The KEYKRUNCHER™ Pre-Alpha Demo is now the Alpha Demo. Thank you to everyone who has participated in treatment so far: playing, reviewing, completing surveys, streaming, making videos, reporting problems and finding increasingly creative ways to participate in the programme.
Compared to the original Pre-Alpha, the Alpha introduces:
a completely overhauled Collectables system,
a proper Keycap Pool,
pool-based Special Keycap generation,
item rarities,
new unlockables,
new key interactions,
improved gumball generation,
our first interactive Active Therapy experience,
major tutorial and balance changes,
lots of new audio for IT,
new accessibility options,
sharper visuals
and a considerable number of fixes.
We've also completed work on larger systems including Gumball Machine Upgrades, but these remain LOCKED during the Alpha treatment programme. They will become available in the Steam Next Fest Demo and full game.
One of the best parts of releasing the Pre-Alpha has been watching other people undergo treatment.
We've been watching your videos & reading your comments. Here are a few of our favourite patient recordings so far:
Our Discord has now grown to 85 members.
Of those, 46 have voluntarily registered themselves as Patients and have access to our test builds, helping us break new treatment changes before they reach everyone else.
Yes.
More than half of the Discord willingly signed up for experimental treatment.
This information has been noted.
Want to help test upcoming builds yourself?
Patients get access to test builds and can directly help us identify problems, test new systems and shape treatment before updates reach the wider public.
Volunteers are still being accepted.
The Collectables programme has undergone significant treatment.
Added a dedicated Collectables screen with full 3D item renders.
Added unlock requirements, descriptions and rarity information.
Added support for multiple simultaneous unlocks.
Improved Collectable silhouettes, layout and notifications.
Rebalanced the majority of unlock requirements.
Fixed completed Collectables showing incorrect requirement values after restarting.
Fixed various rendering, tracking and unlock issues.
New Collectables include:
I'm Okay, Mash, Cherry, Midas Touch, K For Cat and the Compliance Voucher.
You now have considerably more things to collect during treatment.
A dedicated Keycap Pool screen has been added to your monitor.
This shows the Special Keycaps currently available to you.
More importantly:
If a Special Keycap is not in your pool, it cannot appear during treatment.
If your Keycap Pool contains no Special Keycaps...
You will not receive one.
Special Keys are also no longer guaranteed every lesson.
Your unlocks and Keycap Pool now directly determine what can appear during a run.
Added support for Keycap Bundles.
Improved Special Keycap generation.
Fixed locked Keycaps appearing incorrectly.
Fixed Keycap Pool issues between subsequent runs.
The programme will no longer provide equipment you have not earned.
The gumball machine now uses a proper rarity system.
Previously, everything competed inside one large selection pool.
The machine now:
Selects an item type.
Determines its rarity.
Selects an available item from that category.
This prevents item types with smaller pools from becoming unintentionally much rarer.
We also fixed the long-standing problem where gumballs could simply fall out of the machine.
This was not an intended feature of the programme.
Several new methods of consuming and modifying your keyboard have been approved.
Added Double Tap interactions.
Added Hold interactions.
Reduced Hold interaction time by 50%.
Your keyboard remains safe to eat.
Mostly.
The programme is beginning to remember things.
The Alpha introduces our first proper interactive Active Therapy experience.
Between lessons, your elevator may stop.
The doors may open.
You may be shown something.
You may be instructed to type.
Follow the instructions.
These experiences are the beginning of how KEYKRUNCHER™ will tell its wider story through fragmented memories, conditioning, strange places and events that may or may not belong to you.
The Alpha contains only a small sample of this system.
The Next Fest Demo will expand Active Therapy considerably, and the full game is planned to include many more experiences, environments and increasingly questionable instructions.
Added new in-between sequences.
Added interactive typing.
Added new music.
Added new environmental details and instructional material.
ACTIVE THERAPY IS GOOD FOR YOU.
IT has been given a voice.
Added new movement audio.
Added randomised vocalisations.
IT now becomes louder as it approaches.
IT's proximity has a greater effect on your heart rate.
IT can trigger camera shake when vocalising.
Added creature death audio.
Implemented Gael's latest creature audio work.
Reduced excessive pushback.
Adjusted movement behaviour.
You should now be considerably more aware of when IT is approaching.
This information may not help you.
Added a new Camera Shake Strength setting from 0–100%.
Setting this to 0% disables camera shake entirely, including IT's new vocalisation effects.
Due to entirely understandable feedback, we have added a dedicated Krunching Volume slider.
You may now independently reduce the volume of the key-eating audio.
You may reduce the Krunch.
You may not stop the Krunch.
Additional audio changes include:
Added new Token quota audio.
Removed the constant ticking sound from spawned sub-objectives.
Increased positive Compliance feedback volume.
Replaced the incineration audio.
Fixed Token audio incorrectly playing when placing Charms.
Added additional music and sound improvements throughout treatment.
The introductory treatment programme has been extensively revised.
Added Keycap Pool and Collectable tutorials.
Improved input instructions.
Improved tutorial progression.
Improved tutorial gumball generation.
Prevented several unlocks progressing incorrectly during the tutorial.
Reduced keyboard requirements across lessons.
Reduced the final sequence requirement.
Removed guaranteed Special Keys.
Removed Special Key-related Miscellaneous sub-objectives.
Reduced the delay before lesson doors open.
Fixed several lesson and sub-objective progression issues.
Improved placement and interaction prompts.
Sharpened the internal pixel filter while retaining the intended low-resolution presentation.
Brightened Collectable silhouettes.
Added new instructional posters and environmental assets.
Fixed opening the pause menu disabling certain interactions.
Fixed several monitor and interface issues.
We've added improved handling for saves created using incompatible versions of KEYKRUNCHER™.
If your existing save cannot safely undergo the latest treatment, the game will now tell you that it needs to be removed before continuing.
A considerable number of smaller issues have also been corrected, including:
Gumball generation and interaction problems.
Keycap Pool issues between runs.
Locked Special Keycaps appearing incorrectly.
Mash data and placement issues.
Creature movement problems.
Tutorial progression issues.
Monitor interaction problems.
Collectable rendering and tracking.
Sub-objective tracking.
Token audio triggering incorrectly.
Elevator lighting issues.
Various UI, material and presentation bugs.
Tokens now have their own descriptions.
Token interactions now use the correct secondary input.
The next major public update will be the Steam Next Fest Demo.
This will introduce more of the systems currently being prepared behind the programme, including playable Gumball Machine Upgrades, expanded progression and a much larger sample of Active Therapy.
For everyone who has participated since the original Pre-Alpha:
Make sure to restart Steam to apply the update.
- Sunscorched Studios
Many keyboards were harmed in the development of KEYKRUNCHER™.