The arcade got a fresh coat of paint, and every cabinet got something new. Beta 2.10 changes how you find a game, read a scoreboard and check your own record. It also brings the biggest week of game updates since the arcade opened, including new Ranked rules for Hard Money Heroes, Chikun’s Escape and STACKED.
*A note on numbers: Lester’s Arcade is in beta while we build, test and evolve everything on the way to mainnet. Every version you see here is a beta version. When the arcade launches on mainnet, the numbering starts fresh at v0.1.0.*
One arcade, one way around it
- Every page now shares one header and footer. Games, Scores, Journal and Profile sit in the same place everywhere, including here in the journal.
- On a phone, the header folds into a Menu button. The jukebox stays one tap away.
- The footer links all four games, the journal and its feed, support and the policies. KingDankKush still signs the floor.
- The market strip sits under the header now. It has a Pause button. On a phone it opens as one line of arcade news, and Markets shows the prices when you want them. The page no longer jumps when it arrives.
- Settings tell the truth. Sign in or out, open the jukebox, and see each game’s controls and the network Ranked runs on.
New art on every cabinet
Every mode card has new Free and Ranked art: Hard Money Heroes, Chikun’s Escape and STACKED. Tower of Power has a new Free banner too. Chikun’s Escape and STACKED get a loading screen with art of their own. It shows what the arcade is actually doing while the cabinet starts, and if something fails it offers Retry and Back. Hard Money Heroes has new loading wallpapers that rotate from Level 2 on.
Faster where it counts
The Scores and Profile pages used to paint a large piece of Hard Money Heroes art behind everything. On a slow phone, that image was the last thing to arrive. The standings and your player card now lead the page, and on a throttled test phone both pages show their main content about three times sooner. The journal loads its lead picture first, and the arcade’s pages download less before they show you anything.
Scores and your player card
- Scores put the board first on a phone. The filters are more compact. The period and the patch view work as proper choices for keyboards and screen readers: arrow keys move between them.
- Your profile is now a player card. Your name is the heading. When every Ranked run is published, it shows one run count instead of two matching numbers.
- New: personal bests for every game you’ve played Ranked. Each best counts across all patches and links to the run itself.
New Ranked rules: Hard Money Heroes, Chikun’s Escape and STACKED
All three Ranked games get a new rules version for Ranked on the LitVM testnet. Ranked runs under the new rules go on a fresh Active patch board for each game. Your earlier runs and boards stay in the Archive, exactly as they were.
- Hard Money Heroes: a retuned level-up curve, district bosses that bring backup, a Cover button on the gamepad, and an updated map with surf along the coast.
- Chikun’s Escape: a steadier speed ramp, fairer item placement, a bonus for flying a clean line, roomier passages, and a chaser (a tractor on the ground or a hawk in the air) that comes after you about every three minutes once you pass 1:30.
- STACKED: the Halving Hammer now costs 12 LTC instead of 20, so your first Hammer arrives much earlier in a run, and Ranked results count your Hammer saves and Timed Right blasts.
Every Ranked run is still checked by the arcade before it is published: Chikun’s Escape and STACKED are replayed from their inputs, and Hard Money Heroes runs are checked for plausibility. How Ranked works has the details.
On the floor this week
Hard Money Heroes
- Haptics, new boss cues, several sound takes for every gun, sparks off cover, and ambience for each area.
- A weapon wheel on the gamepad.
- Bosses arrive with intro cards and dressed arenas.
- Water has depth, light and wakes, and the foliage sways.
- Each gun has its own reload motion.
- Long guns are held in both hands, heroes sprint sideways and backwards, and bosses make an entrance.
- Enemies react to hits, fall and settle as bodies, and fade away instead of popping.
- Seven landing zones now open on composed scenes.
- A lighter tier for phones with little memory.
Chikun’s Escape
- New birds and animals, with hawks and owls that face where they fly.
- Weather: storm clouds, rain, waterfalls and a fuller day-and-night sky.
- New pickups: the Litecoin token, the zkLTC gas can and fresh power-up effects.
- More life along the course: traffic, gateways, coastline water, and a dog that barks.
- A closer intro, and an instant retry.
STACKED
- Hammer 2.0. A Hammer blast fired near the top of the stack is a save. Saves that the run outlives are Timed Right, and your results show a Hammer ledger and what topped you out. Four new Free practice medals go with it.
- Daily challenge. Race a ghost of your best daily run, keep a daily streak, and share a results card.
- Two players on one device. A new Two players tile opens a local versus game. It is Free only and never Ranked.
- A new menu, the Warp lanes back in the journey, and two new journey scenes: the Ledger lattice and the Crystal vault.
- Rebind the Hammer key, a left-handed layout for the phone Hammer button, and larger colour-blind marks.
Tower of Power
- A new way in: pick a mode, then your fighter, watch the floor load, and press Begin when you’re ready.
- Today’s tower. A new tower each day in Free, with your best for the day.
- Redesigned results: your floor first, your new bests marked, and your last five climbs.
- Vibration on hits, parries and falls (off when your device asks for reduced motion), and a left-handed touch layout.
- Every fighter has a body and outfit of their own, and their cloth swings as they move.
- Tower of Power stays Free to play. Ranked isn’t open for it yet.
What didn’t change
Free Mode still needs no wallet. Ranked still runs on the LitVM testnet, and its price and checks are exactly as described in How Ranked works. Tower of Power keeps its rules, and nothing in this update touches your past scores or achievements.