We hope you're doing great as summer rolls in! We know you’ve been waiting for the next episode of Hardenville!

Episode 2, featuring the wild and unforgettable house party, was originally planned for a May release, and we were so close! But life threw in a little twist, again: our dev got hit with two unexpected financial bills that needed urgent attention. That meant picking up extra work fast, which naturally slowed things down a bit.

Even during those hectic, sleepless nights, we kept pushing forward whenever we could, and the cool part? Some of that extra work actually turned into content we’ll be using in Hardenville! So nothing was wasted, and those bills are officially behind us.

Now, we’re back in full swing, and development is moving fast! Episode 2 is currently 84% rendered, so we’re closer than ever to wrapping it up and hitting that release button. Thanks so much for your patience and support, we’re nearly there!




But wait… there’s more 👀

Since we’re almost done with Episode 2, we wanted to give you a sneak peek of what’s coming next in the future episodes.



This one puts the spotlight on Johanna, Millie, and Emma, while still giving you some time with others as well.

- Emma invites you out for a sunny day at the beach with her closest. Sounds great, right? Until you all realize it’s… a nude beach day. Do you leave? Or join in, one item at a time?





- Johanna is feeling a little down lately. You’ve got two tickets to a local hockey match… and during a break, the kiss cam starts scanning the crowd. What happens next? That’s up to you.




- Millie is deep into handball season, and her team is short a few players. Time to hit the court, and the locker room, as you help her team gear up for the final game.







- The spotlight turns to your beloved Ariel, and yes, she’s an athlete too! Ariel, the swimmer, has invited you to train with her at the local public pool. That’s all we’ll reveal for now… but let’s just say it’s going to make a splash.



Thanks so much for sticking with us. Your support means the world, and we're beyond excited to bring you even more of the Hardenville story very soon.

Stay tuned — Episode 2 is dropping soon! Until then, tell us: which character are you most excited to hang out with?

• Fixed issue where pylon destruction didn't immediately fail level.

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• Fixed a bug where the game could get stuck or crash during loading when hopping island.
  
• Fixed the fish names displaying incorrectly in German.
  
• Fixed a bug where Pals weren’t appearing in the catalog in construction mode (you can now place Pals just like other objects in construction mode).

Thanks to player @Fuchsi for reporting these bugs!

Item collection texts corrected – item prompts now display properly.

Photo clue visibility improved – flashlight now reveals hidden photo parts more clearly.

Subtitles adjusted – better timing and readability.

Footstep sounds lowered – more balanced audio.

Music volume adjusted – background music no longer overpowers

Some major changes made their way into the game with today's patch.
The combat system has been completely revamped.

1. Zombie Enemies removed from the game entirely.
   
2. Combat system has changed completely into a reactive & timing based type of combat that fits the narrative of the game much better.
   
3. Ophelia's Tormentor has been introduced as the main enemy. Extremely hard to kill with regular means.
   
4. Box cutter is now useless in combat, it remains as one of the "bad" items for it's alternative purpose.
   
5. Additional Regenol (Health Item) have been added to the game.
   
6. The amount of Health Regenol restores has been increased slightly.
   
7. Ophelia's footstep sounds volume has been decreased.
   
8. Various sound volume adjustments that should improve the overall experience.
   
9. Enemy spawn points have been slightly changed and randomized. The encounters should feel more random now.

1. Fixed a bug at the Lobotomy Machine that caused the controls to get stuck if you used ESC to end the interaction.
   
2. Fixed a bug that only happened for some users that did not restore Ophelia's uninjured state after using Regenol.
   
3. Fixed a visual bug that Regenol (health item) did not properly update the user interface.
   
4. Fixed the issue of visibility for some text documents being too bright when flashlight was on.
   
5. Fixed a bug at the sacrificial table that exiting the interaction by pressing ESC too soon would cause the axe to get stuck on Ophelia's hand along with any other equipped weapon.
   
6. Fixed an issue with Saint Seraphine's tablet that would not stop inspecting it when pressing ESC.

As always i am grateful for the feedback. I hope those changes will improve your experience with Final Fall.

Fellow Sparkadians!

Lace up your sneakers, find your Spark, and kick off your official Sparkball career with our Preseason Event!

👉 Head to http://sparkball.gg to create your account.
During Preseason, attend community events and play during open matchmaking windows to stack FRIENDSHIP—the higher your friendship, the bigger your rewards and the better your head start going into Season Zero later this summer.

🎮 Matchmaking FINALLY Returns During Steam Next Fest!
From June 9–16, Sparkball is back with ranked matchmaking for Steam Next Fest.
If you’ve never experienced an down-to-the-wire, armpits sweaty ranked Sparkball match… we're sorry it took this long, come play one on June 9th.

🔥 In the meantime, we’re running multiple game nights each week, so hop into our Official Discord and join the action.

See you on the field!

Update notes bug fix item collection texts corrected photo parts made visible with the flashlight subtitles adjusted footsteps lowered music adjustment

Hello everyone!

I hope you're enjoying your Memorial Day weekend. Many thanks to our servicemen and women!

I've spent much of the past 48 hours rolling my face back and forth across the keyboard. Despite these repeated episodes of resignation, I managed to update the Disc Golf project to Unity 6 and transition from the soon-to-be-retired Built-in Render Pipeline to the Universal Render Pipeline.

While the benefits of these changes might not be immediately obvious, they lay the groundwork for lots of good things to come.

One side effect of changing pipelines is that many of my custom shaders broke — including the one I used for water. I tried following some tutorials to build new ones, but as a Shader Graph rookie, it might as well have been black magic. Fortunately, I found a pretty solid water asset that I think looks pretty spiffy.

Let me know what you think!


TL;DR
- Updated to Unity 6
- Changed render pipeline from Built-In to URP

Enhancements