PlinkIdle News

[p]Ready to drop some balls and watch the chaos unfold?

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Thanks for being part of the PlinkIdle crew — may your drops be lucky and your scores sky-high!

Happy dropping,[/p][p]The PlinkIdle Team[/p]

[p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][h3]Currency Changes[/h3][p]There are now two forms of currency, instead of just one. Formerly (and in the current itch build), you can only spend coins on upgrades. With our next update, you can also spend balls. Some upgrades are stage based and cost balls, and other upgrades are global and cost coins.[/p][p]Some examples:[/p][h3]
Cards Instead of Wheel[/h3][p]
[/p][p]The wheel will still be there to add a random chance element as an extra reward for achievements and prestige. But progressing through stages will now offer a "choose your reward" moment where you pick from up to 3 buffs. The buffs now have a varied wide variety of rarity (common-to-legendary) as well -- so if you're lucky, you'll get a legendary offering that will boost the game significantly.[/p][h3]
More Upgrades[/h3][p]We got a lot of feedback that it's sad when there isn't an upgrade for every stage, so now there's an upgrade for every stage! Some are really impactful, and some are just a helpful boost, like making active or passive play stronger over time.[/p][h3]
Playtest & Wishlist[/h3][p]If you want to see these changes in action, there will be an official Steam playtest that you can sign up for here:[/p][p]https://www.brokenworm.com/playtest-plinkidle

or join our discord here https://discord.gg/5DC2UQvhzh[/p][p]
Wishlist here: [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink][/p][p]Let us know what else you'd like to see.
Thanks so much for checking out PlinkIdle![/p][p][/p]

[p][/p][p]Hi everyone! We are deep in the intense process of preparing the new PlinkIdle Demo that will launch on Steam in Q1’26 and your feedback would mean the world to us. So we will start playtesting veeery soon!
👉 See link at the end to join the playtest team!
[/p][p]Some infos about the game:
PlinkIdle is an incremental/idle game inspired by Plinko, Tetris, and Cookie Clicker.[/p]

• [p]Plinko - The peg board and buckets. Our twist: Pegs, balls, buckets, and more can be upgraded.[/p]
• [p]Tetris - Advance through pretty stages. I remember playing Tetris and getting that dopamine hit of being in a new stage. I wanted that.[/p]
• [p]Cookie Clicker - I love CC and have been doing a run for half a year. I still drop what I'm doing to click Golden Cookies. We have Golden Cookie-like buffs.[/p]

[p]🪩 Check out the trailer here: [/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]Join PlinkIdle Playtest Team[/p][p]We need honest feedback from real people wo resonate with incremental games so we will start playtesting soon. We would be more than thankful if you can join our testing team here (no worries, we won't spam, it's just German data protection, iykyk): [/p][p][/p][p]👉 https://www.brokenworm.com/playtest-plinkidle[/p][p][/p][p]Again, your feedback means the world to us! Please feel free to spread the link to people who might be interested.

Thank you![/p]

[h3]General Update[/h3][p]PlinkIdle’s development is rolling along![/p][p]We’ve been putting together a new build for web, which will likely serve as the teaser/demo version for Steam later on. This one is shorter and meant to showcase the game’s vibe, rather than provide the full hours-long experience.[/p][p]Our current “big build” (the one with many hours of gameplay) has been super useful for testing, but as folks on itch pointed out, it’s also very imbalanced. Coins flood in, the balance falls apart, and progression collapses after just a couple of hours. Painful to see, but also incredibly helpful, because it clarifies what needs to change. My current priority is to address that.[/p][p][/p][h3]What We're Designing[/h3][p]The core idea that we're exploring now is splitting apart Stage-based upgrades and Global Upgrades. This will ensure that players have to earn some ball currency before they can really invest, rather than carrying over their coins from the previous level and dumping it all at once.

[/p][p]
So, in this mockup you can see how the buttons might look for Stone, if everything was unlocked, and things are starting to get expensive because it's late game. On the right is an example of early game, the Wood stage, when things are still early/locked. You can see how the unique stage currency (balls) can be used to invest in stage-related upgrades.[/p][p]Global Upgrades will be long term, run-based, and ultimately very expensive to take them to a high level.[/p]

• [p]Drop Button Cooldown[/p]
• [p]Rarity Chance[/p]
• [p]The ability to unlock Auto Drop spawners (of which there will eventually be 3, we think)[/p]

[p]And Stage-based upgrades would be as follows:[/p]

• [p]Peg upgrades[/p]
• [p]Peg splitters[/p]
• [p]A way to customize the stage further (each stage will ideally have a little gimmick to solve, like a way to repair missing pegs in the wood level, or a slow debuff to thaw in the winter level)[/p]
• [p]The player can also invest in the auto drop cooldowns for each stage.[/p]

[p]The idea is that the stage begins slow, peaceful, and empty, and the player needs to invest the balls collected in making it come to life.[/p][h3]Other Priorities[/h3][p]Some other stuff we're working on:

Localization, because we'll be publishing the game in Asia with Gamersky! We're very excited about that.[/p]

• [p]Thinking hard about a skill tree. I'd like to have a skill tree that goes into rewarding idle play vs active play, but I'm still in the early stages of planning that.[/p]
• [p]Builds, bugs, fighting with Steamworks. Lots and lots of time spent just banging our heads against the wall with various tools and processes.[/p]

[p]Hi, Steam!
[/p][p]We’ve been working hard on a PlinkIdle demo. It's tightened up from the original game we launched on web, prettier, and way more playable with a new core loop.[/p][p][/p][p]We’re aiming to release it during a focused event instead of throwing it into the Next Fest firehose. Thanks so much for wishlisting and following![/p][p][/p][p]We're really looking forward to engaging with the community here.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][carousel][/carousel]