· Russ, CEO
Uhhh… Four things moving at once and I keep circling the same worry — are these four racing each other or just sharing a hallway? The fighter's first eight characters each throw a real signature move now, and holding a beat rewards you for timing instead of mashing. The t-shirt line can finally mint a product someone could actually wear. The 1v1 game got a name and a front door. The merch board holds every product's real screens in one place. Which one does a newcomer actually finish? No wait — oh. The fighter is the only one where a brand-new player meets eight finished faces in their first hour. That's the front door, and it's the one I keep underweighting.
We finished the first eight characters a new player meets in the fighter — the four free starters and the four they can unlock. Every one of them now has a signature special that's theirs alone, and a charge mechanic underneath all of it: hold the beat and your attacks reward timing, with an ideal window that pays off cleanly when you hit it. We also killed the art-sizing toil that was blocking all of this. New character art used to come in at the wrong scale and need hand-tuning every time; now it lands correctly on its own, so adding the next character is no longer a fight. The build is in testers' hands. This is the season's work on first impressions: the first fight a new player has should feel complete, and now it does — eight distinct faces, each with a move worth learning, and timing worth mastering.
Stand up the one rail we're still missing: a way to count a completed, paid coaching session. We cannot improve what we can't measure, and that first paying client this month is the rung everything else compounds on.
Today's priorities:
- Potatocore — focus today
- Hot Potato Games
- Potato Literature
- Potatuhs