Hi everyone,

It's been a while now since weekly updates were stopped, mostly to put some pressure off of the dev team and to put a focus on fanart for a while. Though, updates have still been given, they have been rarer and usually reserved for older behind-the-scenes things. Today I'd like to give some minor updates on what has been going on with POPGOES Evergreen, myPOPGOES, some upcoming POPGOES merch, and Team Fortress Future.

This devlog will go over some specific features or news regarding each of these projects. This won't be anything groundbreaking, and there won't be a focus on "reveals" with images and such. But if you enjoy reading about what's going on, then this should be a nice post for you.

POPGOES Evergreen:

This section will be going over some changes (and general plans) regarding the collectibles/replayability system in Evergreen rather than anything related to the main gameplay. That being said, there HAVE been plenty of developments in the night gameplay, and even recently some things done for the post-night gameplay, but this isn't something we want to share at the moment. So just bear that in mind.

So, I have mentioned before that POPGOES Evergreen will feature an in-game currency, dubbed "Popcoins", which you can earn by being good at the game. Complete a night, get some Popcoins. Complete a night without Blackrabbit having any parts printed? Get a few more Popcoins as a bonus. Etc. Popcoins would then be collected on the main menu and then used to purchase phone skins, or trading card packs (which give you a random selection of cards). Pretty straightforward concept, but things have actually changed a bit since this was initially talked about and I think it's a big improvement.

Now, the plan is this:

• Two currencies: Tokens and Tickets

• Tokens are non-renewable rewards that you get for basically checking off challenges during the game. Completing Night 1 could give you one token, which you would not be able to redeem again. Night 1 could also have a token available for not letting your PANIC get too high. Again, these are non-renewable (meaning you can't farm them over and over again).

• Tokens are used for something called the Token Tree.

• Tickets are rewarded by simply playing the game, and have no relation to the player's skill level or the challenges they choose to engage in. Even if you die, you'll be rewarded Tickets for how long you survived. The game basically converts time played into tickets. These are farmable, and great in post-game modes like Endless and Survivor. When you beat the game, Tickets may have a x2 multiplier. Maybe completing something else will increase this to x3. I think this sounds really cool.

• Tickets are used to purchase Trading Card packs.

So, Tokens are rewards for skill, Tickets are rewards for time. Tokens are non-renewable, but Tickets can be farmed indefinitely. Make sense? So of course the question is, what the hell is the Token Tree?

The Token Tree is a new proposition for unlocking major collectibles in Evergreen, mostly the phones. It's inspired by the "Cosmetic Tree" in Deep Rock Galactic (a game which actually inspired the "Survivor" game mode, which you can see in the link a couple of paragraphs up).

Originally, phones were just going to be available in a shop. Normal, fairly boring phone recolours would cost only a few Popcoins. And the cool, total reskins would cost a lot. This isn't an inherently broken concept, but it meant that players would likely scout out their favourite phone, and save up all of their currency until they had enough to buy it, and then... that's it. Unless you're a completionist, you'd be encouraged to just save up and get the phone you want. Which is... a little boring?

My solution to this was to adopt a skill-tree-esque layout for the phones, which requires the player to actually purchase some low-level items before they access the awesome endgame stuff. If you want the HandUnit phone, you'll need to buy like ten things beforehand. And the idea with this is that not only would this make buying phones more interesting, but it should hopefully encourage players to actually equip new phones as they play the game. Which should make discussion around the unlocks a bit more interesting, and just keep the game feeling a bit fresh and more customised. I honestly think it's an objective improvement over a simple shop concept. And, to be clear, every single thing in the Token Tree will cost one token each. More important items are made more expensive by simply adding more things before it.

If you're confused on how this may work, here's how Deep Rock Galactic does it... If I purchase this item on the tree for 1 token (called "Scrip" in DRG):

Then you can then buy THIS item for another token:

Which lets you buy either of these, for 1 token each:

Etc, etc. Continuing the tree, until you fill it up and reach all of the cool items on the right side of the screen (you start on the left, on that orange diamond shape). And indeed, in Evergreen, there would be a limited amount of Tokens in the game (based on all of the possible goals/bonuses) and the total would correspond with the total amount of nodes on the Token Tree. Meaning, to complete the Token Tree, you'd need to complete every specific challenge in the game. You won't have any items that you can't get, and you can't have a useless surplus of Tokens.

You may notice, in DRG's example, that between the visible item unlocks (cosmetics) there are some smaller diamond-shaped nodes that fill in the gaps. Two are highlighted in the final screenshot. In DRG, those nodes give some materials that are relevant to the game, and it made me think that Evergreen's Token Tree could be for more than just the Phones.

So here's a mockup for how Evergreen's Token Tree could work (and honestly, this may be the final layout for it):

White squares: Phones

Black diamonds: Stickers

White circles: Ticket Packs

In fact, here is some of it filled in:

You start on the left, on that tiny circle. You can then spend 1 Token on either a Popgoes Hat, Popgoes Pog or Popgoes Microphone sticker. If you select the Popgoes Pog then you can get the Nox Green Phone with another Token. If you get the Popgoes Hat, you can get a Ticket Pack, which, obviously, adds some Tickets to your inventory. From there, you could get the Blue + Nox Blue phone, or a different (secret) phone.

So, of course, the next question is... stickers?!

And yeah, long story short, the stickers that our team has made for Game Jolt are a really nice addition to the art of the POPGOES universe and I think they would be great in Evergreen. This would not be a brand new wacky mechanic, there would just be a sticker book in the Extras which is filled out when you collect stickers on the tree. Just a cosmetic collectible. So don't freak out about "scope creep", it's literally just pngs being added to another png when you click a png. Makes the Token Tree feel more interesting and actually fills it up to 100 total items (wowee). Plus the art is already done.

Hopefully this wasn't too confusing, but if you have any questions, just ask them here. Tokens and Tickets! I know this wasn't a substantial update on horror gameplay or characters or teasers or whatever but hey, I want to get your thoughts on this part of the game that I've been thinking about a lot lately. Replayability is a hugely important part of a game like this, especially considering it will be a paid experience. Must make it as bussing as possible.

myPOPGOES:

First thing I want to say about myPOPGOES is that due to some unavoidable internal issues, the game is taking a little longer to develop than we expected but this is not affecting the development of Evergreen - myPOPGOES is currently being developed by people who are not involved with tasks on Evergreen. And secondly, the Steam page for myPOPGOES was supposed to be up by now, but this process has been delayed massively, presumably because of the FNAF movie. The lack of page isn't our fault, or Clickteam's fault. The people responsible, I guess, is Scottgames? But we obviously understand that the FNAF movie is a priority, so maybe we can expect an update on this next month.

Anyway, right, myPOPGOES has had some changes of plans which I think would be interesting to share.

The premium version of myPOPGOES features other playable characters like Blake, Saffron, Manora, etc. The initial plan for this was that when you beat Night 1, you get Blake. When you beat Night 2, you get Sara. 3, Saffron. 4, Stone, and 5, Manora. And you can switch between them whenever you want in a menu. These characters would also have their own unique stats which change their gameplay, in a way that I've compared to Mario Kart in the past lol.

This is Popgoes, he's Mario, a complete all-rounder with nothing special:

But then there's someone like Blake, whose hunger and boredom goes down slower, but his thirst goes down faster and he moves slower:

Now, in theory, this is really cool. It makes the characters more than just cosmetic.

However...

Shit's fuuucked...

The premium version of myPOPGOES also includes more levels after Day 5 / Endless. There are 5 entirely new challenge modes with some new difficult mechanics added. So, in its current state, the team needs to ensure that it's possible, and balanced, and fun, to play through Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Endless, Challenge 1, Challenge 2, Challenge 3, Challenge 4, and Challenge 5, as Popgoes, as Blake, as Sara, as Saffron, as Stone, and as Manora. That's 60+ levels to thoroughly test and balance, for a game which consists of levels where you press three buttons for 6 minutes straight.

Yeah we ain't doing that shit.

So here was my new pitch:

• You play as Popgoes for Days 1-5

• The post-game challenges has you playing as the new characters, and completing them grants you the new characters (Challenge 1 has you play as Blake for example, beating it lets you play as him elsewhere)

• These unlockable characters, outside of their respective challenge, are just cosmetic, they don't have unique stats

• The characters can be selected whenever, once you unlock them, which is especially nice for Endless mode which can be farmed for stickers to put on your toy

All done. Means we only need to balance Popgoes' AI in the challenges and then we're done for testing difficulty. The main sacrifice here is that you don't get a unique gameplay experience for each character. But I want to reassure you: though the characters had (sometimes drastically) varied difficulty... the experience was NOT unique enough to actually be fun. It's not like Stone could fly or some shit. They all did the same thing, just in varied speeds. It sounded like a great idea at the time, and honestly if the game itself was more complex it WOULD be great. But we just don't have the time or patience to test all of the possibilities (to be fair, and ALSO fun.)

Hope you understand this. It's honestly not a major thing and if I never mentioned it here I don't think any of you would have noticed a difference when the game launches, but it's still nice to talk about what's going on behind the scenes lol.

POPGOES Merch:

Merchandise for POPGOES has been a bit quiet lately, but that's because, from what I can tell, a SHIT load is gonna be happening in the next few weeks, from Youtooz.

At the very least, there will be a launch for the Sitting Popgoes plushie, the Long Popgoes plushie, and the Halloween Popgoes pins before the end of the year.

The Halloween pins recently had a bit of a hiccup with its packaging, which we expected to take a while to fix, but it was somehow amended (perfectly) in less than a week. I was expecting to announce that the set was not going to be available for sale in time for Halloween but... I think it will be? Certainly hope so. Of course, the pins won't actually be delivered in time for Halloween, which is a shame, but having them on the Youtooz shop this month would obviously be awesome. And I think that's happening.

I should actually receive my own set sometime next week I think, which I'm really excited about. Youtooz has done a fantastic job with these, just like the default pin set from earlier this year. Super high quality, and the glow-in-the-dark Popgoes is looking insaaane. SUPER bright. But maybe Youtooz has some industrial super bright UV lights or something.

Also in case you missed it, the Long Popgoes plushie is finished, ready, and was shown off on TikTok a few weeks ago:

I can confirm that the Sitting Popgoes plushie is going to be given the same eyes. The Sitting Popgoes, Sitting Candy, Long Popgoes, and Long Candy will all have the same style of eyes and feel like a proper set. That's the plan anyway.

I'm not sure when the plushies will be made available for sale. I think the goal was also October but that may be seen as detrimental because of all of the other FNAF Halloween stuff going on.

Team Fortress Future:

Edit: I should have clarified for those new to this, TFF is my fanmade concept for a sequel to Team Fortress 2. It is not a real game or a mod, it's just an illustrated presentation of ideas. Like Minecraft: Ghosts & Graves.

All done with POPGOES stuff, so this section is just for those who are interested in my TF2 side project.

TFF has had some awesome progress lately. I can't go into too much detail but I've been able to commission some amazing artists lately who have been very passionate about the project. I've also shared the project with some more TF2 content creators for their feedback, and things have looked good.

The current plan for Team Fortress Future is for it to be executed in the form of three videos:

• The New Classes: A video going over the concept of Team Fortress Future, its story, and my philosophies regarding its game design. This will lead directly into a full showcase of three entirely new classes, including their designs, lore, weapons, gameplay styles. Not only does this involve artwork of the characters, and illustrated demonstrations of their mechanics, but it also includes three wallpaper-sized storyboard pieces, per class, of their theoretical "Meet The" videos. Insane.

• The New Weapons: A follow-up that covers all of the balance changes for the original 9 classes, including their new stock weapons (if applicable), and then eventually a massive presentation of over 100 new weapons. This also includes unlocks for the three new classes. Every single weapon has a name, illustration, stats, and recommended play styles & synergies.

• The New [REDACTED]: A final video going over a brand new, very unique game mode which features, perhaps quite shockingly... a new [REDACTED]. How the hell does that work...?

Now, there is the fear that this project will flop, big time, like Minecraft: Ghosts & Graves did. It's entirely possible. However, thankfully, TFF already has quite a few people interested, coming from both the POPGOES community and also the TF2 community (entirely separate from my following in the FNAF scene). Also, I think it's safe to say that TF2 is more accepting of wacky game concepts and ideas (if you're a TF2 fan, I'm sure you've seen the sheer amount of custom weapon videos by now...), and also long-form essay-like content. Mix the two and it SHOULD be a winner. In theory.

If it doesn't do well at all, then I just straight give up on the whole Ideas Guy stuff lmao. But I am currently having a lot of fun with it, so I won't consider it a total failure. It's nice to commission new people, outside of the FNAF community, to see my ideas for my favourite video game become a reality (or, as much of a "reality" as feasibly possible... I don't expect to ever actually play Team Fortress Future).

I want to give my thanks to those who have shown interest in Team Fortress Future. It's something I'm very passionate about and I really hope it impresses people or provokes some positive discussion when it releases. You can follow a Twitter profile for this project here, though it is currently quiet. I will use it when things eventually start going public.

Okay, that's it for now. Again, focusing on some very specific things today which I hope is fine. Thanks for reading!

- Kane