Bits & Bops News

[p]Welcome to our first proper set of patch notes for Bits & Bops![/p][p][/p][p]We've been listening to feedback from players, and we're trying very hard to address subjective issues as well as crashes and other bugs preventing people from progressing. We still have a long list to go, and we'll continue pushing out patches to address these over the coming days and weeks before we go on Christmas break.[/p][p][/p][p]We’ve noticed some players being brick-walled by Pantry Parade and Steady Bears, which was not our intention. As an immediate fix, we’ve relaxed the hit window in those games to smooth out the overall difficulty curve of the game. Longer term, we would like to invest some time into improving the cues and feedback given in those minigames to help players better keep time, at which point we may tighten the windows back up to their normal size.[/p][p][/p][p]We’re also aware of confusion in President Bird owing to the lack of audio response to indicate an “almost” input at the start of a hold note. We’ve added an extra sound layer to address this in the short-term, but we may rework this mechanically at a later stage to further improve clarity.[/p][p][/p][p]We've also seen some people interpret Bit's post-game remark that "we're not expecting any more minigames to arrive any time soon" to mean that we're not planning to push any content updates for the game. While we're not promising anything at this stage, and our short-term focus will be on fixing issues players are experiencing with existing content, it certainly wasn't our intention to definitively rule out further content updates, so we've updated this line to better reflect that.[/p][p][/p][p]In other news, we have now updated the Steam soundtrack metadata to include the full track names and lengths. This was previously spoilered so that we could set the store page live before launch without giving away any of the minigames, and updating this was a manual process.[/p][p][/p][p]One last note: as a matter of practicality, where we make changes to dialogue, the English version will likely be one step ahead of the translations, at least in these early stages while we are trying to rapidly push out fixes and adjustments to address the biggest problems players are having. Once our cadence slows to a more normal pace, we will do our best to ensure that all supported languages are fully translated in every version.[/p][p][/p][p]Game updates[/p]

• [p]Pantry Parade and Steady Bears (in their tutorials and their main games) now have more lenient hit windows (mixtapes are currently unchanged)[/p]
• [p]Pantry Parade, Steady Bears and Globe Trotters now allow more time before re-demonstrating the required inputs in their tutorials[/p]
• [p]Getting an “almost” judgement when starting a hold in President Bird now has an associated sound effect to communicate that you’ve missed[/p]
• [p]Input is now locked for the transition between Pantry Parade and Molecano in Final Mixtape to avoid pedantically punishing an extra step at the point of the cut[/p]
• [p]Bit’s post-game speech has been slightly reworded \[English only][/p]
• [p]The Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) and Japanese translations have received minor quality updates[/p]

[p][/p][p]Bug fixes[/p]

• [p]The treasure chest in Snakedown no longer has an extra lid when the charmer wakes up[/p]
• [p]The forged items in Blacksmith now properly line up with the thought bubbles[/p]
• [p]The “No Thanks” section in the credits now properly lines up with the corresponding achievements[/p]
• [p]The guest book now fills out completely after playing a level[/p]
• [p]Fan translations will no longer be auto-selected for users with the associated system language[/p]

[p][/p][p]Accessibility improvements[/p]

• [p]The screen reader now announces whose turn it is to start in Blacksmith (ordinarily communicated visually by the thought bubbles) \[English only][/p]
• [p]Dialogue with questions attached now play a separate sound when the screen reader is enabled to prevent accidental skipping of questions[/p]

[p][/p][p]If you would like to be the first to try new changes, you can opt in to the Steam beta channel via the game settings in your Steam client. We are very active in our Discord server and on the Steam community forums, and we greatly appreciate anyone who takes the time to report problems and work through the troubleshooting process with us.[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for playing Bits & Bops![/p]

[p]We’re so happy to see everyone enjoying Bits & Bops! We’ve been working extremely hard to help everyone who needed support, but we’re only a small team, so if you’ve reached out to us and not heard back, please feel free to ask again.[/p][p][/p][p]Here’s what we’ve been up to![/p][p][/p][p]Shortly after launch, we pushed some small changes in version 1.0.1:[/p]

• [p]For players with specific rare configurations, the game no longer crashes when trying to start the main game[/p]
• [p]The drum roll cue in President Bird no longer plays persistently for an extended time for some players[/p]

[p][/p][p]As people played through the game and reported issues, we identified a number of other things that were hindering progress through the main game, so we’ve just now pushed some more changes in version 1.0.2:[/p]

• [p]Some players were experiencing severe audio crackling when the “Strict buffer” setting was enabled. To address this, we are trialing a change that disables this setting by default. If the game has been running fine for you, or if you want to try to get the lowest possible audio latency, we recommend you manually turn this back on via Settings > Audio > Strict buffer > On[/p]
• [p]Some players were confused about how to progress past Symphony, so we’ve significantly shortened the length of time you need to play the minigame, and also made the skip reminder play any time you quit an endless game[/p]

[p][/p][p]We’ve also been made aware that the fan translations from the demo are unintentionally being loaded and used by the game for languages which don’t yet have an official translation. This is causing confusion, since the main menu is translated, but the vast majority of the rest of the game is not. To simplify this, we’ll be disabling the fan translations in a future build.
[/p][p]From here, we’re planning to focus on the highest priority fixes and quality improvements that are being requested by players on the Steam community forums and in our Discord server. Once we’re comfortable the game is in a good place, we can start prioritising our longer list of feature requests from our community.[/p][p]
[/p][p]Thank you so much for your support![/p]

[h3]Bits & Bops is live right now on Steam![/h3][p][/p][p]Thank you so much for your patience, we really hope you enjoy the game![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]If you’re looking for something extra, we also have these bundles available:[/p][p][/p][p]Bits & Bops + Soundtrack Bundle[/p][p]Get the game plus the entire OST![/p][p][/p][p]Bits & Bops + UNBEATABLE Bundle[/p][p]Get the game plus UNBEATABLE, which also launched today!
[/p][p]Tempo Lab + 7th Beat Bundle[/p][p]Pick up the entire catalogue of 7th Beat Games, including Rhythm Doctor and A Dance of Fire and Ice, both games we absolutely adore![/p][p][/p][p]Thanks again and have fun![/p][p]- Tempo Lab[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]A very special Bits & Bops announcement will air during the Wholesome Snack Showcase on December 9th at 12pm PT! You won't want to miss it![/p][p][/p][p]Click the "Notify me" button in the bottom left corner of the Wholesome Snack YouTube video to get a reminder.[/p][p][/p][p]See you there![/p]

[p]Welcome back for more patch notes![/p][p] [/p][p]We're already one month into Q4, and we're still working hard to bring you the full version of Bits & Bops by the end of the year! This release of the demo is mostly small updates and bug fixes that we've been patching along the way. We've also reverted the One Button setting to be off by default, as this is the way we expect most players will want to play Bits & Bops at release. If you run into any issues, please report them to us in our Discord server![/p][p][/p][p]You can now also play the Bits & Bops demo in:[/p]

• [p]Ukranian - thanks to erulairy![/p]

[p][/p][p]We've also had substantial updates to many of our fan translations:[/p]

• [p]Chinese - thanks to Kirbysfan![/p]
• [p]Polish - thanks to Maksymilian Król![/p]
• [p]Portuguese - thanks to Ghostabo and teu![/p][p][/p]

[p]Special thanks to all the translators![/p][p][/p][h3]Updates[/h3]

• [p]One Button mode is now disabled by default (but you can re-enable it via Settings > Other > One Button)[/p]
• [p]The game now prioritises showing mouse buttons when the player is using a mouse[/p]

[p][/p][h3]Bugs fixed[/h3]

• [p]We've updated our version of Unity to address the recent Unity security advisory[/p]
• [p]Looped music now loops in the correct spot again[/p]
• [p]The accessibility shortcut can no longer be broken by changing key bindings[/p]
• [p]Enabling scheduled hits no longer causes all Flipper Snapper photos to have popped balls[/p]
• [p]Scheduled hit sounds can no longer carry over between tutorial phases[/p]
• [p]The game no longer crashes if a loaded custom mixtape is renamed or deleted[/p]
• [p]Meet & Tweet can now make use of more bouncing bop heads in custom mixtapes[/p]
• [p]Custom mixtapes using B-Bot now correctly mute the bop sound when it is not the first minigame[/p]
• [p]Custom mixtapes can now control the B-Bot stage backlight alpha independently of the stage grid[/p]
• [p]Less common types of MP3 files are now handled correctly in custom mixtapes[/p]

[p][/p][p]As always, you can discuss the latest changes in our Discord server. See you there![/p]