The Blog

Kudzu: A Plant-Fueled Adventure Reaches Funding Milestone and Unlocks Fishing Mini Game

[Pittsburgh, PA] May 30th, 2023 — In a remarkable display of support and enthusiasm from the gaming community, Kudzu, the highly anticipated non-linear adventure game developed by Pie For Breakfast and published by Mega Cat Studios, has surpassed its initial funding goal in just over 12 hours on Kickstarter. Not stopping there, the campaign continued to thrive, raising over $22,000 within the first five days, unlocking the first stretch goal: a thrilling Fishing Mini Game.

Kudzu tells the captivating tale of Max, the apprentice gardener, embarking on a courageous mission to rescue his mentor, Zoen, from the clutches of a world-eating plant. Players will find themselves entangled in a web of danger as they navigate through a kudzu field teeming with perilous creatures, including venomous snakes, pesky bugs, hostile flowers, and an array of other hazards.

With a myriad of captivating features, Kudzu promises to deliver an immersive experience like no other:

Explore Diverse Environments: Traverse ruined fields, enchanting gardens, mysterious forests, lavish villas, and much more, each brimming with secrets and surprises.

Master Gardening Tools: Wield a variety of gardening tools, such as the machete, hoe, and rake, to clear your path and overcome obstacles blocking your way.

Uncover a Cast of Eccentric Characters: Encounter a host of weird and helpful characters on your journey, each with their own unique stories and contributions to your quest.

Confront Monstrous Foes: Engage in intense battles against twisted creatures lurking within the kudzu, including snakes, giant bugs, living plants, and other horrifying monstrosities.

Harness the Power of Kudzu: Learn to manage the kudzu itself, utilizing its unique properties to solve treacherous puzzles and embark on engaging side quests.

Epic Boss Battles: Prepare yourself for challenging encounters with eight epic bosses, each guarding their own part of the kudzu maze.

Unravel the Kudzu’s Secrets: Delve into the depths of the kudzu maze to uncover the true origins of this enigmatic plant. Is it merely an invasive species run amok, or is something far more sinister at play?

The overwhelming support from the Kickstarter community has shown that gamers are hungry for the unique blend of adventure, strategy, and botanical mysteries that Kudzu offers. The successful unlocking of the Fishing Mini Game stretch goal is just the beginning of the lush and expansive world awaiting players.

“We’re ecstatic to see such an incredible response to Kudzu on Kickstarter,” says Mina Figueroa, Marketing Lead at Mega Cat Studios. “The funds raised will allow us to enhance the game further, and the Fishing Mini Game is just a taste of the exciting content we have in store for our players. We aim to add more content and with a little luck, bring the game to Nintendo Switch and release the game in color! We’re incredibly grateful to our backers for their trust and support as we continue to bring Kudzu to life.”

With the campaign in full swing, the developers invite gaming enthusiasts and adventure seekers alike to join the journey. Kudzu promises to transport players to a world where danger lurks beneath every leaf and mysteries thrive amidst the tendrils of a voracious plant.

Patch Notes:

-Increased performance in Skogsrå level

-Increased performance in Tuva

-Small performance increase across entire game

-Reduced pop-in throughout entire game

-Fixed frame drop during Skogsrå bossfight

-Fixed some textures not loading in correctly

-Fixed an issue where the game sometimes would not save, and upon resuming the game after closing it down the player’s progress would only be in Nearby Forest

-Fixed an issue where the main menu would receive input while fading in, and the “New Game” button would be auto-focused. This would make players accidentally press the “New Game” button while the menu is fading in. Now, the menu should not be intractable during the fade-in, and the “Continue” button should be auto-focused instead if the player has a save file with progress

-Improved the visibility of the hidden planks in the swamp by increasing the emissivity of the material

QUALITY of DEATH IMPROVEMENTS

• New entries in workerguide:
• => The effects (get a curse to unlock),
• => The Thing in the Fridge (use the fridge in breakroom to unlock)
• Changed some entries in workerguide Tutorial for better understanding.
• Most of the curses have a better and understandable description
• Added icons to keywords
• Added correct icons to effects
• Tooltip on curses: when you choose a curse, a tooltip will display the value of your current statistics and the one you will have by taking the curse
• Changed Patrice/PumpQuinn dialog about Prismium
• Changed Patrice/PumpQuinn dialog (shorter) about GPE difficulty in lobby
• Changed GPE difficulty workerguide unlocking condition: Talk to Patrice about that in lobby OR open the GPE menu
• Changed food item lore description in Italic
• The conditions to unlock worker guide entries (description 2 and 3) are now explained
• Added etter feedbacks when selecting a contract with Jocelyn
• Now weapons in training room could be sorted by rarity

BALANCING

• Add a new modifier to the difficulty system to rebalance the change to Injuries done by enemies. At Crisis 4, enemy should now deal the same amount of injuries they did at launch
• Now crisis give points when dying (Default = 15 points, Crisis X = 500) to encourage people playing in Crisis modes.

ENEMIES

Harakola

-> Changed the movement of the basic attack. Now, itl moves less during the first hit.

Will Hung

-> Add Feedback to strongest attack

Heisenberg

-> Changed Spinning Kick Movement Curve -> Added visual feedback when launching attack

Waldo

-> Fix a collider during several attacks that hit further than intended

Catherine Imamura

-> Fix a collider during an attack that hit further than intended -> Change color of attack feedback to make it more easily distinguishable

Final Boss

-> Cape and spell not removed against life phase 3 now -> In phase 3, the boss starts with more HP 2000>2500 -> Starting Crisis XIII, the boss deletes Curses and weapons

WEAPONS

Parasol 1.0

-> Changed cancellation of ground combo attacks. Should be way more responsive

Void Rift

-> Changed the delay of the spell, making it hit earlier

CURSES

• Added many new icon to curses Status on player
• Added new curses to upgrade the effects:“Transfer”, “Counterparty”, Life Insurance”, “Inflation”.
• Moved the curses “(Very) Irritable Boss Syndrome”, “(Really) Irritable Boss Syndrome”, “(Very, very) Irritable Boss Syndrome”, “Imposing Scythe”, “Noble Scythe” to Blue Tree
• Moved the curses : “Polish”, “Sharpen”, “Hone” to green tree.
• Buffed several Periodic Curses to make them trigger faster

BUG FIXED

• Missing items in the Shop.
• “Dig Your Own Grave” curse doesn’t work properly.
• In the save selection menu, “Game Time” indicator does not increment.
• With the red curse “No Brakes” activated: if the player gets hit while attacking with a weapon, the hit animation is played and the one for the attack is canceled BUT the player still finishes his movement.
• In some Intriguing floors, teleportation doesn’t work if damage taken during corner triggers.
• If the player gets a second weapon with the same status than the one equipped, the second weapon will not trigger the status.
• Every time the player starts the game, the loading time of reaching the first breakroom is much longer than normal.
• An asset of a car in the Natural Disasters Department is clipping when the camera zooms in or zooms out. The issue is notable during the arenas.
• The Control room transformation cannot be used.
• The run timer does not take into account the last chunk where the player died (also happens if he wins the run).
• A malus curse may appear bugged if the player has already too many of them.
• The spell Wishtorm’sound doesn’t have good timing.
• Rarely, a curse tree can be too long for the menu, because of the possibility to get multiple high rank curses.
• The “bubble” dialogs allow the player to move around. If the player leaves the dialog area without completing it, the sound that is turned down at the beginning of the dialog is not turned up.
• If the players use the fast-forward during the ending cinematic of Major Pliskhan, two issues appear:During the explosion screen, a white fadeout appears, then the same picture re-appears.The player can control Death during the cinematic.
• No SFX when the player is healed in the Breakroom by the Easy mode modifier.
• There is no SFX on the slam attack of Brad in difficulty mode Crisis XIII.
• Death slips after a victory in an arena (overlapping animation problem).
• In the Control room, when the player transforms the scythe “Sickles’ ‘ to “War Sickles’ ‘,it will use many Prismium if the player has more than one.
• Some entries in the codex are missing when loading a save from an older version of the game.
• The mini moskitos do not die when hitting the player if he gets damage at the same time, leading to the enemies staying stuck on the player.
• The dive’s animation of crows is played too soon regarding the attack’s behavior.
• When the player chooses a contract to Jocelyn then cancels it, the contracts are rerolled.
• The timer doesn’t stop when the player is choosing a level in the elevator.
• Sickles damage buff on dash is only calculated once even on multiple stacks.
• Some projectiles from Infuse status don’t appear.
• Jabelin weapon breaks the player’s controls when used to leave the training room.
• Using the space bar doesn’t fast forward the credits.
• When the player is far enough from Camille Flage (Thanager) to let her walk for a long time, she may “slide” (the animation is frozen) to the player until being in attack’s range.
• The Player is able to pass through some doors in the Natural Disasters Department.
• Spells that track enemies sometimes lose their focus.
• “Morthral Enemy”curse targeting issue during Mr. Gordon Grimes fight.
• Enemy projectiles won’t destroy and get stuck against colliders.
• Can’t rebind the left and down inputs in the options
• Some quests that weren’t trigger are now accessible: The Rumor
• First dialog of the quest about Pumpquinn’s school bag coming back after finishing the quest.
• Some duo random dialogs have some missing speaker or wrong NPC spawned.
• Some issues with the fridge UI in Breakroom
• Health upgrades and weapons appear against Imamura if taking the boss elevator
• Secret rooms map icons showing even when the room is not open
• The same pickable lore item could be found in the same floor
• Some images from the worker guide were too pixelized or blurred
• Easier to reach the max number of the soul counter (acceleration of display speed)

KNOWN BUGS

• Sometimes, the invocation of the Ulcermonner not appear. It leads to the arena staying locked, even the security does not trigger. The issue occurs more often when you hit the enemy with the kunai and the curse “Infuse: lightning strike” while he summons.

REMINDER

Some crashes may occur with Integrated graphics (GPU built into the processor), particularly Intel.