One year ago today, POCKET MYSTERY EP DX released on Steam.
A lot has happened in the year since. I re-evaluated the state of Nocturne: POCKET MYSTERY REMIXED (a remake and remix of the game) and moved it over from RPG Maker to Game Maker Studio. I started writing a little narrative piece that takes place in the same universe, and uh... I had some serious health issues that halted development on all of this until the last couple of months. This all happened while also developing HYPER GROOVE AX, a rhythm game for Panic's Playdate (also targeting a release early next year, just sayin'). However, all of this work has resumed and some of the fruits of that labor will start to appear soon in the form a 2.0 update to PMEPDX.
Lowkey, I had hoped to release this 2.0 update today, but even after dealing with all of the health stuff, life got hectic and I fell behind, so rather than rush it out I wanted to push it out and announce it ahead of time.
So all that said, what's coming in 2.0?
Fixes + Tweaks
Note: All fixes listed here only apply to the GameBoy Color DX version of the game.
You can no longer select "Continue" if you've not actually saved the game before. This prevents the GameBoy .ROM from having a memory issue and causing the game to crash.
There's some additional safe-guards in place for blocks that are pushed, hopefully reducing the need to reset puzzles because of soft-lock issues with colliding with blocks out-of-order.
There's a new room open in the hotel... what could it mean?
Unfortunately, this will break compatibility with existing save files. But the game's pretty short, so I encourage you to play through it again!
Additions
This is the exciting part! The whole package is getting a bit of a glow-up, moving from my original web-based wrapper to running in Godot via GodotBoy. Let's dive into some of the new things showing up.
Filters + Backgrounds
One thing I always enjoy about retro remasters and collections is the different ways you can have the game displayed. Using a variety of community-made shaders for Godot, PMEPDX 2.0 will have a variety of screen filters to use, as well backgrounds (some backgrounds will only support playing the game at a smaller size, but there will be backgrounds that allow you to play at a larger resolution). Here's a sneak peek:
A New Story
Black Rose is a short kinetic novel built for GameBoy built largely around photos taken on Gameboy Camera. This short, surreal story is set in the same universe as PMEPDX and elements from it will connect to the in-development remake (which expands and remixes elements of the PMEPDX).
Black Rose isn't available immediately upon playing the game, however another new feature will allow savvy players to unlock the story and experience it for themselves.
Password System
Unlock additional screen filters, backgrounds, Black Rose, and another surprise by discovering and entering passwords within the games and launcher.
Achievements
This update will also bring six achievements to the game. Perhaps they hint at a larger mystery as well...
Additional OS Support and More
Some quality of life improvements and other features are also being added, including:
Linux support
Remappable controls
Improved Steam Deck support
Ability to choose between the original POCKET MYSTERY EP and POCKET MYSTERY EP DX
And that's it! Stay tuned in January for more information about version 2.0's release.