Synaptic Sugar
@synapticsugar
We're a small indie dev team aiming to make humorous, whimsical, imaginative games that can be enjoyed by most ages. Our first game is #AgentsOfGroove, a story-driven rhythm action game for Playdate. Find out more at
📦 More polish, adjustments to difficulty and bug fixes are included. And of course all previous updates are in too, like the revamp of stealth levels with checkpoints and improved visibility:
✅ The game now has a set of 24 achievements to unlock, added via the community-maintained pd-achievements library!
🎮 Button prompts for all rhythm matching sections are now larger, bars for held buttons are thicker, crank speed indicators are more evident, all for improved readability and accessibility:
✒️ Story conversations are more dynamic and readable, thanks to new animations and 5 new fonts hand-made specifically for the game and supporting all 5 languages (English, Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese). Tutorial cards and other UI elements throughout got a similar treatment!
🎹 The game's 22-track soundtrack spans multiple genres, and is now fully revamped in collaboration with @kashdanmusic.bsky.social (Earth Must Die, Best Served Cold). Listen to the full soundtrack in the jukebox (preview in the video above), with tracks unlocked as progress is made in game:
#playdate now supports Japanese! Despite not being in the video, our story-driven rhythm game Agents of Groove has supported Japanese and four more languages since launch. If your Playdate system language is set to Japanese, the game will automatically mirror that setting on your first playthrough!
You can find our Playdate Catalog page at: 💀 play.date/games/studio...
We're thrilled to announce that we're working with @kashdanmusic.bsky.social (Earth Must Die, Best Served Cold) to revamp the music in Agents of Groove! Here's a first preview, with the full soundtrack coming in a future free update! #gamedev #indiedev #playdate #ScreenshotSaturday
🎵 The Playdate now no longer auto-locks after 3 minutes while in the Jukebox, and crank docking/undocking sounds are also disabled there. You can now listen in peace 😌
▶️ this update also includes a few small adjustments to the UI, including an attempt to make it clearer that past levels can be selected and replayed freely. Try different modes and claim that high score as many times as you want!
🪲 a bug with decoy notes in some cases registering a hit incorrectly has been fixed. This may have made some bosses harder than intended! 🤖 difficulty should be smoother with the "Cat And Fox" now having a lower hype requirement and small tweaks to the "Between A Robot And A Hard Place" dance-off
🥷 stealth levels now feature checkpoints, so being detected will no longer force you to restart from the beginning ‼️ thanks to new UI elements it should be easier to understand when guards are able to see you sneaking around 📦 Daley has a new simple entrance animation as well!
Here are some work-in-progress improvements, using custom-made fonts, to the look of conversations for an upcoming update to #AgentsOfGroove on #playdate. What do you think? #gamedev #indiedev #ScreenshotSaturday
✅ To simplify access to the most useful modifiers, the Crank Assist or Single Button widgets will now appear directly on the "try again" popup at level end (depending on level type). If default gameplay proves too difficult, it's easier than ever to adjust the challenge!
One week left at 33% off the regular price! Join secret agency G.R.O.O.V.E. now, and help legendary undercover dancer Daley Bellbottoms save the world (or make things worse) in story-driven rhythm game Agents of Groove for #playdate! ➡️ play.date/games/agents...
Pick up Agents of Groove for $8 during the #playdate Catalog Anniversary Sale! Dance, sneak, face off against your enemies and save the world alongside the undercover dancers of G.R.O.O.V.E. in this "charming and surprisingly diverse" rhythm game! 🪩🕺 🔗 play.date/games/agents...
Story-driven rhythm game Agents of Groove will be 33% off during the #playdate Catalog Anniversary Sale as well! Great time to grab it if you've been on the fence (or if you haven't)! 🪩 🕺
Last days to order the 2026 Playdate Community calendar (30% off in cart), it looks great and includes art from Agents of Groove! uncrankd.myshopify.com/products/202... #playdate
To better connect the game's songs with their titles, every level now briefly displays the title of the song that accompanies it during the initial countdown.
If you like a videogame, let the devs know! Indie dev can be rough, but knowing that our games do resonate with others keeps us going. Thank you for the praise for #AgentsOfGroove 🥹 #gamedev #indiedev #playdate
Some situations call for more subtle sneaking. Here you won't have buttons to match, but will need to move carefully in time with the music, helped by visual and aural cues. Move with the d-pad and optionally the crank, but don't get spotted and be quick!
G.R.O.O.V.E. missions often demand dancing skills! Dance levels, the main type, will ask you to turn the Playdate crank in time with the music to spin the H.Y.P.E. disco ball while you press the buttons to match the prompts at the bottom of the screen, with some surprises along the way:
We have tutorials, visual and aural cues, conversations that progress at the player's own pace, separate volume controls for music and sound effects, story summaries and detailed stats for each level to remember what happened last time, and other little things throughout.
Additional settings allow disabling screen shake, flashing effects, and the requirement to hold buttons down or use the accelerometer. Helpful beat marker lines can be toggled on to assist with following the rhythm.
The game allows for some configuration of controls. An alternate input mode that swaps the D-pad for the A/B buttons can be used in dance levels that normally also require using the crank. The Playdate's upside down mode is also supported for those who prefer to turn the crank with their left hand.
Further, we added three modifiers: relaxed mode, which removes most penalties for making mistakes, to focus more on the story; single button mode, which allows matching button prompts with any button; and crank assist mode, which calls for G.R.O.O.V.E.B.O.T. to help turn the crank for the player.
We added three difficulty level presets, with granular controls over different aspects of gameplay precision. These can be changed freely and independently at any time between levels. Tooltips in the options screen explain what each of these settings does!
"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart" Play Agents of Groove at launch in English, Italian, French, Spanish, or Japanese with localization by @thewarlocs.bsky.social! 🪩 🕺 💃 #playdate #ScreenshotSaturday
