February Playtest + A Look into your Feedback

Coming up next: February Playtest!

Hi everyone! We’re excited to share that the next Croak playtest will be live very soon (literally tomorrow, actually)! Featuring improvements based directly on the feedback you shared in the previous test -- keep reading to learn about the playtest stats and the list of improvement!

📅 Playtest Date: [c] [Tuesday, Feb 10] → [Monday, Feb 16][/c]

Join the playtest by signing up on the official Croak Steam page!

And if you haven’t already, we highly recommend joining our Discord to stay in the loop, chat with the devs, and be first in line for future playtests.

A Look into your Feedback!

Thank you once again to everyone who took part in our most recent playtest. This was our first time running something at this scale, and we learned a lot from it.

Over the course of the playtest, here’s what happened:

• 512 unique players jumped into Croak

• 75,497 deaths in total (RIP :p)

• 76 players defeated the end boss

• 533 end-level mice were… dealt with (they’re okay, probably)

• 5,003 coins collected as a community

We also saw over 6,000 applications to join the playtest. To make sure we could properly review feedback and support players, we gradually approved participants over time.

While we know not everyone who applied was able to join, this approach helped us ensure that every piece of feedback we received could be read, discussed, and taken seriously.

Changes Based on your Feedback:

Whether you reported bugs, shared thoughts on our Discord, or simply played the game and explored at your own pace, your feedback is already guiding changes we’re making behind the scenes!

Here are some things that we have adjusted since:

[c]Hero Control[/c]

• [c]Added slightly more air control[/c]

• [c]Tongue-grapple no longer stops gravity[/c]

[c]Pinball[/c]

• [c]Pinball actions are no longer cancellable mid-spin (with the exception of wall-climbing)[/c]

[c]Level Design[/c]

• [c]Difficulty tweaks made to 15+ rooms to reduce tedium and improve overall flow[/c]

[c]Level Art[/c]

• [c]Added base visuals to additional levels[/c]

• [c]Added environmental storytelling elements[/c]

• [c]Visual polish pass on several rooms[/c]

[c]Animation[/c]

• [c]Added new boss animations [/c]

• [c]Added new idle and death animations for mouse-beaver NPCs[/c]

[c]Overworld & UI[/c]

• [c]Improved navigation [/c]

• [c]New UX for achievement display (V2 still work-in-progress)[/c]

[c]Overall Game Content[/c]

• [c]Adjusted the number of levels to better match our official demo[/c]

• [c]Build is now faster to complete[/c]

• [c]Removed levels 1-4 and B-side levels from this build[/c]

[c]New Features[/c]

• [c]Added a “fly” camera option when pressing the right joystick[/c]

• [c]New menu options for easier remapped input[/c]

• [c]Added controls for Master Volume and Screenshake [/c]

• [c]Updated tutorial text to reflect new controller inputs[/c]

[c]Optimization & Bug Fixes[/c]

• [c]Optimized build size from ~20GB to ~1.2GB [/c]

• [c]New, faster loading screen[/c]

• [c]Improved camera movement in some levels[/c]

• [c]Fixed a major PlayStation controller bug[/c]

• [c]Fixed an issue with pinball direction changing during level transitions[/c]

• [c]Fixed vertical friction during level transitions[/c]

This was a pretty long post, so if you've made it this far, I hope this was worth your time! We hope to see you in our next build! Until next time~

- Croak Dev Team 𓆏