Demo Version 0.12 Released!

Welcome back for more patch notes!

We've received lots of great feedback for the screen reader support, and we've taken a lot of that on board for this release. If you're blind or visually impaired, please give it another go and let us know what you think in our Discord server! We've also included some translation updates for international players.

You can now also play Bits & Bops in

• Vietnamese - thanks to Đào Đức Trung!

Special thanks to all the translators!

Features added

• The accessibility settings now include a "Narrate gameplay" option to enable additional narration during levels
• The custom audio engine now has a "Strict buffer" setting which can be disabled for compatibility with non-conforming output devices
• Linux now has basic screen reader support if spd-say is available (apt-get install speech-dispatcher)

Updates

• Loading mixtapes now uses the native OS file picker, which is also accessible to screen readers
• Shortcuts on the disclaimer screen now also accept Shift in place of Ctrl
• The mouse cursor is only locked to the screen on valid mouse input
• The screen reader now describes more details on the title screen, stage select, tutorials and judgement screens
• The default Windows screen reader implementation now supports modern voices and configuration settings
• The Windows build now detects more running screen readers in addition to NVDA
• The default locale for Spanish has been changed to es-MX (from es-US)
• The X button can now be used in addition to the A button on controllers
• The custom audio engine now supports a wider range of audio formats to be compatible with more sound cards
• The custom audio engine now attempts to match your native device format for optimal speed and latency

Bugs fixed

• The Japanese translation was mistakenly omitted and is now included in all builds
• Bubble pop events in Meet & Tweet are now consistently handled before bubble appear events
• The game no longer freezes in some cases on Linux when the audio device is in a bad state
• The custom audio engine now recovers from more invalid device state errors
• Screen reader pacing is now more consistent on non-Windows platforms
• Level names now use translated names in stage select if available
• The keyboard shortcut to enable accessibility (Shift+Win+A) now works reliably and is available on macOS (as Shift+Command+A)
• The game no longer crashes on Windows if text-to-speech fails to initialise
• The "sound check" text no longer disappears after changing language
• The modifier key for disclaimer screen shortcuts no longer sticks on macOS
• The "Screen flash" option now also disables the camera shutter on the Flipper Snapper title screen
• Clicking the mouse no longer interrupts the current screen reader dialogue
• Overlapping nails in Hammer Time customs now use consistent layering

As always, you can discuss the latest changes in our Discord server. See you there!