Version a0.05

Version a0.05 is a private development version of DreamLink 3D. Development formally started on February 16, 2022, following a series of complications that ended development on a0.04 earlier than expected, and cancelled its public release. This version is notable for being the first version built on RPG Maker MZ, revamping the Wisp characters and most Dreamscapes, introducing the Manifest System and Abilities, and more. The following is a list of all changes from version a0.04.

Preview builds were distributed privately in February, April, May and June 2022. Development went on break from June to late August 2022, and from October 2022 to March 2023, and when development began again in April 2023, it began on version a0.06.

## Wisps

### The Change in Name

* The recruitable characters in the game are now called Wisps instead of Friends. This is because of the lore being finalized, and the new animations to accompany interacting with Wisps. It is also an acronym that stands for **W**ell Slept **I**nstitute **S**tudied **P**erson(s).

### Overall

* Wisps now move randomly by default, with a universal speed and frequency of 3.
	+ With the exception of the following Wisps, who approach you with the same speed and frequency: Mr. Buds, Poltergeist, Marcy, Betty, Slasher, and Krei.
* Wisps now have a summary section in their recruit NPCs, and Wakeup quests in the Catalog!
* Wisps now have a unique animation for being DreamLinked to, being Unlinked from the party, and for being Awoken.

### Existing Wisps

* Edited designs for the following Wisps to accommodate changes to overall cohesion in designs, flatten alts into single designs, and fix any errors with existing designs.
	+ Redesigned: Monopo, Brendan, Lizzy, Damian, Maria, Jane.EXE, Margo, Maren, Tenille, Maelyn, Astrid, Ivy, Izzy, Jaspe, Will, March, Chevel, Nadiya, Ingrid, Imogen, Phoebe, Callie, Marina, Riddle, Helga, Velma, Carmen, Willow, Sunny, Talia, Sierra, Orpheus, Sugar, Priscilla, Elliot, Victor, and Kahless.
	+ Designs altered to mix normal and alternate: Judge.
	+ Errors fixed: David, Fait, Aurora, all existing Deer (stray pixel on face shape).
	+ Overhauled for plot reasons: the designs that were formerly known as Matriarch, Calamity, Lily, Diane, Urman, and Lionel.
* The species of Angel, Imp, and Bug have been redesigned altogether, so all designs for them have changed to match.
* This update removed alternate designs for Wisps, the nonhuman-form designs were kept in relevant cases. The following designs were removed from Wisp spawning:
	+ Human forms of: Tera, Lexi, Jennifer, Connor, Debby, Marsha, Devon, Mira, Luna, Trance, Eclipse, Maribelle, Ester, Cheri, March, Lucille, Clare, Jack, Lucia, Adelphon, Matilda,
	+ Other designs of: Judge (Alt), Knight (Alt), Coffi (Alt), Parker (Alt), Zader (Main) and the Noseling's alternate skin colors\*.
	+ \* These designs are still used elsewhere in the game, just not in Friend spawning conditions.
* Several Wisps have had alterations to accommodate for changes in lore, new Wisps entering, and to fix errors. These include:
	+ Boppy, Stancy, Dirtsa, Mr. Buds, Poltergeist, Marcy, Betty, Hand-Me-Down, Solas, and Tiffy are now listed as the ??? species instead of Human? as the latter is removed.
	+ Molly the Duck was renamed to Aldous.
	+ Riddle is now a Mouse instead of ???.
	+ Velma, previously listed erroneously as a Cat instead of Human, is now a Dog.
	+ Robyn the Bat was renamed to Halle.
	+ Clara, Murky, Chroma, Luz, and Zader are all now Angels instead of being Rabbit, Rabbit, Cat, Cat, and Cat respectively.
	+ Estelle the Croc was renamed to Mav.
	+ Lucy the Angel was renamed to Lumia.
	+ Nikki the Mouse was renamed to Remi.
	+ The 6 Wisps that previously represented the WSI Admins have been removed from the game as finalizing the plot has made them unviable lorewise. These designs have been overhauled and renamed as the following: Eloise, May, Paige, Jewel, Joan, and Hans.

### New Wisps

* This update brings a large number of new Wisps, including new species of Tallest, Horse and Vampire. They occupy Wisp IDs 237 to 388.

## Dreamscapes

### Overall

* Many maps now have lighting that didn't previously. This itself won't be noted but other changes- to things such as Fog or the Skybox for any individual Dreamscape, will be noted in that map's individual patch notes.
* There are now items that spawn in Dreamscapes! These can be found in various ways, such as interacting with NPCs or certain tiles in the world itself. These can be sold for DR or used in Wakeup quests.
* There is now Dreamscape Depth and Dreamscape Decay, both of which affect how various things happen inside the Dreamscape. The main things this affects are Wisp spawn rates, DR item payouts, and Dream Camera photo development quality.
* All Dreamscapes with names in parentheses have been renamed. This won't be notated below.

### The Sinkhole

* Moved the Underbridges warp from the Blackout variant to the normal version.
* Changed the skybox to be cloudy and added rain on the Blackout version.
* Updated region tagging on both existing versions to make the sinkhole actually sunken in. There might be slight variances between the old versions and new versions but they shouldn't affect gameplay & these are the new final ones.
* Fixed a bug on the Blackout version where it rained when going to the Backrooms from here.
* The warp to the Backrooms now spawns 2 Friends instead of only 1.

### The Boardwalk

* This map now has dimmer, and more blue tinted lighting.
* The Black Sky and Monochrome versions also now have dimmer lighting.

### The Backrooms

* Completely overhauled its layout, the original is preserved in the Retro Backrooms.
* The chance of warping randomly on the floor to the Washrooms is decreased from 1/25 every 30 frames to 1/100 every 30 frames.
* Added randomized door spawns that can lead to the following maps, in increasing rarity: the Rusted Laboratory, the Concrete District, the Hedge Maze, the Library, the Sky Island, the Amethyst Bookstore, the Ballerina's World, and the Mansion.

### The Business District

* The normal version now has had its layout changed a decent bit to make it more dynamic and allow for new features to be introduced.
* The original version now has warps to the Parking Garage and the Amethyst Bookstore, the latter of which can spawn up to 7 Wisps.
* All 3 versions have new lighting to match their respective fog colors.
* The Above version now has its fog slightly further in (15~25) -> (12~20).
* The Above version now has a connection to the Wasteland Town.
* The Above version's warp to the City Cemetery can now spawn up to 3 Wisps, instead of the previous 1.

### The Wheat Field

* For the original map, in addition to its Peaceful Paradise warp given in a0.04, it now has warps to the Underbridges and Autumn Graveyard as well.
* On the default version, it has slightly different lighting colors.
* The Minecraft version of this map has been removed, and replaced with a version at Dusk. This version has a unique skybox, lighting, Searchpartygoer NPCs and an item to find.

### The Laboratory

* Fixed several bugs involving missing ledges, stairs, and various texture errors.
* Added a new connection to Blue Hot World requiring the Tech Wiz ability.

### The Minecraft World and the End

* These maps have been removed and replaced with new maps that fit the game's vision more- the Gladian Commune, and the Gladian Wilds specifically. There are also 3 new maps to fill out this map set, see below for details.

### The Bubblegum Sea

* You can now find NPCs on this map- 3 Bubblegum Blobs spawn at specific points. When interacted with, these give the item of the same name.

### The Concrete District

* Renamed from the Concrete World because I think it fits better.

### The Underbridges

* This map now has unique lighting, and changed textures to bring out the contrast in tones.

### New Variants of Existing Dreamscapes

* The Sinkhole in the Sky
* The Autumn Graveyard

### New Dreamscapes

* (The Gladian Commune and the Gladian Wilds also should be here)
	+ The Gladian Arena
	+ The Gladian Jail
	+ The Gladian Core
* The Washrooms
	+ The Washrooms (for Boys)
	+ The Washrooms (for Girls)
* The Bunker
* The Amethyst Bookstore
* The Plotted Fantasy
* The Neon Laboratory
* The Treetop Canopy
* The Lilypads
* The Mind's Tower
* The Smallest Settlement
	+ The Winter Tent
* The Sprouting Sprite Forest
* The Blue Hot World
* The Retro Backrooms
* The Familiar Mirelands
* The River Styx
* The Blue Valley Farm
* The City Drawbridge

## Abilities

* There are several temporary ability slots in this version, but none were given to Wisps and none were accessible to players without using playtest features.

## Manifestation

* The Manifest screen has been added, with 25 cells that all can be toggled on or off to draw spells.
* Temporary spells for Specter Avoidance I (red), and the manifestation of 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 6's, 7's, 8's, and 9's were added, but only Specter Avoidance I had any functionality.
* The player's cape trim can change color if a spell of a particular type is input, so far this only exists for Specter Avoidance I (red) but there are also green and blue trims for future plans.

## The Catalog

* All catalog wings have been redone to new colors- Scarlet, Coral, Amber, Jade, Marine, Navy, Lavender, and Rose.
* All Wisps have been reassigned based on color rather than any specific grouping.
* The catalog is now a physical building below the hub, and has 8 total hallways, respectively 1 to each wing color.
* All Wisps have new NPCs in the catalog, with redone functionality that includes checking abilities, checking credits, and Wakeup Quests.

## Menus

* The game's main menu has been redone from the ground up to support new features and now sports a new layout. Among the larger changes are:
	+ Wisps can now be reorganized as you wish via the Formation function. The player is always locked to first slot, but the rest can be switched around.
	+ The game now has 9 menu options, arranged in a 3x3 grid at the top of the screen. Among the new ones are "Items" and the aforementioned "Formation" option. All have new icons, too!
	+ The menus can be navigated with the mouse!

## Other

### The Player

* I have redone the player's sprites, changed the default cape color quite dramatically, and added many new colors to bring the total to 25 total. All of these, except the Rainbow cape- unlocked by cataloguing all Wisps, can be purchased from the Hub. The added colors are:
	+ Black, melon, amber, jade, marine, periwinkle, lavender, rose, crimson, forest, and indigo.
* The player no longer has a skin tone option as the lore around them has changed, and they aren't even human anymore.
* There is now a new Salmon cape to match the other pastels from a0.04, as I apparently planned 7 matching ones that correlated to the new Catalog wings, but not one for the Scarlet wing.
* The player's name can now be up to 16 characters long, it previously was only 10.

### The Hub

* The layout and design has been completely overhauled.
* The main terminal now has more information displayed to the player, and different menu options.
* The order of capes in the Customize Character selector has been changed to make it flow better.

### The Test Room

* The Wisp NPCs at the top of the map that take you to individual maps for testing now are grouped by IDs of 5, rather than IDs of 1. This cuts down on the number of NPCs by a factor of 5, helping with lag and navigation. They now also flag you as being inside a dream upon entering, so you can Wake Up to leave!
* There is now an NPC in the Test Room that takes you to the scrapped Mirror Room Dreamscape.
* The following NPCs in the Test Room have been removed:
	+ The one that toggled MV3D, as this didn't really do anything.
	+ The one that displayed the plugin weather effects in a0.04 as the full syntax has changed, and also that it wasn't really useful.
	+ The one that took the player to the original Friend spawning test area, as this has become obsolete and doesn't even work. It has been replaced with...
* Added an NPC in the Test Room that spawns 3 Wisps in predesignated spots, used mostly for testing and quick access. Leaving the area will reset them, if you spawn too many do this to prevent lag!

### The Intro

* The Mac disclaimer is now removed as it is unnecessary.

### The Dream Camera (a0.04 content)

* It now has 8 slots instead of 4.
* Dreamscape Depth now determines the likelihood of a photo developing poorly. It ranges from 1 in 25 (Depth 5 or below) to as high as 1 in 2 (Depths 15 and above.)
* Dreamscape Depth now also determines the price of photos. Alongside a base price raise from 500 to 1000 DR, the price can now go as high as 7500 DR at depths 15 and above. It increments by 500 on levels 5 to 13, and then 1250 on levels 14 and 15 respectively.
* It now has a new menu option to explain its uses and mechanics to the player, accessible at any time.
* The Camera now also stores Dreamscape Depth and Decay and uses these when warping.