Welcome back to another weekly update from our little team here in the development dungeons. We've been cooking up some exciting new content, wrestling with UI anchors, and doing all our QA in-house to make sure your roguelite billiards runs stay as delightfully haunting as ever. Grab your cues and let's dive into what's fresh on the tables this week!
👑 New Features & Mechanics
Meet Jessocka at the Spin Wheel: The Spin Wheel reward area has received a complete environment makeover, featuring our brand-new character, Jessocka! She's a showgirl (and a literal sock puppet) forced to dish out prizes and punishments at the whim of Ralphie. Drop by to take a spin and meet her—just don't expect her to bring you any luck!
New Hubert & Maurice Boss Tables: Two brand-new boss encounters featuring our favorite finger puppet duo are now live in both the Demo and the Beta! These new encounters will help keep your runs feeling fresh and unpredictable.
Pool Ball Dialogue Audio: We’ve officially tossed out the old typewriter text sound! When characters speak, you'll now hear the satisfying, thematic clack of pool balls impacting. Trust us, it sounds so much better.
⚙️ Balance Changes & QoL
Beta Progression Expansion: For our Beta testers, the total run length has expanded from 15 to 18 tables! Score targets have been rebalanced across the board, and Boss Battles now require 3 table victories instead of 2. Boss encounters now trigger at tables 6, 12, and 18. (The Demo remains unchanged, with its single boss battle resting firmly at table 7).
Spin Wheel Odds Tweak: We adjusted the odds on the Spin Wheel—we’ve reduced the "Lose a Trophy" punishment by 1 and increased the "Gain a Curse Ball" punishment by 1. We plan to expand the wheel options even further in future updates!
Dynamic Finger Puppets: Hubert and Maurice got a subtle visual physics upgrade. Watch them jiggle with glee whenever they laugh in the bar!
🐛 Bug Fixes & Visual Clean-up
Warning UI Re-Anchored: Fixed an issue where the "Not enough points on table" warning message was floating off into space instead of staying cleanly anchored to the side of the screen—a pesky holdover from last week’s UI scaling update that finally got hunted down!
💡 Under the Hood Note: Behind the scenes, our team has officially started laying the groundwork for a massive 3-Act Story structure reserved for the full release, complete with changing puppet interactions, evolving environments, dynamic score targets, and deep lore! On top of that, we’ve begun wiring up Steam Achievements—you might see a few test achievements pop up in your library over the coming days as we prepare to push them live in the next few weeks!
Lots more is on the way as we march toward the next big milestone. Jump into our Discord to let us know how you're liking the new boss tables and wheel changes!
Good luck on the tables, and we'll see you next week! 🎱