Coming up next: February Playtest!
Hi everyone! We’re excited to share that the next Croak playtest will be live very soon (literally tomorrow, actually)! Featuring improvements based directly on the feedback you shared in the previous test -- keep reading to learn about the playtest stats and the list of improvement!
📅 Playtest Date: [Tuesday, Feb 10] → [Monday, Feb 16]
Join the playtest by signing up on the official Croak Steam page!
And if you haven’t already, we highly recommend joining our Discord to stay in the loop, chat with the devs, and be first in line for future playtests.
A Look into your Feedback!
Thank you once again to everyone who took part in our most recent playtest. This was our first time running something at this scale, and we learned a lot from it.
Over the course of the playtest, here’s what happened:
512 unique players jumped into Croak
75,497 deaths in total (RIP :p)
76 players defeated the end boss
533 end-level mice were… dealt with (they’re okay, probably)
5,003 coins collected as a community
We also saw over 6,000 applications to join the playtest. To make sure we could properly review feedback and support players, we gradually approved participants over time.
While we know not everyone who applied was able to join, this approach helped us ensure that every piece of feedback we received could be read, discussed, and taken seriously.
Changes Based on your Feedback:
Whether you reported bugs, shared thoughts on our Discord, or simply played the game and explored at your own pace, your feedback is already guiding changes we’re making behind the scenes!
Here are some things that we have adjusted since:
Hero Control
Added slightly more air control
Tongue-grapple no longer stops gravity
Pinball
Pinball actions are no longer cancellable mid-spin (with the exception of wall-climbing)
Level Design
Difficulty tweaks made to 15+ rooms to reduce tedium and improve overall flow
Level Art
Added base visuals to additional levels
Added environmental storytelling elements
Visual polish pass on several rooms
Animation
Added new boss animations
Added new idle and death animations for mouse-beaver NPCs
Overworld & UI
Improved navigation
New UX for achievement display (V2 still work-in-progress)
Overall Game Content
Adjusted the number of levels to better match our official demo
Build is now faster to complete
Removed levels 1-4 and B-side levels from this build
New Features
Added a “fly” camera option when pressing the right joystick
New menu options for easier remapped input
Added controls for Master Volume and Screenshake
Updated tutorial text to reflect new controller inputs
Optimization & Bug Fixes
Optimized build size from ~20GB to ~1.2GB
New, faster loading screen
Improved camera movement in some levels
Fixed a major PlayStation controller bug
Fixed an issue with pinball direction changing during level transitions
Fixed vertical friction during level transitions
This was a pretty long post, so if you've made it this far, I hope this was worth your time!
We hope to see you in our next build! Until next time~
- Croak Dev Team 𓆏