Curling news & patch notes

Hey all, sorry for the amount of bugs in the game. I haven't released a game before, don't have any playtesters, and have spent all my time coding the game with no serious debugging or playtesting which has caused some big problems. I was hoping to use the 3 month demo period to get this but not many players played it and I got no feedback, I'm hard at work crushing bugs right now, so any detailed reports will be fixed ASAP!

Changes:

• Better tutorials:

  • Shows the player how to use the broom

  • Shows the player how to properly use the shop

  • Shows the player how to use the space shop phase

  • Shows the player how to use the Training Grounds

• MacOS currently taken off of supported operating systems

Bugs fixed:

• Enemy stones can be moved by player

• Opponent abilities never stopped, causing the game to softlock, not letting the player open the settings menu

• Left/Right controls reworked to not make the player stuck

Known issues:

• Some sprites are squares, I'm still trying to draw the pixel art

Curling has officially released free to play!

Curling Demo NextFest+2.0 stream

Curling Demo 2.0 (Not all features listed)

Gameplay Changes

• Coaches!

  • At the start of a run, choose between two coaches, each one changes the game a little bit

• Upgrades + Broom

  • There's a broom now! Sweep by holding Q or E (Triggers on controller)

  • At the end of every round, you get to choose between the shop and training grounds, going to the training grounds lets you upgrade the broom

• Changed original game mode

  • "Rounds" are now "weeks"

  • You choose between 2-4 opponents every week to face in a match

  • After winning, you can go to the shop to get upgrades or new stones

• Online Co-op Mode (Experimental Feature, bugs likely)

  • Play with up to four friends in a chaotic rendition of the original game mode.

  • Can join through steam or room codes

• Map is now a 3D representation of earth (I spent way too much time on this)

Quality of Life

• Full controller support

• Remade save system to be more accurate and durable

• Tutorial has been fully reworked

• Loading screens reworked

• Shop shuffling changed, stones are more random

• Mac support with cross-play

• Linux support with cross-play

Demo 2.0:

For the past two months, I have been extremely hard at work on Demo 2.0, a full reimagining of the game bringing both highly-requested and brand-new features, here are some highlights:

• Multiplayer co-op through steam

• Broom.

• Mac support!

• Full controller support (the game works better on controller than keyboard now)

• Coaches, which change the way the game is played

• 3D, realistic Earth map I spend way too much time on

Game Release:

Curling will be releasing into Early Access on June 24th at 8am PST, mark your calendars!

The game will also be on a 40% discount from the launch price of $4.99 for the two weeks following release, be sure to buy it while it's cheap.

Weekly updates are planned until the games eventual release, TDB

Next Fest:

Curling will be entering Next Fest with Beta 2.0 releasing right before. I will try to broadcast as much as possible and will be available to answer any questions or suggestions during that time!

(You might even be able to play multiplayer with me if you ask)

Join the discord to be a part of discussions and get behind-the-scenes updates:

Discord Invite

Weekly Update #1 (Demo Update 1.121)

• Added the Stone Journal, which keeps track of what stones you've bought and tells you how they work.

• Added Game Modifiers once you beat the game.

• Changed "Most Points" leaderboard to "Prestige", gotten by beating the game with modifiers.

• Rebalanced stones:

  • Boomerang Stone return speed buffed slightly

  • Dragon Stone fully reworked

  • Heat-Seeking Stonesel heat seek increased

  • InvisiStone made legendary and price increased to 1250

  • Wind Stone's wind speed buffed

  • Pinball Stone weakened

• Added a few more songs.

• Added font accessibility options (OpenDyslexic & Arial fonts).

• Made the opponent color change slightly if it is too close to the player's color.

• Main Menu animation updated to feature all stones.

• Deletes extra Dupli-Stones, Plasmoid Stones, and all rats after every round ends.

• Fixed the Crypto Market UI to be readable and made announcement for when you get rug-pulled.

Demo Update 1.011

• Changed the shop from appearing every level to appearing randomly throughout the opponentmap

• Fixed AI opponent's tracking so that it works on all levels

• Tooltips/Tutorial has been reworked

• Stone rarity curves have been tweaked slightly, rare/legendary stones are more likely to show up

• Stones of the same rarity are more random in the shop

• Fixed a Cryptomarket UI node problem

Emergency Hotfix 1.001

• Balanced a few opponents who had up to 8 stones instead of a max of 4.

Hey all!

Progress on the game has been going smoothly and the demo is fully set to release in two days on Friday March 20th at 2:00 PM EST.

The demo is going to be interesting since it's pretty much the full game with a ton of replayability, but it's also still pretty rough around the edges. Depending on how the launch and reception for the demo is, I might release the full game in a month or so, or just release it into full early access.

Also, I post here a lot and respond to everything on this discord, so if you want to have a major impact on how this game ends up please join it would be a big help!

Discord Link

See you soon,

Danny (Solo Dev, Blank Studios LLC)