The Swift games have been moving forward on several fronts: new levels and sweets in Candy Pop, a playable native Uridium X, a new look for Triss, and more polish aboard the Paradroid ship. There has also been work on launch presentation and preparing builds for testing. Here is where things stand on 10 October.
Triss approaches its release checks
Triss has had a substantial visual pass. The logo, bubbles and buttons now use rounded shading, gloss and soft shadows, with black outlines helping the shapes stand out. The in-game presentation follows that direction with candy rims, a glass-style score panel, outlined text and revised pop-ups. Chunky power-up icons make the controls easier to recognise, and the Shape Bomb icon cycles through the shapes in the tower.
The drifting tetromino background has replaced the old starfield, and sparkle effects move more quickly. The tower shapes have also been refined, including smoother inside corners. Apple Pencil experiments remain confined to debug builds.
Release preparation is now set to version 1.0.0, build 64739. The local App Store pack has seven screenshots for each of iPhone, iPad and Mac, along with revised descriptions and support and privacy links. The 18 achievements and high-score leaderboard have been checked in App Store Connect and are awaiting review. Local iOS and Mac Release builds passed with signing disabled, but that is not a signed distribution check. The new release build has not been uploaded: final device checks come first, followed by testing the exact distributed build before submission.
Candy Pop grows beyond a rectangular board
Candy Pop now has shaped boards and liquorice, alongside new sweets including diagonal wrappers, Toffee, Starbursts and Lolly Spinners. Seasonal towers include After Dark, Winter Wonderland, Summer Fruits and Easter Eggs, with different floor looks adding variety to the climb.
The level-goal panel and sweets dropping onto the board help communicate what is happening in a level. The instructions now run across five pages covering moves, peppermints, special sweets and the tower. Game Center achievements and their badge artwork have also been added.
Long chains were producing too many particles, so their effects have been reduced. The aim is to keep the reward of a big chain while reducing the slowdown it can cause.
Uridium X is playable in native Swift
Uridium X now has a playable Swift and SpriteKit version for Mac, iPhone and iPad. It carries over the 15 dreadnaughts, original and enhanced graphics, and the enemy formations from the GameMaker reference. Flight, rolling, firing, landing and the timed bonus game are in place, alongside menus, saved settings and high scores.
Recent work has tightened the pacing and feedback. Enemy formations now leave a four-second pause after the previous wave ends. Destroyed deck targets leave the original small, medium or large damage sprites, including their growth animation, so the ship keeps a visible record of the fight.
The Mac build, wave checks and gameplay smoke checks across all 30 room variants passed for those changes. Physical controller, keyboard and real multitouch play still need hands-on testing.
Paradroid keeps its surprises
Paradroid 202x’s 0.9.7 development checkpoint adds hidden discoveries, a choice of app icons and further HUD polish. I’ll leave the discoveries for players to find.
Achievement and system messages now slide and fade within the HUD panel. Losing a host brings a more urgent message and shield countdown when the 001 becomes active again, taking priority over the achievement queue. The immediate need to move or transfer should be clearer during a busy fight.
Five icon styles offer a choice between Metal Badge, Blue Stencil, Close-Up, Black & White and Retro. They change the Home Screen icon on iPhone and iPad, or the running app’s Dock icon on Mac.
Dexter gets a smoother landing
Dexter’s scenery work includes spreading animated tile updates across frames and combining static background layers into pre-rendered images. These changes address the cost of updating and drawing the scene; playtesting remains the way to judge the result in motion.
The Leap Of Faith level has been re-imported from the GameMaker reference. Its landing area now uses one wide invisible exit trigger in place of a row of separate doors. The completion screen also has a celebration backdrop with fireworks. New app-icon artwork is in place, while the illustrated walking-animation study remains work in progress.
Gravitus moves towards beta testing
Gravitus 0.9.1, build 2026101002, has uploaded successfully and is marked Ready to Submit in App Store Connect. That does not yet mean testers can install it. At the latest check, no testing group had been created, and the external beta information still needed completing.
The next step is to attach the build to an internal testing group. External testing then needs its own group and TestFlight review. This is progress towards a beta, rather than a public release announcement.
A shared welcome without a long wait every time
The Concept Alpha blueprint reveal now follows the same pattern across Triss, Candy Pop, Dexter, Uridium X and Paradroid 202x: the full 12-second animation on first launch, then the finished artwork for 1.3 seconds on later launches. Each game remembers independently, and the skip controls still work. The shared Swift template has been updated for future games too.
The changed splash components passed Swift type-checking; their in-game playback still needs checking. Across the projects, the next stage is hands-on testing: how the controls feel, whether the effects stay smooth, and whether each build behaves properly on the devices it is intended for.