Bits & Bops News

[p]Welcome back for more patch notes![/p][p][/p][p]As with previous patches, we're still taking on feedback and prioritising features and fixes. Please keep reporting bugs and making suggestions, and we'll keep working through them into the new year. We're most active in our Discord server, but we also keep up with our Steam discussion board and our [email protected] inbox.[/p][p][/p][p]You can now have up to three save slots! If you want to let your little brother try the game out on your computer, or you just want to be able to play the game from scratch, you can now do that without manually copying save files around; just pick a new slot from the menu at the start of the game.[/p][p][/p][p]Many people were having trouble with Molecano, mostly due to the tutorial not consistently punishing extra inputs when players were tapping on every beat instead of every second beat. While the game generally doesn't punish inputs while grounded, we've added a small window around when you're about to be launched that will put the mole into the flail state, and hopefully help players to learn the rules properly before advancing from the tutorial. We'll be keeping an eye on this change, and potentially making further adjustments if this doesn't have the desired effect, so please let us know if you're still having trouble.[/p][p][/p][p]We also heard from a lot of people who were confused about the Maestro achievement in Symphony. We've made a small update to tint the conductor's swoosh effect blue if you're still on track to earn the achievement, so that people can more easily tell when they've missed and need to start again.[/p][p][/p][p]We've also fixed several compatibility issues with the native Linux build. The game requires some X11 features to run correctly, so an error message will now be displayed to Wayland users advising them to add "env -u WAYLAND_DISPLAY %command%" to the game's launch options in Steam in order to force the game to run with XWayland. We've also enabled the Windows build of the custom engine to run under Proton, though note that we generally don't advise using Proton at all except as a last resort, and we're happy to troubleshoot issues with the native Linux build in our Discord server.[/p][p][/p][p]Finally, we've made some internal updates to the record player. We're quite sure this shouldn't affect anything else in the game, so there's no need to worry about that. To be honest, I'm not sure why we would even bother to mention it here in the first place...[/p][p][/p][p]Game updates[/p]

• [p]The record player has been updated for no reason in particular[/p]
• [p]You can now have up to three separate save slots for your save data[/p]
• [p]Molecano's tutorial and gameplay have been updated to better teach the rules and punish incorrect inputs[/p]
• [p]The swoosh effect in Symphony is now tinted blue if you're on track for the Maestro achievement[/p]
• [p]Multiplayer games now treat the keyboard and mouse as separate controllers[/p]
• [p]The description of the Fallback engine setting has been updated to better explain its shortcomings[/p]

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

• [p]Bop's gameplay demo no longer awards a sticker on mixtapes[/p]
• [p]Several movement discontinuities have been fixed in appearances of Steady Bears in mixtapes, but please report it if you are still seeing errors[/p]
• [p]The ordering of the game corner pins now matches the minigames' order of appearance[/p]
• [p]Changing the engine in the settings menu now does not save until the change is confirmed[/p]
• [p]Navigating down from the record player tabs now always goes to the first entry[/p]
• [p]The custom engine now initialises correctly under Proton (but we still advise running the native Linux build instead)[/p]
• [p]The dedicated default settings for the Steam Deck are no longer applied when running under Proton[/p]
• [p]The game now detects initialisation errors caused by Wayland and provides instructions to fix them[/p]
• [p]The last dialogue box in the Snakedown tutorial no longer plays an extra dialogue sound[/p]

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

• [p]The keyboard shortcut to toggle the screen reader has been changed to Ctrl+Shift+A (as Win+Shift+A was not working on Windows 11)[/p]
• [p]Paragraphs of text should now have pauses between them for more speech backends[/p]

[p][/p][p]Editor changes[/p]

• [p]The snap value has been reworked to be more intuitive[/p]
• [p]Many stages have been adjusted to function more intuitively at variable speeds[/p]
• [p]Several stages will no longer process events intended for their mixtape variants and vice versa[/p]

[p][/p][p]Thanks for playing Bits & Bops![/p]

[p]Welcome back for more patch notes![/p][p][/p][p]We’re continuing to listen to feedback, and we’ve been prioritising the most important features and fixes. We still have more to do, so please keep reporting issues or suggestions when you have them. We’re most active in our Discord server, but we also keep up with our Steam discussion board and our [email protected] inbox.[/p][p][/p][p]Many players were reporting that they struggled to understand Octeaparty’s tutorial, but found that the level itself was quite intuitive. To address this, we’ve added a dedicated 5/4 version of the tutorial music, which has a similar feel to the level itself, and provides a much more natural framing of the cues when you first encounter them.[/p][p][/p][p]Pantry Parade continued to be a stumbling block for new players, so we’ve made some further adjustments aimed at helping people to understand the rhythms and stick to the beat when the visuals are taken away. The NPC ants now have step and lift sound effects which consistently play throughout the level. The lift sound that was previously attached to the player releasing the button has been removed, as most new players were unaware this was even a mechanic, and we felt it was not important enough to cover in the tutorial.[/p][p][/p][p]Finally, the game is now available in Cantonese! We’ll be working on more translations over time, so please be patient if your language is not yet available. We also have many dedicated language channels in our Discord server where you can chat with your fellow community members![/p][p][/p][p]Game updates[/p]

• [p]Octeaparty now has a dedicated 5/4 tutorial theme[/p]
• [p]Pantry Parade’s audio has been reworked to help players better keep time[/p]
• [p]The game is now available in Cantonese[/p]

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

• [p]The game now properly supports mono audio output devices[/p]
• [p]The clock no longer gets stuck when “One button” is enabled[/p]
• [p]The game no longer gradually increases in memory usage when idle in the shop[/p]
• [p]The handwriting on the floppy disks in Traditional Chinese is no longer missing some characters[/p]
• [p]Your partner’s concerned state in Steady Bears no longer carries across appearances in mixtapes[/p]
• [p]An errant sliver of a grape is no longer briefly visible in one of the Pantry Parade scenes[/p]

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

• [p]When playing the game in Traditional Chinese, the safety video now offers you a choice of Traditional Chinese translation[/p]
• [p]Any other changes tagged \[English only] in 1.1.0 are now available in Portuguese \[this was not actually included in 1.2.0][/p]

[p][/p][p]Thanks for playing Bits & Bops![/p]

[p]Welcome to our second proper set of patch notes for Bits & Bops![/p][p][/p][p]We’ve been continuing to listen to feedback from players, and making adjustments to address the most common issues people are running into. We’re still not done, so please keep reporting issues or suggestions when you have them. We’re most active in our Discord server, but we also keep up with our Steam discussion board and our [email protected] inbox.[/p][p][/p][p]We’ve made a small audio cue update to Steady Bears to help prevent players accidentally faceplanting right at the beginning of the tutorials, and also generally smooth out transitions into the minigame when it appears in mixtapes. On the public beta channel, we have a further draft change to help people get back on beat after the off-beat steps, but we’re continuing to take feedback on that from players before deciding whether we want to include that change in the main build. If you’re still struggling with Steady Bears, please try the build on the beta channel and let us know if that helps you feel the rhythms more clearly.[/p][p][/p][p]We are also keeping an eye on Pantry Parade, but have not yet made any further changes to the level since widening the timing windows in the last patch. We have some ideas for potential changes, but we’re also interested in feedback from players who are still struggling with this level.[/p][p][/p][p]We’ve noticed a lot of people getting stuck in the game progression, and found that this had multiple causes. In some cases the unlocks weren’t working correctly, and in others people were simply being confused by the store layout. To address both of these, we’ve added some UI arrows to indicate when a new area is available that you haven’t seen yet, and we’ve also added some safety catches to the code to double-check that levels are unlocked when they should be. If you still think things aren’t unlocking correctly for you, please let us know so we can look into it further.[/p][p][/p][p]We’ve also had numerous reports of things not working correctly when Settings > Other > Schedule hits is set to On. While we generally advise fixing your latency where possible, we understand that some players have no choice but to use high latency setups (for example, if they only own Bluetooth headphones). We have fixed a selection of bugs relating to this setting, but there are likely more, so please report them when you see them, and mention that you are using “Schedule hits” to help us track down the issue more quickly.[/p][p][/p][p]Finally, we noticed that some people who broke the community computer instinctively went to the counter to ask Bop (or Bit) for help. Accordingly, we’ve given both characters dedicated dialogue lines for this.[/p][p][/p][p]Game updates[/p]

• [p]Steady Bears now has a new cue which plays between the count-in and first step[/p]
• [p]Meet & Tweet now has a sound for missing an input in Sky Mixtape[/p]
• [p]You can now type “cinema” on the computer to unlock all videos[/p]
• [p]Bit & Bop now have dedicated dialogue lines when the computer is broken[/p]
• [p]The UI now has some basic navigation arrows to help players find new areas[/p]
• [p]The calibration threshold now allows for even more negative readings[/p]
• [p]The safety video now relaxes its tighter timing windows to normal levels after the first failure[/p]

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

• [p]Globe Trotters is no longer synced 20ms later than other minigames[/p]
• [p]The game audio no longer stutters in menus on Linux (including the Steam Deck)[/p]
• [p]The Clock is now playable when “Schedule hits” is enabled[/p]
• [p]The first input in Sweet Tooth is no longer blocked when “Schedule hits” is enabled[/p]
• [p]The player's bop in Steady Bears now plays correctly when “Schedule hits” is enabled[/p]
• [p]Bit’s scoreboard challenge lines can no longer be accidentally triggered on your first playthrough of the game[/p]
• [p]Bop’s demo should no longer award a sticker (but please report this if you’re still seeing it)[/p]
• [p]Achievements for opened mail are re-synced to the Steam client upon entering the store[/p]
• [p]Pausing a video and pressing the power button or leaving the computer no longer hangs the game[/p]
• [p]Lounge characters with BPM-synced animations no longer interfere with video playback on the computer[/p]
• [p]The computer power button now hides the blue screen on the lounge view of the computer[/p]
• [p]The Blacksmith item glow sprites now properly match their associated items[/p]
• [p]The link to tweet about us on the computer is no longer missing a word[/p]
• [p]Fan translations will no longer be auto-selected for users with the associated system language \[this was not actually fixed in 1.1.0][/p]

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

• [p]The safety video now asks if you want to enable narration during gameplay when using a screen reader[/p]
• [p]The intro and outro cutscenes now have screen reader narration[/p]
• [p]Any other changes tagged \[English only] in 1.1.0 are now available in Chinese, Japanese and Korean[/p]

[p][/p][p]Thanks for playing Bits & Bops![/p]

[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]