Dear Shuzzler Community,

We are excited to announce that Seqitaire is planned for release in January 2024! Please wishlist using the link below to show support and receive updates on release status:

https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/1732170/Seqitaire/

If you enjoyed playing Shuzzler, you will find the format of Seqitaire very familiar, except that Seqitaire is a math puzzle game with the tiles having numbers and operators (+, -, ×, ÷) on them instead of letters. The objective is to produce the number on the active card using number and operator tiles available in the tile grid. In addition to a number or operator, each tile is associated with a suit (diamonds, hearts, spades, or clubs). Cards often require using only tiles associated with particular suits or selecting tiles that alternate between black and red suits when adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing to output the number specified by the cards. In this way, Seqitaire can be described as a pattern-matching game as well as a math, number game.

Players whom found Shuzzler's gameplay unforgiving, should appreciate that all levels in Seqitaire come with the option to play with random tiles or preset tiles that have been playtested to ensure there are multiple winning solutions for each level. There are separate saved scores and leaderboards that apply if the game is being played with the randomized tiles setting on or off.

At the time of release, Seqitaire will come with 10 playable levels out of 40 planned levels. This should be up to 3-4 hours of content. We are looking to the Steam community for feedback that would inform the design of the remaining levels.

Happy Holidays!
- Shuzzler & Seqitaire Dev Team 

Steam Leaderboards for high scores have arrived for all 35 levels of the untimed content! Scores earned on these levels will automatically be submitted to Steam leaderboards provided that the level is successfully completed (i.e. all main objectives achieved).

The second major change to the game is the way the star award system works for individual levels. Instead of being based on points, stars awarded are now based on letter tiles cleared from the tile grid at the end of the game relative to the total number of letter tiles possible (including starting tiles, tiles added to the tile grid from action cards, and those added from STARTS WITH and ENDS WITH point cards). Here is a breakdown of the new criteria for earning stars:

1 Star - clear <20% of letter tiles in tile grid
2 Stars - clear 20-35% of letter tiles...
3 Stars - clear 35-45% of letter tiles...
4 Stars - clear 45-55% of letter tiles...
5 Stars - clear >55% of letter tiles...

Stars earned out of 5 possible are still shown in post-game even if the level was not completed (but without accompanying animation), but will no longer show in the Level screen unless the level was completed.

Additional bug fixes and improvements applied in this update are listed below.

• Fixed animation not showing when earning points from individual letter tiles. When this animation plays successfully, individual white star-like orbs representing the points gained from the letter tiles ascend from locations of cleared tiles to score stat in upper left-hand side of screen.

• Organ category card
  
• Greek Letter category card
  
• Physics category card
  
• Wild category card

This patch fixes bugs that appear in Versus AI mode only, so is not applicable to main game content. These bugs were encountered during the livestream with influencer ALEDream on February 22. Here is a description of the bugs and fixes:

1. Fixed game-crashing bug that occurs when completing a game in Versus AI mode.
   
2. Fixed error where each row of letter tiles added to the tile grid is a duplicate of previous row of letter tiles added to the tile grid.
   
3. Fixed bug where starred tiles appear in Versus AI mode. Starred tiles should only appear in untimed content of the game.

• "tequila" added to word list for Beverage category card. This word was submitted during the livestream on 2-22-23, but was rejected because it was not in the word list at that time.

I would like to send out a special thank you to ALEDream for having me as a guest on their Twitch channel yesterday while playing Shuzzler. If you missed the livestream, you can still view the recording on ALEDream's Twitch channel via the link below:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1746555535

If you like variety gaming, ALEDream "plays anything, not everything." Be sure to check out their schedule for upcoming streams and give them a follow if you are on Twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/aledreamgameon/schedule

Image Source: https://aledream.com/

Excited to announce Twitch influencer ALEDream will be hosting a live-stream of Shuzzler formatted as a question and answer session with the developer while playing the game! Tune in to channel @ALEDreamgameon 🦉 on Twitch tomorrow (Wednesday, February 22nd) at 5:30pm PST to watch ✨

https://twitch.tv/aledreamgameon

This update includes lots of minor improvements and bug fixes. Most notably, the card deck now visually shows how many cards are remaining to be drawn. The most important bug fixes address multiple errors that caused the game to crash in certain circumstances and not save game progress made before the crash.

• Deck visually shows how many cards are left to be drawn (see screenshot GIF below). Also reversed-direction the deck is facing to more accurately reflect perspective view of player.
  
• Deck outer-glow animation plays to prompt player to draw the first card of the deck at the beginning of the game. This animation replaces the "Click Here" flashing text animation that previously appeared over the deck.
  
• Point modifiers (Double-Letter, Double-Word, and Word-And-A-Half) will only appear on consonant letter tiles (before, the distribution of point modifiers among consonant and vowel letter tiles was random).
  
• Hints Jars no longer decrement when hints are activated if there are no hints available to show.
  
• Changed color of circular symbol that appears in place of the deck of cards when the deck runs out of cards from green to yellow.
  
• Notification tooltip callout message "Out of hint jars!" shows when attempting to use hints if no hint jars are available for activating hints.

Above: Screenshot GIF demonstrating how cards remaining in the deck are shown visually and update after each card is drawn.

• Game user data is now immediately saved whenever a game/level is finished to ensure game progress is not lost if the game does not exit properly (i.e. game crashes).
  
• Fixed 2 rare, game-crashing bugs that occur at the start of a game (these are separate and independent from the game-crashing bugs that were fixed in build 4.1.2).
  
• Fixed bug causing game to sometimes crash when using Hint Jars to show hints for Noun, Adverb, Verb, and Adjective point cards.
  
• Fixed bug for word summary scrollview on post-game stats screen scrolling past the end of the word list. Also, fixed bug that caused the game to crash when attempting to scroll by click-and-dragging the scrollbar in this scrollview.

• "loogie", "spit", and "spittle" added to word list for Sticky category card

Hint jars are now awarded for completing levels! Hint jars can be used to reveal letters corresponding to a valid word for a card. Previously, the only way to gain hint jars was by drawing "Add Hint Jar" action cards that occasionally appear in decks of some levels. This update also comes with important bug fixes described below.

• Fixed: Rare bug causing game to crash at the very start of a level due to error in sorting initial 4 rows of letter tiles added to the tile grid.
  
• Fixed: Rare bug that causes game to crash when attempting to select lock/key letter tiles with the keyboard by typing letters while holding down the shift key.
  
• Fixed: Total stars earned stat shown on Select Level screen for untimed and timed levels is inconsistent with untimed or timed levels displayed.

• "hearse" added to word list for Vehicle category card.

Fun Fact: A "hearse" is a vehicle used for transporting a coffin during funeral services or for burial. See photos below.
Photo Credit (Left): Publicdomainpictures.net (Public Domain)
Photo Credit (Right): Hearse used to transport Ronald Reagon's body (Wikimedia, Public Domain)

This update makes the game more friendly to keyboard users by increasing functionality of keyboard controls. Letters selected using the keyboard now follow a prioritization hierarchy in the event that there are two or more tiles of the same letter available for selection in the tile grid. The ordered hierarchy that determines priority selection of tiles with the same letter is as follows:

1. Starred tiles (only applicable to untimed levels in Solo Play)
   
2. Letter tiles beneath gem tiles
   
3. Letter tiles with Double-Word (x2) modifiers
   
4. Letter tiles with Word-And-A-Half (x1.5) modifiers
   
5. Letter tiles with Double-Letter (DL) modifiers
   
6. Regular tiles without modifiers

Lock or Key letter tiles can only be selected with the keyboard if the SHIFT key is held down while typing the corresponding letters.

• Fix for rare game-crashing bug that occurs only when more than 30 points are earned from a single word submission.
  
• Fixed bug that causes level buttons on Select Level screen to become pressed when clicking in blank areas on left or right sides of screen.
  
• Fix for text in objective sections of slide-out menu to be cutoff/hidden from view.
  
• Fixed bug causing text to be cut-off on last slide of How To Play screen.
  
• Changed Wordnet dictionary definition of NUN from "a woman religious" to "a religious woman."
  
• Fix for scroll position of level scroll view on Select Level screen not saving between game sessions.

• "loan" added to Investment category card word list
  
• "amphora" added to Storage Solution category card word list
  
• "buggy", "coupe", "forklift", "hatchback", "minivan", "tractor", "zamboni" added to Vehicle category card word list
  
• "dirk" added to word list for Weapon category card

Fun Fact: An "amphora" is a type of ceramic vessel used in ancient Greece and Rome with two handles and a narrow neck (see image below).
Image Source: Wikipedia (Creative Commons License)

Happy Holidays! The official strategy guide for Shuzzler, written by the developer, is now available in the Guides section of Shuzzler's Community Hub. In addition to game strategy, this guide also explains and clarifies certain aspects of game mechanics.

Shuzzler Guides → Official Strategy Guide Here

Warm Wishes,

-The Shuzzler Development Team