Don't Stop, Girlypop! News

[h3]Want to know what sparkly guns and cute outfits are waiting for you in the Don’t Stop, Girlypop! demo?

Then check out our pre-recorded livestream, where lead developer Jane plays through our demo and offers her top tips so you can put the POP in your girlypop playthrough!!![/h3]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2610650/Dont_Stop_Girlypop/

Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is a Y2K arena movement shooter where standing still is not an option! You’ll take on the role of Imber, a half-faerie half-something native of the planet Xyzanthynum. Their planet is being drained of The Love, a vital natural resource keeping the planet alive, by an evil mining company called Tigris Nix. Not cute :’(

You’ll need to take on their nasty Ormyk drones with firepower, fashion, and the power of love. The faster you move, the more damage you deal and the more you heal! Go with the ★~flow~★ with the unique wave-hopping mechanic, a combination of a classic bunny hop with a modern slam, dash, and double jump that lets you maximise your speed and precision. Become a Y2Killer with an arsenal of guns that each have alt-fires which combine symbiotically with each other.

You better be ready, because this sh❤t is serious!!!!!

Click the buttons below to join our Discord and follow us on social media to let us know what you think of our demo ❤

[h3]The day of reckoning is finally here girlypops, and it’s…

PINK 🩷

We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve just released our first public demo for Don’t Stop, Girlypop! Dress up your arms, rhinestone your guns, and explode your enemies into a flurry of hearts as you race your way through the world of Xyzanthynum.

Check out our trailer below to see all of the hot pink action that’s waiting for you in our demo 👇[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is a Y2K arena movement shooter where standing still is not an option! You’ll take on the role of Imber, a half-faerie half-something native of the planet Xyzanthynum. Their planet is being drained of The Love, a vital natural resource keeping the planet alive, by an evil mining company called Tigris Nix. Not cute :’(

You’ll need to take on their nasty Ormyk drones with firepower, fashion, and the power of love. The faster you move, the more damage you deal and the more you heal! Go with the ★~flow~★ with the unique wave-hopping mechanic, a combination of a classic bunny hop with a modern slam, dash, and double jump that lets you maximise your speed and precision. Become a Y2Killer with an arsenal of guns that each have alt-fires which combine symbiotically with each other.

You better be ready, because this sh❤t is serious!!!!!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2610650/Dont_Stop_Girlypop/

[h3]If you have any bug reports or feedback on our demo, we’d love to hear from you!!! Please let us know in our Steam sub-forums, on Discord, or on social media if you encounter a bug or if you want to tell us your thoughts. We’ll be gathering your feedback to consider it for the final game
Click the buttons below to join our Discord and follow us on social media to let us know what you think of our demo ❤[/h3]

[h3]The girlypop journey does not always run smooth, which is why we have a producer to keep us on track!

In this month’s…

✨Dev Storytime✨

…we’re going to be meeting with our incredible producer Caitlin ♥️[/h3]

Caitlin and her plumbob at the fashion parade for the Sims 3 launch party.

Hey there! My name is Caitlin and I’m going to be chatting today about what it’s been like working as a producer in the gaming industry, leading right up to my current work on Don’t Stop, Girlypop!

It all started when I was 13 years old, I had a really bad addiction to The Sims and used to do a lot of modding for The Sims, like making different textures for the clothes in Paint! Back then, you could still access the code for the game, since the whole source code was available on the disc. I guess I was really lucky because, instead of banning me from the computer, my dad recognised the value in what I was doing and thought it was a really useful skill to have. He gave me a book called Game Programming for Teens. After that, I locked myself up in my room and taught myself programming. I even made my own game, which was called Mr Wormy!

I grew up in a place called Bunbury, which is in regional Western Australia, so there was nowhere locally where I could learn about games programming. After I taught myself all that I could, I didn’t feel as though I could really continue down that path. Instead, I ended up getting scouted as a model. For many years, I lived between New York and Paris, working as a model! It was an amazing time but, in the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to work in games.

Caitlin with noted fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld.

During my modeling career, I ended up in 7 issues of Vogue in 5 different countries and even got to meet Karl Langerfeld! Even though I was in Vogue and walked for Chanel and Prada, the actual highlight of my modelling career was in 2009. I got hired for the fashion parade at the Sims 3 launch Party and got to be an actual Sim - plumbob and everything. They had computers with the Sims 3 loaded onto it backstage and I got to play it before it was released. They had to do my hair and makeup with me sitting on the computer. I played games a lot during this time of my life! I used to take my Playstation with me wherever I could. Gaming kept me sane.

Caitlin playing some games to decompress while her hair and make-up are being done for a show.

Then, when I was about 21 years old, I found out that I could get into a University without finishing high school. There weren’t any gaming-related degrees I could do while studying remotely, which is why I opted to do a degree in IT. As so often does though, life got in the way and I had to drop out of that degree, but I ended up getting a job at a popular electronics store in Australia called JB High-Fi. I was working there while teaching myself a bunch of games stuff on the side.

I was looking at jobs in the games industry all of the time while living in Sydney, but I never really had the required experience. Then a job came up at a VR studio in production as a production co-ordinator. I was obsessed with VR at the time, so much so that one of my ex-boyfriend’s had even given me his VR headset after the break-up because he knew how much it meant to me!

I applied for the job, but I had no idea if I would get it or not, since I didn’t have the required industry experience. I did have experience in management, art, and development though, so I was hoping that would sway their decision. In the end, it did! They gave me a shot and that was my door into the industry. After that, I worked in a variety of freelance producer roles in gaming, media, experiential productions, and live virtual performances. Then COVID happened, so I decided to move back to Western Australia to be closer to my parents. In the end, I was really happy with my decision!

Once I’d moved back to Western Australia, I made the totally insane decision to build my own house! To put it into perspective, it cost me about as much money to build a 4-bedroom 2-bathroom house in Western Australia as it was to rent one bedroom in a sharehouse in Sydney. I really wanted to continue making games and there still weren’t a lot of job opportunities locally, so I had to make my own, which is why I also decided to open my own studio.

My husband moved over here from Queensland and joined the studio earlier this year, since he’s also a producer. Now we’re both helping a bunch of studios make sure they ship their games and we’re also starting our own IP at the moment, which is very exciting!

Caitlin with lead developer Jane at Pixel Expo.

When I got back to Western Australia, the games scene was small and mostly hobbyist, with no people really doing it professionally or shipping commercially viable games. I ended up getting involved with a local group called Let’s Make Games and ran a Women Game Jam in my hometown, where I got a bunch of people that I’d met throughout my career to come help the local people to learn more about games development. It was at that point that I realised I could do a lot with the publisher contacts I had from East Australia. Along with a few other people, I started running WA Games Week. It was 4 days of workshops that we also livestreamed to make it available to everyone. We also ran a 1-day immersive conference and a 1-day games expo, where over 1,000 people came to see locally made games.

In terms of my career more recently, I went back to University and got a degree in Software Engineering. I graduated last December! My life now still revolves around gaming and I’m still obsessed with The Sims! I’m also really into Sea of Thieves at the moment and, if anyone ever gives me access to a PS1, I’ll somehow find a way to play Bust-a-Move.

The Don't Stop, Girlypop! dream team at Pixel Expo.

So how did I end up working on Don’t Stop, Girlypop!?

That all began when I first met Jane, the lead developer at Funny Fintan Softworks! She was only 17 years old at the time and still in school, but I just got this really great vibe from her. You know when you meet someone and you just know they’re going to do cool stuff, so you want to do what you can to help them and get involved in any way? That was what it was like with Jane. We did a lot of stuff for WAGIC together, which is what Let’s Make Games became.

I’ve played a lot of Destiny so, when I first saw Don’t Stop, Girlypop!, it gave me these pink Destiny vibes and I absolutely fell in love with it. As she mentioned in a previous dev diary, Jane is also a massive fan of Destiny, so that’s another thing that we bonded over. After Jane signed with Kwalee as the publisher for Don’t Stop, Girlypop!, she asked me to come be the producer on the project and I signed up immediately! Now I’m the official producer, but I’ve been involved in the project in an unofficial capacity pretty much since Jane left school.

A fun but exhausting day at Pixel Expo.

The most challenging part of working on Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is that this is Funny Fintan Softworks’ first shippable project, so there have been a lot of learning curves, such as figuring out how to do version control, how to write a milestone report, etc. The team have picked it up so quickly though and they’ve levelled up a lot in the last 6 months. It’s been so wonderful to see everyone grow!

My greatest achievement so far as the producer has definitely been…

Getting the team to use version control! Just kidding. On a serious note, the greatest achievement for me has been watching it all come together, going from the demo to seeing something that’s playable the whole way through. That was a really special moment for the whole team.



I feel like Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is absolutely something that the world needs right now. It’s girl power. It’s not the typical girly game either. It’s the team’s journey, especially Jane’s journey to get it to this point, that has been so inspiring for me.

Watching Jane take this game from a school project, to teaching herself how to pitch and get funding, to navigating her way through publisher contract negotiations, to signing with a publisher, and to having employees has been incredible. Watching her grow as a game developer and as a leader has been so wonderful! Not to mention, it’s a Western Australian game dev success story! A game that was born here, built here, and shipped from here. Everything about this game just feels so good and I’m so honoured to be a part of it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2610650/Dont_Stop_Girlypop/

[h3]I hope you’ve enjoyed our latest dev storytime, girlypops! Tune in next month for another installment.

For now, don’t forget to wishlist Don’t Stop, Girlypop! and click the buttons below to join our Discord or follow us on social media for more updates 💗[/h3]

[h3]Don’t let our cute appearance fool you, we’re bringing out the BIG guns and we know how to use them 🔫

We’re excited to let you all know that Don’t Stop, Girlypop! has been selected to feature in the Boomstock 2025, presented by Fulqrum Publishing![/h3]



Boomstock is an annual celebration of all things booming and shooting! This year, over 175 retro FPS games will be featured in the event, which will kickstart with an explosive showcase today.

Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is a Y2K arena movement shooter that takes a lot of inspiration from old school FPS games like DOOM and Quake 3. In fact, we talked all about it in our dev diary on the Girlypop Journey, which you can find here! While Don’t Stop, Girlypop! may not look like a traditional boomer shooter, it definitely plays like one. We’ve got all of the explosive guns, precise movement controls, and over-the-top violence that a boomer shooter fan could ask for!!!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2610650/Dont_Stop_Girlypop/

[h3]Still not sure what Don’t Stop, Girlypop! is all about?

Then check out our gameplay trailer below :3[/h3]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Click the buttons below to join our Discord and follow us on social media for the latest updates ❤[/h3]

[h3]It’s time for the second installment of our music-focused…

✨Dev Storytime✨

…where we meet the composers behind Don’t Stop, Girlypop!’s soundtrack!!!

In the second interview, we’re meeting with the dazzling duo Sarah Wolfe and Xavier Dunn ❤[/h3]

Before we get into the interview though, I should probably give a brief intro on how I first met Sarah! I first met Sarah at SXSW and I even have archival footage of it! It was during the opening party for SXSW, which was themed around a game called Mystiques: Haunted Antiques. Sarah was DJing for the event and playing songs she’d made for the game’s soundtrack. I loved it so much!!!

Later down the line, it turned out the first composer we worked with on the Don’t Stop, Girlypop! soundtrack, Candice, wasn’t able to continue because of a personal project album she was working on, so then I remembered that Sarah had made this beautiful heavy dance pop track for Mystiques: Haunted Antiques where she just kept yelling the word “mystiques” in the chorus. It was a dance club pop type of song, which is exactly what I wanted for Don’t Stop, Girlypop! I reached out to Sarah on Instagram in around January 2025 and asked if she’d be available to compose some tracks for Don’t Stop, Girlypop! and the rest is history!

Xavier Dunn & Sarah Wolfe.

[h3]When did you both first know that you wanted to pursue a career in music?[/h3]

Sarah: My mom was a visual artist and she was always doing lots of print making and life drawing, so I grew up in a really creative house. I started learning piano and guitar around about the age of 7 or 8, and singing lessons from 12. After school I was tossing up between graphic design and music and ended up studying music, and now I work full time as a digital content creator and a musician so I got the best of both worlds!

Xavier: My mom and dad are both music teachers so growing up in a house of music was normal for me and my 4 brothers. I knew I wasn't bad at music so I decided to pursue that!

[h3]Did you study music at university or college? Or are you self-taught?[/h3]

Sarah: I studied music at the Australian Institute of Music and stayed there for about one and a half years, but dropped out because I was offered a job in music journalism. I decided to leave because I felt like a degree in Singing wouldn’t help me from a career perspective and, like a lot of young people, I had a bit of a quarter life crisis about how I would survive and make money! I started doing music journalism instead, alongside content creation for music websites.

Xavier: I studied a Bachelor of Performance at the School of Music at ANU in Double Bass and through that I was composing music for string quartets and orchestras. After Uni, I taught myself how to produce via Youtube so I could record more than just my string arrangements!



[h3]If it’s not too much trouble, please could you describe what your careers have been like so far.[/h3]

Sarah: In a nutshell, it’s been a Hannah Montana type of situation, only a lot less glamorous! I had the work stuff, doing music journalism and I was also working for indie music labels in Australia, because I wanted to learn as much about the industry as possible. Then I also started putting out my own music during the time that I was working for indie music labels. Working in music and making music became a bit much after a while, so I decided to shift into my other great love alongside making music, which is video games, so then I started my career in the games industry!

I started out working for League of Geeks as a digital content creator in 2023, doing community management and content creation for a space management sim called Jumplight Odyssey and another game called Solium Infernum, which is a strategy game set in Hell where you and all of your friends are demons. That was really the catalyst that made me want to combine my love for gaming with my love for making music. I was editing the trailer for the release of Solium Infernum and we wanted to try something different that would make it stand out, so I volunteered to write a song for the trailer called Eternal Nights. When I was writing the track, I got even more immersed in the lore of the game, and crafting the track and lyrics for something so unlike what I had done before was an incredible experience! That was really the beginning of my career as a composer in the games industry.

I would also like to give a huge shout out to Michael Allen, the incredible composer behind the soundtracks for both Jumplight Odyssey and Solium Infernum!

Xavier: I couch surfed for most of my 20’s with friends as I became a better producer and songwriter. I then met Jack River and we became friends as I co-wrote and produced her first album, which won an ARIA for best Album and was nominated for best Engineer! I have since been awarded 2 Platinum and 10 Gold Records from tracks I have written and produced for artists all around the world.

[h3]What challenges do you face as musicians?[/h3]

Sarah: For me personally, I have a chronic disability called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and had to have brain surgery in 2023 for a connected (pun-intended) condition, so being a disabled musician is a unique situation that definitely comes with its own challenges. That, combined with having a full-time job, often means my biggest challenge is finding time, keeping my energy up, and paying doctors bills! I wouldn't trade it for the world though, I'm grateful for the way my experiences have been able to shape me and my music.

Xavier: Learning to prioritise what you will put your time and energy into and learning how to say no to opportunities that may seem good but would burn you out.

[h3]What would you say has been your greatest achievement as musicians to date? What are you most proud of?[/h3]

Sarah: That’s a good question! I guess there are the achievements on paper and then there are the ones that are more personal. The personal one for me was the first time someone made fan art for me. You have no idea how touched I was that someone would spend so much of their spare time on creating something just for me.

I recently got to feature on a track by the incredible 3% called ‘Running Through My Head’, which we played at the Sydney Opera House recently for Vivid in Sydney! I also got to perform Eternal Nights for the SXSW Sydney games opening night event and the SXSW Sydney Game Awards, which was extremely cool! And of COURSE getting asked to write for Don’t Stop, Girlypop! It has honestly been a dream come true to work with Jane and the team.

Xavier: The greatest achievement for myself has been that I can wake up everyday and make music for myself and others for a living!

Sarah performing with 3% at the Sydney Opera House.

[h3]What types of games do you like to play in your free time?[/h3]

Sarah: I play a huge mix of games (cliche answer sorry), but I really love survival games like Grounded and all the classic cosy bangers like Stardew Valley of course. Baldur’s Gate is another standout for me. I also LOVE indie titles. My favourite game of all time is Spiritfarer! Oh and my OG fav since I was a kid, Croc: Legend of the Gobbos.

Xavier: I'm also playing Nightreign at the moment. A great time to be a gamer I’d say!

Sarah & Xavier: We also play loads of co-op games together! Recently we dabbled in the early access of RuneScape: Dragonwilds for a while, smashed out heaps of Elden Ring with the co-op mod, and we just finished Split Fiction.

[h3]Have you ever worked on a game’s soundtrack before?[/h3]

Sarah: If you can count Eternal Nights for Solium Infernum, then I would say I did a tiny bit of that one! All credit to Michael Allen for that amazing soundtrack though. In terms of game soundtracks specifically though, Xav and I are also working on the soundtrack for a game called Mystiques: Haunted Antiques. It’s an antiquing meets haunted house meets exploration game!

[h3]What artists, TV shows, movies, or other media do you draw inspiration from when making music for Don’t Stop, Girlypop!?[/h3]

Sarah: Hell yeah! This was the question I was waiting for! I’ve got a huge list for this. Anything hyper-pop, Charli XCX, SOPHIE, etc. I DJ a bit and I only play hyper-pop or pop girls. In terms of pop but not hyper-pop (if that makes sense?), there’s Britney Spears, Kim Petras, Robyn, PinkPantheress, Sugababes, Doja Cat, and Carly Rae Jepson.

When it comes to visual media, I drew inspiration from all sorts of stuff, like Sailor Moon, Winx, Shirley Barber's wonderful fairy books, and the Barbie animated movies (specifically the Nutcracker and Swan Lake). I know it might sound weird but, when I’m writing music for Don’t Stop, Girlypop!, I also like to look at photos of cute animals, particularly baby bunnies!

Barbie in the Nutcracker.

[h3]What has been the best part of working on Don’t Stop, Girlypop! so far?[/h3]

Sarah: All of it! I absolutely love hyper-pop, so getting to explore all of the sounds and nuances within the genre has been super satisfying. Getting to work with Jane as well has been incredible. She’s so passionate and hard-working, and the game freaking rules, so I’m always super happy when I create a song that Jane really loves. I’m just so happy I get to contribute to this work of art!

On a more specific note, figuring out the layers of the tracks has been really fun and interesting. Every track has multiple different versions, such as Combat 1, Combat 2, the Chill version, so it’s very different from making music for marketing or for an album.

Xavier: On a personal note, one of the best parts for me has been getting to work with Sarah in the studio again.

[h3]If you want to check out Sarah and Xavier’s work, you can follow them on Spotify by clicking the links below:

Sarah Wolfe

Spotify Instagram



Xavier Dunn

Spotify Instagram[/h3]



To finish up, I just want to say how much I’ve loved working with Sarah and Xavier. Sarah just takes all of my crazy ideas and runs with them, even working with things like knife sounds and gun sounds! I usually start sitting for a while and thinking of ideas, then coming to them with the ideas for lyrics, beats, switch-ups, points in the song I want to hit, etc. I come up with the instrumental, the vibe, a bunch of references for those instrumentals, lyrical themes, a few keywords that should be included, and then I send them off and Sarah and Xavier make magic!

Like my process with Candice, we start with the ambient version, which leads to the pop version, which can then transfer into the industrial version (more hardcore hyper-pop), and then they’re all mixed together to form the final version. I really love having these super cute pop songs going into hardcore industrial sounds! As Sarah mentioned, creating multiple versions means they can be blended together in different ways so that they transfer seamlessly into one another while you’re playing the game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2610650/Dont_Stop_Girlypop/

I give feedback throughout the process, but normally my feedback is just “can we make this more intense.” I want to start with that conventional pop and then really smack people over the head hard with the industrial music, the “horrible noise” as some people like to put it! Getting the beautiful pop is important, but getting the bang clash noise pop in there too is just as important to me. Another big priority for me is getting the lyrical content right, because so many game soundtracks don’t have lyrics and it sucks!!! I want to have lyrics that will stick in peoples’ heads. The songs just have this magical quality that they wouldn’t have without lyrics.

Sarah and Xavier are both working on a crazy song at the moment that involves a BPM switch, where the brief I gave them was just “start as Sabrina Carpenter and Britney Spears and then double the BPM.”

Most importantly, my mom and Sarah’s mom both love the soundtrack, so that’s what really matters, right???

I hope you enjoyed the second instalment of our dev storytime on the music of Don’t Stop, Girlypop! If you missed it, don’t forget to check out the first instalment, where we met with composer Candice Susnjar ❤

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2610650/view/532106822836815610

[h3]Click the buttons below to join our Discord and follow us on social media for the latest updates on Don’t Stop, Girlypop! ❤[/h3]