CITY UPDATE! Trading, Animation, Bonus Dungeon and more!

This is Milestone 6 out of 9! Check out our Road to 1.0 post for info on planned updates and schedule!

🖼️ Beastie Art Updates

• Demolipede: Animation COMPLETE!
• Magpike: Poses added!
• Calcroach: Animation COMPLETE!
• Debugly: Animation COMPLETE!
• Beelb: Animation COMPLETE!
• Froofulks: Poses cleaned up!
• Bindiva: Poses + animation added!
• Gremlur: Animation COMPLETE!
• Opposur: Animation COMPLETE! The number of Beasties marked as complete has gone from 71 to 77. A lot of other progress was made on Beastie animation behind the scenes that wasn't quite enough to manifest into an in-game update... yet!

⭐New Stuff

This is probably the largest single addition of content we'll make to the game for all of Early Access. This update includes a significant new area, an entire new set of Hangouts, plus some major headline features we thought we'd save for 1.0.

• NEW FEATURE: Trading!
  
  • You can now trade Beasties on SportNet!
  • Traded Beasties retain their history, and remember their original coach and old friends if returned.

• NEW AREA: Under Construczone
  
  • An all-new bonus dungeon can now be found in Geo City, with new puzzle mechanics!

• NEW STORY CONTENT: Dominic Hangouts
  
  • All of Dominic's hangouts are now available in this update!
  • There are a few surprises in Dominic's hangouts that we think players will enjoy, including those more interested in gameplay than story.

• NEW VS. MUSIC: game design is my passion
  • This goofy VS music has been added for certain matches that occur over the course of the main story
  • Players who have already passed their point the story will have the new songs available in Music Setup.
  • The OST is updated on Steam and Bandcamp!

• Environmental improvements
  • Geo City is now populated with crowds
  • Areas around Geo City have been spruced up and redecorated
  • Geo city areas have updated ambiences + sounds
  • Aside from the new bonus dungeon, a small extra area and encounter have been added somewhere in the city.

✨Major changes and improvements

• New Player Customisation Options
  • Added olive skin tone options to the character creator
  • Added 2 new headscarves + 1 new hairstyle available by default, and 1 new outfit available in Geo City

• Beastie Analytics in SportNet
  • Check out LIVE ANALYTICS on every Beastie in the game and how they're used in PVP matches, including overall popularity, common Traits, common Plays, and common Teammates.
  • This is a huge resource for Players seeking a hint on how to build teams around certain Beasties
  • This includes historic data for all past Bigmoon Bashes, and will automatically update with new ones going forward.

• Leaderboards in SportNet
  • Check out the top-scoring coaches in every Bigmoon Bash!
  • Leaderboards will automatically update with new Bash results going forward

• Bigmoon Bash Rank Up Changes
  • We've adjusted the speed at which players Rank Up in Bigmoon Bashes
  • Losses now award a bit more Rank meter, so you can reach 5 stars in fewer games even if you're facing tough opponents! This will help you get more SP to improve for next time!
  • Hidden Rank bonusses based on Bash Score are now disabled until you reach 5 Stars - so essentially, the top 5-10% of players will have to play a few extra matches to 5 Stars than before.
  • Overall, winning matches still makes you Rank Up faster, but the gap from the top-scoring players to bottom-scoring is now less steep, so Bash Scores become a fairer comparison point for all players.

• Modded Text
  • You can now mod all text in the game!
  • You can modify certain lines to whatever you like, fully replace the entire script, or even add a new script to the in-game language selection menu!
  • Details on how are now in the Official Workshop Guide!

• Added a visual indicatior for active sprays and Reese's radar, including how much time remains until they expire
  
• You can now delete Tags from the list of options when adding a Tag to a Beastie
  
• Added a few more incidental interactions which can happen with your Beasties under certain conditions
  
• Coaches you befriend now each have 2 additional plays they can teach at max hearts
  
• Overhauled playbook and encounter designs across the game to account for balance changes and new traits, including/especially for procedurally-generated teams (Random teams + Tower Tourney).
  

🌱 Grassroots League!

For players who want more chances to face tough opponents, check out the ongoing Grassroots League! Players regularly organize competitive events that anyone can join, and players who perform well can claim physical prizes from us including a special pin! Check out our League page for more details!

🌕 Upcoming Bash

BIGMOON BASH: DOWNTOWN THROWDOWN!

A Bigmoon Bash is coming this weekend! Bring your favorite city Beastie and take on other players from around the world!

🔧 Balance Changes

This follows the trend set by the previous Milestone, featuring a minimal set of changes meant to address only a few key standout points. Still, each change is one we've considered carefully and there are some fun new toys here... I hope players enjoy them!

⚙️ General Mechanics Changes

💧 WEEPY

A Beastie overcome with WEEPY now loses 50 STAMINA (down from 100). We've been overall really happy with Weepy's impact on the game, giving some teams a way to slow down offense and pressure tagouts. Weepy's 100 damage has been very punishing, though, and it can make the afflicted player feel many lines are closed off to them and their agency is reduced to an unfun level. The reduced damage here keeps Weepy as a big potential threat, but afflicted players have a bit more optionality in whether they choose to tank the damage and continue their offense VS. pivoting out to conserve their bench health later on.

👨‍👨‍👧‍👧 Rally

RALLY now boosts the damage of only one team at a time. After attacking, any RALLY crowd on the attacker's side will move to the opposing side. This small change means that in practice, RALLY is almost identical to before; but, after scoring a point with a RALLY-boosted attack, your subsequent serve can't be boosted by RALLY, which reduces the ability of this field effect to snowball damage for a team already in advantage.

🍄 Traits

• (NEW) Enchanter: Net-boosted attacks make the target 1 SHOOK.
  • 🔄Given to Conjarr in place of Precise Precise was an imperfect fit for Conjarr, and wasn't used much by players, especially after sources of redirection were reduced in the previous Milestone. We decided to give Conjarr something brand-new and custom tailored to them. This trait synergizes nicely with Conjarr's numerous net plays and attack options, giving them a way to control the opponent's tempo.

• (NEW?) Fearless: Immune to NERVOUS. Doesn't experience negative effects from their own attacks.
  • 🔼Given to Daredillo in place of Self-Assured Daredillo has been one of the most-used Beasties since we finished their animation in December, and their popularity spiked particularly after we gave them Dodge Roll in the previous Milestone. Daredillo's ability to gracefully hit and run with Dodge Roll combined with their Acrobat trait has made for a very fun playstyle, but it made their already-strong offense feel a little too difficult for opponents to manage. We're tweaking some things in Daredillo's kit to mitigate the power of Acrobat, and changing Self-Assured to something which enables their offense just a bit more effectively to compensate.

• Power Up, High Spirits and Full Focus:
  • 🔄New effect: Corresponding type attacks do +50% damage when STAMINA is below 34 (from +15) This reverts a change we applied in Milestone 4 in March. The goal at the time was to normalize the power level of the 3 starters by increasing the value of the damage boost for weaker hitters like Bandicraft while reducing its value on Kasaleet. Having now collected analytics and observations across a couple Milestone seasons, we found this change did not have the intended effect. Kasaleet was as dominant as ever, and Hopra/Bandicraft both struggled to succeed with more aggressive gameplans even more than they had before. With that in mind, we're rolling this change back and addressing the slight imbalance in other ways.

• Confident:
  • 🔼Gets +1 Body POW Boost and +1 ALL DEF Boost when TAGGED IN. (Prev: Body POW +1 and Body DEF +1) Supilero has generally seen good success with their other trait, Scavenger, and recently gained some traction using High Five in tandem with Confident to efficiently pass boosts to an ally. That combo was deemed a little too strong by some players, but outside of it Supilero wasn't getting much use with Confident... so we're taking High Five away from them and making them more competent with Confident, to better distinguish their two traits' playstyles.

• Slippery:
  • 🔼Removed the damage reduction from this Trait This reverts a change we applied all the way back in Milestone 1 in June 2025. Since that change, Gremlur has found some success and popularity with their secondary trait, Adaptation, but has struggled to be as effective with their original Slippery gameplan. Below we've noted a few other changes to Gremlur that we hope will make them fun and fair with a full-power Slippery returned to them.

• Momentum:
  • 🔼Added to Blitzwift as a recessive Trait Blitzwift has always been near the bottom of usage stats, owing in part to their high-skill niche. We figured it was about time we gave them another way to play that might help them fit onto more teams.

• Galaxy Brain:
  • 🔼Now activates when receiving any attack, not just MIND This came in as a player suggestion and after considering some other ideas we found we liked this one. Galaxy Brain is a very, very old trait from development day 1 which we never really gave a second thought to. This small change makes it much more relevant. We're a bit nervous about giving more offensive tools to a Beastie as explosive as Psylusc, but we also recognize it's challenging to keep a Psylusc healthy on the field long enough to get the benefit of this trait, so its gameplay ought to be interesting.

🏃 Plays

• (NEW) Kick: BODY Attack, 70 POW. Always targets back row. Can use without volleying.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Kasaleet, Garood, Opposur

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Lunaptra, Magpike/Maraptor, Goofsder

  
  This is a new semi-generic midgame body play that can have some fun use cases, but mostly is here to fill what we saw as a gap in flavor.

• (NEW) Flying Kick: BODY Attack. 95 POW. Only used when the ally has the ball. SHIFTs to ally row before hitting.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Kasaleet

  
  Of the 3 starter Beasties, Kasaleet has been the most lacking in playstyle that sets them apart from other Beasties, and that's been reflected by their lack of a signature play. Flying Kick is our answer to that, and it gives Kasaleet a completely unique way to attack that still feels very uniquely "Kasaleet." Because this always moves Kasaleet to its ally's row, this play is inherently weak to sideways offense pressure, but when used in tandem with other attacks it means Kasaleet can just about always get a strong hit no matter where they are or who receives the attack. There are a lot of fun synergies and combos here - I can't begin to list them all, but I hope players enjoy discovering the new options this gives to Kasaleet.

• 🔄 Burnout: Renamed to Explosive Spirit

• (NEW?) Burnout: SPIRIT Attack. 100 POW. -15 STAMINA.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Daredillo, Scauldra

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Froofulks

  
  We've renamed Burnout to Explosive Spirit, and created a new iteration of Burnout that is better matched to Daredillo's particular kit, as well as fitting with a couple other less-appreciated Spirit attackers.

• (NEW) Squeeze: SUPPORT. Can target allies or opponents. Advances target's FEELINGs by 1 turn.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Diggum, Duggout, Mistic

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Mudslee, Froofulks, Hydrolm

  
  This strange new play and effect has a surprising diversity of use cases that we want to see players mess with. It can function as a soft heal, ticking down bad FEELINGs from allies. But it can also function as an insidious passive aggression tool, juicing more damage out of SWEATY opponents or pushing stacks of WEEPY.

• (NEW) Stretch: SUPPORT. Restore 10 STAMINA. Feel 1 JAZZED.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Kasaleet, Broslidon, Musselbound

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Hydrolm, Servace

  
  This is a similar addition to Kick in that it feels like a sort of obvious basic support action which fits with many Beasties. We see it as a corollary with Flex which sacrifices ramping over time for a more Body-thematic self care.

• (NEW) Catwalk: SUPPORT. SHIFT forward. If successful: nearest opponent gets -1 B/S/M DEF.
  • Via level up
    • 🔼 Bindiva

  • Via friendship
    • 🔼 Servace, Gremlur

  
  This is a flavorful new tool meant to help slightly redirect Bindiva's gameplay without taking away its most fun elements. We've got more thoughts on Bindiva in the section below.

• High Slam
  • 🔼POW to 110 (from 80). Always targets straight ahead.
  • 🔻No longer can hit without volleying

• Tracker
  • 🔼Now ignores BLOCK This is a very small and un-flashy change, but it means Tracker has additional utility to reduce opponent action economy and force them to volley. With BLOCK being so common, we thought there ought to be some more ways to mitigate it for teams that want to slow the game down.

• Precision Strike
  • 🔼Now ignores shields and Boosts Another light touch to a rarely-used low-power play. This is a subtle extra utility that might make this play a bit more attractive on slower teams.

• Inspiring Defense
  • 🔻Applies 3 ANGRY to the user (from 2). We want this play to keep pace with Shield as far as the ability to loop TOUGH over consecutive turns/attacks. It's not a fun interaction to play into and we don't want it to be a defining strength of Servace over other attackers.

👹 Beasties

• Kichik, Ostrisigh, Kasaleet
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Tough Front
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Launch, Shake Off, Flex Launch on this Beastie has been a constant fixation among top-level players for a while, with it serving as a high benchmark for offensive power and utility. We love the power of this play and don't see it looking too overtuned on other Beasties as much as it has been on Kasaleet, so we're trying out giving Kasaleet a more unique and technical SHIFT attack in Flying Kick. With the addition of Flying Kick, Kasaleet has newfound flexibility in leveraging their Support actions. This prompted us to take a closer look at those and make some additional edits to their kit. We want Kasaleet to hit a healthy sweet spot where they get incredible burst power and efficiency but without the ability to ramp themselves as far and high as other attackers over longer matches.

• Rookee, Garood
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Bump They can Kick now

• Shooga, Supassum, Supilero
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Shake Off, Quick Breath
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: High Five, Deep Breath High Five is removed from this line, corresponding with the Confident buff noted above. With the Forager trait, Supilero's strength becomes supporting their team through tagging and defense, whereas Confident now makes them better at holding ground on the field and even working as a secondary attacker.

• Radillo, Daredillo
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Explosive Spirit (formerly Burnout)

• Wottle
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Net Rush, Fall Back, Hum
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Beginner Effort, Raw Fury, Tough Front
  • 🔄 Adjusted level-up plays Wottle is still not seeing too much use, so we've decided to clean out some of the lesser-used plays from their kit and gift them some more new toys. Net Rush and Fall Back let them take more advantage of their unique positioning trait to get more bulk or offense as needed, with Hum giving them a way to power themselves up while they camp the net and eventually become a second offensive threat.

• Turogue, Turtaneer, Tortanchor
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Daring Pass We feel Tortanchor lost something essential with this play cut in the previous patch. Although they already have plenty of top-tier support plays, we figured they deserve to have this one back too. This helps diversify the Beasties that work together on Spirit-focused teams. Although we generally enjoy Daring Pass being on frail, high-risk Beasties, adding it back to Tortanchor also means they get a unique role as the sole bulky Daring Passer.

• Gremlur
  • 🔻 81 MPOW (from 90)
  • 🔻 45 BDEF (from 70)
  • 🔻 70 SDEF (from 80)
  • 🔼 89 MDEF (from 45)
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Reign, Goo-Goo Eyes
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Nettle We're interested in making Slippery's gameplay effective and fun in a way it hasn't been since its nerf last year. Its greatest advantage is how it enables Gremlur to use extra support actions, so their support action pool has to be carefully curated... and Nettle is one of the best in the game, so it follows that it feels oppressive on Gremlur. We're trying out what Gremlur is like without Nettle, but with new plays that can fill similar gaps or expand Gremlur's options in other directions. We've also adjusted their stats in a few key ways; their Mind POW is lower, but their damage is still higher than it was with Slippery previously. To compensate for the stat adjustment, we've made them overall more bulky. We also changed how their defenses are allocated such that Mind is their best defense and Body their worst. 4+ years ago, we created Gremlur with a Mind weakness to exacerbate their weakness into Sideways offense. With the many shifts and changes since then, this matchup theory proved to be mostly irrelevant. We think it makes more sense for the "smartest Beastie" who is bullied by Opposur to excel in Mind and be fragile in Body.

• Bindiva
  • 🔼 Plays Added: Heartbreaker
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Net Rush, Spitball Bindiva (with Thief) has always been intentionally designed around easily getting the net and hitting Dumps, making them a frail but scary point-scorer. Over the last couple milestones, more players have turned their attention to Bindiva and we've seen them optimized more, often positioned to get a quick and surprising checkmate that's very hard to react to. We want Bindiva to still succeed with this linear and aggressive style, but we're tweaking their kit so that they have to respect their opponents in more scenarios, as any glass cannon should. Net Rush + Thief is a combo that gave Bindiva too much versatility, and Spitball is one of the underappreciated best disruption plays in the game; together both let Bindiva shut down many opponent lines and mitigate a lot of their risk. The new additions of Heartbreaker and Catwalk introduce some fun new synergies in their place.

• Proteos, Hydrolm
  • 🔻 Plays Removed: Flex They can Stretch now.

🚧Other Fixes and Changes

• For Mac players: We've moved Mac builds to an OLDER version of GameMaker Studio for this Milestone.
  • In Milestone 4 in March, we shipped an update with a new GameMaker version which promised to increase performance and stability; in practice this did resolve some issues and improve performance on PC, but on Mac it introduced very common engine-level crashes.
  • We've been applying fixes over the last few months expecting to have fixed the issues each time, but haven't been successful thus far...
  • Since we know Mac builds were stable on the engine version we used in Milestone 3, we're keeping the project there for now on Mac.

• Adjusted some Beastie spawn locations in light of the new area(s) added
  
• Added a new ad to Geo City after completing the main story
  
• Added an "End Replay" button for viewing match replays
  
• Downloaded Away Teams (including in Pickup Courts) now automatically clean up or fix broken/missing plays eg. if the teams are from an older balance patch
  
• Fix for a crash/lockup when skipping a Sports Puzzle from a certain dialogue tree route
  
• Changed how Away Teams are filtered such that you're much less likely to consecutively see different teams from the same player (unless you share the same Travel Tag)
  
• Increased the hitbox on Beasties when throwing Ice Cream at them, so players hopefully waste less Ice Cream
  
• Fixed issues with the "back" button in the Info menu in certain menu states
  
• Adjusted Emote state/anims such that it's easier to clap repeatedly without Emoting if that's the player's intention
  
• Fixed issue with gamepad D-Pad not registering in the custom input edit menu
  
• The speed of stomp and clap sounds from Rhythm now slow to half-tempo in the post-game victory/defeat screens
  
• Fixed visual issues when a point is scored with an attack that deals 0 damage
  
• Some fixes/changes to mouse cursor visibility settings depending on whether players are using keyboard or gamepad
  
• Fixed issues with AI opponents visibly bouncing during AI processing in certain conditions
  
• Added an extra indicator at the end of Expeditions explaining how Beasties that don't participate in the final match don't earn a summit marking
  
• Fixed/improved some UI elements in Expeditions
  
• Saved replays for certain special match types (including online games) now remember which court they were played on
  
• Fixed an issue where it was possible to accidentally/automatically skip defense when inspecting Beasties at certain positions and at a certain camera angle
  
• Fixed interaction between Tool (the play) and Haunted (the trait)
  
• Fixed collider on beach houses (such as those in Coquelicot)
  
• Added special conditions to certain screens with ball-throwing puzzles to make your Beasties not ant to volley/intercept thrown balls
  
• Improved the appearance and position of the "Crown" over a Captain Beastie when playing Captains mode
  
• Improved the position of Yearnings in sport UI
  
• Improved the AI's ability to utilize Torch Pass
  
• Fixed incorrect map text for the Gym Gold Sponsorship quest
  
• Changed menu selection on the title screen such that your selection can loop from top to bottom, as is possible in most other menus.
  
• Fixed an incorrect message rarely appearing when Beasties' relationship was changing to no longer be Sweethearts
  
• Fixed layering issues with Riley's dad when wearing a special jersey
  
• Damage previews now account for power bonusses triggered by predicted movement
  
• Added extra safety checks preventing opening the main menu in the same frame as a sport match begins
  
• Added some light extra conditions for getting the Recruit tracker from Sol
  
• Fix for a certain Gene interaction if you only have 2 Beasties
  
• Fixed some issues with Ranking going down in some cutscenes if playing through the game in an unusual route (eg. qualifying for the Crown Series with minimal story interaction)
  
• Added some small extra scene variations for some unusual routes (eg. qualifying for the Crown Series with minimal story interaction)
  
• Fixed the wrong VS. tracks playing for some story encounters in the Academy
  
• Fixed issue with plural text variations using singular text when there are 0 items
  
• Fixed issue with match replay controls not disabling when menus/overlays were active such as feedback forms
  
• Fixed errors in Broslidon's eye and mouth color in some poses
  
• Fixed minor color error on one of Goofsder's idle frames
  
• Fixed bug where Crabaret's Partner combo wouldn't make the ball hittable after volleying
  
• Fixed small visual issue in Dominic's sprite art
  
• Fixed some visual issues with player emotes during sport matches
  
• Fixed visual issue previewing the ball volleying when a "volley to self" play is highlighted like Juggle
  
• Added a couple new traits available for mods
  
• Removed a play effect that mods could access but would typically cause the game to crash
  
• Fixed a crash with modded stamina conditions on plays
  
• Slight area adjustments for better clarity/spacing
  
• Fixed various typo(s)