Hello hello again everyone!

Did you know that getting a bunch of rewards manufactured and shipped to you takes a while? Weird

I just got three boxes full of other boxes to put rewards in, a label printer and labels to ship things out, and the enamel pins have been approved and are moving to manufacturing! Once we're close to ready to start actually shipping out the rewards, I'll get the survey sorted and sent out to everyone - that's where you'll enter your address information and pay for shipping.

In the meantime - check it out! The bonus stickers by kokuhaku are finished!

Since there are only three chibi characters this time around, there was a bunch of extra room on the sticker sheet. I could have made it smaller, but it wouldn't have made printing them that much cheaper, so instead I decided to fill the empty space with little bonus stickers - included are stickers for the Petal Crash 2 and original Petal Crash logos, the Friend & Fairy logo, and little mini-stickers of each character's little pixelated head that's used for the battle bar. The new chibi stickers are the same size and style as the originals from the first crowdfund campaign, so they can be used all together! Get the whole gang together!

You might notice that Libbie's design differs a bit from her appearance in the first Petal Crash! When I first adapted Libbie to the Petal Crash style, I was primarily going off her original design appearance - she was very geometric and abstract.

I also mistook the white patterns on her feet for empty space and gave her heels when she didn't have any before. Oops.

This time around, I'm basing Libbie's design on a later illustration of Tyson Tan's for a "liberated Libbie", which makes her less icon-like and gives her a more detailed and organic appearance.

Her more detailed outfit will suit Petal Crash 2's new, expanded art style, and offer a lot more options for variety in character palettes! Libbie was so monochrome in Petal Crash Online, so having the ability to give different color options for her coat, dress, tie, hair, and other bits will open up a lot of possibilities.

I'm almost ready to show off some actual physical goods, and I'm so excited to do it! I can't wait to hold a handful of little metal Lilibris and start sorting them out to send to you all. Thanks again for supporting the future of Petal Crash!

Hello hello everyone!

I just got access to most of the crowdfund money, so I've been busy slinging it everywhere it needs to go, including paying our collaborators and getting all the rewards manufactured! I even got it just in the nick of time to take advantage of a sale our enamel pin manufacturer was holding. Bonus!!

We did hit the stretch goal to get another sticker included with the physical orders, but since we ended up blowing so far past the final goals we set, I figured it'd be appropriate to include a bit of something extra as a surprise, so - surprise! I commissioned kokuhaku to do a few more chibi sticker designs, so the extra sticker is now a whole extra sticker sheet!

It's still a work in progress, but I just got the sketches and I think they're all going to be super cute! Since this sticker sheet will only have 4 characters instead of 7 like the other one, I'll also have lots of room to put in little extra things.

For now, most of my attention is on various producer-y tasks, but once there's more to share, I'll be glad to share it! Thank you all again for your support - until next time!

Hello, everyone!

Thank you again for all your support! Sorry for the brief bit of radio silence after the campaign. I, uh, sort of woke up having a panic attack yesterday and had to go to urgent care to make sure it wasn't anything serious. I'm all right though!! This also happened to me just before Petal Crash came out.

I thought now would be a good time to let everyone know what our plans for development are, as well as the timeline for the fulfillment of rewards!

We plan on going with an Early Access model, where major chunks of game content are released in major updates.

Our first focus, and the one that this crowdfund has guaranteed, is to get the game to Early Access in the first place. For that, the game is going to need, at minimum:

We'll also be seeing about getting in Libbie, Baz, and the two guest characters during this phase, but they might be saved for a minor update later. Backstage Pass backers will get to play an incomplete version of the game, but Early Access will mark the point the game goes up for sale publicly.

I don't want to give a specific timeline, because I'm ALWAYS wrong when I try to, but I expect that we'll have the game in this state probably somewhere around the end of the year.

After the Early Access release, our focus for the next major updates will be the original Story Mode and Online, with rollback and lobbies and such. Both Jill and I will be working on these, of course, but my focus will be primarily on the Story mode (which mostly involves lots of new assets) while Jill's focus will be on online play (which mostly involves lots of new code).

Each of these will be the focus of a major update. We may publicly release either of these in an incomplete state ahead of time, as well - like one or two stories in the Story Mode, or functional Online play without the full lobby system implemented. Backstage Pass backers will definitely get to try all of these in their in-development forms.

Once both the Story Mode and Online Play are completely finished, all of our development effort will go into the expansive new Adventure Mode. A lot of stuff about the Adventure Mode is still up in the air design-wise, so it's going to involve a lot of rapid prototyping and experimentation to make sure it's fun. The Backstage Pass backers will get access to all of the sloppy in-between states the Adventure Mode is going to be in during development - the completion of the Adventure Mode will mark v1.0 of the game and the end of Early Access.

Once the game has reached v1.0, then we'll be able to turn our attention to the feasibility of console ports. We're fairly confident we'll be able to make them happen, but we probably won't doing a simultaneous v1.0 release between the PC and console versions. We're going to do our best to see if we can get online play cross-platform between PC and console as well, but no promises!

All of you who pledged to the campaign - thank you so much! You're probably wondering when you'll see your rewards, so here's the plan!

I'm going to get started ordering and shipping the physical merch as soon as I have access to the funds! The survey will be going out in a few weeks - it's at that point you'll pay for shipping costs and enter your address and such. I anticipate people will be receiving their physical rewards in a month or two.

Anyone who backed the game will get a game key once the game is in public Early Access. Extra game keys will be handed out as well!

We'll be making a Backstage server on Discord soon, and probably be sending out invite links along with the survey that everyone gets! The backstage access to the game itself will probably be done through Steam's beta testing system. I expect we'll probably have something ready for the backstage folks to play within a few months.

We'll probably be implementing the in-game cosmetic rewards around when Online becomes available - we expect to implement some kind of unlock method that's verified by the server so that just anyone can't play online with exclusive skins just by editing their save or whatever. We might implement a way for people to unlock them locally before then, too.

We'll have the credits implemented in-game once the Story mode becomes playable. When the survey goes out, those who backed for a credit will be able to enter how they'd like to be credited. The custom Petal Crash 1 & 2 style sprites in the credits are going to be the lowest priority thing for development - I can't imagine everyone wants to wait longer for the game itself to be finished while I spend months animating more than 50 backer sprites! My current plan is to get a still frame for everyone done first, and then get to animating them over time. I hope I can have everyone's sprites done and animated by the time we hit v1.0, but I'll definitely have the still frames done at least! If you got a custom credit sprite, the survey will include a field that lets you know the best way for me to get in touch with you to work that out.

If anyone has any questions about our plans for development, don't hesitate to ask! Thank you all again - I don't know about everyone else, but I'm feeling unstoppable!

Wow! You all work fast!!

I'm running out of ways to humbly thank everyone for your support, but I'll do it again! Thank you for your support!! I thought $57,500 would be a stretch, but you all knocked it out of the park!

Well, now all there is to do is reach 60k, right? There are no more incentives, but the more we raise, the more arrangements we can commission and the more we can put into the game! We'll do our very best to make every penny count!

We did it! Libbie and Baz are going to be coming back!!

I'm really grateful that we managed to hit this goal - I've grown really attached to those two as a part of the cast, and I'm happy they'll be able to return. I saw a whole lot of Libbies in Puzzle Wednesday's last Petal Crash tournament, and it warms my heart to know that we'll have Libbies in the Petal 2 tournaments to come, too!

I wasn't sure we'd make it this far, so I wasn't sure what we could come up with as a follow-up stretch goal, but Jill and I put an idea together!

A jukebox is something that Jill wanted to put in, but which I originally put on the chopping block in order to cut down on scope. If we can hit $57,500, we'll add a jukebox feature to the game, featuring the new game's tunes alongside the original game's chiptune soundtrack, and even commission a few arrangements from guest musicians as well!

With the jukebox, you'll be able to listen to all the game's music, as well as select which ones will play in various game modes. Mix and match character themes and arrangements to your heart's content!

The more we raise past $57,500, the more new guest arrangements we'll commission! I don't want to give an exact number, but you can rest assured that few people want tons of remixes of Petal music more than I do.

I'll also be doing a stream in the last few hours of the campaign, as well! I'll be live on Twitch on Wednesday the 20th, from 10:00 AM PST to the conclusion of the campaign at noon and beyond! I might be a bit sleepy.

Thank you all again!! Excited to join you all in the next world on the petal!!

Hello hello everybody!!

First off, I just want to say: thank you all again for your incredible outpouring of support! I've been stressing about this crowdfund for so long, but now that we've succeeded AND ensured that I'm going to have a chance to make the game my primary focus for a good while, I've finally been able to relax a bit! Where once I was tightly wound, I have now melted into a warm puddle of faerie material.

We've got one more major stretch goal ahead of us before the campaign ends: the return of Libbie and Baz! For those not familiar with the two and why they're in Petal Crash, here's a little bit of backstory!

Libbie is a mascot character designed by Tyson Tan, originally made to represent the open source office software library LibreOffice. Tyson is a well-known proponent of open source creative software, and has designed mascots for many open source projects - including Godot, the game engine that Petal Crash 2 is built in!

While Libbie was originally made as part of a mascot design contest for LibreOffice, and was the clear frontrunner to be the contest winner, the whole operation was botched somehow and the mascot contest was canceled, so Tyson released Libbie into the public domain. Did you know anyone can use Libbie for anything? Use Libbie in your next project! There's nothing stopping you!

So, how'd she end up in Petal Crash? Well, you may have noticed that the highest backer reward in the current crowdfund lets a backer design their own hidden player character - and the crowdfund for the original Petal Crash had such a reward as well! Befitting her public domain roots, though, no single person contributed the full amount required to get Libbie in the game - instead, GalaxyTrail community member Jason "Scootles" Scott organized a mini crowdfund to raise the money needed collectively.

Did you know? Libbie also appears in Freedom Planet 2 as Mayor Zao's personal secretary. There's even a reference or two to her appearance in Petal Crash in her animations and dialogue!

I must confess, I had barely any idea who the Baz was when he was originally pitched to me as a hidden character for Petal Crash. I had some vague idea that he was some kind of collectively owned in-joke character among the fighting game community, having made his major playable debut in DiveKick. Probably his best-known appearance was as a guest boss in Shovel Knight, where he's continued to appear as a supporting character throughout the series.

It turns out, Baz has kind of a fascinating history! Initially based on a rejected character concept for a Street Fighter 2 character, he was given a name and some rather expansive lore as a joke by the proprietors of the (now-defunct) game video channel Super Best Friends Play. He was imagined as an eternal reject - first rejected for a spot in Street Fighter 2, and then subsequently rejected or unable to fit in everywhere else he would try to appear, largely due to his wretched and immature personality.

I was initially hesitant to include Baz in the game because he didn't at all fit in Petal Crash, but once I did my research and learned about his character, it became immediately clear - that's exactly the point! He doesn't fit in anywhere!

By this point, both of the hidden character slots in the crowdfund were taken, but I agreed to make an exception and add a third for Baz. Just like with Libbie, Baz was added to the game via another community fund, this time organized by Timestamp Guy & Celio Hogane under the name "The Baz Everywhere System".

The Baz isn't technically explicitly released into the public domain the way Libbie is, but his creators have expressed that they're completely okay with people using Baz in any of their projects. I did make sure I had permission before including Baz in Petal Crash, though!

Because of Libbie and Baz's unique status as community-owned characters, there's really nothing keeping me from just putting them in Petal Crash 2 as well - I don't need to get permission from anyone! The major consideration is that adding extra characters now takes a lot more resources than it used to - every character in Petal Crash 2 has a stage background and full-body character portraits in addition to their own theme song, and the new sprites take more work to complete, being so much bigger, smoother, and more detailed.

Considering this alongside the fact that Petal Crash 2 will have new hidden characters appearing, I don't think it'd be unreasonable of me not to include Libbie and Baz in Petal 2, though I know they're both quite beloved characters, and have carved out a place for themselves as members of the Petal cast. I'd like them to return! That's why I made their reappearance a stretch goal - with this bit of extra funding, we'll have the resources to get them back in the game!

After that goal is met - who knows? I don't anticipate we'll get much more beyond $55,000, and that's quite all right with me. Really, the number one thing I want is for this game to get made, and we've already ensured that! Though, if we do get a surge of last-minute support, I'll definitely consider ways to reward everyone!

Thank you again, everyone, for all your support. I hope you're as excited to play this game as we are to make it!

Hello everyone!! Today I am sick. But I am only a little sick. Not too sick to give everyone an update!

First off - we're almost to 50k!! Wow wow!! I'm really relieved that I'm going to have the budget to take things a little easier and focus on Petal 2 for a good while. I expect we'll be able to get the game into Early Access much faster if I can give it my whole attention - thank you all so, so much! I'm really looking forward to getting the new Petal in all your hands.

Next, a couple updates about merch! Firstly, we have our new sticker by kokuhaku!

LOOK HOW CUTE!! If you already have or are getting the original sticker sheet, Poppille here is going to fit right in with the rest of the cast!

This bit is less exciting, but I've been doing a bunch of preparation on the backend for manufacturing and fulfilling all the rewards. Last time, I didn't start shipping out rewards until the game itself was done, but this time around I want to get them out ASAP, now that I have a lot more help with the game development part. Look at this cool custom box sample I got from EcoEnclose!

When it comes to mailing things, huge envelopes like the ones I used last time are essentially treated like packages - so why not actually just make it a package? These thin but sturdy boxes are way more durable, and just thick enough to let me slip some enamel pins in there too! I held this box in both hands and actively tried with all my strength to bend it, and it didn't work. Maybe I could have gotten it bent eventually, but I also didn't want to damage it too bad since it's the only one I have right now.

I'm really excited to get all this Petal 2 stuff made - the pins, the posters, and of course the game itself too. Here's hoping we can make it to $55k and get Libbie and Baz back in! Thank you for all your support!

We just reached the $47500 stretch goal, which means a new enamel pin and sticker for everyone to enjoy! Wahoo!! I've gone ahead and updated the addons to include the new pin, and once the sticker's ready, I'll add it too!

There's no extra action needed for anyone who's already pledged for an addon that includes the enamel pins - there's just a third one in there now! And for anyone on the fence thinking about getting the pins - now it's a better deal!

It's only another $7500 until we can secure Libbie and Baz's return, and I hope we can all make it! Until then, thank you everyone for all your support!!