This one feels big! Not just because of the new stuff I’ve been building, but because after a mini-fundraiser, FireFly now has an official Steam store page. You can wishlist the game right now, which frankly feels surreal to even say.

Thank you so much to everyone who’s paid attention to this project so far, whether that’s through feedback, encouragement, or even pitching in funding. Every bit has helped shape what FireFly is becoming today.

That said, let’s get into what’s new this month!

The Slime Zone!!!

Slimes have been reworked! They’re a little safer now, which means I can throw them into more dangerous locations without it feeling unfair. With those changes, I carved out a new mid-sized section of the forest and designed it around the lil goobers. Our mischievous friend Rapps seems to have taken up residence in there, and has titled it: The Slime Zone.

Within you’ll find some new challenges, friends, and lots of room to bounce around!

The Wisps Trials!

The glowing firefly guides that used to be ambient visuals are now full-blown Time Trials. Previously, they were more of an easter-egg find, as you had to read devlogs and understand my cryptic hint to follow fireflies as instructions. Now, they’re marked clearly and are more concrete in their starting points and goals! On top of this, there are many of them scattered across the forest!

This adds a whole new reason to spend time in the game, and it encourages players to learn how to rush through the world the way I love to play FireFly myself: holding forward without thinking and moving as fast as I can.

A Violet Cutscene!

To go along with the new trials, Violet now makes her debut in a short cutscene!

She introduces the Wisps trial, explains how it works to Flyph, and points you toward the caves. It’s a small addition, but it makes the world feel more alive, and it begins to give Violet a stronger role as your guide. And forms the basic beginnings of our story!

Visual Updates + Camera Settings

After finally diving into a bit of Hollow Knight (and getting stomped by Mawlek for an hour), I was inspired heavily by their visual effects. FireFly now has new foreground particle effects that give the world a stronger sense of depth, making it feel less like a flat stage and more like a window into another place.

On top of that, I’ve been hard at work optimizing the camera. After some light profiling, I found problem elements in the script that I resolved in order to improve performance. Now it tracks points of interest more smoothly, and I’ve added settings so players can customize its behavior. Want the camera to look ahead of your movement? You can toggle that now.

And Finally: Steam!

As I mentioned earlier, FireFly has a Steam page. I want to thank everyone who contributed to helping us reach this goal; it really means the world to me each time someone contributed to this project. The page was officially greenlit just yesterday. You can wishlist the game right now, and that button is one of the best ways to support this project. It helps more players discover FireFly and keeps the momentum going for me as a solo dev.

This also opens the door for Steam Playtests. Once I’ve integrated the SteamWorks API, you’ll be able to join playtests directly through the platform, which should make testing smoother for everyone.

What’s Next?

From here, I plan to add at least two more sub-areas to the Forest, and add a few more Violet cutscene triggers before calling it “main-story ready.” Once that’s wrapped up, I’ll begin revamping the Caves, and after that, the Mountain. Each step makes the world feel fuller and closer to the complete journey I want FireFly to be.

That’s the state of things this month, one more step toward release.

Thank you for reading, playing, and joining us on this adventure. If you’ve made it this far, consider letting me know what you think. If you have some idea or some critique, I’d be super eager to hear your thoughts! Either just in the Discord, or commenting on the game! And if you like what you see, a wishlist on Steam would mean a lot to me.

~ Bee 🐝💛