Sugarplum Cafe Newsletter

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

• Gallery of fanart
• What I've been working on
• Why the title of this newsletter is different

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Sugarplum Cafe Fanart!

I've received even more wonderful fanart of Sugarplum Cafe, so I'm sharing them here! I'm blown away every time someone wants to draw fanart of my characters. Makes me feel like I'm doing something right 🥹

Thank you so much if you've drawn me something! I have gotten additional fanart featuring characters in the Patreon version, I'll have to hold onto those for now until I reveal them publicly...

If you want to draw Sugarplum Cafe fanart, feel free to use the #SugarplumCafe hashtag and tag me on social media so I'll see it!

Game updates

Most of my work last month was continuing to polish the demo, mostly minor visual updates here and there.

Notably, I replaced some of the placeholder art I've been using for ingredients. If you've played the demo, you've probably recognized these Cookie Run characters I've been using as placeholders because I was too lazy to draw the actual ingredients lol. But I needed to actually draw the ingredients at some point unless I wanted to wake up a cease and desist one day.

No comment on whether other ingredients still have Cookie Run placeholders for now...

I also spent last month working on applications for game showcases that were on a much larger scale than the ones I've done in the past, so I knew it was going to be very competitive. But not gonna lie, it still stung when the rejection email came in.

Despite this, I do want to give a couple of shout-outs. All the touchups above were for a trailer draft that I put together as part of my application, with music from Starling and video editing from my buddy Konmai. There are not enough words to express how much I appreciate their patience, thank you both so much for bearing with me and my neverending requests 🙇‍♀️ The trailer is still a work in progress, but it's coming together really well and I can't wait to show you when it's done!

It's hard not to feel bad about the game and myself, but I'm trying to find a silver lining. The global showcases I applied to would have broadcast the game to a much larger audience, but now that I don't have to worry about all those eyes on me maybe that's a sign to keep my head down in development and focus on making Sugarplum Cafe even more polished.

Shifting to seasonal newsletters

Since I've spent enough time polishing the demo for now, I'd like to pivot back to creating more mid-game assets like designing new Ladies and fleshing out the plot. I'll still be polishing here and there, but content will be my main priority for the time being.

The problem is, I'd prefer to hold off on sharing new Ladies until we're closer to release, and I definitely don't want to be sharing plot so early, but if that's what I'm working on then I won't have anything to write about...

So I'm thinking this: while I grind out spoiler-y content for the game, newsletters will be sent seasonally instead of monthly. I may send out an impromptu email for major announcements or if I want to hold more public playtests, but generally expect a newsletter every three months or so.

I'm thinking that if I have three months of work, I can pick and choose snippets to show without having to spoil everything I'm working on. I also think those snippets might be more interesting - my top priority is designing new Ladies, which I think we're all eager to get sneak peeks of (me included).

In short: less frequent newsletters, but hopefully there'll be more interesting stuff! Quality over quantity and all that :)

If you'd like more frequent updates and you don't mind being spoiled at all, I will post pretty much everything I work on via Patreon, every other week for paid members. Paid members also have the privilege of playtesting with me anytime. But please only join the Patreon if you are in a place to do so!

(Also, if you are a paid member and were interested in playtesting, please check your Patreon DMs if you have not yet playtested!)

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. Since this is technically a newsletter covering March and April, I would like to share two different bakery stalls at my local farmers' markets!

Ube Galore disappeared from my local market for a bit, but they're back now and I couldn't be happier! Ube desserts are my weakness and this stall has so many ube-flavored options - crinkle cookies, señorita bread, and egg tarts to name a few, but my forever favorite are the mochi brownies. They actually don't have chocolate in them, they are just brownie-shaped butter mochi and SO good - the mochi flour makes them not heavy at all, so it's really easy to eat a ton in one sitting. The mochi brownies come in both pandan and ube flavors, both are equally great and genuinely dangerous.

Find Ube Galore at Kaiser San Leandro on Tuesdays, Daly City Farmers Market on Thursdays and Saturdays, Burlingame Farmers Market on the 1st and 3rd Sundays, and Fort Mason Farmers Market in SF on the 2nd and 4th Sundays!

I've heard there are a few more ube-themed bakeries in the Bay Area, please send me recommendations - I'd love to try them all!

​Orange Elaichi Bakehouse specializes in South Asian flavors, with many baked goods being vegan, some gluten-free, and all of them egg-free. She's got these vegan mini bundt cakes that look like donuts - there's rose pistachio and saffron orange, I'd say the saffron orange bundt cake is my favorite of the two. It's more saffron forward than orange, but I love saffron so that's not a problem for me.

The rose pistachio uses gulkand (a rose petal preserve) so the rose flavoring isn't as strong, it's mainly in the icing, but I think that means people who aren't a fan of floral flavors could give this a chance!

For the cake slice lovers, there's a vegan carrot cardamom cake inspired by gajjar halwa. (You can see it in the first image.) The frosting is made from soaked cashews and vegan cream which gives it an interesting texture - it might not be for everyone, but it tickled the part of my brain that loves trying new things. I'm not a fan of raisins in my carrot cake and happy to say this does not contain any, but there are nuts in the cake besides the cashew cream (I think walnuts?).

I love these flavors in desserts but haven't seen them incorporated the way Orange Elaichi has before, and it's really fun! And I know this is supposed to be the sweet section, but they had a savory tadka foccacia that was SO good. Highly recommend checking this place out.

Find Orange Elaichi at San Mateo Farmers Market on Saturdays and De Anza College Farmers Market on Sundays!