Demo Version 0.14 Released!

Welcome back for more patch notes!

This release brings a handful of new features that will make the game a more complete and polished experience, including pausing, input rebinding, and calibration options for players who are stuck using high latency devices. We've also made more fixes to the Custom engine which should enable it to run on more devices. If you're using the Fallback engine, you'll be switched back to the Custom engine automatically next time you launch the game. Please report any issues you encounter in our Discord server!

With the release of the input rebinding feature, we'd like to thank Nicolae Berbece (Xelu) for his Free Controllers & Keyboard Prompts pack! The pack is generously available in the public domain and saved us from spending a bunch of time drawing buttons. Thanks, Nick!

You can now also play the Bits & Bops demo in

• German - thanks to Drowzee!

We've also had substantial updates to many of our fan translations

• Chinese - thanks to Kirbysfan!
• Danish - thanks to Rapandrasmus!
• Korean - thanks to Big Jaekuk!
• Portuguese - thanks to Ghostabo and teu!
• Spanish - thanks to Valentin!
• Vietnamese - thanks to Trung!

Special thanks to all the translators!

Features added

• Hit sounds can be pre-scheduled to enable latency calibration via the Settings menu
• Gameplay can now be paused using the Quit button (typically Start or Escape)
• Levels can now be restarted from the Pause menu
• Input is now rebindable via the Settings menu
• Keys and buttons are now displayed using glyphs appropriate for your input device
• After failing a tutorial, the game demonstrates the correct timing

Updates

• Mouse input is now enabled by default in menus to enable WASD + left click menu navigation
• The "Hit X more!" text in Flipper Snapper no longer flashes on hit
• Tutorials will now cut earlier if the player hasn't successfully hit any cues
• Fading audio in and out now uses a more natural-sounding curve
• Error screens now ignore input for a short time to make them harder to accidentally dismiss
• Cursor locking is now configurable via the Settings menu
• The screen reader now consistently provides instructions to re-enable TTS when disabled
• The game will now automatically enable TTS if VoiceOver is enabled on macOS
• The game no longer automatically switches players to the Fallback engine on failure to initialise audio
• Autoplay can now be toggled from stage select via the Ctrl+A shortcut
• Mixtapes will no longer implicitly fade out if an explicit "end" block is used
• Error screens will now be read by TTS when it is enabled
• The game will now default to the user's locale for translation files for unsupported languages
• The in-game Discord links will now direct Thai users to the Thai channel
• The shared mode buffer size description setting no longer advises that it shouldn't be changed
• Switching to exclusive mode audio now requires confirmation to acknowledge potential side effects
• The custom engine now correctly handles more output formats, including the DualSense controller speaker
• The game now has generally faster and more consistent load times between scenes

Bugs fixed

• The ocean sound volume in Flipper Snapper is now controlled by the Sfx setting (instead of the Music setting)
• The Flipper Snapper bubbling animation no longer leaves the last animation frame visible
• The mixtape unlock animation no longer plays when the file picker is cancelled
• Flash events in mixtapes can now be used in conjunction with the implicit ending fade out
• Audio no longer crackles when fading in or out on some devices
• Focus is now correctly lost and regained when clicking outside the window on macOS
• TTS no longer fails to read some dynamic menu items
• A rare TTS error no longer interferes with the game on macOS
• The screen reader is now correctly turned off when resetting all settings to default
• Flipper Snapper boat events for custom mixtapes now have a flag to check their lengths match the animation
• The fourth shelf and cabinet covers in stage select are now correctly aligned
• The game no longer uses the default font for some glyphs in some languages
• The game's title bar now correctly shows "Bits & Bops" on macOS
• Mouse input no longer fails after the first input on some Linux systems
• The game should generally run smoothly on more systems as a result of internal optimisations
• The game now generally outputs fewer warnings and errors under normal operation

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