🧪 Discord Trial Previews Are Here! 🧪

We’ve been hard at work on some massive systemic overhauls, and we realized the best way to polish them is to put them directly into your hands.

Introducing our brand-new Trial Preview System —an exclusive, password-protected Steam branch available only for our amazing Discord community!

This gives our most dedicated players a sneak peek into the next major update before it officially hits the main stage.

🔑 How to Gain Entry

Want to skip the line and test the latest builds? It’s simple:

• Step 1: Head over and join our official Discord channel.

• Step 2: Grab the secret Steam branch password and follow the quick setup instructions pinned in the preview-builds channel.

• Step 3: Switch your Steam build branch, jump in, and start breaking racks!

⚠️ A Quick Warning from the Devs: > Because these are true, cutting-edge preview builds, they are intrinsically experimental. You may encounter a few pesky bugs and rough edges that aren't present in the live, stable version of the game.

We're doing all our QA in-house, but your eyes out there on the tables will help us catch the weird stuff much faster!

🧠 First Preview Wave: The Advanced AI Overhaul

For this very first iteration of the Trial Preview, we are letting you loose against our completely rebuilt table intelligence. We heard your feedback from Steam Next Fest loud and clear—Ralphie’s AI felt as if he was firing blind. Here is a taste of what our Discord members get to test early:

• Introducing the Advanced AI System: We have completely retired the old, erratic AI script and replaced it with a grounded, highly tactical decision-making system.

• Dynamic Run Scaling: The AI skill level now scales organically as your run progresses! It starts off a little dumb and forgiving, steadily sharpening Ralphie’s skills until he becomes an absolute shark by the table.

• True Shot Evaluation: The AI no longer just flips a coin and fires at a ball. It now calculates the exact "ghost-ball" position required to pot a shot, raycasts the path to ensure it isn't blocked, and scores every option based on cut angle, distance, and ball value.

• Intelligent Geometry Navigation: On our more chaotic, irregular tables (like the ah… “Arrow” or the E-shaped layouts), Ralphie will no longer panic and fire directly into a wall. It now utilizes a smart three-tier safety fallback system, allowing it to bank, kick, or sweep for the most open escape path.

• Under-the-Hood Optimization: We've cleaned up turn-state logic bugs and replaced heavy code chains with more optimized loops, meaning this advanced brain has an incredibly light performance footprint that runs beautifully—even on the Steam Deck!

💡 Under the Hood Note: The only edge case we are currently keeping our eyes on during profiling is when the AI is completely, absolutely boxed into a corner; its last-resort escape sweep can instantly fire off a couple hundred physics checks at once. It shouldn't cause any noticeable hitches, but let us know if you experience any stutters on the preview branch so we can tune it before the wide release!

📅 What’s Next?

Not on Discord or prefer to stick to the stable build? No worries at all! If everything goes smoothly with our preview testers, this new AI system will roll out to everyone on the main branch next week.

For those jumping into the preview branch today, please let us know how the new systems feel to play against and dump your feedback in the Discord channels. Your insights are exactly what helps our small team make this game the best it can be.

Good luck on the tables, don't let Ralphie shark you, and we'll see you in the Discord! 🎱