As those of you who have played the demo know, there is currently no music in the game. While I am mostly developing Sugarplum Cafe on my own, I cannot compose music to save my life so I have been looking for a composer to help me out. It's taken quite some time, but I'm more than elated to say the search is coming to an end.
Her music possesses a magical wistfulness, almost reminiscent of Ghibli films. Combined with her classical style, her music was a great fit for what I was looking for - classical, orchestral, with a hint of cozy modernity.
From chatting with her I learned that not only do we share a love for fashion and desserts, but she grew up doing ballet as a child and loves the Nutcracker ballet, having both been in a production and played the Nutcracker Suite in the oboe section. I'm really stoked to not just work with a fellow woman in the industry, but also someone who loves everything Sugarplum Cafe is about!
And if you were wondering, her favorite Lady is Lady Strawberry ๐
Starling has already started working on music for the game, and even from the rough drafts I'm so in love with how it sounds - I cannot wait for everyone else to hear it too! But in the meantime, please support Starling by listening to her music on Bandcamp, YouTube, Soundcloud, or Spotify!
An update on playtesting
If you didn't get to play the game at a showcase, or you'd like the experience of playing Sugarplum Cafe at home...you're gonna have to wait a little while longer, because I've broken the game. I'm so sorry.
cruel angel food thesis
I was trying to make the game controls more accessible, as "drag-and-drop" is not accessible to everyone. Even I sometimes struggled with the drag-and-drop mechanics since my typical work setup (laptop w/trackpad) is not drag-and-drop friendly, so it was something I could benefit from too.
Unfortunately the controls were weaved into the game in a very messy way, partly because of the way Godot works and partly because of my coding. So I had to rewrite a lot of my controls from scratch, and everything broke...
The good news is that when the game IS ready for playtesting, I'll actually have something for you to playtest because I'm really curious what y'all will think of the updated controls! And also, hopefully the game will be more accessible! And my code will be a lot cleaner!
While I use this time to fix code, I'm also going to take time to polish the visuals further. Now that I'll have music thanks to Starling, I would love to put together an official trailer video - which means the gameplay footage needs to look super spiffy!
I'm not sure when exactly playtests will be ready now, but I may send out a blast separate from the newsletter. I will probably take a limited number of playtesters at a time, so please keep an eye out on your inbox!
So once again, thank you all for your patience. Working mostly solo means I can't progress as quickly as much as I want to, but know that I'm trying to make a little progress every day. We will get there eventually!!
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 a shout-out to some really unique mocktails! This month I visited Portland for the first time and was really impressed by the mocktail culture.
(I was fully expecting to dedicate this month's section to Portland's gourmet donuts, but honestly the donuts I tried were not good lol. Mocktails need more love anyways!)
As a lightweight who can barely drink alcohol, I really appreciate that mocktails are not only more commonplace these days but also getting really creative! Portland of course has no shortage of baristas and bartenders who will happily create custom drinks for you, even non-alcoholic ones if you like! As your resident weird flavor lover, I'm so excited when I can order something more unique than Dr. Pepper.
A couple places I didn't get photos of:
Expatriate is a lounge whose food menu is mainly bar snacks, but the Indian spiced fries that come with raita, curry ketchup, and sumac ranch are a must-get. (Avoid the onion sandwich, it barely has onion in it.) They have many cocktails on the menu but you can also order a custom cocktail or mocktail and give them a keyword for flavors you like, e.g. "smoky" or "fruity". I asked for "floral" and received an elderflower lemon spritz, and I loved how heavy on elderflower it was!
Dear Sandy is a coffee place by day and a cocktail bar by night, but I think they have the same menu all day? They also offer custom drinks, usually coffee or matcha-based, but I went with some on the menu. The sage matcha was not as sagey as I wanted it to be, but the Snowbird mocktail which had coconut milk, curry, and lime...WOW, both my local friend and I agreed that was so good. Almost savory with the curry flavor, but if you like weird stuff like me you'll like this one!
Some of the beverages offered at Dear Sandy - caffeinated, alcoholic, and zero proof.
But at Toya I found threecreative drinks I wanted to try, and all of them were fantastic! It's a bougie ramen bar, and funny enough I think the ramen is just ok...but I would go back just to have these mocktails again. (If you order food, it seems like the soupless ramen is the way to go. I enjoyed my abura soba and I heard the carbonara was legendary but limited quantities every day)
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From left to right:
The black cream soda with Schwarzbier reduction, vanilla, and...soy sauce? I think this is for those who love soy sauce and vanilla ice cream. This immediately set off my weird flavor alarm, and it's definitely interesting! The soy sauce is not that strong but does add something unique that works. But it wasn't my favorite of the three.
A seasonal butternut squash soda that not only actually tasted like butternut squash but had a splash of lemon that somehow made it work as a sweet beverage
The Yunnan milk tea with soy milk, black sugar, and tonka bean - I had never had tonka bean before but this was incredible. I can see how ppl describe it as "vanilla but different", it has some nuttiness that vanilla doesn't have but worked amazingly. Also tonka bean is illegal in the US so I asked a friend how they got it and they said "we just don't talk about it"?? huh lol??
My favorite by far was the Yunnan milk tea, even though I have no idea what tonka bean has to do with that province (maybe the tea itself is from Yunnan?) and I would come back just to try this again. I am so curious what other seasonal drinks they could come up with!
As the menace who orders bubble tea without toppings (but I still call it boba without toppings because it's about the experience of going to a boba shop, ok?), I love seeing more options for non-alcoholic drinks out there! And anything that serves as a medium for creative and weird flavors is wonderful in my book.
Sugarplum Cafe Updates I can't believe it's been a full year since I first shared Sugarplum Cafe with the world and started this newsletter. What a year it's been! In this month's newsletter we'll cover the following: How my final showcase of 2025 went End of year reflections Some indie games to check out by local devs! Click here to read past newsletters! Click here to follow my socials! Ursa Major recap This J-Fashion convention was where I had my very first game showcase last year, so I...
Sugarplum Cafe Updates Sorry for missing October - my IRL life has been stretched pretty thin between work, family, and friend stuff, so I didn't really have much to share related to Sugarplum. But now I do! Next month, Sugarplum Cafe is returning to Ursa Major! Ursa Major is a J-Fashion convention in Japantown SF, specializing in "lolita fashion" - think the frilliest, poofiest, laciest dresses imaginable. One of their many events is a Game Lounge and that's where the Sugarplum Cafe demo...
Sugarplum Cafe Updates In this month's newsletter we'll cover the following: Trying something new at the Rodo showcase A sneak peek at a new illustration An amazing opportunity from another indie game Click here to read past newsletters! Click here to follow my socials! Trying something new This month I showcased at the inaugural Rodo Playtesting Event in Fremont, and got to try some new tactics following my insights from the past few showcases! In my last post, I wrote about the struggles of...
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