This update delivers a major visual refresh along with input/QoL upgrades and important fixes across the board.

• Full in-game graphics overhaul: New lighting pipeline with HDR for richer contrast, bloom and scene depth.
• Bug fixes: Numerous issues reported by the community have been resolved for a smoother experience.
• Dialogue UI refresh: In‑game conversation panels redesigned for clarity, readability and better pacing during action.
• Control remapping: Configure your inputs to your preference directly from the Options menu.
• Gamepad support: Native in‑game controller compatibility added.
• New SFX for player shots: The ship’s primary fire now features clearer, punchier audio feedback.

Community shout‑out — we extend our thanks to the Spanish streamer Sasel for believing in us and showcasing the demo live. Your feedback—together with the community’s—helped us ship these improvements. 🧡

What’s next — upcoming changes will focus on the Briefing/visual‑novel UI and art, plus a redesigned Options menu. Stay tuned!

If something still feels off—readability, balance, QoL, UI, or performance—tell us! Share thoughts in the Community Hub or join our Discord: https://discord.gg/3C66edJj5k

Hey Fellow Frogs 🐸

Whilst the localisation present in this build was never intended to be a full implementation we were unhappy with the amount of issues some players were facing. We have made a hotfix that will hopefully improve the experience of non-english users. CHANGELOG - Fixed "missing string" type errors in dialogue windows that occured when using any language other than English. These textboxes will now display the "default" English text when there is no text available in your selected language. This was the intended solution for the playtest, and we apologise that we did not catch this error before the build went live! - Same as above, but for text in tutorial windows. - Fixed miscellaneous positioning errors with text in languages other than English - Fixed localisation of HUD popups that were not being applied correctly (such as tutorial popups) Changed the font of Spanish and Latin American Spanish languages

If you played the build and have feedback for us, or just want to join the community here is a link to our discord:

https://discord.com/invite/vuY4thycPK

Thank you for participating in the playtest!

This is a big update for the play test. We have a new level to try + our usual bug fixes.

There is a new level in the desert Sparkland area of the park. This level features new enemies and a new goal to clear the level.

There are 5 pillars along a path to clear while a mass of tumbleweeds is filling in behind the player in the path. You need to clear all 5 pillars to activate the portal at the end of the level in order to clear it. Try balancing out hunting for upgrades while clearing the pillars out. If you take too much time you will get caught in the weeds!

We also have new enemies on this level:

• Olive Slimes will jump at player. While they are airborne they will avoid attacks from your plushies that are on the ground. (They will also not collide with the player mid-jump).

• Coney Hatland will launch ice cream bombs at the player. These ice cream bombs will apply a freeze status to the player slowing your movement down for a short period.

• Carla (Purple Confusion Chicken) would crash the game on some level ups

• Carla now only has a chance to apply confusion. This can be increased during level ups.

• The boss portal on the Park Entrance level would crash when displaying the Ghillie Duck.

We're very happy to announce that we have released Early Access build v0.2.0. Here are the changes.

• The Durlak faction has been added to Sector 2 & 3 - demo players will recognise their old friends, though the content has been significantly reworked and improved from the demo

• Pirates can now occur in Sector 1

• 10 new enemies to fight

• 6 new common augments

• One new major augment

• 4 new cards

• One new sky and colour palette - will combine with existing systems to provide many new backgrounds in combat

• An alert sound now plays on the map when encountering enemy ships in nebulas

• Renamed Reactor Turret to Reactor Cannon

• Added the shield count to the tooltip on Data Driven Shields

• Regression fix: card windows correctly show colour of enemy cards again

• Fix card tooltips where counts would still be part of the tooltip outside of combat

• Re-enable reflection probes in combat scenes, improving lighting on ships

• Reduced Phased Defense+ drop rate

• Prepare to Take Fire+ is now 2 temporary and 1 stable shield

• Replaced Defensive Turret equipment cards with Defensive Cannon augment

• Increased Vulcan Scout's hull strength

• Toned down Anchorite Warden fights

• Tweaked Anchorite Executioner stats for sector 2 and sector 3

• Masked Man AI Fixes – Resolved an issue where completing the camera task would cause the Masked Man to disappear before he could get to the player.

• Vent Behavior – Fixed a bug where the Masked Man could become stuck while navigating vents.

• Endgame Door Block Sequence – Improved chair collision detection so players can more reliably trigger the final sequence when blocking the door.

• Audio Enhancements – Adjusted sound balance and made several updates to background music and select sound effects for better atmosphere.

• Fixed an issue where the blur effect was missing on AMD GPUs, introduced with the WindShield VFX update.

Hi everyone

This is a crash caused by having save files from older versions of the demo.

Thank you to Rich S, John M, and Jon O for their crush dumps, which helped me identify the source of the crash.

If you experience any crashes while playing Stellar Reach, the game may export a crash dump to your user directory: '/Users/<username>/Stellar Reach' (for me it's 'C:/Users/james/Stellar Reach'). You can then email those to https://stelleas.crash.dumps@gmail.com and I'll take a look. I appreciate your support with this. These don't seem to be generated for everyone, which is probably based on local settings, so don't worry if you can't find them.

Thanks for you patience

James

Hello everyone,

The final countdown is on! We are now just 3 DAYS away from the official launch of 1998: The Toll Keeper Story on October 28th. The wait is almost over!

And speaking of waiting, we are absolutely speechless to announce that we have officially surpassed 20,000 WISHLISTS! Your enthusiasm means the world to us as we head into this final stretch.

As we get ready for the big day, we have several exciting announcements for you today:

🎨 The ArtBook with a Social Mission: Page Now LIVE!

We are thrilled to launch the Steam page for our Digital ArtBook! This is a visual guide that will take you behind the scenes of development, featuring the concept art and character designs that built the distinctive atmosphere of the late 90s.

Most importantly, we are reaffirming our commitment that 20% of the total revenue from the ArtBook's sales in the first month will be donated to support Indonesian Women in Game (IWIG).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4102090/1998_The_Toll_Keeper_Story_Digital_Artbook/

🎵 The Original Soundtrack: Page Now LIVE!

Can't get the music from the trailer out of your head? The Steam page for the Original Soundtrack is also live for you to Wishlist! Get ready to immerse yourself in the score that follows Dewi's struggle.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4102040/1998_The_Toll_Keeper_Story_Soundtrack/

📦Complete Bundle for 1998: The Toll Keeper Story

For the complete experience and the best value, we are also launching the "Inflation Edition" Bundle!

This special package will include:

• 1998: The Toll Keeper Story (Main Game)

• Digital ArtBook

• Original Soundtrack

The bundle will be available at launch with a 15% discount.

We're getting all of this ready as we prepare to share Dewi's story with you, a narrative inspired by the 1998 Financial Crisis in Indonesia, where every moral choice will shape your destiny.

Once again, thank you for your incredible support. We can't wait for you to play the game.

See you on October 28th!

Thank you for your continued support of "Demigoddess!"

We are currently unable to provide new updates.

The reason is that one of the key tools used to create the game's executable files is not functioning properly under Windows 11. We are currently working with the tool's developer to address this issue.

In the worst case scenario, we may need to change the tool, which could require an additional month or two to adapt the game to the new development environment.

We are also working separately on the update content itself so that we can provide new content as soon as the issue is resolved.

We appreciate your understanding that this will result in a slight delay from the announced roadmap schedule.