Special Guest! Baro!

Farewell, Cyro!

Steam Deck Verified, and other news!

• Balance: After feedback and playtesting, a major mechanic which would prevent matches after a refill by cycling the sweet type has been removed. It made some circumstances kind of anticlimactic. This should make things a lot more rewarding!!
• Some sweets have had their colour tagging adjusted.

I am currently in my hotel room for NordicFuzzCon!! There is a tiny issue I needed a Steam Deck and an external controller to fix. Conveniently, my friends had both.

• The first-time setup screen has been updated.
• Certain interfaces have had their text sizes increased for improved Steam Deck legibility.
• Fix: Controller navigation on a Steam Deck using an external controller will now work properly.

This is mostly an update to improve Steam Deck support, as a final final final final step before we leave Early Access!!!! @w@

• An official set of Steam Deck controller bindings has been added. This includes a Trackpad scheme; mastering this should provide more accurate aiming.
• Input glyphs now have a contextual border.
• Tutorial messages mentioning inputs are now aware of the current input scheme.
• Fix: Joypad input glyphs will always be displayed on the Steam Deck, even if the touchscreen or cursor is used.
• Fix: Left joystick navigation should now work as expected on all controllers.

Hello!!

• Brock's stage artwork has been updated.
• A "none" Special Weapon has been added (currently, just for custom stages).
• Balance: The Special Gain% of Rainbow Sweets has been reduced by half.
• Balance: Cake's second stage has been made slightly easier.
• Fix: Made sure the Stopwatch and Overflow Warning obey the SFX volume setting.

Sakura-kun! Mamama-kun!! New guest stages!!!

Demo-tan! Custom character improvements!!

Merch drop!!

Changelog

• Custom Characters: For non-organic characters, an age of -1 will appear as ??? in the character biography.
• Custom Characters: Generating the example stage will now display and select it immediately. You previously needed to return to the splash screen.
• Custom Characters: On Character Selection, refocusing the window will now reload any custom characters and display updates immediately.
• Custom Characters: The game will now check for an existing example stage directory before trying to generate a new one to prevent potential data loss.
• The credits have, finally, been added to the game. If you progressed far enough to trigger it already (clear each of the nine campaign stages, before the last), the credits will begin immediately.
• Two new hyper campaign stages have been added.
• Some sweet artwork has been updated.
• Some background artwork has been updated.
• A new Special Weapon has been added. Cake's Special Weapon is now the Purifier!
• A new piece of fanart has been added to the Gumball Machine!
• Some new sweets have been added to the Gumball Machine!
• Demo-tan now helps out during tutorials.
• Demo-tan now gives you advice or compliments on a Game Over.
• Character Selection has again been minimised to make space for new characters....
• The Guestbook zoom feature has been enhanced, and made more obvious if you've missed it.
• Character selection now tracks the last stage played for a character.
• Some subtle sweet hinting has been added.
• Seasonal title screens have been added (look out for them throughout the year!!)
• Fix: Cake's unlock requirement has been corrected.
• Fix: Added missing colour tags to some sweets, reducing ambiguities.
• Fix: Campaign clear achievements were not being achieved if custom characters were present.
• Fix: The "Reset Tutorials" button was non-functional.
• Fix: Shattered Ice, and regular Ice, are now considered identical for matching purposes (e.g. for the Eraser).
• Fix: Some interfaces were leaking backgrounds from other scenes at tall resolutions.
• Fix: Character introductions for custom characters now display correctly.
• Fix: Custom character generation should now work correctly on Linux + Android.

What's next?

(These are belated patch notes that I somehow didnt publish!!! Also, a Steam achievement for the new stage is currently missing. This will be added later today and will be granted when launching the game if you already achieved it.) I promised an update before the end of 2024. I have been travelling a lot, so I haven't been able to do much... @w@; Luminous_Wish has provided a new guest stage. Hello Lyn!! (This stage has been playtested; it is difficult, but possible to clear on Legend difficulty!)

• Several new fanarts from Sakuroke have been added to the gumball machine (there was also a previously missing one...)!!
• To ease introduction into the game, Azura's stages have been made easier to complete with lowered stage level goals.
• In the Guestbook, buttons have been added to link to artist portfolios to better promote fanart contributions.
• Some elements have been adjusted to increase overall text size.

No new stages this week, but some technical polishing!!

• A new unlockable music track has been added.
• New fanart has been added to the Guestbook! A previous page was split into two for consistency reasons.
• The animation of gacha capsules has been improved.
• Sweet textures have been optimised; idle texture memory here has been reduced by 66%, over 100MB!! (We'll fill this space with more sweets...!)
• The button indicator font size has been increased, and reacts to button presses.
• Improved the display of tooltips for other languages.
• : The Korean localisation has been updated (thank you Kero/!!).
• Fix: Hitboxes on the Gumball Machine have been updated to prevent capsules from leaking out at the top.

Hello!! A small patch to clean up the most recent major update!!

• Time Attack now has variable start time + refill time based on the current difficulty level setting.
• The game now saves at an extra point, so you should no longer see character unlock notifications a second time after closing the game.
• New particle effects have been added for the character unlock screen.
• The last used Settings tab is now remembered.
• Shiori's age has been corrected.
• The accent colour of a character (i.e. the border around their icon) now determines the background colour of the refill quote.
• Updated the final campaign character's accent colour to be more in line with his colour scheme.
• Balance: Updated some of the newer stages.
• Fix: Refill quotes for the final campaign character are now unique.
• Fix: A rare crash that can happen if you pull too quickly on the Gumball Machine.

We're on the home stretch!! Shiori is provided by new guest artist, Kurus Kururu!!! Bee has a second stage, once again provided by Behamu!!! The ninth campaign character, Kappu, has been introduced!! He's Chino's boss.... and he's got a problem; help him fix it!! All three (yes, definitely only three... ~w~) of these stages implement a new gamemode for experienced players: Time Attack!! Time Attack stages require you to reach the Clear line in order to add time and stay alive. If the countdown clock runs out, it's Game Over!! Time Attack is aimed to encourage a different playstyle, forcing you to play a little more precisely. Special Guests are now integrated into the game's progression system, and will have unlock requirements.

Miscellaneous

• The gamemode tag, if there is one, is now shown on the character overview.
• Transitions between scenes have been improved.
• The character unlock screen has been updated.
• The intro for Suika stages has been polished.
• A new sound effect has been added for when a Refill is performed.
• Several new achievements have been added!
• The appearance of the gradients on the settings and bio overlays have been improved.
• The sweet highlight effect (when using a special weapon) has a new animation.
• "Mocha's Samba" has been replaced with a new song. An expansion to the OST will arrive later.
• Balance: Lambun's stage has been made more difficult.
• Fix: On Sencha's stage, Pop sounds were playing twice.

Pricing Change

The Future

There are no new stages in this update, but...! A lot of work has been put into the game's look-and-feel as it gets closer to final release. The Book is now The Guestbook! It has been granted a prettier interface.
On the top left is a zoom button, which'll bring the book a bit closer. Other interfaces, including the Achievements and the Gumball Machine, have also seen updates to their designs.

Volume Warning!

Miscellaneous

• Several new pages for the Guestbook, including a speedpaint video.
• Some graphics have been updated.
• On the Settings menu, the tab bar now properly indicates if it currently has keyboard/controller focus.
• General improvements to scene transitions.
• Balance: Chino's second stage has been made a little harder.
• Fix: There is no longer a delay when returning to the main menu while a refill is occuring.
• Fix: Closing the settings overlay in ways other than pressing the back button would not persist the settings.

• Added an animation for when a stage is completed.
• Added "Overtime" to identify that a stage has been completed and is just being played for fun.
• Made Gumball Machine pulls a little faster.
• Fix: The character unlock screen wasn't showing the character title.

• The ninth character has an updated preview icon (the previous artwork was very rough!!)
• Balance: Rika's alternate stage accidentally got very easy after the last update. Ice no longer combines according to Suika rules on this stage (this was a very confusing behaviour).
• Fix: The Sweet Viewer now always shows the sweet ID, to assist with custom stage creation.
• Fix: Custom characters should no longer crash the game if side art textures are missing.

The Kemopop! OST!

Chino is the eighth campaign character, and arrives with two new stages with new puzzle elements. And, Duke has a new stage, once again provided by guest artist Sakuroke (@popkage)!

Korean Language Support

Miscellaneous

• The master volume for unlockable track "Catjam" has been raised.
• New refill quotes have been added for Duke (he was accidentally reusing Lambun's lines).
• There are now unlock requirements for subsequent Guest stages.
• Sakuroke-san has also provided mosaic-free versions of his fanart for the Book.
• Some new Book unlocks have been added.
• The Kemopop! Art Pack has been updated to include all guest artwork.
• The "Fisk's Secret" note has been updated for a hint on another secret...
• The Sweet Viewer has been brought back to the game's bonus menu. You'll want to use this as an aid for making custom stages, as it will let you know what sweets are tagged as.
• Balance: Sweet distribution on various changes has changed as the algorithm was improved. I didn't check everything, please let me know if a particular stage seems too easy or difficult after this change.
• Early teaser artwork for the ninth character has been added to the menu.

The Soundtrack is coming!!

The future

Hello everynyan!!

You can now generate template files for a custom character. Navigate to Settings -> Data for new options for the creation of custom characters. A Steam guide for character creation will be available shortly.

• For liability reasons, we will not be providing a centralised store for custom characters. Please figure out mod distribution by yourselves @w@ If you make your own page for it, let me know about it!!
• The Steam demo supports custom characters - if you want your friends to play your stage without buying the full game and you want to do it conveniently, this is totally fine.

New Language Options

Miscellaneous

• Added some more flair around the game.
• The Pause menu has been updated with improved tooltips.
• Fix: Tooltips being obscured by stage markers.
• Fix: An issue with the previous page button on the Book has been fixed.
• Fix: The difficulty selector now properly changes language when the option changes.
• Fix: The sprites for the large biscuits now properly align with their hitboxes.

This update introduces a new guest character...! Say hello to Duke!! Duke is a character by sakuroke. There are some new pages available to unlock in the Gumball Machine.

Not all achievements have icons yet. That will be a side project @w@ Any achievements you have unlocked in-game should unlock related Steam achievements when launching. Steam achievements are additive and will not lock again if save data is erased. 1.9.9 also fixes:

• It was impossible to get the campaign clear achievements, as it expected you to clear a stage that doesn't exist yet.
• An issue with case-sensitive filesystems made one unlockable track unplayable.
• The game will now pause when going to the Steam overlay.
• macOS Steam depots have now been enabled.

Hello again, This small update fixes an issue I forgot to post in the previous patch notes, since an interface was updated for a better load transition: The "New Hire" screen will no longer show placeholder text when loading in the character. This was only really a problem on slower machines, but I hate leaving bugs in. Sorry!! Thank you!!!

Hello!! Some cleanup work was done as we prepare for a release of a Demo version that'll be published to the Steam store, hopefully sometime later next week.

• The tooltips on the left-hand side buttons have an improved appearance and can now be activated using only a keyboard or controller.
• You can no longer change the difficulty setting during a game (this was unintended and breaks a lot of things).
• The drop rate of Rainbow sweets on Lambun's and Sencha's second stage has been greatly reduced to that of a normal sweet, to stop the game going on forever!!!

Two new stages in this week's update...!!! Lambun Panpan is a character illustrated by guest artist Lambent. Hes a big boy~!! Kincha gets their second stage. It's pretty spicy!!! Unlock it by competing Kincha's first stage. There is also a preview of the eighth campaign character! Wow, we've almost got the full ensemble..

Menu Redesign!!

• The difficulty selection was too noisy and has been moved to the settings pane, where it should have been in the first place.
• The biography button has been moved to the left-hand side.
• Ailorus and Sencha are now separated (they were joined because they were by the same artist, but this aggregation wasnt consistent).

Gameplay Changes!!

• Hitboxes on various sweet sizes have been adjusted to prevent unsightly overlaps.
• Some sweets have been redrawn for increased legibility.
• A new special sweet has been added! Unlike the others, it's not detrimental...

Miscellaneous

• A fifth unlockable music track (and tenth overall) has been added to the Gumball Machine...!! This concludes the Kemopop! soundtrack for now.
• The Gumball Machine has received another art pass.
• Tooltip text has been enlarged a bit to improve readability on smaller devices.
• Particle effects for sweets (e.g. Ice, Rainbow) will now fade out gracefully when the associated sweet is removed.
• Fix: The previously added music track (Catjam) wasn't looping correctly.

Kemopop! Sounds

Hello!!! We just received an update from Valve regarding Steam Deck compatibility. We pass on all points!! Except for text size. So, we only have a "Playable" certification. This'll now be displayed as such on the Steam store and your Steam Deck if you have one. This is acceptable, however, we are keen to aim for Verified status. The easiest way to fix this will be to embiggen some text on the UI, which is what we'll be doing as the game is refined before taken out of Early Access. We'll make some updates and try again... @w@

What else is happening??

On the subject of Trading Cards and Point Store items

On the subject of Steam Achievements

I am travelling the USA right now, so I haven't had much time to sit down. But, I wanted to do some quick updates this week @w@

• Clicking the right stick on a controller will now skip to the next track (this has been undocumented as N on the keyboard; now you know!!).
• Several sweet sprites have been updated to provide improved visual contrast, to prevent confusion with similar-looking sweets.
• Two new sweet types are available in the Gumball Machine.
• A new music track is available in the Gumball Machine.
• Some artwork on the gumball machine has been updated.
• Brock now has a new preference for pastries, so they'll appear on his stage more often after they have been unlocked.
• Some optimisations across the board!!

Wow!!! We didn't think we'd get this far!!! @w@ Kemopop! is still in active development and is yet to receive a few more stages. But, the meat and heart is there...! Aside from Steam Cloud, Kemopop! does not yet make use of Steamworks features. There is currently a technical roadblock (we are using a beta version of a game engine, so are waiting for the library we need to become available). We would like to integrate the achievements in-game to what you see on your Steam profile. This will hopefully come later this year!! We would like to think that Kemopop! has paved the way for similar games to come to Steam. After development on Kemopop! concludes, we would like to start work on a new title. A big thank you to everyone who purchased the title elsewhere ahead of the Steam debut; you should have also received a Steam key.

Pop! on Deck!

Finish our Game!!