Sugarplum Devlog: Bug fixes, GDC postmortem, fanart

Hello! A new version of Sugarplum Cafe is now available in the Google Drive folder. Thanks to your help with debugging, I was able to fix some bugs! I still haven't found THE bug I've been stuck on, so continuing to debug this new build would be much appreciated!

If you want to play the new build, you will need to visit the Google Drive link previously sent to you and download Sugarplum Cafe.exe again. You can delete the previous .exe file saved to your computer. Your previous save SHOULD work with the new version still, but do reach out to me through DMs or thelettergii@gmail.com if it doesn't. If you don't have the Google Drive link, you can reach out to me through DMs or email.

I've also added some very rudimentary features: a Cookbook to view all the items you've crafted and how to craft them, and a Storybook so you can read all the previous dialogue! They were quietly introduced in the past build, but I figured I'd just call them out here too. I plan to also call them out in-game so players know they exist, but still need to implement that.

In addition to fixing bugs, this month was spent preparing for the Game Developers Conference (GDC), which just finished this week! And what a week it was.

I doodled all the outfits I wore this week, because they turned out to be amazing icebreakers! People would compliment my fashion sense, I'd say thanks, and then it'd turn into a whole conversation. My New Year's resolution was to glow up my wardrobe tbh, so I feel like I'm doing great so far :)

And of course I yapped about Sugarplum Cafe to anyone who listened. My business cards feature the game's splash art (below), and I was complimented by so many people for the visuals. I briefly met Sondering Emily who's a gamedev content creator with 200K followers on IG, and I gave her my card; then later in the week I saw her surrounded by her followers but she recognized me from a distance and said "Oh! You're the one with the really cute business card!"

I even got some folks to playtest the game! They didn't get very far, but I still got a lot of positive feedback and helpful suggestions. Notably, some of the playtesters were Innersloth devs, a.k.a. the people who work on Among Us!!

So a bit of history: two Innersloth artists followed me a few years ago because of my high fashion Among us fanart. I found out they were going to GDC and were open to meeting mutuals, so I asked if they wanted to meet.
And they were SO nice! They introduced me to other Innersloth devs and everyone still remembered my fanart even though it had been years, because it was so different from every other fanart they'd gotten. I also got a chance to meet the creator of 1000xResist (one of my favorite games from last year) through them and he actually followed me ahhhh. But also, they were very aware of my game and wanted to play it!

And they said such nice things, like how they couldn't stop playing it and how the art style was unlike anything else they'd seen in games...and they even told other devs about my game and had them try playing it too. Of course, I got a lot of good feedback from them too, mostly about user experience stuff. So that was definitely one of the highlights of the week, with another being social media follows from so many people I've admired from afar!

Oh, and completely unrelated to GDC, in the middle of the week I got my first fanart from ButterflyLatte! (Bluesky/Patreon) I technically did receive fanart from a friend on Discord before this, but the fanart was of Lady Soda who hasn't gotten an official reveal yet, so this is the first public fanart and I treasure both very much. Honestly, to have people draw and talk about my characters is so validating.

GDC wasn't all great - there were definitely some folks who were networking for the sake of increasing their LinkedIn connection count, and that gave me the ick. And there were some people I saw who I wanted to talk to, but never had the time or the courage to approach them. I also barely used my $250 GDC pass - all my hangouts and playtests were done in public spaces and I spent maybe 3 hours in the actual venue. The Innersloth folks actually flew out and booked hotels but didn't even bother buying the GDC passes - they were just here to hang out. So I probably won't buy a pass next year and will just hang out, but YMMV. I'm lucky that I have industry experience and a following, so I have people I can talk to.

But I'd say it was a net positive, a really nice break from all the doom and gloom that this year has been so far. I think honestly, everyone at GDC was really tired of being sad about the state of the games industry and the world, so we all decided to just enjoy being around like-minded individuals and have a little week of escapism.

Final thoughts - thinking about all the people who I admired for their work and I got to connect with, I hope that when Sugarplum Cafe comes out, I can be one of those devs that people flock to, too. That would be the dream...