Hello everyone! Happy new year, even though I'm almost an entire month late- it's been a busy month though!

I can't quite recall what I wrote in the previous dev log of LBKR so if in case I repeat myself, I do apologise. As for the 2.28 release of LBKR, I believe it's close- could be that I need another 3 or 4 weeks to find bugs and test new content- and do some final adjustments to the release. Looking at my project overview though I'm glad to see that only 15 tasks and 12 bugs are left to fix until my goals for the next version release are fulfilled. (Bugs usually come crawling in groups of billions for each release though so that'll probably change real quick...)
So what's new since the last time I posted something?

6 new exquisite item modifiers, each belonging to unique items.

- Explopoly
>Monsters die in an explosion of Shards
-Hat-Fuu
>Damage is increased by X% when using melee weapons
-Meat-Cluster
>Projectiles shatter on impact and fire multiple bonus projectiles from it’s point of impact
-Slippery
>A trail of grease & fish oil is left by the player, the trail is highly flammable, but the weapon is also really slippery and wet and might be dropped
-Rainbows
>Monsters that are hit by the weapon might be transformed into unicorns

8 new items have been implemented (where-as three of 'em are keycards that grant access to (new)specific areas in the game.)

>Lolipop  //Formerly attained by purchase from the Bounty Keeper, has been recreated as a unique weapon with the exquisite modifier "Rainbows"
>Old-school Wizard hat    //New unique hat that is pretty much exactly what it sound like
>Oriental Hat  //Formerly attained by purchase from the Bounty Keeper, has been recreated as unique armor with exq. modifier "Hat-Fuu"
>Patriarch's Ribcage   //New unique chest armor piece
>Slippery Fish  //New unique weapon with modifier "Slippery"

Optimizations-

Alot of optimizations has been done in order to sort out some performance issues I noticed in the latter half of the game, this has included improvements and optimizations to code, particle systems, UI and logics, and a vast amount of physics optimizations. ( Physics have been optimized, max time spent on physics calculations / frame has been reduced, all in-game ragdolls have been optimized (although this has caused some of them to jitter, trying to adjust this as we speak.), items no longer use physics when dropped )

Game World-

2 new secret areas
Mission "Hunter's Heritage" has been modified
Re-created the ES2 and Introduction maps from scratch along with the Research Facility chapter
2 new achievments

AI

New model and texture for the boss "Lurker". Also the entire boss encounter has been re-written as the Research Facility map was recreated
New unique monster/miniboss "Joker", encountered in the final chapter
Lots of new AI conversations, some are only active during certain missions (or mission objectives) while some a persistent throughout the game.

Misc-

New credits screen background
GameJolt client support has been removed as it was not used frequently by the players of LBKR.

Fixes-

Fixed issue with some windows not beeing closed when pressing their hotkey
Minion Multiplier statistic is now shown in percentage in the character profile window
Doc no longer appear in the Safe zones after his death
Fixed a memory leak in the Frame-capture system (Hotkey: Home)
Fixed issue with the Fanatic miniboss sometimes fall off his tower just after he has spawned
Fixed issue with Buff/DPS states sometimes not beeing disabled when their lifespan has reached it's end
Fixed issue with some traps in chapters 1 through 5 inflicting incorrect damage types
Fixed broken tooltip for the Tech's ability "Stinger"
Holstered weapons can now be repaired properly
Fixed issue with monsters making use of the player's crit-chance instead of their own in combat