Hey everyone!
We're still working on getting Petal 2 ready for Early Access, and while it's taking a whole lot longer than I thought it would, I promise we're making progres...
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T. Ashley Jenkins
4 months ago
Playable demo! Try Petal Crash 2 today for Steam Next Fest!
Hey everyone! A quick update!
We've been plugging away at getting Petal Crash 2 ready for Early Access, and we're pretty confident we can have it released this Winter. In th...
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T. Ashley Jenkins
8 months ago
Check out the new Puzzle Mode! Backstage backers can play now!!
Hello everyone! We're long overdue to give a status update on the state of the game, but we've recently hit the big milestone we've been working toward these past few weeks. ...
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T. Ashley Jenkins
about 1 year ago
State of the Petal
Hello everyone! Time for another update - I'm sorry this one has been a long time coming!
Truth be told, I didn't want to make another update until we were ready to sha...
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T. Ashley Jenkins
over 1 year ago
Update: oof ow ouh ouch
Hello everyone!! It's me Ashley!!
We've been working on getting Petal 2 to a state where we'll be able to share it with the Backstage Pass backers, and hopefully it won't be...
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T. Ashley Jenkins
over 1 year ago
Another batch on the way!
Hello again!!
Just letting you all know I sent out another big batch of packages for the backer rewards! This one was primarily international backers, though I did get a few mo...
We're still working on getting Petal 2 ready for Early Access, and while it's taking a whole lot longer than I thought it would, I promise we're making progress! In the meantime, we've got a special surprise!
We had some visibility issues with last Next Fest, so Valve is letting us participate again! For real this time! We've got a new demo up that shows some of the progress we've made since last time. We've got some fun new animation, unique personalities for the CPU opponents, and more polished game mechanics!
This demo includes 5-minute Time Trial, local multiplayer, and even an early version of the vs. CPU opponent to try your hand against! It's only available until October 20th, so if you want to get a sneak preview, don't miss out!
The CPU opponent is our current focus during development right now; next update, we'll talk a bit more about it, and show off some of the new vs. challenges we're cooking up - until then, thanks for all your support!
Hello everyone! We're long overdue to give a status update on the state of the game, but we've recently hit the big milestone we've been working toward these past few weeks. It's taken a bit longer than anticipated, so we went longer without an update than I'd hoped we would, but that update is now!
Petal Crash 2 is actually already available to play for backers that pledged at the Backstage tier or higher! If you pledged at that level, check your BackerKit survey - you should now have access to a Steam key and an invite link to the backstage Discord server. You'll get access to the score attack and local versus modes, as well as the feature we just finished - the Puzzle Editor, with Puzzle Mode with it!
We've made some exciting additions, allowing for an even wider possibility space for your Petal Crash puzzles. In the original game, there was only one goal - to clear all blocks of a certain type. Now, that's merely one of several goals you can pick - you might be tasked with clearing a chain of a certain length, or arranging a specific shape on the board. We've also got a new "rule" mechanic - alternative failure conditions for puzzles that make them even trickier! You might have to clear your entire goal in one move, or even avoid clearing blocks of a specific color.
We've also got a brand new system for sharing your puzzles - instead of the original's long puzzle codes, now you have puzzle cards!
Each card is a .png file that contains the entire puzzle in its metadata - you can send these images back and forth with your friends, dropping them into your puzzle folder to play them. Personalized with your chosen player color, character, and costume palette, these puzzle cards are a great way to show off your creations. Collect them all! (Disclaimer: New ones will constantly be made. You will never be able to collect them all.)
The State of Development
It's no secret that development is going a lot slower than I'd like - I'd hoped we'd already have the game in Early Access by now, but we've still got a ways to go. In general, UI related work is taking much longer than I thought it would, and that sort of work makes up a majority of what's yet to be done.
That said, we've also hit a lot of exciting milestones, too. All of the character animation, music themes, and backgrounds needed for Early Access are ready to go. We've got a lot of fun stuff waiting in the wings to get hooked in, like our system for unlockable player titles and character palettes. The game itself plays great, and has been well received by both newcomers and veteran Petal sickos in our Backstage server.
All that we have left to do before the game is ready for Early Access is to have our How to Play demos in, get the unlockable customization system up and running, make a bunch of built-in puzzles for the Puzzle Mode, and get a vs. CPU opponent up and running for an arcade-style versus gauntlet mode. I'm hoping that we can have the game up publicly for sale in Early Access by the end of the year - we'll be doing our very best to make that happen!
Hello everyone! Time for another update - I'm sorry this one has been a long time coming!
Pictured: Lilibri doing her fun little pose!
Truth be told, I didn't want to make another update until we were ready to share a playable version of the game with our backstage pass backers, but things got a bit knocked off the rails. After my medical emergency a few months ago, I've had to take time for getting my physical and mental health in order, and just when I felt that was sorted enough, I found myself occupied with a big, expensive move - both the effort of moving itself and the extra work I had to take on to pay for it.
Even with me being indisposed, I thought we could still get a playable version of the game to backers out by the end of the year, but unfortunately that isn't looking like it'll be the case - almost everyone else is behind, too. Aside from the animation work I haven't been able to finish, we're still missing some music and backgrounds. Even if we proceeded without those, the coding work for the necessary menu and UI stuff has been stretching out many times longer than I thought it would and still isn't ready.
Once the holidays are over and I can finally give Petal Crash 2 my full attention, I hope I can do what I can to get development rolling smoothly! I'll be challenging myself to get all the character animation work done by the time everything else is ready for the backstage preview version - a couple of the characters are basically finished, which is an exciting milestone.
I've also got something else in the works - I had a lot of fun making Petal Crash enamel pins, and even during the Petal 2 crowdfunder, I was already thinking about doing another crowdfund just to get pins made of the entire cast. I'm trying to gauge interest, so if that's something you'd like, let me know!
Missing your favorite? They'll be back... in pin form!
I know that doing another crowdfund while the thing I've already crowdfunded for isn't done yet seems kind of suspect, but it'd help me a lot to make up for lost time if it's a success - plus, I did successfully deliver on the merch portion of the Petal 2 crowdfund already, so I hope that proves I'm ready to send out another batch of physical goodies just as promptly! I'm currently planning to hold it sometime early in 2025. If you get any money over the holidays as a gift, save it! To give to ME
That's all for now - hopefully next time, the game will be ready for a bunch of you to get your hands on it. Thank you so much for your patience and all of your support!
We've been working on getting Petal 2 to a state where we'll be able to share it with the Backstage Pass backers, and hopefully it won't be too much longer. A lot of the work we're doing is not very exciting to look at, like new universal systems for menus, music playback, and other things that are necessary but not super interesting in an of themselves.
Most of my own work has been wrapping up the crowdfund rewards, catching up on commissions, and coordinating with our collaborators - we've got a bunch more music and artwork coming down the pipeline that I can't wait to share. The 8 starting characters all have full-size character portraits, and most of them even have their theme music ready to go. It's coming together really well!
I do wish we were a bit further along, but I've been having a bunch of health problems - I just got out of the hospital for surgery to get my gallbladder removed, which has definitely been the most dramatic of them - and I'm taking a while to relax and recover. I'm really grateful that there's still lots that can get finished without me while I'm all laid up!
I'm hoping it isn't too long until we have something that backers can get their hands on. Thank you all for your patience!
