elements in the Classic Lite Gameplay UI Style.
  
• Fixed an issue that made the SCORE text element in Classic and Classic Lite Gameplay UI Styles accidentally change to a larger font size than intended when a level starts.
• Fixed an issue where certain arrow UI elements could be hovered over while a notice was being displayed.
• Fixed an issue where using the back button to exit out of the Extra Info mode in the Art Gallery would not properly restore all UI elements.
• Fixed an issue where the Music Speed UI element would not fade out while in the Art Gallery's Viewer mode.
• [SWITCH] Users can now use the touch screen to move between pages in the Trials menu.  [SWITCH VERSION 1.3.2 PATCH RELEASE DATE TBD]
• [SWITCH] Users can now use the touch screen to set volume levels in the Audio Settings menu.  [SWITCH VERSION 1.3.2 PATCH RELEASE DATE TBD]

MISC.

• Various temporary save data parameters are now properly reset when clearing user save data.
• Menu music speed is now properly reset when clearing user save data.
• Fixed an issue where users could play the confirm button sound effect on the title screen more than once by pressing the confirm button repeatedly.
• Fixed an issue where users could manipulate the game into an unclear pause state by pressing the pause button with good timing after already having selected the Quit option from the Pause Menu.
• Updated credits.
• [SWITCH] Fixed an issue where the game would attempt a network connection on boot. (For clarity, the Switch version does not support any network features.). [SWITCH VERSION 1.3.2 PATCH RELEASE DATE TBD]

If you're thinking to yourself that nobody would ever notice half the issues fixed here... you're probably dead right! Though there are a few legitimately good fixes in here, a lot of it is just cleaning up the game I love so much. I play it a lot, and I notice these little things here and there, so it does grant me some peace of mind to know nobody else will ever have to see some of these tiny issues. I hope some of you are still down to play as well!

-Liam Allen-Miller