After 6 months and 10k attempts, Buster has successfully broken out!
I've already said it many times, but I'll reiterate: Whether you're just now deciding to grab the game, or you bought it during Early Access, thank you so much for your support. I've been making games since I was a child (I'd like to think I've gotten better since the RPG Maker 2000 days!), and now I've finally been able to realize the dream of actually selling a video game.
Special thanks to those in the Discord who continue to give their support and enthusiasm. If you'd like to give feedback or report an issue, please join!
So without further ado, here are some of the highlights of 1.0...
Nubby joins the team
With 1.0 comes the newest ball, Nub Ball - An officially-sanctioned Nubby's Number Factory crossover! Much love to super cool guy MogDog for not only inspiring me to make this game, but for showing a ton of kindness early on, and allowing me to include the Nub in the game. Absolutely go play Nubby if you haven't already, and catch both Nubby and Buster in the Steam Pins & Pegs Fest happening now!
Major item and upgrade reworks
Substantial Thunder Ball, Angel Ball, and Butcher Ball reworks and smaller adjustments to many other upgrades, as well as changes to many items, including a new Contraband item.
Upgraded visuals, sounds and UI
New boss artwork, new animations and backgrounds, clearer run information, richer inventory feedback, and refreshed sound effects, music, and shaders.
Improved controller support
The game is now fully playable with a gamepad, and you can now customize control bindings. This should also translate to Steam Deck as well.
Rebuilt tutorial
For new players, the tutorial is vastly improved, introducing all of the core gameplay concepts in an easy-to-follow guide.
Now in German
You can now set the game's language to German. That makes 6 languages supported: English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese, and Japanese! Hallo deutsche Freunde!
...and many other changes!
New Features
Added Nub Ball
Added the Sealed Envelope item
Added full controller remapping for launching, viewing upgrades, showing upgrade details, locking and rerolling shop offers, and using all three inventory slots.
Added Pause on focus loss (can be turned off in options).
Windowed resolution choices now adapt to the current display’s available space and recenter the window after a resolution change.
Added animated inventory feedback for items waiting on a launch, block hit, round end, or another delayed trigger.
Inventory items now display remaining uses and stored values, such as Piggy Bank's current cash.
Added progress indicators to upgrades with timed or hit-based activation requirements.
Gameplay
Reworked Power Blocks. They grant +0.05x permanent score multiplier at the end of a life only while powered, lose power when hit, and reactivate on the next floor. Breaking one permanently removes it.
Reworked Thunder Ball. Hitting a block charges its entire Connected group. Destroying a percentage of that group destroys the remaining charged blocks and awards additional points.
Reworked Angel Ball so it repeatedly scores its existing marked blocks and marks new blocks while balls remain active.
Reworked Butcher Ball to award a multiplier bonus to marked blocks, and to reassign marks once cleared.
Improved Connected block selection for Mason Ball, Snow Ball, and Spark Ball.
Zap Ball no longer limits scoring calculations to 30 Connected blocks.
Speed Ball is now capped after four wall hits.
Spit Ball now grants a bullet-ricochet effect to all bullets.
Magnet item now recalls the active ball with the most remaining bounces to the paddle immediately.
Ice Pack now primes the next block hit, causing every Connected eligible block to become Frozen.
Mr Mist now accelerates active balls by 50% for 10 seconds and increases the score multiplier with each block hit during the effect.
Bullet Box now requires an active ball before it can be used.
Monitor, Machine, and Eye blocks can now receive eligible status effects such as Fire, Frozen, and Swamp.
Bosses now accept a maximum of five hits per life. Once exhausted, the boss withdraws until the next life.
Echo Ball replaces Spice Ball in the starter upgrade pool.
Reworked how block patterns are selected when clearing all current blocks.
Balance
Angel Ball base score: 5 → 4.
Score increase per level: +5 → +2.
Scoring interval: 1 second → 2 seconds.
Spice Ball base score multiplier: 1.5x → 1.25x.
Prize Ball base points: 6 → 4.
Cow Ball bullet bonus points: 5 → 2 per level.
Glutton Ball hit-requirement reduction per level: 3 → 2.
Spit Ball base firing interval: 1.2 seconds → 1.5 seconds.
No longer increases shots-per-volley.
Star Ball base score multiplier: 1.25x → 1.2x.
Multiplier increase per level: 0.25x → 0.2x.
Base interval: 1.0s → 1.25s.
Interval decrease per level: -0.08s → -0.1s
Raging Ball bonus increase per level: +2 → +1 point per hit.
Loner Ball base isolated-block multiplier: 4x → 3x.
Frost Ball Frozen-block bonus: 5 → 15 points.
Lucky Ball modifier-copy chances: 10%/25% → 25%/50%.
Comet Ball rarity changed: Rare → Uncommon
Packed block score multiplier: 3x → 2x.
Brick block value: 40 → 30 points.
Choccy Bar item multiplier increase: 50% → 100%.
Cleaner item bounce restoration: 3 → 5 bounces.
Dumbbell item now pierces Lock blocks.
Earbuds item scoring rate: 150 → 300 points per second.
Cinder Block item now awards 10 points per hazard destroyed.
Boss base hit value: 25 → 20 points.
Boss scaling changed from 25 × boss number to 20 + 10 per boss.
UI/UX
Rebuilt the tutorial around actual gameplay events. Instructions now appear when the player first hits a wall, loses a ball, reaches a goal, enters the shop, makes a purchase, visits the Vending Machine, and reaches the first boss.
The pause menu now displays the current Security Level and its rules, any active Challenge or Weekly Run modifiers, and every banned upgrade or Contraband.
Challenge selection now displays individual rule tags.
Shop level and reroll information now use clearer styled tags.
Improved Vending Machine customization screen.
Vending Machine items now display usage tags describing whether they activate instantly, are held, or trigger automatically.
The Ballpedia can now display every available level description for Contraband balls.
Upgrade and item descriptions received a large formatting and terminology pass.
Improved tooltip responsiveness.
The Options menu no longer includes the Floating Scores and Faster Animations toggles; those presentation timings are now standardized.
Gameplay cursor dimming now respects the paused state.
Saved-wall notifications have a cooldown to prevent repeated text spam.
Updated panel margins, fonts, shadows, button sizing, Contraband framing, Weekly Run layout, Starter panels, Challenge tiles, and game-over positioning.
Magnetized keyword now clarifies that balls do not retrigger on-launch effects.
Added a max framerate setting to options.
Visuals and Audio
New artwork and animation frames for all five bosses.
Added and improved boss hit exhaustion feedback, hit animations, crumble effects, and impact effects.
Added animated shutters when starting a run and during the game-over sequence.
Added procedural star fields to the ending and endless mode backgrounds.
Improved UI foreground colorization.
Added new particles for Swamp, Metal, Eye, Power, Nub Ball, and Thunder Ball effects.
Improved goal and boss shockwaves, glow effects, block reflections, trails, and impact transparency shader rendering.
Monitor Block hit static is now substantially more visible.
Updated or added sound effects for Brick blocks, bosses, Eye blocks, Lucky Ball, Wiz Ball, Blizzard Ball, Ice Pack, Mr Mist, Cinder Block, Choccy Bar, Dumbbell, and Earbuds.
Boss music now fades out when the boss is defeated.
Bug Fixes
Prevented projectiles and chained upgrade effects from selecting blocks that were already destroyed or queued for removal.
Fixed Power blocks sometimes remaining in the available block pool after destruction.
Fixed locked shop offers being treated as already-owned upgrades during selection checks.
Fixed independent paddle invulnerability timing when more than one paddle is active.
Fixed Thunder Ball detonation scoring and queued-hit handling.
Fixed Plague Ball interacting incorrectly with some blocks that should not count for hit effects.
Fixed inventory items failing to refresh after a new block pattern spawned.
Fixed the Warp indicator relying on an invalid placement check instead of the current Warp state.
Fixed conflicts between the pause menu and some UI elements.
Fixed several shader color, opacity, border, reflection, glow, and trail-rendering problems.
Fixed reflective block surfaces remaining enabled under reduced-effects settings.
Fixed inventory progress indicators rendering underneath other interface elements.
Fixed animation access during ball cleanup.
Fixed a crash that could occur when a boss was defeated at the same time as a ball expired.
Fixed controller prompts, glyphs, focus paths, and actions across gameplay, menus, shops, the Vending Machine, Ballpedia, Challenges, Weekly Runs, and the ending sequence.
...and too many other fixes and performance improvements to list!