That's right. We finally hit 1000 wishlists! I seriously can't believe this achievement. Dewdrop will be my first ever game, and to have 1000 people show their love and support is truly incredible. I can't thank you all enough! This encourages me even more to make Dewdrop the game you all envision.
As part of this announcement, I wanted to share some progress I've been making on the game. Things have been getting a lot of polish as we get closer to the first playtest. I mentioned the puzzle mode in a previous post, and I've now added a scoring system to it. Here's how it works: every required bounce for a vortex is worth 25 points. Any extra bounces are worth 50 points, and any "incidental bounces" (bounces that aren't part of that colored dewdrop's requirements) are worth 100 points. This incentivizes experimentation during the puzzles. Essentially, the more creative you get with the bounces while solving the puzzle, the more points you'll earn.
The next thing I've been working on is a proper tutorial UI. Currently, there's just a simple "How To Play" menu that feels basic and not very professional to me. So I've implemented a pop-up style tutorial that will play once for sandbox mode and once for certain levels in puzzle mode. I think this feature will really help ease players into the game, especially with how many more options there are in the full version. It also does a great job explaining the puzzle mechanics.
Another thing I've recently added that I know many people have been wanting is "grab mode". You can now hold CTRL to enter grab mode and left click to move spawners or vines you've already placed! This makes it so much easier to get the exact rhythm you want in sandbox mode. You can also pan the camera now to have more room to draw, and zoom in and out to get closer in on the action.
There's much more coming to Dewdrop that I can't wait to share with you all. After the first playtest session has concluded, expect to see some puzzles in the demo!
Again, thank you so much to everyone who has supported so far and is reading this. Stay tuned for more updates.