Hey everyone!
Matchy Star Alpha Demo v0.18.0 is live! This update is all about making BLASTOFF faster, clearer, and much more satisfying.
Blastoff now follows one simple rule: the rocket keeps moving. Movement, turns, collection effects, sounds, and rumble remain synchronized as the ship accelerates. Matches caught during launch resolve without stalling the run, while major reward popups linger long enough to celebrate—even after the rocket has flown past them.
There’s also a new live ZOOT COUNTER! Hit 1,000 total route Zoot and you’ll go ZOOT ON FIRE, complete with an ignition burst and a flame-and-star trail behind your rocket.
What’s new:
Added the live Zoot Counter and ZOOT ON FIRE celebration.
Made Zoot popups smaller, clearer, and less likely to overlap.
Gave major bonus popups a fixed display time regardless of rocket speed.
Made unused fuel increase the final Blastoff payout.
Fixed ships stalling when they launch onto an existing match.
Fixed the galaxy appearing too small on tall and square displays.
Made layouts transition smoothly while resizing between portrait, widescreen, and ultrawide.
Kept ships properly aligned with the board during window resizing.
Cleaned up Matchymart’s portrait and square layouts, including evenly spaced ship columns.
Added direct swapping between compatible equipped items—even between ships.
Corrected several item fuel calculations, scaling limits, and refill color-changing effects.
Smoothed the trip-emblem transition and fade.
Expanded automated testing across gameplay, equipment, replays, and screen resolutions.
Thanks to everyone putting screenshots, complaints, and wonderfully strange edge cases into the public issue tracker:
https://github.com/Silverware-Games/matchy-star-gdd/issues
Please keep it coming—and go set that Zoot counter on fire! 🚀🔥