High Fructose news & patch notes

THE OVERJUICED UPDATE

• The Juice System
• Frog Challenges and Wagers
• Achievements
• Improved END-OF-RUN screen
• LOTS of UI Improvements
• And probably others I'm forgetting...haha

THE NEW JUICE SYSTEM

• Auto-firing weapons consume Juice while shooting.
• Running out of Juice stops automatic weapon fire.
• Melee attacks refill the Juice meter.
• Your weapons return after you earn enough Juice.
• The HUD warns you when Juice is getting low.
• New effects connect sword hits, Juice gained, and weapon activity.
• Juice drain is time-based, keeping it fair across different characters and loadouts.
• The tutorial teaches the full Juice loop.

GET OVERJUICED

• Faster automatic fire.
• No Juice drain while Overjuice is active.
• New HUD colors and effects.
• New weapon, audio, and controller feedback.

NEW FROG CHALLENGES

• A new challenge interface.
• Challenge descriptions and progress tracking.
• Seed rewards for completed challenges.
• Item and recipe unlock rewards.
• Reward claim animations and sounds.
• Controller and keyboard navigation.
• Clear completed, active, and unclaimed states.

NEW WAGERS

• Choose restrictions before starting a run.
• Stack multiple restrictions for a larger payout.
• See your active wager conditions during the run.
• Earn bonus Seeds for taking on more difficult conditions.
• Optionally stake your own Seeds for a higher-risk reward.

NEW ACHIEVEMENTS

• A new in-game Achievement system.
• Steam Achievement support.
• Progress tracking for eligible Achievements.
• Achievement unlock notifications.
• A dedicated place to browse locked and unlocked Achievements.
• Achievements tied to combat, characters, progression, challenges, and secrets.
• Saved progress between sessions.

THE SHOP

• New item card presentation.
• A full detail panel for the selected item.
• Clearer rarity and upgrade information.
• Improved purchasing, selling, rerolling, locking, and combining.
• Better keyboard and controller navigation.
• Clearer feedback when buying an item or when you cannot afford it.
• Better handling of coins, inventory changes, and item effects.
• Reduced-motion support.
• Improved layouts for ultrawide and smaller screens.
• Fixes for shop persistence and scene-transition issues.

THE FOX UPGRADE SHOP

• New permanent-upgrade card grid.
• Current and next stat values are clearly displayed.
• Level pips show your upgrade progress.
• Affordable, unaffordable, and maxed upgrades have distinct states.
• Hovering over a card previews the next level.
• New purchase sounds, flashes, particles, Seed animations, and controller feedback.
• Seed totals and cards update immediately after a purchase.
• Reset Stats is easier to find.
• Resetting stats now requires confirmation.
• Controller navigation keeps your place after purchasing an upgrade.

HUD AND COMBAT FEEDBACK

• A new Juice display.
• Clear Ready, Low, Dry, and Overjuice states.
• New prompts explaining when your weapons need Juice.
• Improved objective introductions and tracking.
• Stronger visual feedback when taking heavy damage.
• A clearer Overdrive screen effect.
• Improved Dragon hit feedback.
• Better animation, color, sound, and controller feedback.
• Improved scaling across different resolutions and aspect ratios.

SETTINGS AND CONTROLS

• Improved mouse sensitivity and field-of-view controls.
• Better support for inverted camera controls.
• Adjustable camera shake.
• Cleaner Master, Music, SFX, and UI volume controls.
• More consistent auto-aim and auto-firing settings.
• More reliable key rebinding.
• Better saving and loading of settings.
• New feedback for sliders, switches, and successful rebinding.
• Improved controller navigation.
• Old settings that no longer did anything have been removed or hidden.

LEVEL-UP AND END-OF-RUN SCREENS

• Level-up choices are easier to compare.
• Cards have clearer selection and upgrade feedback.
• The end-of-run screen has a new layout.
• Important run statistics are given more space.
• Stats reveal one at a time with new audio feedback.
• The enemy breakdown only shows enemies you defeated.
• Empty results now display proper messages.
• Scrolling and controller navigation have been improved.
• Labels and button styles are more consistent.

TUTORIAL AND OBJECTIVE IMPROVEMENTS

• The new Juice system is taught during the tutorial.
• Players are shown how melee attacks power automatic weapons.
• Objective introductions have been improved.
• Several tutorial transitions and cinematic triggers have been fixed.
• Added safeguards for tutorial steps that could become stuck.
• Improved the early recipe and Overdrive tutorials.

MORE FIXES AND POLISH

• Improved UI scaling and safe margins.
• More consistent buttons, cards, tabs, and back navigation.
• More sound and animation feedback across menus.
• Fixed hidden menus reacting in the background.
• Fixed several scene-transition and cleanup issues.
• Improved saving for shops, upgrades, challenges, Achievements, and settings.
• Added more automated tests for the game’s major systems.
• Continued removing older UI systems that were causing conflicts.

THE BIG PICTURE

High Fructose is 50% Off During Steam Bullet Fest! 🍓

Enjoying High Fructose?

High Fructose Goes to BitSummit Japan!

🔥 TLDR – Big Update Highlights

• Major Glory Kill overhaul – now player-controlled and skill-based
• Key rebinding is now supported
• More settings options
• Separate volume sliders for Music and SFX
• HUD can now be hidden
• Movement update
• Momentum is preserved when jumping
• Full air control
• Bunny hopping added (Quake-style, optional but very fun)

⚙️ Settings & Quality of Life Updates

• Full key rebinding support
• Expanded Settings menu
• Separate sliders for Music and Sound Effects
• Option to hide the HUD for a cleaner, more immersive experience

🔪 Glory Kill Targeting Update

• You had no control
• You often didn’t even realize a glory kill was available
• It could trigger on the wrong enemy at the worst moment

• Orange = normal timing window
• Red = strict timing window

• They light up with an intense glow
• A clear UI prompt shows which button to press

🏃 Movement Update

• Sprint and jump
• Jump again within ~0.2s of landing
• Each successful hop adds ~7% speed
• Caps at 50% faster than normal sprinting
• Miss the timing → speed resets

• Smoother jumps
• Real air control
• Higher skill ceiling for players who want it

• Dash → bunny hop
• Wallrun → bunny hop
• Whatever combo you can pull off

Level 4 Uber Weapons Update

The Level 4 Arsenal

• Piercer (AK47 Level 4) – Bullets penetrate infinitely and explode on kills
• Grizzly Mayhem (Bear Cannon Level 4) – Every 5th shot spawns a MEGA bear
• Reaper (Shotgun/Blunderbuster Level 4) – Executes the highest HP enemy below 30% health
• Zeus's Wrath (Lightning Staff Level 4) – Chains to 5–8 enemies and stuns them
• Phoenix Shuriken (Ninja Star Level 4) – Bounces up to 5 times and sets enemies on fire
• Nova Cannon (Plasma Staff Level 4) – Fires 10–12 homing pellets at unique enemies
• Reaper (Shotgun Level 4) – Executes highest HP enemy below 30% health

How it works

Small Fixes

• Fixed bug where Overdrive would not activate

🎁 Launch Discount!

To celebrate launch week, High Fructose is available at a special discounted price. If you've been following the journey, now’s the perfect time to jump in!

• Updated the recipe system

• Added new things to do during a wave — for example:

  • Hit the Greed Skull to activate Golden Barrels filled with coins (but it also makes enemies tougher!)

  • Trigger the Lava Skull to flood the arena with LAVA

  • A different skull triggers a timed challenge with a reward at the end

• Major performance improvements

• Massive update to the spawning system

• Updated enemies and fixed tons of bugs

• Added a new Starfruit enemy — defeat it to earn a random item

• And if you find the Starfruit that looks like a starfield, you’ll unlock a secret level

• ...and so much more! Please give the demo a spin and let me know what you think! I'm also showcasing the game in Madison Wisconsin this weekend - and also giving a speech!

Hey everyone!

I’m excited to share that High Fructose will be featured in the brand-new showcase Brutal Indies Unleashed starting today! This is the first showcase dedicated entirely to intense, action-packed indie games, and I’m honored that High Fructose is part of the lineup.

The showcase kicks off tonight with a 30-minute pre-show, followed by the full event. Here are the start times:

🕗 8:30 PM ET (Pre-show) / 9:00 PM ET (Main show) 🕖 7:30 PM CT / 8:00 PM CT 🕔 5:30 PM PT / 6:00 PM PT 🕓 1:30 AM BST / 2:00 AM BST (Sept 13)

Thank you all for your support. Let’s put indie games on the map!

– Chris YouTube link below! https://www.youtube.com/live/KqrV_JBmqHM

The fight isn’t over—it’s only getting bigger. 🍓🍌🎃

Join us at PAX West for the updated demo of High Fructose, the over-the-top FPS roguelite where you battle monstrous fruit with cinematic glory kill–style finishers. Drawing on my experience animating DOOM Eternal’s iconic glory kills, this new build cranks up the intensity with brutal new animations and tighter combat flow.

🎮 What’s new in this demo:

• Glory kill–style finishers inspired by my DOOM animation work, bringing cinematic brutality to fruit combat

• Updated combat flow with faster pacing and refined controls

• Balance updates for smoother, more intense runs

👉 Be sure to Wishlist High Fructose on Steam to stay updated.

Hey everyone!

I’m deep in development on a glory kill-style execution system for High Fructose, and it’s already feeling very satisfying. Right now, these cinematic finishers trigger when you complete a recipe—letting you absolutely obliterate the final enemy in style.

For those who don’t know, I animated about one-third of the glory kills in DOOM Eternal, so bringing that kind of over-the-top, visceral flair to a fruit-slicing ninja game feels like a natural progression.

This system is just getting started. I’m planning to expand it with character-specific finishers, unique kill animations per enemy type, and maybe even some surprises based on your loadout.

Thanks for playing and following development—your feedback means a lot as High Fructose continues to evolve into the most stylish, fruit-splattering FPS around.

Here's

—Chris 🍓🗡️

Hey everyone!

The High Fructose demo is staying live! 🧃

🍓 I’ve gotten a ton of great feedback during Steam Next Fest — huge thanks to everyone who jumped in and shared thoughts.

⚔️ At this point, the demo is more than just a demo — it’s become a community-driven slice of the game. I’m actively shaping High Fructose based on your feedback.

🛠️ I’ll be going through everything and making updates soon. Once those changes are live, I’ll post an update here in the forums so you can see what’s new and what’s coming.

🎮 If you haven’t played yet, this is a great time to check it out. The demo gives you a solid feel for the game—and playing now means you’re part of the process as it evolves.

💬 There’s a feedback form on the main menu screen inside the game, or feel free to drop your thoughts here in the forums.

🍊 Thanks again for all the support. Let’s keep building something juicy (and a little dangerous) together.

– Chris

We’ve been listening closely to your feedback about the recipes in High Fructose – and we heard you loud and clear: you want recipes that hit harder and feel more impactful.

Starting now, you’ll get access to a new Overdrive recipe at the beginning of Wave 2. It’s designed to shift momentum and give you that extra punch when the fruit fight starts heating up. ⚔️🍍

This is just the beginning — we’re continuing to tweak and expand the recipe system based on your feedback.

🗣️ Try it out and let us know what you think! Your input helps shape the future of the game.

🎬 Welcome to the High Fructose Broadcast! This is the official Steam Next Fest video feature for High Fructose, the FPS roguelite where ninja animals battle weaponized mutant fruit. 🍌🗡️

👀 In this broadcast:

• Exclusive gameplay footage from the demo

• A closer look at the weapons, fruit enemies, and over-the-top action

Perfect if you're curious about the game before diving into the demo!

📺 Available to watch anytime during Steam Next Fest