Baldi's Basics Plus News

Hey everyone,

Unfortunately, as I said might be possible in the previous status update, I've made the decision to delay the release of version 0.10 by a week. This means the pre-release will now release on April 14, and the public version will release on April 21. My apologies for the late notice on this- I kept telling myself that maybe I could make the previous dates work, but I've realized the update just needs a bit more time before it's ready. It was reaching a point where I was considering excluding some content that just isn't ready yet from the pre-release and saving it for the public release, but I feel like that would defeat the purpose of a pre-release!

A big reason for this delay stems from my trip to the Game Developers Conference. (Which I mentioned on my socials, but yeah, I went to GDC this year if you didn't know!) That trip was extremely important for Baldi's Basics Plus in the long term, but it also took over two work weeks out of my usual development schedule. The week prior to the conference was spent making preparations and the week of the conference was spent traveling and, obviously, being at the conference. Several days after arriving back home were just kind of weird as my regular schedule had been disrupted and my body needed more rest than I'd anticipated. This was my first time flying, and even leaving the East Coast, so I had no idea what to expect.

With the initially proposed dates I felt like I was properly accounting for that lost development time, but in hindsight they were just a bit too tight. One more week ought to be enough for me to get this update pre-release ready in time for that and cleaned up for the public release on the 21st. Again, I apologize for the delay, but I think the wait will be worth it!

Hello everyone!

I wanted to post a quick status update on how development of version 0.10 is coming along! Between how much work I've been putting into this update and some other business related stuff, I've got a lot going on this month, so I'm going to keep this update short and sweet.

So far, I have finished programming and designing pretty much all of the new features I had planned for this update! At this point all that's left to do is create and implement all the audio/visual assets and fine tune/balance everything. I'm very happy with how much I was able to get done in February and can't wait for you all to be able to play this new update

For this update, partly to keep it short and partly to keep the new features a surprise, I'm just going to post some WIP screenshots of some of the new stuff. Just a few teasers of things to look forward to! Please keep in mind that there are still plenty of placeholder assets in use in these screenshots, so the new stuff will mostly look very different in the release version.



Currently, I'm aiming to release the pre-release of this update on April 7 (Pre-releases are available via my Patreon) followed by the public release on April 14. However, audio/visual work can take an unexpectedly long time sometimes so don't be surprised if I have to push it back another week. I will certainly try to avoid delays though!

One more thing before I wrap this post up. I want to remind you all that, while 0.10 will be a pretty sizable update, 0.11 and onward will be smaller overall as I will begin shifting my development focus so that half of my efforts will be spent on content for immediate release and the other half on stuff that will be reserved for the future, primarily version 1.0. You can read more about this plan in a previous staus update I posted here, but the TLDR is that I want to get the game's planned structure (All the key moments I have planned from the beginning to the end) up and running by the end of the year. This stuff will not be a part of the early access, but having those things in place and somewhat functional internally will, I believe, be a huge help in finishing the game.

All that is to say, don't be surprised when 0.11 releases and seems significantly smaller than 0.10! It won't be because I'm slowing down, just due to me shifting my focus.

With all that said, I hope you all look forward to the release of Baldi's Basics Plus version 0.10!

Hey everyone, I'm just letting you all know that I just released a super minor update to fix an issue where finishing the tutorial would not switch Steam Input to the "Interface" action set, which made it impossible to close the tutorial results screen and continue to the main menu when using Steam Input (This was most noticeable on Steam Deck where Steam Input is on by default). Since the first thing most new players will do now is play the tutorial, I didn't want to leave a bug that would require some to force close the game after completing it, so I went ahead and fixed the issue now. I'm sorry for any inconvenience this issue may have caused, and thanks to those who reported it!

Hello everyone!

Previously I had announced that 0.9 would be focused almost exclusively on bug fixes. However, before I got started on that I decided to do some work on the tutorial level I have been planning for a little while, and that ended up taking most of my development time in January. So unfortunately I did not get around to fixing many bugs, instead opting to work on some other important, albeit unexciting, improvements to the game. I definitely still want to dedicate a good chunk of time to fixing bugs sometime soon though!

Alongside the new tutorial I added an in-game keyboard to make creating a new file easier with controllers, and a new Hide & Seek menu where the play style and challenge options can now be found. Explorer mode is also here now as its own play style.

There are a handful of other tweaks which you can see in the changelog below. So overall this is a very small update, but I've already started working on 0.10 and if all goes to plan that one should be very exciting! I hope you all will look forward to it, thank you for your patience!



[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Added an interactive tutorial level. This tutorial teaches players about the game's core mechanics.
  
  • Players on files that have never been prompted before will receive a prompt to play the tutorial when clicking the play button on the main menu.
    
  • The tutorial can be accessed by clicking the new tutorial button on the mode select screen.
    
  • The tutorial features chalk boards which display the currently set inputs for game actions. These chalk boards will refresh whenever the game is un-paused to reflect any changes to controls made during the tutorial.
    
  • The tutorial includes a new placeholder music track created with Microsoft Music Producer.
    
  • Added tons of new Baldi voicelines for the tutorial.
    
• Added a dedicated Hide & Seek menu.
  
  • Play Style, challenge options and seed input have been moved to this screen.
    
  • Explorer mode has been moved to this screen. It is now a play style option.
    
  • When there is a saved game, there is now a button which will allow players to start a new game alongside the continue button. Pressing this button will prompt players to make sure they're okay with losing their current saved game before starting a new one.
    
• Added an in-game keyboard for entering new file names.
  
  • If there are no save files, players will be taken directly to this screen when starting the game.
    
• Gave Baldi a new speaking animation which automatically lip-syncs to his audio. This is used in the tutorial and when correctly completing activities.
  Added lockdown doors which cannot be closed after being opened (Currently only used in the tutorial).
  
• Added the Anim8or Community Discord to special thanks section in the credits.
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• The new file button is now always visible on the file select screen if there is an unused slot available, instead of only being visible on Steam Deck.
  
• Certain structure builders can now be used to populate premade maps. This is used to generate lockers, water fountains and plants in the tutorial map.
  
• Tweaked Baldi's file select screen voicelines to accommodate for the changes made to file creation.
  
• The save and quit poster in the pit stop no longer mentions that players cannot save in explorer mode. That information is now shown on the play style tooltip.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed volumetric audio sources, such as that of conveyor belts and Cloudy Copter's wind, not being propagated.
  
• Fixed, for realsies this time, BSODA not properly pushing entities through conveyor belts/wind when they enter the triggers of those objects after colliding with the BSODA.
  
• Fixed a few old typos.
  

[h2]Pre-release Changelog[/h2]

• Added a third class room to the final section of the tutorial to prevent it from being completed too quickly.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused all modes to use whatever challenge and playstyle settings were selected in the Hide & Seek menu.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused saved games to be erased when playing any mode, not just starting a new game.
  
• Removed the window between the first hall and the principal's office in the tutorial.
  
• Posters in the tutorial principal's office are now spread apart.
  
• Fixed a bug in the tutorial that caused Baldi to repeat instructions when placing a BSODA in the storage locker and taking it out again. Now Baldi will only repeat the instructions to spray him with the BSODA when using the quarter on the BSODA machine.
  
• Increased the prices of items in Johnny's store in the tutorial.
  
• Re-enabled the ability for Johnny to let players buy items they are 100 or fewer YTPs short of affording in the tutorial.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed buttons behind the tutorial prompt to be clicked on.
  
• Updated the copyright year to 2025.
  
• Fixed an oversight that caused level 3 to be labeled as level 2 in Steam Recorder.
  
• Fixed an bug that caused Baldi to become stuck on his praise sprite in some scenarios.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the item icons of items in slots that had previously been lost via the shrinking inventory challenge to not appear when losing and reloading.
  
• Reduced the volume of the tutorial music track.
  
• After Baldi finishes counting down, he will briefly switch to his smiling sprite before changing to the normal ruler sprite.
  

Happy New Year everyone!

As we begin a new year, I thought it would be good to discuss my thoughts on how 2024 was for Baldi's Basics development and how I plan on tackling things in 2025!


In 2024, I managed to release five major game updates, starting with 0.4 and ending with 0.8. Though there were a few delays, I managed to stick pretty close to the plan on releasing a new major update every two months, and I'm very happy with how that worked out!

That said, going into 2024 I explained that my plan was to essentially just work on stuff and then release whatever was finished when it came time to release a new major version. Despite my intentions however, I often didn't end up developing things that way. Instead I often found myself trying to cram certain features into the game in time for updates or working on new features that were so time consuming they were all I had been able to work on between updates and so they had to be completed within that time frame or else I'd have nothing to push whenever the next update was due to release (This mainly happened with 0.7's field trips). For better and for worse this led to occasional crunching.

Near the end of the year I did experience a bit of burnout, but now that I've had some time to reflect on things I feel that burnout stemmed more from lost development time (Largely due to some IRL issues such as mice and carpet beetles showing up in my house around November which I, admittedly, allowed to distract me from my work way more than I should have) and the stress I felt as a result of falling behind.


With those lessons learned I'm making some lifestyle tweaks going into 2025 to help me work more a bit more consistently than in 2024, put less unnecessary pressure on myself, and make better use of my spare time so I can better recharge my batteries for work hours. I'm pretty happy with my work/life balance, but I think it will be even better in 2025!

To get more specific about Baldi's Basics Plus plans though, I want to outline my plans for the next couple of major updates and then discuss some changes I'll be making to my approach to updates afterwards.

[h2]0.9[/h2]
As I took off work for most of December, I'm just now getting back into the regular development cycle. Instead of pushing 0.9 into the beginning of March to give it a full two-month development cycle however, I still plan on releasing it in about a month from now to maintain a two month gap from the release of 0.8. With that in mind, 0.9 will be mostly, if not entirely, focused on bug fixes. The list of known issues has gotten quite large and I don't want my desire to add new content to overshadow the need to fix bugs, and now seems like a good time to squash them. So, while 0.9 will not be very exciting, it will still be a very important update.

[h2]0.10[/h2]
Version 0.10 however... Well, I'm not going to get into specifics, but my hope is to make this a relatively large update! There's some new content I have planned that I've been very excited about for a while, and I think things are likely to line up to allow me to finish it all in time for 0.10. All I'll say about the update right now is that, if all goes according to plan, conveyor belts will return, but as part of something that will totally change the game. Make of that what you will!

[h2]0.11 and Beyond[/h2]
Once I finish 0.10, my plan is to change up the way I develop updates. As I mentioned above, I ended up falling into some needlessly stressful development habits in 2024. In 2025, after version 0.10 is released, I'm going to more closely stick to my plan of just releasing what is finished when it's time to release new major updates, without worrying about the size of updates. I will still plan on releasing a major update every two months, but to better achieve this goal I will be breaking up the time between updates into two types of development: Immediate and future.

Immediate development time will be focused on developing smaller, self-contained pieces of content that, once finished, can immediately be queued for the next update. Future development time, on the other hand, will be spent developing stuff that is not planned to be released any time soon, or stuff that may take longer than a single update period to finish.

So, once version 0.10 releases, I'll spend about a month working on relatively simple, new content for version 0.11, while the next month will be spent working on stuff such as new/reworked game systems, end-game stuff, secret levels, etc., much of which will not appear in the game until the 1.0 release. This pattern will continue as long as I keep releasing early access updates.

With this development pattern, I believe I'll be able to more consistently provide cool new stuff for each major update, while also getting a chance to work on stuff that will allow me to get closer to wrapping up the game. I still have no idea what version 1.0's release date will be, but for the first time since I started this project I feel like I can see a tiny bit of light at the end of the tunnel... In fact, if all goes well I hope to have an internal build that closely represents the structure of the finished game by the end of the year. This does NOT necessarily mean that I will be close to finishing the game, just that I hope to have reached a point where I can start a new run, play through all the planned levels, and reach something of a real ending. This build would still be crammed full of placeholders and be missing a ton of content, but I'm reaching the point where I think having a complete structure to build off of and refine is important. To be clear, this goal is entirely an internal one. This hypothetical build would not be released publicly or as part of the early access, it's just a development milestone.

I also plan on making some real attempts to get some other folks involved in the project this year. There are certain aspects of the game I know I'll need help with and I'm also still interested in seeking out a publisher. I've already got some concrete plans regarding this this year, so here's hoping I can find some help and speed things up even more!


Just as last year, I think 2025 will be a super exciting year for Baldi's Basics Plus! I hope you all will look forward to what's coming. Thank you all for the support and patience, without which I'd never be able to do this.