News - Mondrian - Plastic Reality

Happy Makersmas, everybody! This is our fourth annual Festival of Creativity. In the past, we've celebrated by hosting art contests, boosted in-game Gems by pushing social media hashtags, and challenged you to create holiday-themed levels using Mondrian Maker and Mondrian Studio. This year, we want you to celebrate Makersmas your way.

What does a Festival of Creativity mean to you? Does it mean undertaking a new project for the month? Trying your hand at a new form of art? Finding new avenues to share your or others' creative works? Learning a new tool?

Anyone can Create! So whatever you make, as always, use our community during Makersmas as YOUR community. Share your endeavors, make some new fans, and be creative!

To celebrate on our end, we've added our annual Makersmas decorations to the Museum, including six new Spotlight Artworks. This is also the only month of the year when you can earn the Makersmas Riches, Goodies, and Avarice Achievements by opening your free Daily Presents from each of the trees in the Museum. The Gift Tree will give you a free daily cosmetic (Spotlight Artworks, Pedestals, Walls, Floors, Ceilings, Baseboards, or Columns), while the Gem Tree will give you free daily Gems (300, 500, 1000, 2000, or 3000). So make the most of this Makersmas and Get. Those. Gifts!

Patch Notes

Features

• Museum: Added new Spotlight Cosmetics.
  • Makersmas: Menorah, Snowman, Polar Bear, Yeti, Tower of Presents, Frozen Fountain
• Museum: Added the last year’s-worth of cosmetics to the Gift Tree for Makersmas.

Changes

• Museum: Updated the look of the Nutcracker spotlight artwork

Signing Off

As always, we want to wish you all a very happy holiday season and a happy New Year! We're signing off for the rest of 2023 but we will see you in 2024!

- Danny

Art Hallow's Eve Has Begun

Good morning to you all! The leaves are falling on Mondrian's main menu, and that can only mean one thing: our annual spooky celebration has begun, and with it, we've published the latest update for Mondrian - Plastic Reality, version 1.5.1. Here are the latest patch notes:

Features

• Museum: Added new Spotlight Cosmetics.
  • Art Hallow’s Eve: Gargoyle, Scarecrow, Grim Reaper, Witch, Pile of Skulls, Fat Bat, Headless Horseman, Black Cat, Vampiric Fountain, The Monster, Werewolf, and Mr. Bones.
• Museum: Added new Construction Cosmetics.
  • Walls: Strand Board Wall.
  • Ceilings: Strand Board Ceiling.
• Game: Added “A Master Trickster” Achievement to Steam version. Survive 10 rounds of Tricks in Spooky Gem Hunt mode to get it!

Changes

• Menu: Adjusted the gray value for Art Hallow’s Eve Razer™ Chroma RGB lighting.

This patch is now available on all platforms.

Spooky Celebrations

It would not be Art Hallow's Eve without our annual community celebrations! This year we're mixing things up with different creative contests and LOTS of key giveaways! Read on to see how you can get involved.

Third Annual Pumpkin Carving Contest

Mondrian's oldest community event returns! Use one of our Pumpkin templates or design your own in Mondrian Maker to make the best jack-o-lantern! Players can participate in the Free Admission demo or Lifetime Pass versions of the game. Submit your jack-o-lanterns onto mod.io or Steam Workshop with the "Art Hallow's Eve" Gala Entry tag to enter. Three winners total will be picked by the community (so Like your favorites). Be sure to share them on social media using #artHallowsEve and mention @lantanagames to rack up those Likes. Submissions open through 10/30 and votes tallied 10/31!

Haunted House Contest

Decorate your Museum into the best spooky space possible! You may use any cosmetics you feel would make the best haunted house. Due to Adventure Mode not being available in the demo, the Haunted House Contest is only open to Lifetime Pass players. Post your screenshots on social media (in particular, Twitter/X, Threads, or Instagram) using #artHallowsEve and mention @lantanagames. Three winners total will be picked by the community (so Like your favorites). Submissions open through 10/30 and votes tallied 10/31!

Costume Contest

For anyone who still doesn't have their Halloween costume ready, why not dress up as one of our world famous artists?! Design your costume of Piet, Sophie, Hale, Andy, Lois, or even Ariko and share it in photo or video form on social media using #artHallowsEve and mention @lantanagames (Twitter/X, Threads, or Instagram). This costume can even be digital, so if you think you can dress up your VR Chat avatar or your Sea of Thieves pirate or your Minecraft Steve or whoever as one of our artists, go for it! Voted by the community and open to everyone regardless of if you have any version of the game downloaded. Three winners total! Submissions through 10/30 and votes tallied 10/31!

"I Am So Startled" Contest

One for the content creators! Play Spooky Gem Hunt on stream or in a video and send us your best clips of getting got by the Tricks. Go overboard with it! The bigger the reaction, the better. You will need either the Free Admission demo or the Lifetime Pass version of the game to play Spooky Gem Hunt. Share the clips on social media (Twitter/X, Threads, or Instagram), using #artHallowsEve and mention @lantanagames. Three winners total will be picked by the community (so Like your favorites). Submissions through 10/30 and votes tallied 10/31!

But what are the prizes?

To keep things simple, all contests will have the same prize packs:

• 1st Place: Gold Frame, Mondrian Series Bundle including all games and DLC's in the series (itch.io or Steam keys)
• 2nd Place: Silver Frame, 2 Mondrian Steam or itch.io keys of your choice (Games or DLC's)
• 3rd Place: Bronze Frame, 1 Mondrian Steam or itch.io key of your choice (Game or DLC)

The keys are self-explanatory, and for the frames, we will send you a customized version of your screenshot, thumbnail, or photo with the winning frame around it so you can display it proudly!

Happy Art Hallow's Eve, everybody. Please enjoy the update, and we can't wait to see what you cook up this month!

- Danny

Good morning, everybody! Today I'm very pleased to announce that the latest update for Mondrian - Plastic Reality, 1.5.0, is now available on Steam for both Free Admission and Lifetime Pass users. This update is heavily built around improving the experience in Mondrian Maker, particularly on controllers. Nearly all - if not actually all - missing controller functionality has been accounted for, and even includes some functions not available on keyboard and mouse, such as boosting and slowing the cursor speed with the shoulder bumpers.

As well as the above additions to Mondrian Maker, we've added the requisite bug fixes and some new cosmetics to the Museum! See the patch notes below for more details.

Game

Features

• Museum: Added new Spotlight Cosmetics
  • Porcelain: Angel, Sea Siren, Antonin the Dragon, Horse, Tortoise, and Elephant.
  • World: Anubis, Seated Monkey, Ocelot Cuauhxicalli, Resting Goat, Ocelot Warrior, Ganesh.
  • Plantlife: Areca Palm, Cristina's Sunflowers, Rose Bush, Maidenhair Fern, Purple Orchid, Fig Tree.
  • Retro Tech: Red Phone, Typewriter, Gamething 2000, Gramophone, Daguerreotype, and Dorm TV.
• Museum: The “Black Ornate” Wallpaper is now just “Ornate” Wallpaper and is fully paintable! If you had the Black Ornate wallpaper on already, it will still load just as it was.
• Museum: Added “Oriented Strand Board” floor
• Museum: Added the “Rijksmuseum Collection,” including a very fancy Wall, Floor, Columns, and Ceiling.

Changes

• Menu: Exiting the Free Admission version of the game will no longer take you to the Steam page.
• Museum: Made a quality improvement to the Ornate wallpaper.

Bug Fixes

• Museum: Fixed a bug that would close the Inventory Window when Piet stepped slightly outside the edge of the room.

Maker

Features

• Full functionality of the Save/Open/Play windows with a controller. The D-Pad can be used to scroll up and down the level list, while the Start button can be used to instantly open a level once selected. Otherwise you can press the window's buttons like usual with the lower face button (for instance, A on an Xbox Controller).
• Full functionality for painting tools on controllers.
• You can now open the context menu on a block by pressing the lower face button (A on Xbox) while the cursor is over it.
• Full functionality of the context menu with a controller.
• You can now free-move a block with a controller by pressing and holding the lower face button (A on Xbox) on a block.
• Full functionality of all painting, color, and flip tools with a controller.
• Full functionality of the mini manual with a controller.
• Added a function to slow the cursor down on controllers. Holding down the Left Shoulder Bumper will slow the cursor.
• Non-Steam versions of Mondrian feature a brand new Share window, with buttons that will open your Levels and Thumbnails folders, and a link to our mod.io page.
• The Steam version has a new button in the Share window to bring you to the above page to upload your creations to mod.io.
• Added a Controller Map section to the mini manual. This map updates to match your currently selected controller layout from the Main Menu.

Changes

• Cursor movement with a controller will now only snap to the grid when carrying a block.
• Updated some pages of the mini manual.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug that caused blocks to Stamp far too quickly when using a controller.
• Fixed the “Nope” X appearing when grabbing a block with a controller.
• Fixed a bug where using the controller D-Pad would still nudge the level if the cursor was still over the Scale or Angle arrows.
• Fixed the Stamp cursor not appearing when using a controller.
• Fixed snap movement with a Controller not working at all grid sizes. It also no longer skips lines or snaps at different increments depending on how you're moving the cursor.
• Fixed tooltips not disappearing when using a controller

This update is now available for both Free Admission and Lifetime Pass players, so make sure to update!

As an added bonus, you may have noticed a note that mentions a new button in the Share window. This button will switch you over to a brand new mod.io interface! That's right, our mod.io page is back online. These new buttons will guide you through the relatively simple process of uploading your creations to mod.io from their website (with a teensy bit of finagling involving MS Paint and zipping a file). If you've been active on Steam Workshop, we'd love to see you upload your creations over there as well.

You may have also noticed we mentioned "non-Steam versions" of the game. Well, as of today, Mondrian - Plastic Reality is also available on itch.io, GameJolt, and a dedicated Humble Gamepage! Free Admission is also now available on indieDB. The itch and Humble versions also include Steam Keys. In the coming weeks and months we'll be trickling the game out to other platforms as well, so keep an eye out and please welcome any new players to the community who show up!

Finally, as promised, the price of the game has dropped from $14.99 to $9.99 USD.

Thanks as always for your support, and for playing. Happy third anniversary! Let's make this the best Mondrian update yet!
- Danny

Mondrian – Plastic Reality’s third anniversary is coming up next month, and with it will come the 1.5 update and a brand new movement called “Anniversaire Triptyque.” This latest Movement will bring some VERY important updates for Mondrian Maker, including MUCH greater controller support, even across the Save and Open menus. There will also be lots of new Museum cosmetics, and some requisite bug fixes. But most exciting of all, we will be relaunching Mondrian – Plastic Reality across a slew of new sites! So if Steam isn’t your cup of tea, read on to find out where we’ll be bringing it.

New Platforms

However, the big “feature” we’ll be pushing in 1.5 is releasing the game onto other storefronts. In the past few years, we’ve been locked into Steam because of the Steam Workshop integration. While we’re not removing Steam Workshop for Steam players, the Share window on other platforms will instead have buttons to instantly open your Levels and Thumbnails folder, and a button which links you to mod.io to share your creation. While this isn’t quite what we had in mind originally, it’s the best option for getting the game out to a wider audience after much, much delay.

Therefore, on Friday, September 22, 2023, we will be bringing Mondrian – Plastic Reality and its 3 Background Pack DLC’s to the following storefronts:

• GameJolt
• itch.io
• Humble Gamepage (on launch day)

This list of platforms is just for starters and we’ll be trying to roll Mondrian – Plastic Reality out to even more platforms in the weeks and months after Version 1.5’s release. We will also note where you can redeem Steam keys for the game too!

Until the game launches on the 22nd, please make sure to Follow the game on itch and GameJolt!

If there is a specific place you’d like to see us bring the game, please send us a message on X and we’ll do what we can!

Price Drop

Consider this a heads-up that on September 22 as well, Mondrian – Plastic Reality – in lieu of our annual Anniversary Sale – will receive a $5 price cut to $9.99 USD. We are giving you ample warning ahead of time so that if you recently grabbed the game for its $14.99 price on Steam already, you have an opportunity to refund the game and pick it up for the lower cost. Steam has a generous policy which lets you refund a game if you’ve owned it for less than 2 weeks and have under 2 hours of play time. Visit this page for more info.

The 30% discount on the Mondrian Series Bundle will remain.

More to Come

We will be back in a couple weeks with the full patch notes for Mondrian – Plastic Reality 1.5 and more exciting announcements! For now please be sure to follow the game on both itch.io and GameJolt. Thank you as always for playing and we’ll see you very soon!

– Danny

Hello, everyone! After the launch of the Impressionism and Abstract Background Art Packs on Steam and itch, the next obvious and chronological step was to pay homage to the Neoplasticism movement of the early 20th century, a movement shaped by Piet Mondrian himself. The "Stylish Background Art Pack" is thusly coming to Steam on May 22, and we would greatly appreciate if you added it to your Wishlist!

Like the other packs, the Stylish pack features 10 background artworks that can be used to vary up the visuals of your in-game experience and customize your Mondrian Studio creations even more (Studio being the game's robust photo mode to share your user-generated creations with the world). Some of the pieces are classic color block compositions, others are 3D interpretations of color block worlds, and some are more landscapey while still generally following the rules of the artform.

The pack will launch for $1.99 USD, but you'll be able to grab it in the Mondrian Series Bundle with both games, the other background pack DLC's, and the first game's soundtrack for 30% off.

Click the link above to add the Stylish Background Art Pack to your Wishlist, so you can be notified when it goes live! As always, thank you for your support, and thank you for playing.

- Danny