Project Compass first went live on this day a year ago on 29 September 2019, so that means today is Project Compass's one-year anniversary!! Yay! \o/ Happy birthday Project Compass!!

To celebrate this occasion, a new version update to the game is now out. Version 1.04 brings with it quite a few new things, the biggest one of which is that the game now uses taller characters as the baseline! This is something I've wanted the game to have for a long time and what better time to introduce it than the game's birthday. Previously the characters in the game all fit within 48x48 pixels, but now most of the characters apart from characters like kids and such fit within 48x64 pixels. Numerically the increment may sound tiny but the difference in impression is huge, I think! The screenshots on the game's main page have been updated to more accurately represent the current state of the game and the characters.

Also included in this update are new pieces of music and other improvements and new features. There's a little bit of everything here. The new version is now downloadable and you can confirm your version number in the 'Read Me and Credits' file. The full list of new things is as follows:

1.04

- Several human character sprites in the game are now taller.
- Introduced a new item: Camouflage. The item disables random encounters for 200 steps. The item can be found or bought.
- A certain character now tells you dad jokes if you talk to him in post-game and at various other points during the game.
- Introduced three new music tracks, two of which replace songs found in earlier versions of the game and one of which is new and plays during the first boss fight.
- Introduced new music effects (ME) that play when your party is wiped out and you get a game over.
- Poison status is now removed after battle.
- Made the presence of a certain hidden, timed mini-game more explicit via some additional guiding text.
- Made improvements to some cutscenes and bits of dialogue.
- The action sequence for the skill X-Cise is now a little bit faster.
- Added new lines of dialogue.
- Beefed up some pieces of equipment.
- Added a few lines of text to guide the player if they lose their way at a certain point in the game.
- Added a helpful bit of dialogue to guide the player if they get stuck during the door puzzle.
- The treasure chest guy now has a name.
- The party's HP and MP are now restored to full after the first boss fight.
- Yona is granted full TP at a certain point in the game to make that portion of the game more forgiving and to better emphasize the heightened emotions in the scene.
- Made minor visual upgrades to some areas.
- Corrected some language and typing errors.
- Fixed one name tag that displayed the wrong name and added a missing name tag.
- Fixed some harmless bugs.
- Made some corrections and additions to the credits section in this file and the credits roll scene in the game.