Update 0.28: Controller and Steam Deck support, notebook UI, a new EasyMart

Hi everyone, I'm the developer of An-pêng.

Thank you to everyone who played and left feedback. Today the demo is updated to 0.28. The two biggest changes: you can now play with a controller, and you can try it on Steam Deck, and the Character, Resources, Quests and Notes windows are now one hand-drawn notebook.

Here is everything that changed.

🎮 Controller, keyboard and Steam Deck

• The game now supports controllers. Move the selection with a controller or the arrow keys. The selected button gets a frame around it, tooltips still show up, and pressing confirm is the same as clicking.
• The selection moves by direction within an area. At the edge it jumps to the neighbouring area, right where you last left it. Tab (Select on a controller) switches areas directly.
• Four shortcuts: C opens Character, I opens Resources, J opens Quests and N opens Notes. On a controller, hold Select and press X / Y / A / B. Press again to close, or switch straight to another one while a window is open.
• On a controller, B is cancel and Start is the pause menu. Tabs inside a window switch with Q / E (LB / RB on a controller).
• Pan the map with WASD or the right stick, and zoom with + / - or the triggers.
• During dialogue, pressing confirm first finishes the line that is still typing. Extra presses at the end of a dialogue won't accidentally click the card the story wants you to press next.
• Settings has a new Controls tab. Pick your input device (Automatic, Keyboard and Mouse, Controller), and set which key and which controller button each action uses. If a new binding clashes with another action in the same group, the two swap automatically, and every group can be reset to its defaults.
• If you're on a controller and switch the input device to keyboard and mouse only, the game asks first. If you don't press "Keep" within 10 seconds, it switches back, so your controller can't lock you out of the setting.
• You can change the volume with a controller too. Pressing confirm on a volume row toggles mute.
• On Steam Deck, the game starts in fullscreen the first time. If you switch to windowed mode, the window is 1280×800.
• The store page doesn't show Steam Deck support yet. Steam only accepts full-game builds for its Steam Deck compatibility review, and demos can't be submitted, so there's no badge for now. You can still install the demo on your Steam Deck and give it a try.
• I don't own a Steam Deck, so none of this has been tested on real hardware, and you'll likely run into some control or display issues. If you play on Steam Deck, I'd love to hear about anything that goes wrong in the discussion forum.

📓 Character, Resources, Quests and Notes are now a notebook

• All four windows are now a notebook, with hand-drawn lines, gauges and button frames. The left page is the list, the right page is the item you picked.
• Four sticky notes in the notebook's top left corner (Character, Resources, Quests, Notes) flip straight to another section. The shortcuts do the same.
• Resources: gauges for slots and weight at the top, filters above the list (Food & Drink, Medical, Gear, Other), and your carried weight at the bottom of the left page.
• Moving items in Resources now has one button per destination. Under "Move to..." you'll see Hands, Backpack, Cart and On-Site, and pressing one moves the item there. A destination that can't take it is faded out, with the reason next to it. Before, you had to pick a target, read a message, then press Move.
• Character: status, attributes and skills are drawn as hand-hatched bars. Each status bar's background is split into comfortable, uncomfortable and dangerous, and the fill changes colour with the zone it's in. Equipment slots follow your character's body shape, and your carried weight is at the bottom of the left page.
• Quests: filter by All, In Progress, Completed or Failed. Active quests are yellow, completed ones pale green, failed ones pale grey. Quest steps have hand-drawn checkboxes.
• Notes: item categories are text buttons showing your progress (for example "Solid Food 4 / 11"), and every page and the whole notebook have a progress gauge. Notes now opens on "All".
• The other paper windows (dialogs, Settings, notices) have small irregular nicks along the edges, with shadows that follow them. Their buttons, dropdowns, checkboxes and volume sliders are hand-drawn too.
• The dark buttons and frames on the main menu, encounters, card duels and the death screen now use a fretwork frame that lights up on hover.
• System notices are colour-coded by type: quests amber, items green, notes blue, ability growth purple, achievements vermilion.
• When the story wants you to press a certain button or card, a light keeps circling its frame until you press it.
• The loading bar is now a hand-drawn paper strip with a highlighter.

🏪 EasyMart Khong-pêng Store redesigned

• Any weapon you can hit with now counts as "coming armed". Before, only the regular baseball bat counted. A weapon in your backpack or cart counts too. If it isn't in your hands when you walk in, the protagonist reminds themself to take it out.
• The first time you walk into the store armed, choosing Fight against the person inside always wins (you'll take a little damage). Before, it was the normal odds, so you could lose. Hiding and running are still down to chance.
• While that person is still in the store, there's nothing to find inside. Only after you win can you search the store.
• The EasyMart Khong-pêng Store now has its own supplies: mineral water, energy drinks, eight-treasure congee, Instant Curry Rice, all sorts of canned food (tuna, mackerel in tomato sauce, braised pork, beef, corn, peaches, pineapple), Disposable Ponchos and towels, plus a little expired water and curry.
• After winning in the store, the protagonist thinks about a cart. Without one, they say there's too much to carry. If there's a cart lying in the store, they'll suggest pushing it and open the equipment window with the cart already selected.

⚔️ New weapon: Spiked Bat

• New gear: Spiked Bat. In card duels it becomes a Strike card with 15 power (a regular baseball bat is 5), and equipping it gives +3 Strength.
• The Spiked Bat only drops after you beat someone, and it always comes with a bonus. Its durability is between 50% and 90%, higher with more Luck.
• The WIN / LOSE stamp on the card duel results is now tilted. The four action buttons in an encounter are laid out in two equal columns.

🌫️ Screen effects

• A soft, fixed vignette now frames the screen.
• When it rains and you're outdoors, the screen gets darker and colder, more so in heavy rain and a downpour. Indoors is unaffected.
• The dark red border that used to appear only when you ran out of energy is now a "you're about to die" warning. Hunger, thirst, cold, heat, injury or illness: whenever any of them is about to kill you, it appears, getting stronger as you get closer. Once the death countdown starts, the border pulses like breathing.

🗺️ Map and more

• The outdoor map now picks its zoom level from where you are every time it opens, so nearby pins, the little green figure and place names no longer overlap. Pins and the green figure are easier to click too.
• Place names on floor plans are now name tags above the cards.
• The "found items" window after a search is now a sheet of paper, and it reminds you that the items are still on the On-Site page of the Resources window.
• Canned pineapple, corn, peaches and mackerel in tomato sauce now take 30 minutes to eat (they used to take no time).
• Instant Curry Rice has a new description: it's already cooked, but with no power to heat it, you eat it cold.
• Spellings in the Taiwanese (POJ) text are now consistent: a dozen words that used to be spelled differently in different places now match. Punctuation was tidied up in every language.
• 戚維 (Vic75) has been added to the Streamers section of the credits.

🔧 Fixes

• Winning with "Get it over with" no longer wears down a weapon you just picked up and put straight into your hands in the same fight.
• When the story dims the screen to make you press a card, it now waits if the protagonist's dialogue is still on screen, instead of covering it.
• Pressing the search card when the screen hadn't caught up yet (for example, the place had just run out of things to find) now does nothing. It no longer spends time or marks the place as searched.
• Moving across your hand in a card duel with a controller no longer loses the selection at every step.
• Quickly switching tabs or entries in the notebook no longer stacks two copies of the right page.

If you have any thoughts or run into any problems, please let me know in the discussion forum.

If you like An-pêng, please add it to your wishlist. It really helps an indie game. Thank you! 🙏