It's finally here! The last major content update for Garden Guardian arrives!

Here we go, Garden Guardian's third and final content update; Chapter 3: PEACE. This update adds a little new tool for scoring higher and rounds out the game's content with many new gallery images and the final Award! Of course, there are some bug fixes, too!

To start off, we added Blue Fruit! Blue Fruit are worth many more points than regular fruit, but show up pretty rarely. These don't really require any new work on the player's end, and were added to help users get to higher scores a little quicker! We observed that less experienced users were struggling with the difficulty somewhat, so this will hopefully make it a bit easier for them!

Secondly, the final Award is in place! For the achievement hunters in the crowd, we've got the last little unlockable here, requiring you to unlock all other Awards before you can claim it. It's a big ask, but we believe in you! The Award itself will also unlock a new background in the Customize menu and four new items in the Art Gallery, including some small notes from the team. 

Lastly, there are now indicators on menu buttons showing where newly unlocked content can be found! This might not be the most thrilling addition for people who already have everything unlocked, but it's been a longstanding bit of feedback we've wanted to act on for quite a while. Players will now have much more clarity as to where their new unlocks are. Due to some limitations in how I (badly) programmed some stuff, it only highlights the menu containing the new content, and can't highlight the content itself. Something to plan better for our next game!

Additionally, as with all updates, there are new bug fixes in place that fix many little rough edges. Bruisers used to be able to get stuck in an animation loop, the game could softlock during the tutorial (yikes), and ultra wide monitor users often couldn't access their resolutions. All fixed! Without further ado, here are the detailed patch notes.

Garden Guardian 1.3.0 - Chapter 3: PEACE

GAMEPLAY 

• Bonus Fruit will now appear in gameplay. After you pick somewhere between 10 and 15 fruit (luck dependent), the next fruit to spawn will be a blue Bonus Fruit worth 10 points. Note that the 1-Up Fruit takes priority on fruit spawning, so in extremely unlikely circumstances it's possible that the Bonus Fruit can spawn after 16 fruit if a 1-Up Fruit was already queued up. Bonus Fruits were added to further encourage users to feed the plant and to improve the rate at which users are able to hit score targets.

CONTENT 

• Ten new images have been added to the Art Gallery.
• Two new images have been added to the Customize menu's background option.
• One new Award has been added to the Stats & Awards menu. This also includes a corresponding Steam Achievement and Art Gallery entry.
• New Tip added to the Tips menu that covers Bonus Fruit.

MISC.

• Notification indicators have been added to various buttons on the Main Menu and Extras screens that indicate you've unlocked something new within that menu.
• Fixed an issue where Art Gallery contents could be scrolled off of the edge of the screen while in viewer mode.
• Fixed an issue where Bruiser enemies would get stuck in their stagger animation and not vanish if a stage ended while they were staggering.
• Fixed an issue where the user could be congratulated for earning all stars in Endless mode twice.
• Fixed an issue where ultra widescreen resolutions would be not be supported under certain circumstances.
• Integrated potential fix for rare softlock during tutorial.
• Minor text adjustment to multiple items in the Art Gallery.
• Minor text adjustment to multiple items in Tips.
• Minor text adjustment to a few UI elements.
• Updated credits.

So, with all that said, where does that leave us now that Garden Guardian is done and dusted? Well, first and foremost, I'm happy to confirm work is underway on a console port for the game! Due to severe lack of budget, personal bandwidth limitations, and my recent temporary move across the world, there is only one console planned at this time. I hope you can understand!

Beyond that? Well, work is well underway on our next title, which will be a clear departure from Snippy's world. The game's story is almost completely done, and if we land it I'm really confident you'll have a fun and unique experience unlike any you've played before! I don't want to spill too many details, but we have a wide variety of gameplay elements planned, far beyond the single game type Garden Guardian presented. I have no dates or anything really concrete to announce for this one, but please stay tuned for future news!

Finally, I'd like to once again take a second to thank everyone who has supported us with Garden Guardian. It means a lot that there are people out there who can look at such a tiny game and find joy in it. Although I aspire to make bigger games in the future, it's reassuring to know that there are still people out there who are totally down for one absurdly tiny and absurdly tight gameplay loop. 

Thank you so much for your support.

-Liam Allen-Miller