25,000 COPIES SOLD!!!

25,000 Copies Sold in Less Than 3 Days

Wow. I honestly do not even know what to say. How To Grow a Black Hole was never expected to become a hit, and I never imagined this many people would be playing it this soon after launch. The past few days have been hectic, exciting, overwhelming, and exhausting in the best possible way. First, thank you. Every person who bought the game, left a review, reported a bug, joined the Discord, shared feedback, or simply gave the game a chance helped make this happen. It genuinely means a lot.

Stability, Performance, and Fixes

Since launch, there have been issues with performance, compatibility, quality-of-life features, and plenty of smaller edge cases. Some were expected. Some definitely were not. My brother and I have been working as hard as we can since release to fix issues quickly. We have already pushed several updates, and we are still digging into the remaining problems, especially the more specific ones affecting certain players or hardware setups. There is still a lot to do, but right now the focus is pretty simple: make the game smoother, more stable, and better to play.

Logan Is Joining Development Full-Time

I also want to talk about my brother, Logan, also known as Pray. Logan is joining development on the game full-time, which is honestly a huge help. It means fixes, improvements, and content updates should be able to move a lot faster than if I were still trying to handle everything mostly on my own. A lot of the issues that have already been fixed would probably still be sitting there without him, and I would have been much more overwhelmed trying to keep up with everything alone. Having him on board is going to make a big difference for the future of the game.

What We Are Working On Right Now

At the moment, our main focus is still stabilization. That means:

Fixing bugs
Improving performance
Cleaning up quality-of-life issues
Improving compatibility
Making the game easier to understand
Addressing leaderboard exploits and cheating
And keeping the Grapefruit in containment >:)

The leaderboard has been one of the biggest topics since launch, and we are actively working on changes to make it more fair.

Competitive Mode and Leaderboard Changes

Right now, the plan is to separate the main idle game from the global leaderboard. Instead of tying the main save directly to leaderboard competition, we want to introduce a separate Competitive Mode that players can opt into. This mode would have its own save and would reset monthly. Your normal solo save would not be affected at all. The idea is to give everyone competing a fair starting point each season, while players who just want to enjoy the main game at their own pace can keep doing that without worrying about monthly wipes. Some current ideas include:

Monthly competitive seasons
A fresh start for all Competitive Mode players each season
Rewards for participating
Better rewards based on leaderboard placement
Special palettes for top players
A “Biggest of All Time” leaderboard
A display for the previous month’s top 100 players
AND OF COURSE A BATTLE PASS (just kidding haha)

There is still a lot to figure out, especially with rewards. Should everyone who participates get a Curvature bonus at the start of the next season? Should higher placements get more? Should the top 100 players get an exclusive palette for being some of the biggest black holes in the world that month? We would love to hear your thoughts. The Discord has already voted in favor of this general direction, but community feedback is still going to shape how this system actually works.

The Operations Update

The next major update is planned to be The Operations Update. Right now, the Operations research tree is not where we want it to be. It has some useful parts, especially for farming Curvature, but overall it needs more depth, more clarity, and some of the highly requested features people have been asking for, including black hole upgrades. The Operations Update will focus on reworking Operations in a much bigger way. We want the system to be:

More useful
Easier to understand
More rewarding
More interesting long-term
Better connected to the rest of the game

As we get closer to that update, we will share more about what is planned. Until then, we will keep making smaller changes to Operations where we can so it feels better before the full rework is ready.

Looking Ahead

Going forward, we want to keep releasing major content updates alongside smaller patches, new achievements, new music, balance changes, and possibly some completely new mechanics. There is a lot we want to do with this game, and the support so far has made us even more excited to keep working on it.

Thank You!!!

Thank you again for the overwhelming support. Game development is difficult, and the past few days have made that very clear, but it has also been incredibly motivating. I have seen so many players being patient, helpful, and understanding while we work through issues and improve the game. That means a lot. We are going to keep working as hard as we can to make How To Grow a Black Hole the best experience it can be. If you want to share feedback, report issues, suggest ideas, or just hang out with the growing community, join the Discord below. Thank you for playing, and happy growing.

This announcement was written and published by the developers/publisher of How To Grow a Black Hole on Steam; it is mirrored here unedited for readability, with full credit and a link to the original above. © the respective rights holders. Rights holder and want it removed? Email us — we take it down promptly.