This is the same version that is on Steam and will be updated alongside that.

Some house keeping first: The leaderboards will be down a bit for upgrading and will be merged with the Steam leaderboards. You can log in with your itch account* (requires running the game through the itch app). Accounts can also be merged with the Steam version if you have that through a website linked from within the game. Regarding Steam: We will add Steam keys to the game on here, so if you have purchased the game directly (i.e. not through a charity bundle) you can get it from your account.

A word about save data: We did our best to make the upgrade respect old save files, but it might not always be possible. If you care about your old progress, make a backup of your files (paths at the end of the post). It might be easier to start fresh, since the whole unlocking system changed completely.

The actual contents of the update are too numerous to list completely, but these are the big ones:

General:

- Unlocking modes (and the new color palettes) is tied to AP, which is earned by getting achievements. A good initial run can already unlock a bunch of modes easily.

- Boss achievements are repeatable, meaning they will add AP every time you beat a boss, so you can never run out of AP.

- There are two new modes, EX Jaeger Mode and EX Krieger Mode, more difficult versions of the existing modes with new enemies and some stage variations.

- In EX modes all ships have two additional upgrade levels.

- Multiple color palettes can be unlocked with AP for all ships. Any unlocked color palette is available for all ships.

- Replays have been added to the leaderboards, both for local and online. These replays will be automatically uploaded if you are logged in.

- A gallery with unlockable illustrations has been added.

Gameplay:

- The barrel roll has been improved and disrupts enemy tracking for full second.

- Players' missile speed has been greatly increased.

- A lot of enemies have been adjusted, especially their movement and collision avoidance, some timings, scores etc.

Graphics:

- Post processing has been improved, color grading is now always present to preserve HDR colors.

- A lot of effects have been overhauled and improved, visibility on some important elements was improved as well.

- When using a widescreen or 5:4 etc. monitor you can display a background instead of black bar letterbox/pillarbox.

- Resolutions have been improved, the game should now support all resolutions used by a given monitor/screen.

Music:

- Stages and bosses have their own ending tracks.

- There's a new track for combat training.

- Some sound effects have been improved.

Localization:

- Added Dutch, German, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese localizations.

UI:

- When using a widescreen or 5:4 etc. monitor the UI can optionall stretch over the width/height of the screen.

- Lots of layouts and navigation have been fixed and improved.

- Optionally, the gameplay HUD can be stacked vertically instead of horizontally.

and many, many more small fixes and improvements have been made (feel free to let us know of new bugs as well...).

Save data paths:

Windows: %AppData%\Roaming\LocalLow\HitP\Schildmaid

Linux: ~/.config/unity3d/HitP/Schildmaid/Savedata

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/HitP/Schildmaid/Savedata

*The macOS version seems to have trouble getting the required data from the itch app, so login might currently not be working on Mac. Instead of delaying the update we'll work on that for the next patch.