Hello! I'm here to FINALLY announce the next major revision of Sunrise, v2026.5.0, arguably our best work and biggest update yet. We also prepared new cover art for the game, featuring some sick character art done by PJDJ, thank you lots!
Now for them changelogs...
Additions (story):
The ENTIRETY of Sunrise: Chapter 1 - Sundown, is now available to play. See the events that led up to the eternal winter and near end of the world, blast through up to 5 levels with 3 extra precision-platformer challenges included in the bundle, and more. A (not-so) secret new menu was also added: dial in numbers and receive cryptic responses and even lore drops in return! ...unless you enter in the wrong number.
Additions (features):
Menu2: Menu2 is our new UI framework for Sunrise, unionizing everything into a much cleaner and easier to use interface, whilst still keeping its charm. Everything has been overhauled, the Settings, the Main Menu, the Play menus, and more, with a primary shift to focus on controller recommended gameplay.
Editor 2.0: Editor 2.0 completely reworks the Level Editor, adding more room for options, features, and more, again with the same focus we put on Menu2 for controller oriented gameplay with the improved Toolbar. More tools are available as well, utilizing the same terrain system we had implemented back in v2026.4.5. More options for uploading to the Steam Workshop are available too, such as a description, setting up the thumbnail location, etc.
Lighting: A lighting system, originally planned for v2026.4.5 before being pushed to this update has been added in!
Sound Test: A secret Sound Test mode with bonus tracks currently unused or scrapped referencing another game has been added, can you find it?
Developer's Commentary: Those signs in the tutorials appear around levels with this unlockable mode enabled! Receive commentary from people on the developer team about the update, certain segments, and more!
Particle Effects: New particle effects in the game, you get to see "blood" spew out in every direction whenever killing an enemy, or chips of an orb after using them!
Revamped Pause Menu: The Pause Menu has been swapped out from a simple text menu, obviously meant to be a placeholder, to a more complete version, featuring 5 options instead of 3 and the new ability to save literally anywhere.
Additions (technical):
Lua Modding Support: Lua, the programming language, officially supported in GameMaker and thus, Sunrise! The library allows the user to write scripts and directly interact with the game without any GameMaker decompilation tool needed. Can be used for general mods or exclusively for a level, and is secure with fail-safes and more put in place to stop various scenarios. Lua scripts you write can be uploaded to the Steam Workshop for others to install into their game too (if playing on itch.io / without Steam, then Lua scripts can be downloaded and placed in the "mods" folder in the game saves folder).
Controller Support + Rebinding: You can use your controller now (I explained that earlier), and can also rebind your controls in the Settings menu. For PlayStation 4 & PlayStation 5 controllers, the light bar now shifts through the hue, and for PlayStation 5 controllers, certain actions will enable the trigger effects, requiring more effort to press L2 or R2.
Reworked Settings: Settings and more information are now saved in a "main.ini" file in the "Local" folder in your Windows "AppData" folder instead of "Roaming". Because of this, the game will now also detect legacy format save data in its original location, to which you can import your settings the way they were in the previous version of the game. This also applies if the game discovers settings data from the Sunrise Demo.
New Audio System: A new audio system allowing for the enabling / disabling of sounds & music separately, alongside an audio buffer and prevention of overlapping sounds system being added.
Deck Mode: Sunrise has a dedicated Deck Mode, which will enable certain features, such as a dedicated "Exit Game" button on the Main Menu, among others. This can also be enabled if Sunrise detects Steam is in Big Picture Mode. Currently, detection for the Steam Machine and/or currently unreleased Steam Frame is not available yet and will coming in a later update.
Updated Steamworks to v1.63
Tweaks & Changes:
Updated Version Numbering (v2026.4.8 -> v2026.5.0)
Lots of physics changes done on the player, including jump height, jump release, and many more.
Changed the message shown upon a game crash alongside changing the crash log and error log formats from LOG files to TXT files
Screenshots are now taken in a dedicated "screenshots" folder in the game save folder (usually AppData)
Zoomed-in the in-game camera + added an "extended camera" where the camera will reveal more ahead in the direction you're moving.
The in-game level camera will now tilt in the direction you're moving.
Inverted the colors seen on the "WushR00M Studios" splash screen (white = black, black = white)
Replaced the "content warning" with a flashing lights & photosensitive mode notice
Redrew and/or reanimated nearly all Dash sprites with a new simplified color palette
Bits now play a new sound when collected alongside the original ones
Changed the sound that plays whenever a combo finishes
Replaced the internal resolution the game renders at from 1366x768 (GameMaker's default for some reason), to standard 720p (1280x720) to prevent uneven scaling and "mixels"
A custom level's maximum object limit was raised from the original number in v2026.4 to a secret higher number
Changed the splatter sound that plays whenever killing an enemy as "MECCHA CHAMELEON" also uses it (good game, go try it :D)
Locked the debugging options ("Show Debug HUD", "Show Path Finders", etc.) to Developers and Debug Mode only
Added a new 3D glass shatter transition effect from your death point to the Game Over screen
Levels are now internally saved in the game's save folder and are transferred between Steam Cloud saves
More Steam achievements were both added and made achievable, achievements are coming soon to non-Steam users in a later update
The game will now keep track of your highest score achieved in a level, ever (includes player made and story levels)
Re-added the ability to earn the "nil" Steam achievement that was fully disabled in v2026.4.8. Good luck.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed the memory leak causing game crashes, procedural lag, and more bugs with the lighting system that prevented it from being included in v2026.4.5 and above
Fixed a bug where you could delete Finish Lines and soft-lock yourself by right-clicking on them whilst not in the Editor's playtesting mode
Fixed a bug where you could select and delete terrain whilst in a level (how in the world did I miss that?)
Removals:
Removed the v0.3.X and v2026.4.X dialog and toast systems completely
Removed the goodbye messages and easter egg goodbye video
Removed the ability to disable Discord Rich Presence as it was non-functional, it may be added back in a later update
Removed the ability to exit the game from in-game unless in Deck Mode (or Steam Big Picture)
Removed "Casual Mode", it will be added back in a later update.
Removed the Menu Parallax Effects, it will be added back in a later update.
Removed the non-functional configuration option: "Show Leaderboards during Gameplay", it will be added back in a later update
Removed Level Background Dimming as it's identical to High Contrast mode, also removed, and will be added back in a later update
Removed the non-functional Level Progress option, it will be added back in a later update
Removed the Volume Slider shown when scrolling anywhere outside of the Editor
Removed the links to the WushR00M Studios Privacy Policy and Terms of Service
Removed the non-functional "Always Show Key-Strokes" option
Removed the shadow on the FPS counter in the bottom-right whenever the FPS counter is enabled
Removed the Title Screen, Seasonal Backgrounds, Background Snow, and Legacy Title Screens, you will now jump straight into the menus after pairing a controller