!COMBAT BUILD UPDATE! ANBW 6.1.X Experimental #Censored

Heyhey, Science team!

It’s build time, and we’re proud to announce that we have a brand-new build stuffed full of new features available for all of you for Projekt Melody: A Nut Between Worlds! Thank you all again for making this possible, and we hope you enjoy it! 

We also have a special teaser announcement, coming right up! We’ve been cooking up something in the background, so stay tuned for more news regarding that!

If you’d like to play the latest build:

Get it here! (Always pick the build number with the greatest number at the end ;))

Mega
Pixeldrain

To download the game files -> Click the Grey Large Text Above.

“Tremble and cream, servants! For I, Melware, have a special surprise releasing soon! Prepare to worship my great form in all my glory, as I take my rightful place on your dedication shrines! 

For those of you who are worthy, I have prepared a little special preview! Can you guess what it is?”

Combat

One of our main focuses for this build was polishing the combat and crafting an Upgrade System, in order to make combat feel more intuitive and fun. As with all of the combat in the game, it is WIP and subject to change! 

We have a few goals that we wish to hit with the combat; namely, actually finishing it and not getting stuck in an infinite dev cycle! We also wish for the combat to be somewhat challenging, but mostly just stupid fun and engaging, so that players of all skills (whether you’re a complete beginner or a gaming veteran) can enjoy it.

Our second focus is, as always, Feedback! And the more, the better! We’d love to hear your thoughts on the combat and whatever feedback you may have in the comments, or on the Discord server!

Boss Fights

This build features the first boss fight in ANBW, the Slime King. Those paying attention to the weekly milestones will have noticed this guy appear weekly for well over a month. The combat system has undergone a substantial update this year, and this boss fight is essentially the first showcase of how it all fits together.

Unlike the regular enemies that you could encounter until now, the bosses require a more complex decision tree to function. The Slime King is overall a straightforward fight, since it is the introductory boss fight. But unlike regular enemies, it has a more expanded moveset, and its own visual and audio effects to accompany these attacks.

Despite its simplicity, it still required a lot of new functions and logic to pull the whole fight together. But, moving forward, this should provide a good foundation for every future fight that will be added!

Among those things is a mid-combat dialogue system. The player and whoever is tagging along, as well as the enemies (if they have vocal chords) may respond or comment on what is going on in the fight. 

With all that said, the combat is far from being finalized. Expect more updates in the future, both for current combat related things as well as new features. But I do hope you’ll enjoy the combat in its current stage!

Upgrade System

As it was one of our main goals for this build, we have been working hard in order to craft an upgrade system that feels both rewarding, and impactful. Of course, it’s all subject to change, and thus feedback would be appreciated!

Talent Tree

We’re pushing our new Upgrade system this release, along with all the UI work we’ve been able to complete so far. Once you get your hands on this new build, hit T to check it out!

Even though the menu looks very simple right now due to its basic design, getting it to work exactly like we wanted required building many layers under the hood. It even has a mini 'physics engine' under the skin to handle overlaps and push elements away from each other!

The Talent Tree is still a work-in-progress, so expect occasional issues like element overlaps under certain conditions, and a basic, bare-bones style.

Mutable material slimming

After switching to Mutable, we noticed there's a problem with duplicated material slots, increasing draw calls and impacting performance. At first we thought Mutable merged the materials automatically, but we found out it wasn't the case. So we have to do it manually with quite a lot of trial and error, discovering limitations and quirks with the system.

After all that, we managed to eliminate duplicate material slots, and reduce the count down to only unique materials. Those can still be reduced further, like the interior mouth materials, but it'll take a significant amount of time for our 3D artists to slim down the unique material further.

This process is applied to some characters, notably Melody herself, System32, Goddess, Blair, and Leora. The rest of the characters will follow suit as we continue applying this material slimming procedure.

Watching on Lucas

Lucas is top priority (You´ll find out soonTM why) for the past week, so we got to make sure it's ready for prime time. This includes building off of what we did for "Proto Dude", our testing character for the male body type. In addition to that, we also get his outfit skinned, with the skin culling done entirely in Mutable. We also make sure he's sandbox ready through rigorous testing.

Apart from building off of Proto Dude, we do the usual affair with new characters, like adding Pose Driver poses to help with the mesh volume and smaller details and adding physics bodies for real time physics animation that you will see on sandbox.

Bug Fixes/Changelist

We’ve been hard at work ensuring that the game feels smooth and natural to play, as well as squashing any bugs that we encounter along the way! This is a list of all of the changes made in the background of the game:

Input Changes

We have made some changes to the game’s inputs, in order to make them more intuitive and natural-feeling. 

• Combat Mode Toggle has been moved to H

• Journal / Dialogue HIstory has been moved to J

• Weapon Ultimate is now usable via R

• Spacebar forward/no input = jump

• Spacebar backwards or sidewards = dodge

Core Systems & Stability

• Fixed multiple crash cases, including save system and slime spawning.

• Added safeguards against simultaneous save operations.

• Improved OCD Manager stability and consistency.

• Integrated a unified logging system for better debugging visibility.

• Enhanced shutdown and dependency handling across systems.

• Added new core plugins for dynamic math and stat functionality.

• Improved memory, reference, and object cleanup across modules.

• Reduced animation, UI, and save-related errors.

• Optimized data registration and actor load flow.

Combat & AI

• Improved AI following and head alignment logic.

• Refined AI boss fights and slime enemy behavior.

• Added projectile collision channels and logic improvements.

• Implemented ultimate ability activation system.

• Balanced V-Energy gain and weapon usage mechanics.

• Combined space and dodge into a unified dash system.

• Balanced attack speed, armor, health, and damage scaling via new stat system.

• Added validation for weapon abilities lacking sufficient energy.

• Refined hit reaction triggers and reduced animation redundancy.

OCD System (Quest & Dialogue Framework)

• Reorganized and cleaned core OCD structure.

• Fixed node tracking, mission markers, and Blueprint/C++ logic conflicts.

• Added repeatable graphs, progression controls, and parallel logic fixes.

• Introduced selection dialogue, quest reset, and graph-ending functions.

• Conducted major refactors for stability testing.

• Improved graph indexing, node timing, and parallel execution.

• Optimized character start flow and main menu integration.

• Updated UI and removed legacy assets.

Save System

• Updated plugins for stability and data clearing.

• Introduced Actor Component saving and dependency management.

Weapons & Items

• Overhauled weapon energy and empty-state handling.

• Added ammo cost and energy consumption checks.

• Integrated stat-based damage calculations.

• Improved bow targeting and auto-tracking.

• Refined weapon equip behavior using mouse wheel.

• Cleaned weapon scripts and enforced consistent scaling.

Stats & RPG System

• Implemented a full stat framework for Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Armor, and Health.

• Integrated buff, debuff, and modifier logic.

• Enabled dynamic stat-based scaling across combat systems.

• Added attack speed balancing and modifier support.

• Linked gameplay tags to stat recognition and effects.

Miscellaneous & Environment

• Added navigation link movement and actor-interaction logic.

• Adjusted NPC proximity and scaling systems.

• Fixed corrupted slimes and crystal drops with energy reward logic.

• Implemented boss corruption crystal interactions.

• Cleaned outdated assets and folders.

• Added input and editor usability improvements.

Known Issues and Bugs

• Goddess face/eyes distort before character creation.

• Player wears boxers in creator if picked up in prologue.

• Goddess crystals visible when pushed from portal.

• Interactables (boxer/lube) don’t disappear after pickup.

• Doors don’t close after opening.

• City: OCD delay between nodes (likely hardware-related).

• Corrupted too loud when attacking.

• System stuck on trash bins after leaving.

• Melware eyes not working.

• LS doesn’t keep state after Blair releases player.

• Random corrupted growls during progression (various areas).

• Blair’s lab door not locked after kicking player/melody out.

• Grocery cart follows player after shopping.

• Melody changing area trigger activates early.

• Random corrupted growls in chapter 2 too.

• Melody crumples when hit by corrupted slimes (non-breaking).

• Melody’s cape clips during cavern/explosion scenes.

• Player may miss opening Talent Tree in cave.

• No lighting in cave-to-souvenir elevator.

• Slime Boss exploit: infinite V Matter via summons.

• Melody/Jellody can get stuck on objects en route to castle.

• “You can just walk through” line plays twice.

We hope you enjoy all of the new changes and content that comes with the latest build! And as always, thank you so much for your support! We couldn’t have done it without all of you! <3