Heyo everyone,
Lots of big news today. The main ones, of course, are the releases of Highway Blossoms: Next Exit and the artbook! I've talked about those a bunch before, so I won't repeat myself too much here. Go pick them up!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/490270/Highway_Blossoms_Next_Exit/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1412300/Highway_Blossoms__Official_Artbook/
To access Highway Blossoms: Next Exit, go to the "Extras" tab from the main menu (which may require beating the game once to unlock) and then go to "DLC Content." You'll be able to start the DLC story from there!
Alongside that, we've got a big update for the base Highway Blossoms game again, arguably even bigger than the Remastered update a couple years ago. Buckle in, because it's about to get bumpy.
Longtime HB fans might not be surprised to see this, but unfortunately, this update is likely going to break your saves. It's an unfortunate result of the engine that we use for Highway Blossoms (more specifically some custom modifications to it) and there's not really a way to avoid it. We're sorry for the inconvenience 😔 You can hold down ctrl to quickly skip through text to get back to where you were before.
Broken saves is the only bad news, though. Now onto the good!
The first change you'll probably notice is the new GUI in the game. We've totally renovated all of the menus and interface, and added some extra features. For one, there are new accessibility options, and a light/dark mode for the game. Now you can play Good Highway Blossoms and Evil Highway Blossoms. There's also a new music player and improved art gallery (make sure to check out the Next Exit guest art too!).
In the gallery, you might notice a new section called "Marina's Thoughts." We've added a number of cut-in illustrations throughout the game for certain items that come up in the story - stuff like the journal, the gold, meals the girls eat, and more. In addition to seeing them in-game, you can check them out in the gallery as well, for a quick opinion from Marina on each item.
There are a couple other new sections that you can find under "Extras" in the Legacy Content area. For one thing, you can now find all things Goofball mode here: EZ Mode, Extreme Mode, and the new form of Goofball mode itself: rather than requiring a whole other playthrough with a couple changed lines, Goofball mode is now in more of a highlight reel format that simply features The Jokes. We did remove a couple jokes that we felt weren't in good taste, though.
On that note, the Jumbo Scene from the original game has also been moved to the Legacy Content area. This means that the scene is no longer part of a playthrough of the regular game. However, you can reread that scene in its entirety from the menu.
Finally, we made the slightest of changes to music in the game, by adding one new track. It's a song that was written for Next Exit, but we chose to add it into the base game too. If you own the soundtrack DLC here on Steam, you'll automatically get the new tracks from Next Exit - even if you don't own Next Exit itself. Instead you can listen to the songs and imagine how they might be used, I suppose.
A Chinese translation for Next Exit is in the works, and will be added as soon as it's completed. Also, 'cause I've seen a few people asking: there's no new adult content or new Goofball Mode content in Next Exit.
Whether you play NE or not, we hope you enjoy these newest improvements to Highway Blossoms. Can't wait to be on my deathbed in a few decades and still rolling out updates to the game then.