Sokoban Online 4.0 Delay

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from your friends at Uphill Studio! We would like to highlight the progress we have made and the short delay we are currently experiencing for the Sokoban Online 4.0 release. As you already know, version 4.0 was supposed to be released today. Unfortunaly, it will be delayed until 2023. Michel, our developer, fell ill in December and has unable to put together the finishing touches needed for a smooth release. Much work has been finished in the last few months, but not enough to confidently release to the public. We will update everyone as soon as we are about to push out the first public release of 4.0. It won’t be much longer!

The Other Games

There's always more than one game we are working on here at Uphill Studio. For the purpose of this post, we wanted to shed some light on the next games we plan to release after Sokoban Online 4.0 is finished.

The next game scheduled for release will be called Mimic Mimic. Mimic Mimic is a Puzzle Platformer with over 20 unique areas and over 400 puzzles to solve in adventure mode. The goal of the game is simple: You must guide each Mimic (Bird) to their nest while avoiding obstacles and enemies. There will also be boss battles! We've completed most of the game mechanics and graphics. There are just a few things we need to tweak before it's finished. From there, we'll move into the coding phase. It's our hope that we will see a 2024 release date for this game.

The other game we are working on is called Echoes of Lisa. Echoes of Lisa is an Action RPG and will be an 8-bit spiritual successor and prequel to Soul Blazer on Super Nintendo. One of the most challenging and unique aspects of this game will be the world builder so anyone can build their own dungeon and town with no programming experience required. This will be a massive game, with over 40 hours in the main campaign and multiple DLC campaigns to keep players coming back for more. A 2024 release is possible, but 2025 is more likely due to the complexity of the world builder.

The Big Reveal

After 5+ years of development and delays, we are excited to finally give a release date for the Sokoban Online overhaul that changes everything. Sokoban Online 4.0 will be released on December 26th, 2022 (Boxing Day - how fitting!), and will introduce the Uphill Engine - the engine that will run all future Uphill Studio games. This engine will be a universal tool exclusive to Uphill Studio that will help run our games seamlessly via almost any platform, including mobile devices and consoles.

Sokoban Online 4.0 will come jam-packed will all sorts of new features. Some of these features include:

• Adventure Bundle - The adventure pack contains 560 masterfully made puzzles and a story to follow along as you play.
• Daily Dosage - A puzzle pack with new classic puzzles every day ranging from medium to hard difficulty.
• Builder Bundle - New objects including Ice Floor Goals, One-Way Floor, H Magnet, Rail Valve, Square Rail, and Finish Line.
• A 10-track original soundtrack developed by Beek, creator of the Toki Tori soundtrack for Gameboy.
• 100 collectable SokoFacts which will make you laugh after a hard puzzle.
• Overhauled menu system with seamless navigation between menus and puzzle selection.
• Brand new “Play” area that fully maximizes the puzzle view.
• Brand new “Build” area that fully lets your creative mind work with ease.
• A new folder system to organize all your packs and puzzles.
• All new in-depth leaderboards and statistic tracking.
• The old EXP system will morph into a new simpler Points system.
• Add friends and chat directly with them or talk on any puzzle.
• New notifications system that tracks a variety of actions.
• Create your own unique Uphill Studio avatar to show off in your personal expanded Profile page.
• No more invalid solutions! No more bugs!
• And much, MUCH more (seriously, there’s a lot more, but we can’t spoil everything!)

* Factory I (the first 80 puzzles) is free, additional Factories (each containing 80 puzzles) can be purchased via the Adventure Bundle ($1.99) and the Adventure Expansion (99¢). Adventure Bundle includes Factory II, Factory III, Factory IV, The Bandit (playable character), new music tracks, and more. Adventure Expansion includes Factory V, Factory VI, and the UFO. Daily Dosage (99¢) puzzle pack and Builder Bundle (99¢) will be additional DLC.

* Current PRO accounts will no longer exist after the release. Instead, all members who have PRO accounts before December 26th, 2022 will receive the Adventure Bundle, Adventure Expansion, and the Builder Bundle for FREE!

Here are a few teaser screenshots of Sokoban Online 4.0:

Example #1
Example #2

Welcome, Jonathan!

We are excited to announce our newest staff member, Jonathan! He has been building some of the best puzzles on Sokoban Online for over 10 years. He will be helping out with finishing the Adventure pack for Sokoban Online 4.0, along with building puzzles and levels for our upcoming games. Welcome to the team, Jonathan!

New Year's Update

Hello everyone! We'd like to give the community an update on the progress of Sokoban Online 4.0 before 2021 ends. While much has been done behind the scenes, there is nothing visible or playable to the community yet. Some of the progress we have done includes building over 400 puzzles for the adventure mode (still more to go!), as well as extensive coding completed for the menu system, puzzle select menus, player and builder. While we would like to give you an exact release date for 4.0, we can assure you that it will be released in 2022. We will keep the community informed when the release does take place, and will have the community involved for feedback, bug testing, and much more. One of the main focuses will be to have a flawless solution validator for modern puzzles in 4.0.

There are a few significant changes happening in 2022 that will allow us to complete 4.0 in a timely manner. Both Jeff and Michel's work schedules have opened up, allowing for a vastly improved Uphill Studio work schedule. In addition to this, we now have extensive resources to complete the task. We thank everyone for your patience and your continued support of Sokoban Online. We can't wait to use the Uphill Engine to bring you our new and exciting games!

New Website Launched

It’s finally here! The release of the new Uphill Studio website is now live. Like all of the projects we are working on, there is still a lot of work left to be done. We're never satisfied until everything looks absolutely perfect, so expect to see a few minor tweaks happening to the website within the upcoming months.