The Floor Is Optional Update

Hey everyone!

It's been a long time since the last update, but I've been hard at work on High Fructose!

Grapple into a fight, slide through it, and bounce back into the air off a fruit's head. Grappling, wall runs, and enemy-bouncing katana strikes are turning movement into a much bigger part of the fight. Here's a look at the latest development work in High Fructose, from airborne combat to the handcrafted levels built around it, plus new ways to put together a run.

Grapple, slide, and bounce off fruit

Grappling and sliding have become a much bigger part of getting around. The new routes give you places to chain grapples into wall runs, slide through sections, and carry that movement into the next encounter. I've also added grapple and slide animations to help those actions feel more connected to your character.

There's also a Hollow Knight-inspired pogo bounce for the katana. Aim down and slash an enemy beneath you while airborne to bounce back up. Every character can do it.

Other airborne sword hits briefly hold you in the air, giving you a moment to keep cutting instead of immediately falling past a flying enemy. Pogo bounces and air hang share a limit, which resets when you land or wall run.

Consecutive wall-run jumps now keep their launch strength, so later jumps in a chain don't get weaker. Speed pads add bursts of steerable momentum to the movement course, and a short input buffer makes slightly early jump and dash presses more forgiving.

I've also added items that build on these movement options, including higher pogo bounces, longer air hangs, extra air jumps, and grappling onto enemies.

Grapple between platforms.

Slide through the movement course.

Take the route along the walls.

Slash downward and bounce off fruit.

More handcrafted levels

I've continued expanding the handcrafted side of the game, with more routes built around movement and fights that happen along the way.

• Wave 1 has a movement course that builds from jumps and ledge grabs into wall runs, slides, dashes, and combat.
• Wave 2 takes the route upward, with chained grapples, wall-run handoffs, a silo climb, and staged combat arenas.
• Wave 3 leads through smaller encounters into a ring arena built around three shrine objectives.
• Wave 6 adds a longer movement-and-combat gauntlet, with grappling, wall runs, tight landings, and a keep arena finale.

The goal is to give movement more room to matter: choosing a line, keeping your flow through a fight, and getting comfortable enough with a route to take it faster next time.

Wave 1: the movement course above reflective water.

Wave 2: the silo climb and vertical routes.

Wave 3: the shrine arena rising above the water.

Wave 6: the keep and upper routes.

Choose when to UNLEASH your gun rack

UNLEASH gives you a more deliberate way to move between sword combat and your collected guns. Build Juice with the katana, then deploy the gun rack when you're ready to let it loose. A sword action takes you straight back to melee.

The idea is to make the switch feel like part of the fight, with you deciding when to bring out the firepower and when to get back in close.

UNLEASH mode: hands raised in the sustained Guns stance.

Meet the Fruit-dex

The Fruit-dex records the fruit you've encountered and lets you revisit their entries from the pause menu. First-sighting introductions, attack information, tips, and weaknesses help you learn what you're fighting. Your discoveries stay with you between runs.

Meet the Fruit-dex: revisit discovered enemies, attacks, and weaknesses.

Four new recipe powers

Mega Melon turns you into a giant, with extra sword reach and a damaging stomp when you land after a jump. The fruit suddenly have a much bigger problem.

Mega Melon: a giant's-eye view above the fruit.

Fruit Fright sends nearby fruit fleeing. You can also damage frightened enemies by running into them, so chasing them down becomes part of the fun.

Fruit Fright: send the fruit fleeing.

Food Fight turns fruit against each other. Let them settle a few differences while you keep moving.

Food Fight: let the fruit settle their differences.

Jumping Jumble launches nearby fruit into the air when you jump, giving you another way to stir up the fight.

Jumping Jumble: send nearby fruit airborne.

A little more room to recover

Last Chance can save you from a lethal hit once per run, restoring some health and giving you a short window of protection. The Wave 3 shrine arena also supports encounter retries, so you have another chance to learn the fight.

A Recipe Book that remembers your discoveries

The new Recipe Book lets you look back through recipes you've acquired, check their ingredients, see what their powers do, and compare the tiers you've found.

Your discoveries stay with you between runs. Undiscovered recipes remain hidden, so there's still something to find next time.

I've also made recipe cards easier to read and added clearer feedback when a recipe is ready and when its power actually activates.

The Recipe Book remembers discoveries and lets you compare ingredients, powers, and tiers.

A clearer look at your recipe choices and their ingredients.

Keep your ingredients between levels

Collected ingredients now carry between waves and levels within the same run. Your active recipe comes with you, and a completed recipe waiting to be claimed stays ready.

You can leave a level partway through a recipe and pick up where you left off. Compatible ingredient progress also carries into recipe upgrades.

Learn a recipe, then come back and practise

The recipe lesson has been rebuilt around choosing a recipe, collecting its ingredients, activating it through a glory kill, and actually trying the power out. You'll get hands-on practice with Mega Melon before switching to Banana Blitz.

The practice area now sits beneath a starry sky, with stone platforms above reflective water.

A quieter moment in the recipe practice area.

There's also a new Tutorial Portal in the hub. It lets you revisit the intro or recipe tutorial, even after you've completed them, then return to the hub with your run state preserved.

Head back to the TUTORIALS portal whenever you want to practise.

Coming up: Grape Spider and UI updates

I also wanted to give you a peek at a new boss in the works: the Grape Spider. Here's the concept art and an early model preview. Both are still work in progress, and I'll share more as the boss takes shape.

Grape Spider concept art and early model — work in progress.

There's also a new level-up screen in the works. The mockup uses color-coded Offense, Survival, and Mobility categories, with current and upgraded values shown together so it's easier to see what each choice will change.

Upcoming level-up UI mockup — work in progress.

These are previews of upcoming work. The Grape Spider and this new UI are still in development.

A few more things

• Star-warp visuals and audio for portal travel.
• Clearer gun audio, hitmarkers, and distinct hit and kill confirmation sounds.
• XP pickups no longer physically push the player around.
• A fix for the game remaining paused after closing the Steam overlay.

Thanks for sticking with High Fructose and sending feedback. I'm looking forward to seeing which of the new powers you build around.

A big thank-you to Tideturners for their work on the Grape Spider and the upcoming UI updates. They're helping me juice up High Fructose!

-Chris