FirstPlate Demo Update .13

We have been busy over the last few weeks working on massive improvements, balance updates, visual overhauls, and significant performance optimizations. Here is the complete list of everything that has changed in our latest updates.

Major Features & Additions

• Tablet Design Overhaul - Rebuilt the in-game tablet completely. The Dashboard, Market, Decorate, and Staff apps all feature brand-new themed artwork, cleaner navigation, and updated buttons.

• Lobby & Pre-Game Screens - The main menu, Endless mode lobbies, and pre-game setup screens have been updated with new background artwork and button assets. Steam avatars now display correctly for all players in lobbies, and you can now "unready" if your group needs more time before starting.

• Feed Chef Whiskers the Cat - You can now interact with Chef Whiskers, the stray cat outside. Placing cooked food on the new Cat Table near the entrance will make him sprint over to eat (featuring custom eating animations and sound effects) before leaving a dirty plate.

• Multiplayer Draft Voting - Added a voting mechanic for Draft Days in multiplayer. Your group must now vote together on which cards to pick instead of a single player deciding for the entire lobby.

• Dirty Table Alerts - Tables that need cleaning now display a flashing red circle and bounce up and down to make them much easier to spot.

• Lobby Persistence - Added a Play Again option at the end of a run to keep your party together in the lobby instead of having to send new invites.

• New Appliances & Layout Items - Pizza Ovens and Pizza Cutting Boards are now available for purchase in the store. We also added tall walls and doors to the store menu as buyable appliances in Endless mode. Added themed preview images in the customization menu for all wall, floor, counter, and table styles.

• Clock Synchronization - System clocks are now dynamically synced between the host and remote players. This fixes order timers and progress bars on client screens so they do not expire instantly or lag behind.

Balancing & Gameplay Tweaks

• Table Seating & Chair Limits - Chairs are now locked to tables when placing them, and tables have a strict limit on how many chairs can be attached to prevent overcrowding or chair-placement exploits. Shifts will now validate that you have at least one table that fits the day's maximum customer group size.

• Endless Mode Balancing - Smoothed out customer spawn rates. Group sizes are now frozen during draft days to help you adjust to new menu cards. Capped group spawn rates and customer pressure for 3-player and 4-player lobbies to make them more manageable.

• Smarter Wall Building - Allowed placing walls directly against counters and appliances. Outer boundaries are locked, meaning you cannot pick up or place walls on the restaurant's outer perimeter.

• Better Customer and Plating Logic - You can now place empty plates directly onto deep fryers for faster serving, and plate cooked food directly from stoves onto trays. You can also interact with tables directly through seated customers instead of having to aim around them.

• Slip and Spill Adjustments - Reduced the chance of slipping on dirty floors. You will no longer slip when standing still on a mess. Sprinting and rainy days will cause spills. Added tip overlays to remind new players of spill hazards.

• Large Customers (Big Chungus) - Extra-large customers will no longer appear until at least Day 4 to give you time to set up your kitchen. Their plates now stack vertically in the center of the table so they don't clip inside their wider bodies.

• Game Defaults - VSync is now disabled by default to unlock monitor framerates and prevent issues. Default music volume is lowered to 5%, and the default FPS cap is set to 144.

Performance & Engine Overhauls

• Massive Performance Boost - Rebuilt the rendering engine to consolidate window frames, window glass, sidewalks, street markings, and passenger car bodies into single merged meshes, slashing render draw calls for a smoother framerate.

• Optimized Textures & Models - Compressed and optimized over 90 game models and textures (including the meat fridge, green peppers, wall variations, and character clothing), which dramatically reduces RAM/VRAM usage and boosts loading speed.

• Ceiling Renderer Fix - Rebuilt the ceiling renderer to draw only actual placed ceiling tiles and lights, instead of drawing 2,000 empty tiles behind the scenes.

• Stutter-Free Shifts - Pre-loaded missing cooked/burnt food states, pot recipes, asparagus, and wings to the startup cache so they don't cause micro-stutters when they spawn for the first time during a shift.

• Queue TV Steam Deck Patch - Rewrote the lobby's TV screen system to use direct context rendering. This stops the TV screen from causing performance drops and stutters on the Steam Deck and lower-spec computers.

• Dedicated Graphics Auto-Select - The game now forces computers to run on their dedicated graphics cards instead of integrated CPU graphics, heavily boosting framerates for players on laptops.

• Reliable Loading Screens - Rebuilt loading screen logic to transition only when the scene is fully preloaded, preventing the loading bar from jumping backward or stuttering.

Bug Fixes

• Multiplayer Connection & Synced Actions - Fixed critical bugs including item duplication exploits, black screen freezes when joining lobbies, and the "stuck red button" lobby soft-lock. Disconnecting or returning to the lobby now immediately clears out player characters.

• Multiplayer Lag & Desyncs - Fixed sudden lag spikes when customers sit or get served, and deduplicated movement updates to prevent lag from building up. Cooked food will no longer randomly appear raw on client screens when picked up by laggy players.

• Leaderboard Categories - Locked in player counts at the start of a run. If a player disconnects mid-run in Endless mode, it won't post your score to the wrong leaderboard category.

• Collision Issues - Fixed collision bugs that allowed players to walk straight through fridges, industrial windows, or condiment counters. Adjusted door hitboxes.

• Interface & Audio Fixes - Resolved bugs with glitchy cutting board progress, stuck sprint keys when alt-tabbing, and looping mop sound effects. Master volume now properly adjusts all sound effects. Fixed missing leaderboard audit logs.

• Tablet Counter View - Fixed a bug in the tablet edit menu where customizable counter frames were invisible, making ovens and stations look like they were floating.