So, Steam Next Fest is coming to an end meaning it's the final stretch towards the release of the game.

And it's also time for the game to get a proper release date, so here's the announcement: Snakeloop will release on March 28th.

Next Fest went great and thanks to everyone who tested the demo. For some data, over 500 players played the demo so far, completing a total of over 10k levels, and also highlighting a couple points that needed improvement in the game.

The demo will remain available until at least the launch of the game and it is also getting a slight update to improve a couple things based on player feedback (changelog below).

Now, as to the full version of the game, it is pretty much 99% ready with the only things left being some refinement on the final selection & order of the 90 levels that will be available in the main game (rest will be added as bonus on the workshop), as well as finishing the support of the steam workshop for modding (structure for modding is already there, just need the workshop-specific stuff).
Also, the full game has a couple extra mechanics and twists that weren't showcased in the demo and will have significantly harder levels (as the demo was mostly the tutorial levels except for a couple levels).

• Added an "Optimal hint" showing how many moves above the optimal you are when you complete a level without the optimal solution. This was requested by several players aIt. It can also be disabled in the settings if you don't want to care about the optimal.
  
• Move Counter is now enabled by default. It was already there through the settings although could be easily missed.
  
• Snake's tail color is slightly lighter on odd tiles. This should make the difference between odd & even lengths pop out more, especially on screens with lower contrasts.
  
• "Undo" prompt text was changed to be more explicit, ie. "Undo Move" in English, "Retour en arrière" instead of "Annuler" in French, and so on.
  
• Move Counter setting name was changed in French & Spanish to be more explicit.

Snakeloop will be part of Steam Next Fest starting tomorrow.

The demo is also getting a small update, bringing a bit of QoL based on feedback and fixing a couple minor issues.

• Level Selection can now be accessed through the Pause menu or Level Complete screen.
  
• Fixed the optimization of E01 (21 moves -> 19 moves).
  
• Fixed the optimization of E03 (13 moves -> 12 moves).
  
• Fixed the Levels' names not being localized.
  
• Quite a lot of optimization on levels loading, making it 2-3x faster for huge levels. Although this isn't something that will be noticeable on any of the demo's nor the full game's levels as they remain relatively small but rather very large levels that could be created through modding. (iirc, full game's biggest level is 13x13 or 169 tiles while the optimization would only be visible upon loading that have thousands of tiles. Loading levels as big as 50x50 (2500 tiles) shouldn't cause any freeze,