Sugarplum Cafe Updates

In this month's newsletter we'll cover the following:

• How the Oakland showcase went
• UI updates (newsletter exclusive!)

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The MADE Showcase

If you saw my previous newsletter, I got to show off Sugarplum Cafe at an indie game showcase in Oakland, hosted by the Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment. This was the first time people have been able to play my game in person since Ursa Major in December. I can't believe it's been a full six months!

...and clearly I did not learn from my first showcase, because I forgot to take photos again.

The only footage I have is the MADE Museum's brief walkthrough of all the indie games showing that night (my game is at the very end), but I promise it actually happened!!

I was told that turnout was light compared to previous showcases (they do this every month), but honestly I felt like I had a crowd around me the whole night, so I can't imagine how overwhelming it would have been if there were more people. Thank you to not only my friends and fellow gamedev friends who came to support me, but all the new people who gave my game a chance!

As for the feedback I received - on the positive side, the art style received a lot of praise. Unfortunately, despite my attempts to improve tutorialization and UI (see last issue), players still got lost and didn't know how to progress through the game.

I do think this is on me to improve, but one thing I've noticed is that players behave differently at an in-person showcase vs. at their computer alone. At a public event like this, there's a lot of socializing going on and even I'm chatting with players constantly, so not only do players progress through the game slower because of these distractions, but it's also easy for them to click through tutorial popups without really paying attention. Which, again, is not the player's fault - it's just something I have to accommodate for, like making the tutorial popups unskippable until you actually do the thing.

I don't *love* unskippable tutorials, but I think they're okay if they're not too long. I'll experiment with this and report back - that's the beauty of monthly showcases, I get to playtest again and again!

When can I play Sugarplum Cafe again?

Since the MADE's showcase happens the First Friday of every month, I definitely plan to make it out to future months, although I won't be attending July's since it's on a holiday. I will post via the newsletter and my socials when I've confirmed that I'm going to be at a showcase!

If you aren't able to make it to the showcase, friendly reminder that you can play the game by supporting me on Patreon! Even if you did play the demo at the showcase, the Patreon build has many more characters and items to discover :)

(By the way, if you're a paid member I always send a message asking if you would like access to the game. Some paid members haven't responded, and I'm not sure if it's because the emails aren't going through, but if you've ever supported me as a paid member at any point, please check your inbox if you would like access!)

Various game updates

I did make a few UI updates before the showcase that I haven't shared on socials yet, but you get a sneak peek!

Filigree

First, I added even more filigree to the UI, because I can never have enough filigree personally.

One filigreed element I wanted to highlight was the character introduction. Every character you meet has a unique introduction quote when you serve them for the first time.

(Had to upload this as a video because the GIF file size was too large)

...er, can you tell this game is still a work in progress lol

The Cookbook

Speaking of works in progress, here's another one - I'm working on a Cookbook that records all the recipes you've discovered in the game. Maybe I'm just implementing this wrong, but if you ever see a book UI in a game, I want you to know that the devs worked REALLY HARD on it because this has taken me forever to get right. So much debugging...

This obviously isn't the final art, as I just needed placeholder art to get the code working which was my top priority. The bookmarks on the left will indicate different sections of the Cookbook, each representing a category of sweets you can craft. There's more than just merging!

I chose to make the book spiral-bound because I think a more traditional binding means the book wouldn't lay flat, which I think would be really annoying if you were trying to use a cookbook IRL.

Also, in Sugarplum lore this book is handmade by one of the characters and I think the spiral feels more crafty. I was inspired by my friend Oriana who bound books as a hobby and even made one for me!

Ending on a sweet note

I love talking about food, so I thought it'd be fun to end each newsletter with a different dessert. This month's sweet treat is the Knafeh Pancake from Lulu!

Lulu is a restaurant in East Bay that serves Palestinian food with a modern Californian twist. I went for brunch, and I'm still dreaming about this pancake - it's honestly more like a vanilla cake than a traditional pancake which I didn't mind at all, topped with crispy shredded fillo pastry and pistachios and drenched with orange blossom syrup. It was $21 and was easily shareable between 3 people.

Other highlights include the Shukaquiles (a mix between shakshuka and chilaquiles) and the Lemon Orange Blossom Spritz. I'd definitely recommend trying the brunch here and I'm sure the dinner is also great. The prices are on the higher side, but the experience and the food are both great and I felt like my money was going to a great business.

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Thanks for reading, and see you next month!