Developer News - September 2026

Hey!

It's been another month and time for an update from the developer - aka me

Last month I said a lot had landed. This month is worse - or better, depending on how you look at it There is a Shop in the game now, more than 300 new things to get in it, your character actually holds the tools in their hands, and you can get thrown (ragdoll) across the map by an explosion.

Its all on the Experimental version, so if you want to try it - and please do, I really appreciate the feedback on this one: Right click Fireworks Mania -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> "Experimental". To go back to the normal version, change it to "Default Public Version".

The Shop is open

For years a lot of you have asked for "more base game content" and "something to play for". Its a fair thing to ask about in a sandbox game that has no start and no end. Nobody asked specifically about "a Shop" like this, but this is my attempt to address both these requests in one go.

You now earn "PyroPoints" just by playing. For now by lighting fireworks, unlocking achievements and simply being in a game session. If you leave the game sitting there untouched for an hour it stops counting, so no, you cant just leave it running overnight Those points are used to unlock fireworks, props, characters and more in the new Shop.

I want to be clear about one thing: no fireworks have been taken away, and you can carry on playing with mods exactly like you always did. The Shop is there for the ones who like the feeling of earning their way to getting more and more stuff to play with. Gives a sense of progress, some goal to play for and of cause bragging right, when you show up online with an awesome character or firework item.

If thats not you, you can just ignore it and play as you use to - you can even hide the ingame points UI in Settings. This is a first draft of the whole idea. I havent figured out exactly how the points should be earned yet, and thats where you come in - let me hear if it feels right or if it feels like a grind or whatever you think about this.

As of writing (v2026.9.3) the Home tab looks like this, just to very clearly explain the new Shop - it won't be like that in the final release, as its too focused on the shop and for new players that would be odd I think.

Over 300 new things to fill it with

As mentioned "more base game content" is a very requested this and thats exactly whats in the Shop.

• 149 brand new fireworks - cakes, rockets, tubes, roman candles, firecrackers, smoke balls and more
• 92 new shells from 3 to 6 inch, and 71 new mortars and racks to fire them from
• 64 new characters, a load of civilians and a set of police
• 27 Christmas decorations - neon signs, a snowman, a reindeer, light-up trees, presents - in case you want to decorate during the holidays

All the legacy fireworks I originally made back in 2020 have refreshed versions in there too, and they are a lot more realistic than my originals.

Over the years its become very clear that mod creators are much better at making realistic fireworks than I am. My time is better spent on optimizing and features. So for this content push I reached out to Amnestey and asked if he wanted to do some contracting work making new unique content for the base game - and luckily he was up for it. Thats why you get both a pile of new content and new features in the same month. I could not have done both on my own

The plan is to add more stuff to the shop going forward. There is also a Fuse Node in there - a little box to split and join fuses, so when one fuse burns in, all the others light at once. And a Sound Track Player , which is a speaker with a fuse on it that plays a song when its lit, with 11 songs to pick from, so you can finally put music under your shows. There is a new Music slider under Settings -> Audio for it if you don't want to listen to it, like in an online session. These "speakers" are kind of a "while we wait" solution, as the real show to music will hopefully become possible but easier when I get back to the Firing System next year - but for now, you can actually do pretty nice shows with these too :)

Your character finally holds things

This is the change I think you will notice most the moment you load in. The tools dont hover in front of your face anymore. Your character does it with their hands instead: the Physics Tool is a pointing finger with the laser coming out of your fingertip and a purple glow on it, the Erase Tool is the same finger with a red glow, while spawning you hold a little glowing model of whatever you are about to place, and the Day/Night tool is a pocket watch lying in your palm, turned so you can read it.

The flashlight sits in your left hand and points where you look. All of it is visible to everyone else too, and it works on most modded characters.

On top of that your upper body now turns and leans a bit with where you look instead of just your head, and when you turn on the spot your character steps their feet round instead of spinning with their shoes glued to the floor - the faster you turn, the bigger the step.

I have to own one thing here. When I built the holding-stuff-in-your-hand logic, picking up a crate looked ridiculous because its way too big for a hand, so I had everything shrink down to a little palm-sized version between your thumb and finger. Fireworks shooting off as miniatures was either a feature or a bug, I genuinely couldnt decide Most of you could though, and you told me clearly you preferred it the old way - so in the latest version (v2026.9.3) things keep their own size in your hand again. Crates are simply too heavy to carry now instead. Thanks for being blunt about it Oh, and enough explosion force will now knock you over into a full ragdoll and send you flying - jump or move to get back up. Your character might even scream if it was a big one. Both can be turned off, ragdoll under Settings -> Game and the screaming under Settings -> Audio, if you would rather keep your dignity.

The host list you were promised, and knowing who you are playing with

Last Developer News I said a new host listing UI was coming, and this time it actually did. The Hosts list got a full redesign - you can filter and sort it, every host shows its map, players and uptime on one line, and picking one shows you a picture of the map its running. Games that are full dont just quietly vanish from the list anymore, they show up grayed out with the reason. And you can see which mods a host is running before you join: click the mod count in the host details and the whole list opens up with names and thumbnails.

When you host, you now pick Anyone, Friends or Invite only, instead of Public or Private. "Private" never quite meant what people expected it to mean, like your friends could join even if not invited, so now it just says what it does. Inside a game its a lot clearer whats going on too. The host has a little gold crown on their picture and in front of their name tag, the Players list shows how many fireworks and props each player has out and turns red when they hit the limit, and everything you can do to a player - teleport, mute, volume, kick, ban - is in one small menu on their row instead of scattered about. Voice got another pass as well. It is more narrow now so it sounds like its coming out of someones mouth rather than from a general direction, it fades out more naturally over distance, and somebody facing away from you sounds muffled.

Also worth mentioning

There is a lot more than the above, the full changelogs are at the bottom, but some of it deserves a mention:

• Emotes have a wheel now - hold the Tools Menu button and press E (X or Square on a controller) to flip it over to your emotes. Four new ones went in to fill it: Dab, Air Guitar, Facepalm and Thumbs Up. Some of them might end up in the Shop later, they are just there for testing right now.
• The Fireworks inventory got redesigned - category list down the left, one big grid next to it, and everything grouped by collection with its own header, logo and brand. Down the road modders will be able to make these collections for their own stuff too.
• The inventory and the Shop both tell you roughly how long a firework lasts, and thats exactly how long it counts against the host's spawn limit.
• I removed the emission from the base game firework materials, so they no longer light up in the dark. They were made that way to be easier to spot, but its much more immersive when a firework standing in the dark actually behaves like it.
• Chat got a refresh - profile pictures next to what people said, bigger text, and the heavy black box behind it is gone so you can watch your show while people talk. It also starts out of sight instead of sitting there for the first ten seconds of every game.
• Emoji finally show up properly and in full colour everywhere - chat, player names, mod titles. They used to be empty boxes.
• The freeze everyone got when somebody joined a multiplayer game is gone. With auto despawn off it can still lag a little, but nothing like before.
• Secret unlockable items dont sit in the inventory as locked "?" slots anymore. They stay hidden until you actually find them out in the world.
• Anything you unlock gets a little marker showing you where it is, from the tab all the way down to the item, so you can find the thing you just got.
• The Workshop has a "Recently added" row again above "Recently updated", because it turns out a brand new mod doesnt always turn up under "Recently updated". And "Most popular" now matches Most Popular on the mod.io website - it was ranking by todays downloads instead of all-time.
• D-pad up and down on a controller now do what the scroll wheel does, and moving a held item nearer or further is far easier to control - one scroll moves the same distance wherever the item is.
• Advanced Settings can delete all the temp mods that get installed automatically when you join someones game, and tells you how much space they are taking.
• Standing on something that moves - riding a rocket, for instance - is smooth now instead of jittery, for you and for everyone watching you do it.
• The menus dont fall apart at a high UI Scale anymore. At 150% the server browser ran off both sides of the screen with Join and Refresh pushed off the bottom.
• The ambience sound is turned down, the daytime one especially. It has annoyed me for a long time, I just never took the time to fix it.

Whats next

Feedback on the Shop is what I want most right now. Its a first draft and the point earning is the part I am least sure about, so tell me how it feels after a few sessions rather than after five minutes. More Shop content is coming, this is not the finished list. I have some bugs and feedback from last playtest I'm gonna look into. I don't know if I will make it for next Developer News, but some more "maintaining host" features might also come, as dedicated server is now also starting to seem like it can actually hold up a bit. Then there is the never ending fight for the FPS, especially the runtime drop in FPS when things are spawned and as more fireworks goes off. I have some ideas how I can maybe optimize it more, just haven't spend time on it yet, due to yeah other stuff Thanks to everyone running Experimental and telling me what works and what doesnt. The shrinking-things-in-your-hand thing is a good example - you feedback changed it and the game got better. Keep it coming Thats it for now - need to get back to work

Change log

I have pushed the following updates since last Developer News.

- Enjoy!

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