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Posted by Toby on December 23, 2021

[Winter Holiday Sale]
Heads up that Rotund Takeoff is currently 30% off on all storefronts! Nintendo Switch eShop and Steam through January 5th, and itch.io through January 3rd.

On the development front, Rotund Rebound is nearing completion and we're confident in a release early next year, though picking a date among certain giants is another matter.
Also, we've been working on polishing up the Discord-exclusive spinoff title, Rotund Zero, with more content and new features. We will be releasing it to storefronts next year as well, rounding out the "Rotund Trilogy"!

2022 is set to be the big year for Rotund releases, so now's a great time to begin your bouncing journey!


Posted by Toby on September 30, 2021

[Steam Next Fest Banner]

It's been a long time since our last public update (psst, Discord gets weekly reports!), but we've been very hard at work! Rotund Rebound is near enough to completion that it's in the hands of external beta testers now, and we're confident in our Q1 2022 release schedule. We also may launch on PC first with consoles soon to follow, but we'll see.

With this comes the exciting occasion of Steam Next Fest (Oct 1-7), in which Rotund Rebound is participating with a shiny new demo! And if you're interested in beta testing the full game yourself, letting us know what you think of the demo is a great way to be considered for the next wave of testers. At any rate we hope you'll check it out and enjoy it!


Posted by Paul on June 7, 2021

When we announced last October that we were gonna set Rotund Rebound aside to make Rotund Takeoff first, we apologized for the delay and hoped it wouldn't be too terrible a wait. Well, it was. RT development took longer than anticipated, which forced us from a 2020 to 2021 release window, and then porting to Nintendo Switch was a long struggle of unforeseen technical issues.

Anyway, though it's taken waaay longer than expected, Rebound is once again our prime focus. So let's talk about where the project stands.

First off, RR wasn't entirely dormant throughout the RT period. However, the full process of creating, launching, and watching people play RT, taught us a lot and inspired us to reevaluate RR. As a result, whatever bits of forward progress we'd made in those months were offset by the many tweaks and new additions that resulted.

[Meghan]

We've talked about some of these changes on our Discord already. The biggest is the addition of a new support character, Meghan the bat. You'll find her near the beginning of each level, ready to assist. Call on her, and she'll turn the level's leaves into a set of Stars, which can be used to trigger her floating ability, or to take hits just like an energy bar. Stopped a moment too late and touched a spike? The spike pops instead of you, and you can keep going, as long as Meghan has Stars remaining. It's a whole new way to play, and will be a huge help for people who struggle with the precision movement, opening the game to a much wider audience.

[Meghan]

If you're wondering about this new mechanic spoiling the gameplay for everyone else, worry not. We've completely reworked the system so that each level has three distinct types of Medals to earn. Clearing the level with Meghan's assistance earns you a Star Medal, but if you want the Clock or Leaf Medals, you'll have to play through again without her or while collecting all the leaves, respectively. Earning each Medal will require a different approach to the level (especially for speed-inclined players), and you'll have to snag all three to consider the level truly beaten.

[Meghan]

These big changes had a cascade effect that trickled down through the entire game. One example is the tower keeper, Marvin, who now has various goals that give you options on how you proceed. As the images show, these changes are already up and running, and Rotund Rebound is so much stronger for them!

The project is moving forward again, and—even with the ever-building realization that we're making a game the current market has little-to-no interest in—we're excited to be making something epic! And a good thing too, because the many facets of releasing Rotund Takeoff have given us a more realistic sense of how long this is still going to take. We're now looking at a probable Rotund Rebound release date of January-March of 2022.

Sorry if that feels like forever away! It's possible we may get there sooner, but this feels like a realistic estimate given that we want the rest of the game's content to be as strong as what's already done, and that we're gonna want more extensive testplaying, and we'll hopefully be launching simultaneously across all intended platforms, and will still be promoting and updating Takeoff in the meantime.

TL;DR Rebound is back on track, probably won't release until early 2022, but it's gonna be more worth the wait than ever! As always, thanks for sticking with us!


Posted by Toby on June 2, 2021

It's finally happening! 7 years since Chubbins released on Nintendo Wii U, we and our plump bunny are officially returning to a Nintendo console on June 17th!

[Rotund Takeoff Nintendo Switch]

Chubbins itself had a bumpy reception back in the day, and the journey since has been even bumpier with a 3 year hiatus and 4 years of failed projects, delays, shifted priorities, and all manner of life and world changes. But here we are, back with a remake of our debut title--and in the same month of June even!

When returning to game development we had wanted to put our best foot forward with Rotund Rebound, but there's something appropriate about starting at the beginning. We're very happy with Rotund Takeoff and feel it's a perfect fit for the Nintendo Switch in numerous ways.

It will be releasing in the Americas, Europe/Australia, and Japan. We're also holding a launch week sale of 20% for Europe/Australia and Japan, and as thanks for those who supported Chubbins back in the day, 40% off for the Americas.

Be sure to visit its eShop page for more info and add it your Wish List!


Posted by Paul on April 30, 2021

It's been a while! That certainly wasn't the plan. The plan was to swiftly port Rotund Takeoff to Nintendo Switch and release soon after PC. Early test builds looked encouraging, but then we got held up by some pesky technical difficulties that set us back by about two months. Ouch!

Happy to report those issues are behind us now, and we'll be submitting the game to Nintendo within the next few days! To be on the safe side, we won't be deciding or announcing a release date until we get word back from them that everything looks good. Hope you're looking forward to that!

[IMAGE]

In the meantime, we've brought the PC up to date with Version 1.1, available right now! Spending three months porting, testplaying, and reflecting upon 1.0's reception, we've ended up with quite the changelog. There's nothing that should heavily impact players, mostly just lots of minor tweaks and bug fixes. One exception however, is that the Sleep Bears have been reassigned to now block the World Challenges (8-Balls) until a player gets Silver medals across that entire world. Taking over their previous role are more Marvin booths, which is clearer and more consistent all around. Additionally, the booths asking for Gold medals have lower requirements. This makes it easier for casual players to experience the bonus levels, while creating an easier route for speedrunners. Win-win! See full changelog here.

TL;DR Things were stuck in the mud for a while but they're moving again! Switch version is coming soon-ish, and the PC update is out now! To celebrate, it's on sale for the weekend!
We haven't forgotten the epic sequel we were working on, either; we'll have an update on Rotund Rebound in the near future as well!


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