The spirit of Arthur Hallow has awoken! He haunts the Museum and demands PUMPKINS! Will you heed his call?

Art Hallow's Eve is our celebration of the spooky, and like all our events, it's very creativity-focused. As of this moment, you can begin submitting your pumpkin-themed levels to the Mondrian Makers workshop, for a chance at some great prizes, including:

• Gold, Silver, and Bronze framed thumbnails respectively
  
• Subscriptions to the Lantana Games Twitch account
  
• Dedicated roles on the Lantana Games Discord
  
• High quality prints or print-quality images of your creation, plus optional Lantana Games sticker packs

More good news: no matter what, everyone's a winner! ALL entries in the Mondrian Pumpkin Carving Contest will receive custom, “Wooden” framed thumbnail of their works, as well as "Wood Frame" tags, and a POAP token verifying their submission. POAPs, or "Proof of Attendance Protocols," are a new, blockchain-based kind of attendance badge for events. We'll be minting these for all our events, and our creation events especially, so make sure to grab yours if you can! They may have even more uses in the future, so keep joining and keep collecting!

Note: POAP tokens require an Ethereum wallet, however they are completely free to claim! After you submit, we'll leave a comment in the "Private Developers Comments" section of your creation, which will include a link to your POAP token, as well as your framed thumbnail. Please add your framed thumbnail as an image to your already-existing Workshop item! That way you won't lose your hard-earned download stats and upvotes by uploading a new version of your level.



Haven't used Mondrian Maker before? No worries! Jump on over to the game's Workshop page and Subscribe to our Pumpkin template. Then, open this template in Mondrian Maker, select the Paintbrush tool, and quickly paint over the blocks in the template to make your own Jack O'Lantern. It's that easy!

When you have a level you like, click the "Play Your Level" button and select "Open in Studio." This will let you quickly create a Steam Workshop thumbnail. Watch this video to learn how to make a Thumbnail:

Then go back into Mondrian Maker, click the "Share" button, and set the checkboxes to "Public," "Level," and "Gala Entry" to officially submit your level to the contest!

Submissions must be made between 10/1/2021 and 11:59pm Eastern Time on 10/31/2021. Contestants may submit as many levels as they like, however they will only be eligible for one reward pack if chosen. Levels will be judged on the following criteria:

• Creativity: Is this an entirely new pumpkin design? If so, is it visually appealing? If not, what was done with the template to make it unique?
  
• Playability: How were modifiers and obstacles used to make the piece stand out at each difficulty? Is it fun to play with just the right balance of challenge and speed?
  
• Visibility: How is the level’s thumbnail? Does it accurately portray a spooky or fun Halloween feeling? Does it properly show off the level’s “carving” aspect?

Winners will be selected within two weeks of the contest ending (on or before 11/14/2021) and, again, contacted with customized Workshop thumbnails and a secure form for shipping, Twitch, and Discord info.


The Mondrian pumpkin carving contest is hosted in collaboration with ArtChops’ annual pumpkin carving contest, which includes other categories such as Digital Art, Game Jams, Traditional Art, and real Jack O’Lanterns. Learn more about the ArtChops Pumpkin Carving Contest here.

Only submissions including the "Art Hallow's Eve" Gala Entry tag, created in and uploaded from Mondrian Maker, will be considered eligible for the prize packs. Winners will be selected within 14 days of the end of the contest and contacted with their prizes via the "Private Developer Comments" section on their submission. We will make all best efforts to keep you up-to-date on judging progress and any issues that may cause delays.

Lantana Games may use any level or thumbnail submitted to the contest for promotional purposes but will include credit. We will not distribute your creations outside of Steam Workshop without prior consent.

We can't wait to see what kinds of Jack O'Lanterns you create! But most importantly, we hope you have fun with this little contest. It's going to be a wicked month!

As always, thank you for playing.
- Danny

Main Menu: Background colors will now harmonize to match Galas
Main Menu: Leaf particles will be blowing around for the month of October
Maker: The Share window now has 3 new buttons: Visibility, Type, and Entry

• Visibility: Lets you set your Workshop level to be Public, Friends Only, or Private.
  
• Type: Lets you currently select between 2 tags: Level and Template.
  
• Entry: When a Gala is live, you can click this button to submit your level as a Gala competition entry. Otherwise you can set it to “Freeform” for everyone to enjoy without the pressure of curator judgment.

Menu: Fixed the Adventure mode sub-menu not being able to return to the Main Menu when New Adventure was highlighted
Studio: Fixed the Copy/Saved text not appearing when in the game is in Night Mode but the Visual Effects slider is set to Day Mode

Happy anniversary, beautiful artists! One year ago today, Mondrian - Plastic Reality launched on Steam. It's been a slow buildup, but in that time we've introduced a lot of amazing features, like turning the Museum into a live events space and adding in the Mondrian Studio design suite. There's been no shortage of big updates over the last year, but this one takes the birthday cake! So let's explore just a little bit of what this update has to offer.


We had previously calculated a total of two million or so possible gallery spaces you could build in your Museum. However, that number has now skyrocketed to an ASTRONOMICAL SIX BILLION possible spaces. How? Ceilings, columns, and baseboards. Thanks to these brand new cosmetic additions, you'll be able to vary up the look of your space like never before. Personalize your gallery the way YOU want with 12 column styles, 10 ceilings, and 17 baseboards. As always, more cosmetics will be on the way in the future, especially with the holidays coming up.


Want to really show off your skills in your Steam Workshop thumbnails? Now you may use Full HD background images (1920x1080) instead of the traditional chunked backgrounds the game has always used! All you need is a subfolder in the game's Backgrounds folder, and two images. Here's what to do:

• In the Main Menu, select Options and then "Open Local Content"
  
• Browse to the game's Backgrounds folder
  
• Create a new folder here named after your background image (for example, My Photo)
  
• Paste in two 1920x1080 JPG images. They must share a name with the folder. One should be full color (ie My Photo.jpg) and one should be an Inverted Black & White image with the word Gray attached as a suffix (My PhotoGray.jpg).

Backgrounds you import can display in the Main Menu, the Local Leaderboard, and in the Game itself. You can also select your background in the "Background Canvas" tab of Mondrian Studio to be used in Full Color, One-Color, or Black & White mode.


There are too many changes and fixes to list them all here, but needless to say, it's been a busy few months! Everything from experience-killers to the most obscure, once-in-a-lifetime occurrences has been squashed, with the intention of giving you one of the smoothest arcade experiences you could ever imagine. No matter the level, game speed, or difficulty, we think you'll be very happy with what's been brought to the table. Read the nearly 2 pages (!!!) of Patch Notes below for the full details.


Things don't stop with the Anniversary Update! In just over a week, we'll be running our first ever Pumpkin Carving Competition as part of ArtChops' Halloween Event. The pumpkin you see above will be uploaded to Steam Workshop late next week as a template, and you'll be free to modify it as you see fit to make your own Jack O'Lantern level! However, you're free to get a head-start if you wish, but levels without the incoming Halloween Steam Workshop tag won't be accepted, so hold off on submitting until that's live!

And yes, this contest will include prizes. We're still budgeting this out so expect some updates on this on or before October 1.

What else is new? Oh yeah, we made Twitch Affiliate! Streams go up basically every weekday at 3:30pm Eastern time, mostly Mondrian and development streams, but also other indie games, replays of old talks/panels, and Sea of Thieves. Follow and subscribe, and make sure to say hi in chat!

Oh yeah, all 200 Punka Lisas are now available for you NFT collectors out there, so check out our profile on OpenSea to grab yours!

We've also started a Mondrian Makers Clubhouse if you're into that kind of thing. If you feel like chatting about making Mondrian levels or want to give us some feedback on what you'd like to see in the game, join the Club and come chat!

• All: Added support for full background art images (1920x1080). Use of background chunks is also still supported. To add your own backgrounds, go to Options > Browse Local Content. Go to the game’s Backgrounds folder and create a folder named for your background (ex: photograph). Paste two versions of your background image in this folder: a full color one (photograph.jpg) and an inverted grayscale one (photographGray.jpg). We recommended inverting the image so it remains properly shaded in-game.
  
• Game: Added different prompts to the Pause menu depending on game mode
  
• Game: Added some functionality to veer the ball in toward blocks when there are fewer than 10 Regular blocks left in a level. The maximum distance at which the ball can veer toward a block is determined by difficulty. This also only applies to Regular blocks. Splitters, Teleporters, and Grays are not affected by this system.
  
• Museum: Added Column, Baseboard, and Ceiling decorations. With nearly 40 new decorations in total, there are now over 6 billion (with a B!!!) possible Museum spaces you can build. Mix and match to build your space!
  
• Maker: Added the music tracks from the Museum, which all play on Shuffle

• Main Menu: The “Exit Game” button now starts highlighted when quitting
  
• Main Menu: Added an in-game adjustment for changing Game Speed, rather than just saving the value to the settings file
  
• Game: Added overrides to keep Adventure Mode levels in Analogous Color Schemes (meaning anything but De Stijl and Grayscale, at least for Episode 1)
  
• Game: Tied Wildcard swirl and fade to Gamespeed value
  
• Game: Doubled the number of animation frames and added a slight fade-out to block pops
  
• Game: If Block Groove is on, levels will still switch off Block Groove automatically if there are more than 200 blocks present (previously 150). However, when there are fewer than 200 blocks, Block Groove will switch back on. Control over this will be even more granular in an upcoming update.
  
• Museum: Increased inventory size from 3x6 to 4x6
  
• Museum: Updated rendering for Heavy Boards and Diamond Metal floor
  
• Gem Chest: Reworked interstitial messages
  
• Maker: The “Import” button no longer appears in the Inactive Levels tab of the Open menu
  
• Maker: Increased the time it takes for the next drop to block when holding down left click in Stamp Mode
  
• Maker: The time between stamping blocks also now resets when left click is released

• All: Fixed the cursor in the Pause Menu ending up behind Studio objects, particularly the Gallery Frame & negative space
  
• All: Fixed and eliminated all the quick flashes of white in Night Mode when changing scenes
  
• Splash Screen: Fixed Splash Screen not appearing in Night Mode
  
• Main Menu: Fixed rough-ish fade in
  
• Main Menu: Fixed Splash Idling not counting time when Controllers are not attached
  
• Game: Fixed the ball, wall, and paddle being low-contrast grays in Grayscale color harmonies
  
• Game: Fixed being able to Pause the game before the “Ready” animation has finished
  
• Game: Fixed Bomb sound effects sometimes not playing
  
• Game: Reset Ball Speed to Default when a Wildcard is hit when the Ball is caught in the Scoop Paddle
  
• Game: Fixed balls other than the Speedball gaining speed when Bombs were hit
  
• Game: Fixed Speedballs gaining speed from too few block hits
  
• Game: Attempted a fix for the paddle getting stuck on the ball when the ball was paused and hitting the paddle side detectors at the same time
  
• Game: Fixed a bug where the blocks created from Splitters would move at a constant speed, rather than being tied to Gamespeed. This caused blocks to split too far away on Slow, and not far enough away on Fast.
  
• Game: Fixed ball trails not being destroyed when faded out
  
• Game: Fixed the Scoop Paddle being able to catch the ball when teleporting
  
• Studio: Fixed Save/Copy prompts being black when starting Mondrian Studio in Night Mode
  
• Gem Chest: Fixed characters sliding in-front of options prompts
  
• Museum: Fixed background colors in Inventory window getting stuck between pages. We have instead opted for all Gray backgrounds in the cells instead. The header and footer still randomize between red, yellow, and blue!
  
• Museum: Fixed Inventory Window sound effects
  
• Museum: Fixed a bug where the “character” value would not reset when entering the Museum after playing as a character other than Piet in any Quick Play mode
  
• Maker: Fixed Thumbnails not displaying in the proper location in the Save/Play menu
  
• Maker: Fixed the wrong Thumbnail appearing when opening the Save/Play menu
  
• Maker: Fixed levels saving as backups instead of to the active Levels folder

Time for the bit of bad news. The Anniversary Update will be the last major update to Mondrian - Plastic Reality in 2021. That being said, we have the Pumpkin Carving Contest next month, and of course Makersmas in December! There are huge plans for updates in 2022, particularly in regards to Mondrian Maker, DLC, new Quick Play modes, and... Episode 2??? It could happen.

We're also working on some new videos, planning out new workshops and learning opportunities, growing our Discord, Twitch, Clubhouse, and NFT collections. Things never stop over here and we'd love to have you come along for the adventures!

As always, thank you for playing. Here's to the next Anniversary Update in 2022!
- Danny

Well hi there! Hope everyone is doing great! Ready to hear about an upcoming event? Yes? Cool.

Last month, we brought Mondrian to the GJ Art Lounge, an art expo hosted on GamerJibe, a new digital events platform. During the event, Danny recorded a tutorial with Sarah from GJ on how to use Mondrian Maker and Mondrian Studio to share your creations to Steam Workshop. You can watch that video right here:


Next week, we'll be returning to the Art Lounge to once again show off the power of Mondrian Maker and Mondrian Studio, and we'll be running another demo! On August 26 at 2pm EST, we'll be demonstrating how to harness the power of the game's creative tools and dynamic generation to create collections of NFT's on the site and Blockchain of your choice.



We've already done this with our own collections of NFT's, notably the Punka Lisa collections on OpenSea. In these collections, we paintscraped the Mona Lisa's hair to make it randomize on every fill bucket click, and created 200 individual images, with each primary color collection getting minted into bundles bit by bit. You can check them out on our OpenSea page here: https://opensea.io/lantanagames

If this is a topic that interests you, please make sure to register for the GJ Art Lounge here: https://app.gamerjibe.com/events/61118af8cb30873519251241



We will have a development update for you soon! For now, just know things are going well, and 1.0.10 is shaping up to be a very nice update right in time for the game's first anniversary. Cool things are in store.



See you next week and hope you tune in for the talk!
- Danny

• Fixed blocks not dropping if Snap to Grid was deselected
  
• Fixed settings not saving properly when leaving Mondrian Maker

• Fixed controllers not being able to reach Copy & Save buttons in Mondrian Studio

The long-awaited Creators Update is here, and with it, we're introducing Mondrian Studio! This design suite is a major upgrade over the original Gallery Mode, and allows you to take control over the look of your Steam Workshop thumbnails, not to mention desktop backgrounds, postcards, or whatever else you want to turn your Mondrian Maker creations into!



Mondrian Studio is a toolchest you can access from the "Play Your Level" window in Mondrian Maker (select "Open in Studio," previously "Save & Exhibit"). By simply adjusting some sliders (and clicking a couple buttons), you can create beautiful artworks out of your level in no time! You can quickly adjust the frame size/rotation, color harmony, background artwork, visual effects, and logo visibility. When you're ready, you can save your image as a JPG file in the game's Thumbnails folder, or instantly copy it to your clipboard to paste onto social media, send to your friends in chat, or bring into other graphics editing software.



The original Gallery Mode was very barebones, and we felt it was important to lower the barrier to getting levels up on Steam Workshop, while also offering a variety of controls to exhibit your creations in ways the game never could, such as neon colors. There's a wide variety of possibilities for how you can show your level off, and we can't wait to see what you post both on Workshop and in the Community Artwork tab!



If you'd like to know more about how to use Mondrian Studio, we've put together an instructional video which you can watch right here:


We've also added a few bonus goodies, including a new Porcelain Collection in the Museum, some Mondrian Maker adjustments, and Pause Menu optimizations. Check out the 1.0.9 Patch Notes announcement for the full list of what's new, changed, and fixed in the game.



Now that Mondrian Studio is in place, we're aiming to get back to more regular updates. In the meantime, we're super excited to see what you can cook up using the new toolset!

As always, thank you for playing.
- Danny

• Game: Introducing Mondrian Studio, accessible by hitting Save & Exhibit in Mondrian Maker. This toolset replaces Gallery Mode and gives you some sliders to adjust the frame size, crop, background, level colors, and more. It can also be used to quickly save JPG thumbnails with the right name and in the right directory to upload your creations to Steam Workshop!
  
  • Custom Framing: This tab gives you Sliders to access Crop Marks, Negative Space, Frame Ratio, and Frame Rotation
    
  • Color Palette: This tab lets you choose between the 12 primary colors, 10 analogous color scheme styles, scheme widths in 30° increments, and min and max brightness between 0% and 100%. Note that these changes do not happen in real time and you’ll need to click the Fill Button to change your creation’s color scheme.
    
  • Background Canvas: This tab lets you choose a background image, switch between Full Color, One Color, and Black & White variants, or switch the background off and on entirely. Note that One Color variants will take the Primary Color from the Color Palette tab.
    
  • Visual Effects: This tab lets you toggle the game’s various visual effects, including CRT Monitor, Film Grain, and Night Mode.
    
  • Snapshot Capture: Finally, the piece de resistance. The Snapshot Capture tab lets you save images of your creation based on the setup you’ve created in Gallery Mode. Capture Size lets you choose the size of the image, including the full Frame, Interior only, Frame + Crops, or the Full Window. You can also add various Mondrian and Lantana Games logos to the corners if you like. Use the Save function to save a properly named Thumbnail where the game needs it to upload your creation to Steam Workshop, or the Copy function to paste it directly into a chat, onto a social media post, or into external graphics editing software.
• Game: Added 3 new Achievements
  
• Museum: Added Porcelain Collection. This adds six new artpieces that can be placed on pedestals.
  
• Museum: Filled in some missing sound effects
  
• Museum: Added Over and Down states to inventory arrows

• Main Menu: Added version number to lower-left hand corner
  
• Game: Added a Scheme Width value to level color generation to help make adjacent color scheme values more accessible via the GUI
  
• Game: Reworked color generation to be more compatible with new Mondrian Studio controls
  
• Game: Tied Grayscale to Min and Max brightness values
  
• Game: Optimized and cleaned up code of Pause menu
  
• Game: Reordered Tetrad scheme widths to match Mondrian Studio’s color harmony slider. This has no effect in-game.
  
• Game: Remade control maps in Pause Menu to match the game’s UI more and include Mondrian Studio controls

• Game: Fixed a bug that prevented Grayscale, De Stijl, and Random color schemes from generating in-game
  
• Game: Fixed the possibility of a background image not loading when Backgrounds were still turned on
  
• Game: Fixed Triad 2 color 3 not generating on paddle, ball, or wall objects
  
• Museum: Fixed Y-Positioning on Tall Tapered Mahogany pedestals
  
• Museum: Fixed rendering on Chevron Wood floor

• Added Thumbnails to the Save/Load window

• The “Save & Exhibit” button now reads “Open in Studio”
  
• Adjusted the wording on the “Play Your Level” tooltip to no longer make reference to a requirement to beat your level at all difficulties before sharing. This never got developed and has never been a requirement. Sorry for the confusion! The Tooltip now says what the individual buttons do in the Play Your Level window instead.

• Fixed Miniswatch Y-Positioning
  
• Fixed more Save/Play/Studio button issues

Piet Mondrian's 149th birthday is coming up on March 7! To celebrate, Lantana Games and SmartEgg Toys have teamed up to bring you a Stijlish giveaway event! From now through March 7, 10 winners be picked to receive copies of both Mondrian - Plastic Reality and SmartEgg's Mondrian Blocks tabletop puzzlegame!



To enter the contest:

• Visit our Gleam page - {LINK REMOVED}https://bit.ly/mondrian-birthday
  
• Use the green +1 buttons to follow Lantana Games on Twitch, Youtube, and Facebook; and SmartEgg on Twitter and Instagram, and visit their website

That's it! Winners will be picked shortly after March 7, and will receive a free Steam Key for Mondrian - Plastic Reality AND a copy of Mondrian Blocks in the mail!

Ready to play?

{LINK REMOVED}

Share the link with your friends too, because Mondrian Blocks is even better with two players competing!

Good luck, and happy birthday Piet!

- Danny

Happy New Year, everyone! With Makersmas coming to a close (and what a fun first Makersmas it was!) we're spinning our event schedule up for the rest of 2021. Obviously the world is still in flux, but we're going to do our best to keep up with some kind of consistent event schedule in Mondrian itself, and attend any digital or real expos we can.

First up is the BostonFIG Virtual Indie Game Fest THIS SATURDAY! The event runs from 10am-5pm EST, and features Mondrian - Plastic Reality and tons of other indie games. The event is Pay What You Want and takes place on Gather.Town, an almost Zelda-like web game for social meetups, digital offices, parties, and more! Our plan for the day is to demonstrate the Museum's capabilities as a digital gallery, with the goal of opening what we're calling the PopBlock Gallery sometime this Spring. Take a tour of the space right here, and sign up at the link above to not miss out!


The PopBlock Gallery is a new endeavor we're trying out with the game, and will play host to independent artists from around the world. It will include custom Museum spaces, new Museum decorations, exclusive levels, stories, and links to find out more about the artists involved. These galleries will be our DLC, and will cost between $2.99 & $8.99 USD, depending on the size of the exhibit, the number of artists involved, etc. The DLC will go to support the artists/organizations and they will be a great way for you to support the arts and our continued development of Mondrian - Plastic Reality.

Learn more on our website!

The next update will be focusing on the game's Gallery Mode. The plan is to give it a proper UI, accessible via mouse & controller, with the following functionality:

• Change Frame Size
  
• Rotate Frame 90­­°
  
• Change Background
  
• Toggle Background On/Off
  
• Toggle Frame On/Off
  
• Toggle Negative Space
  
• Toggle Crop Marks
  
• Change Primary Color
  
• Change Color Scheme
  
• Capture Thumbnail (dynamic with frame, crop marks, and negative space)

Once this is ready to go, uploading your levels to Steam Workshop will be that much easier, as you'll have all the control you need to capture the perfect Thumbnail, and the game will do it for you AND save it to the right place with the right name! For now you can always check the game guides for our tutorial on how to capture & save a Thumbnail until we get this update out (figure on February).

Finally, we've pushed a small update to bring about the end of Makersmas and start the New Year off on the right foot, so here are the patch notes:

• Main Menu: Turned off the snow
  
• Museum: Took down the Makersmas decorations. Thank you all for a wonderful, artsy Holiday celebration! We’ll absolutely be doing some other events like this during the year and of course Makersmas 2021 will be even better

• Main Menu: Levels you’ve already downloaded & are in your Levels or Inactive Levels folder will no longer re-download
  
• Museum: Fixed the cursor staying as a hand outside of the Difficulty selection buttons in Lightbox galleries

• Updated the workshop tag to “BostonFIG” to coincide with Saturday’s expo. Will be updated again in a couple weeks!
  
• Increased the width of the Share Window text box to prevent cutoffs
  
• Added a check for Steam Connection before displaying the “Share to Steam” button

• Fixed Mondrian Maker not going to Testing or Gallery Modes when Save & Play or Save & Exhibit was clicked

As always, please let us know if you run into any issues and we'll get them fixed up ASAP. Thank you for playing, and have an excellent BostonFIG!

- Danny