A major update for POPGOES Arcade, "Fighting Chance", is now available to download. It's a free, mandatory patch to the game that improves the gameplay experience in a multitude of exciting ways.
This update was announced exactly 1 year ago and is now finally finished, on the 9th anniversary of POPGOES (2016). Well, all of the planned content has been implemented and works as intended, but you may still run into some very minor bugs, especially on Steam's side (things like achievements). So please keep us updated on how things go!
We are insanely proud of this new version of POPGOES Arcade. I have surveyed our playtesters, made up of new and old players, and ratings for the game are now consistently a 9 or 10 out of 10. If you're new to the series, this is the perfect time to jump in. And if you've already completed POPGOES Arcade before, here is your excuse to revisit the game to see how much nicer it is.
If you are new to the game, I would recommend you play the game WITHOUT reading the changelog. Just hop in right now! If you're a veteran player and you want to know what's new or what to look out for, feel free to read through - I have spoiler tagged the bigger stuff.
POPGOES Arcade: Fighting Chance (3.0.5)
NEW: Battle Gifts
A new major game mechanic, "Battle Gifts", has been implemented.
Accessible after beating Corrupt Chica and interacting with The Puppet who can be found in Room 1 of any inn.
Gifts initially spawn in 50% of all normal battles (no bosses, Gilded, or robot mimics), but this can be increased.
Gifts can be opened on the player's first turn, but will disappear if the player uses any other move/ability.
Opening a Gift will destroy the Escape button for that battle.
There are 15 Gifts in total, 9 available from the start of the game, and 6 added exclusively in The Machinist.
Each Gift applies a special modifier for the battle, applying a positive, neutral, or negative status effect or mechanic.
Winning a battle with a neutral effect will grant 10 extra coins. Winning one with a negative effect will grant 20. Positive gifts have no monetary reward.
Gifts available from The Dead Forest:
[spoiler]POTENTIAL! - Blocking an attack increases your attack power by 25%. Blocking a charged attack increases it by 75%. Your attack power is reset after any other move is used.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]ABSORPTION! - 25% of the damage that you deal is returned to you as health.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]PERSISTENCE! - When hit with a fatal move, you will automatically consume an Acorn from your inventory, if you have one. This could save your life.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]SLINGSHOT. - Acorns, Fruit and Pizzas now deal instant damage to your enemy (without taking up any turns) instead of providing you with any healing.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]VENGEANCE. - You will deal only half of your attack power while over 75% health, but double your attack power when below 25% health.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]BALANCE. - After every third turn, the health percentages of you and your enemy are equalised. This could save your life.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]TEDIUM... - The enemy in this battle will heal themselves for 5% of their max health after each turn.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]SICKNESS... - Your health will drain slowly over time during this battle.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]REFLEX... - All of your moves (not items) must be performed at the right moment, or they will fail.[/spoiler]
Gifts added in The Machinist, specifically involving the player's "Battle Abilities" (JUMP, HOOK, and/or DIG):
[spoiler]DETECTION!* - You now know exactly what DIG will provide, before it is used.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]SHOCKWAVE!* - You will deal 100% of your current attack power to your enemy after using JUMP.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]CHANCE.* - JUMP, HOOK, and DIG now have a 33% chance of fully recharging every turn, instead of being on a fixed 3-turn cooldown.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]EXCAVATION.* - Using DIG will now have a 50% chance of unearthing scrap metal instead of granting any consumable items.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]EXHAUSTION...* - Using JUMP, HOOK, or DIG will activate the cooldowns for the other two Battle Abilities as well.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]CLUMSINESS...* - You will lose between 1 and 3 Scrap metal every time you use JUMP.[/spoiler]
NEW: The Wishlist
A new interactive item called the Wishlist, found in Room 1 alongside The Puppet, has been added.
A simple one-page interactive item, similar to the Bestiary and Index.
Functions as a checklist for all 15 Gifts in the game, immediately revealing all of their names, but not their effects.
Encountering a Gift in the game will add its description to the Wishlist, as well as a tick next to it to show that it has been "collected" at least once.
The Wishlist also lets the player increase the chances of battles having Gifts. By spending 50 coins, the chance can be increased by 5%.
Battle Gift chances can be increased from 50% all the way to 100%.
The Puppet wants to speak to you once all 15 Gifts have been found.
NEW: Stamp Loyalty System
Players will now automatically receive a new secondary currency in Holly's Shop, called "Stamps".
This system is designed to encourage the use of consumable items in battles.
Purchasing any item, including permanent upgrades, will give the player 1/3 of a Stamp. The player can hold a maximum of 3 full Stamps.
The player can choose to redeem stamps on any consumable item found in the shop.
Low-tier items (Acorns and ATK+) cost 1 Stamp.
Mid-tier items (Fruits and DEF+) cost 2 Stamps.
High-tier items (Pizzas and Shields) cost 3 Stamps.
NEW: Escape Rework
The Escape ability is now available from the start of the game, with some restrictions.
The button now functions as a dice roll. It takes one turn to use, and its chance of succeeding depends on the rarity of the enemy.
Escaping from Common enemies (Deer, Boar, Owl) has a 50% success rate.
Escaping from Uncommon enemies (Hawk, Cat, Beaver) has a 33% success rate.
Escaping from Rare enemies (Hedgehog, Woodpecker, Wolf) has a 17% success rate.
These chances are identical to the spawn likelihoods of the respective enemies.
You will be able to see the chance of escaping displayed on the Escape button itself.
[spoiler]Upgrading the HOOK ability in the latter half of The Dead Forest will do the same thing, upgrading the escaping chance to 100% for all enemies.[/spoiler]
NEW: [spoiler]Quick Pocket (Money Boots Replacement)[/spoiler]
The "Money Boots" upgrade from [spoiler]BB's Black Market[/spoiler] has been replaced with a new mechanic called "Quick Pocket".
Money Boots would provide passive money generation, which was considered overkill alongside other improvements in Fighting Chance.
Quick Pocket is a perk that instead lets players [spoiler]activate a buff item (ATK+, DEF+, or Shield) as their first move in a battle, without ending their turn[/spoiler].
For example, the player can [spoiler]use an ATK+, and then HOOK, both in their first turn of the battle[/spoiler].
This gives even more value to consumable items and adds some more strategy to setting up battles, especially bosses.
NEW: [spoiler]Tunnel (Shortcut Replacement)[/spoiler]
The "Shortcut" upgrade for the [spoiler]DIG ability[/spoiler] has been repurposed into a more convenient mechanic which is now called [spoiler]"Tunnel"[/spoiler].
Shortcut would previously allow the player to interact with small dirt holes in the overworld to move from one forest to another.
Tunnel now [spoiler]allows the player to instantly travel from anywhere in the overworld, to any Inn or Shop, by holding space (or the bottom face button, on controller)[/spoiler].
[spoiler]A minimap of the world is displayed, showing each possible destination, when in the menu for Tunnel[/spoiler].
This ability is not available if the player is inside of a building, or is in one of the underground areas.
NEW: Bulletin Boards
A new sign in the garden, in the same cell that Popgoes begins his journey in, has been added. It has a unique, large sprite, resembling a village bulletin board with green accents and a vague "TDF" written at the top.
This object exists to give gameplay tips that are relevant through the Dead Forest campaign.
It presents information that most veteran players will already know, but is not actually explained in the game elsewhere.
10 tips in total are displayed, cycling in order. The cycle is reset if the player enters a new frame, like triggering a battle.
[spoiler]This board will be "haunted", either when the player is at exactly 99% completion, or if they are currently in the "night mode" portion of the game.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]The haunted variant of the board will have a unique sprite, and give a glitched, vague hint about the route to freeing Bonnie's soul.[/spoiler]
A second bulletin board, with orange accents and a vague "ATM" written at the top, is added when the player begins the second chapter of the game.
This board will give 10 completely new tips, specifically about the Machinist campaign.
Dialogue and Battle Efficiency Changes
A new feature has been added to dialogue in the game.
Holding space (bottom face button) when reading dialogue will continue to work as usual: it will speed through text and stop when the current line is concluded.
The E button (right face button) now has a function when reading dialogue. Hold it, and it will speed through text and immediately move to the next line if there is one.
Animations in battles have been reduced, and the experience is now more efficient in general.
The pause between turns for the player and enemy has been reduced slightly. Battles are about 20% faster than the initial Steam release.
The player can now hold the space button (bottom face button) to continuously repeat the currently selected move/ability.
This also works with the E button (right face button), to continuously attempt an Escape from the battle (regardless of what the player has selected).
The Machinist Balance Changes
Some changes in Fighting Chance made progressing through The Machinist too fast/easy in our testing. We have mitigated this with other adjustments.
Permanent upgrades from Blake's Smithing have been adjusted to slow down progression and allow more specific Overkill requirements.
+10 HP or +2 ATK for 4 Scrap is now +5 HP or +1 ATK for 3 Scrap.
Escaping from [spoiler]Charged Robots[/spoiler] (underground) will be a dice roll, even though the player will have the guaranteed Escape at this point.
The chance of escaping will directly correlate to the player's current maximum health stat. 300 HP is a 30% chance. 500 HP is a 50% chance.
The [spoiler]Tunnel ability[/spoiler] is disabled in underground areas. The player must make their way out of the caves before they are able to use it.
[spoiler]Charged Robots[/spoiler] are now able to use their [spoiler]Shield ability[/spoiler] multiple times per battle.
[spoiler]Shield Piercer[/spoiler] has been adjusted as a result. It will now only be consumed (after activation) if it [spoiler]successfully destroys a shield[/spoiler].
[spoiler]Prototype Manora's[/spoiler] shield generation chance has been reduced from 50% to 30% due to this change as well.
[spoiler]Scrapbots[/spoiler] have been buffed. Their health stats have been increased by +50%, and their miss chances have been lowered from 20% to 10%.
One more [spoiler]Scrapbot[/spoiler] has been added to each forest. There are now 3 per forest, 9 in total.
In-Game Achievements
For the sake of parity across platforms like mobile and Nintendo Switch, achievements have been added to the game itself, via custom notifications and a menu.
Achievements now appear in-game via notifications anchored to the top-right of the arcade cabinet's monitor.
Notifications are titled, and colour-coded based on which chapter they originate from. Some have other, special designs.
In-game achievements are stored in a new, unencrypted save file, next to the encrypted campaign progression save file.
It is possible to manually edit the file to unlock achievements, but this will not trigger them on Steam.
The game can not read data from Steam, so you will need to re-collect them for the in-game achievement collection (or cheat them in).
New Achievements
Fighting Chance adds 5 new achievements for each chapter of the game.
POPGOES: The Dead Forest:
[spoiler]Fool's Gold - Escape from a Gilded enemy.[/spoiler]
Coupon and On - Redeem 30 Stamps at Holly's shop.
[spoiler]Out of Order! - Betray the soul at the last moment.[/spoiler]
Spoiled - Open 100 Battle Gifts.
[spoiler]Happiest Day - Open a gift from someone else.[/spoiler]
POPGOES and The Machinist:
[spoiler]Contactless - Defeat a robot with no physical contact. Not even shields.[/spoiler]
[spoiler]Commitment Issues - Leave her hanging.[/spoiler]
One of Everything - Open one of each Battle Gift.
[spoiler][REDACTED] - Complete the challenge.[/spoiler]
[spoiler][REDACTED] - Complete the challenge without using the Hook battle ability.[/spoiler]
On top of this, one of the existing achievements has been tweaked to be more forgiving:
[spoiler]Dethroned Ultra - Defeat the King of the Castle without using any battle abilities.[/spoiler]
(This achievement previously demanded that the player not even unlock any of the battle abilities.)
Economy Balancing
To make battle rewards more balanced throughout the game (mitigating farming in specific areas), and to speed up the (less exciting) first portion of the game, the economy of POPGOES Arcade has been adjusted in a few ways.
Coin rewards for defeating enemies in The Dead Forest have been adjusted.
East Forest and North Forest enemies give 5 more coins each.
West Forest enemies give 5 fewer coins each.
South Forest enemies are unchanged.
On top of this, [spoiler]+ (Plus) enemies[/spoiler] in the second half of the game (in all forests) will give 5 more coins each.
The prices of HP UP and ATK UP in Holly's shop are now dynamic, with a "Supply and Demand" mechanic (which is explained in-game).
Prices will start very low (15 coins for the first HP UP, 30 coins for the first ATK UP).
Prices will increase as they are purchased. HP UP and ATK UP will increase by 5 coins every time they are purchased.
The total cost to fully upgrade Popgoes is increased, but progression is faster in the first half of The Dead Forest and slower in the second half.
Cost of consumables and other purchasables have been adjusted.
Price of Acorns has been increased to 20 coins (from 10).
Price of Fruits has been increased to 40 coins (from 25).
Price of Pizzas has been increased to 60 coins (from 40).
Price of ATK+ has been increased to 25 coins (from 15).
Price of DEF+ has been increased to 50 coins (from 30).
Price of Shield has been increased to 75 coins (from 45).
Price of songs in the Jukebox has been decreased to 25 coins (from 40).
Price of [spoiler]Super Speed (BB's Black Market)[/spoiler] has been increased to 200 coins (from 150).
Price of [spoiler]Quick Pocket (BB's Black Market)[/spoiler] has been increased to 250 coins (from 200, originally as Money Boots).
Price of [spoiler]Spiky Shield (BB's Black Market)[/spoiler] has been increased to 300 coins (from 250).
Enemy Spawn Changes
Enemy spawn chances, and the areas in the game which increase spawn chances, are being adjusted.
Enemies will spawn less frequently when the player walks on dirt paths in the forests and when walking on rail tracks underground.
Adversely, enemies spawn more frequently (even more than previously) when the player walks "off-road" throughout the game.
[spoiler]Corruption Hotspots (red clouds in The Dead Forest)[/spoiler] and [spoiler]Power Surges (blue clouds in The Machinist)[/spoiler] now halve the player's movement speed.
Battles triggered via [spoiler]Corruption Hotspots and Power Surges[/spoiler] now feature new particle effects in their backgrounds.
Title Screen Medal Changes
The medals that appear in the title screen for the game have been expanded and updated in a few ways.
The medal sprite for Corrupt Bonnie has been updated to now have a nose.
The medal sprites for [spoiler]Rusty Chica and Pristine Bonnie now resemble their actual designs ("Withered" features, and accurate colour schemes).[/spoiler]
The medals for [spoiler]Super Speed and Spiky Shield[/spoiler] have been updated.
Two new medals have been added.
A medal for defeating [spoiler]The Mangle[/spoiler] will appear in the top position of a new row.
A second medal, for completing a new part of Fighting Chance, will appear below [spoiler]The Mangle's[/spoiler].
Jukebox Update
The Jukebox, which is unlocked after completing all three of [spoiler]BB's "hitlists"[/spoiler], has been updated.
The player can now purchase and listen to the [spoiler]"Secret Boss" track (The Mangle's theme)[/spoiler].
The player can now purchase and listen to a brand new track.
The buttons for the Jukebox's UI have been redesigned to be much more consistently shaped/sized.
The play and pause icons have been swapped, so that they resemble buttons being pressed instead of representing the current status of the song.
As mentioned earlier, the price of all songs in the Jukebox has been decreased to 25 coins (from 40).
Various Minor Additions and QOL Updates
Fighting Chance adds or changes some things for the sake of QOL (quality of life) improvements), as well as slightly expanding existing features.
New metallic signs have been added to each of the underground areas, which detail the gameplay features that are exclusive to them.
The sign under the Garden inn lets the player know they can not run in underground areas.
The sign under the West Forest lets the player know they can not use the [spoiler]Tunnel ability[/spoiler] while underground.
The sign under the South Forest lets the player know that increasing max health will make Escape more successful against robots.
The sign under the East Forest hints at [spoiler]The Mangle's existence in the South Forest[/spoiler].
It is now possible to delete/reset all of the player's save data via the ESC menu from the Title Screen (to reset features like the [spoiler]Gilded Hat[/spoiler]).
The [spoiler]Dead King Freddy[/spoiler] page in The Bestiary now has a "Battle" button, to allow rematching from any stage of the game.
The [spoiler]gold and purple lasers in the Dead King Freddy battle[/spoiler] now last slightly longer.
[spoiler]Whimps the Weeper[/spoiler] now has 2 additional "conversations" per area.
The You Win and You Lose jingles are now considered music instead of sound effects, and can be adjusted/muted by the music volume slider
Various Cosmetic Updates
Some minor cosmetic changes have been made to the game, for the sake of visual clarity or general consistency.
All major NPC character sprites (Blake, Sara, Saffron, Stone, Manora, Holly) have been updated to more closely resemble their Evergreen designs.
The loading screen has also been updated to reflect these changes.
Assets on the Steam page have also been updated.
[spoiler]Secret cameras[/spoiler] have been added to the castle ruins, where the minibosses are fought in the overworld, [spoiler]foreshadowing The Machinist[/spoiler].
All boxes that say "You Acquired" have been changed to "You Found". They were previously used interchangeably, for no real reason.
The ATK+ and DEF+ indicators on the player's health bar, as well as equipped Shield items, will now flicker on their final turn.
When you activate an ATK+ item, your displayed ATK power will change to show the new stat (30 will visibly become 45).
To avoid confusion, when Popgoes interacts with the well in the South Forest, he now says [spoiler]"coin" (singular) when he finds the Emerald Coin[/spoiler].
The first example of [spoiler]Overkill with a robot[/spoiler] will now display [spoiler]"Overkill! x1" instead of just "Overkill!"[/spoiler].
Plus even more that I dare not mention here.
Thank you for supporting the POPGOES series and for playing POPGOES Arcade. We really hope you enjoy Fighting Chance. Please delve in, see how much more fun it is, uncover its secrets, and leave a nice review if you like what we've done with the game!
I will keep you all updated on the inevitable patches for the game. We already have an idea for some things that should be tweaked, but they aren't major. Maybe one tomorrow. But don't hesitate to check out the game right now.
- Kane