ALMOST was on track with the time I intended to have this one out, till my RAM decided to shit out on me and set me back a couple days.
Was not fun diagnosing that wild flurry of BSOD's, but as hardware failures go, I'm glad it was specifically the RAM and not something more critical. Got new RAM sticks now and so far everything seems good now at least!
Anyways, final beta build before the next public update is here, this time including the final companion "Bounce" as well as a host of new art assets and an expanded level 1 to give the companion a proper area to reside in until they're discovered. It should provide a good challenge both finding the path to the companion as well as actually working your way there, and there should be some new visuals to enjoy along the way.
I have a slew of other small tweaks and improvements I'm going to try and squeeze in before this goes to the general public in a week or so, including some lighting tweaks for the new area and probably some new background music, but of course I'll be prioritizing bug fixes and other essential adjustments if there are problems with gameplay, so as always drop your feedback and bug reports here or in the Discord! And thanks to everyone who replies - your feedback/reports really do wonders for the development of the game, so cheers to you all :)