This is our biggest update since EA started! We added a guided tutorial, Spiral mode, three new power-ups, per-run Story difficulty, and better Steam Cloud saves, along with fixes for match timing, spawning, input, and leaderboards.
New Features
- Guided tutorial: Learn rotation, matching, cues, slamming, and powerups at your own pace. Tutorials can be replayed from the main menu, and a short intro now plays when an Octahedron first appears.
- New play modes: Spiral, and a revised Octahedron mode.
- Three new power-ups:
- Dual Circuit: Fires a timed volley across paired axes.
- Quantum Buffer: Delays the next shape by one spawn.
- Polarity Inverter: Swaps all opposite-face symbols.
Gold shapes: Rare, high-value spawns begin appearing from level 6 in Quick play.Updated Run presentation: Chapter intros and interstitials now use 16-bit cutscenes, new art, procedural backgrounds, signal degradation effects, and a generated alien character.Run summary: Compare your score against your personal best, track your next unlock, and retry immediately.Accessibility: Added high-contrast shape textures, a dashed laser cue for match eligibility, and reduce-motion and reduce-flash options for boss and finale effects.HUD improvements: Added level and Story progress, a lane compass in the NEXT panel, and a power-up slot with key hints and ready/spent/empty states.Shop updates: Extra Life is now a standard Story shop item, and the Qubit Shop has updated visuals.Audio controls: Skip tracks and adjust audio settings from the pause menu.Leaderboards: Grouped by mode, with a separate local board for Story.Fixes
- Improved match judging at impact. Rotations completed just before arrival now count, stale matches no longer remain open, and docking starts and ends on the arrival frame.
- Fixed gamepad input after unpausing, duplicate slam and pause inputs, and controller-disconnect dialog rendering.
- Improved custom keybinds. Remapped slam inputs work consistently, “None” bindings no longer cause errors, and labels update after resetting defaults.
- Leaderboards now show the correct results, handle Steam connection delays, and include empty and unavailable states.
- Fullscreen preferences now persist after restarting, and window sizing settles before the first frame.
- Fixed overlapping dialogs at the end of runs and when opening the Steam overlay. Pause settings now render above the HUD.
- Fixed memory leaks and shader stalls during long sessions, including the level-up hitch.
- Better steam deck support
- Achievement cards now show their track names, and tiered achievements award the correct tier.
- Music and sound effects now start at lower default volumes.
Feedback is welcome on the forums!