Your squad has a list now. SQUAD, under the SquachMesh menu, is everybody who has ever been heard holding your phrase, here or not, up to sixteen, kept across restarts. Each member shows in the outfit their board last advertised, with how many separate times you've met, and whoever is in range floats to the top. INVITE works when they're here, AWAY tells you when they're not, and FORGET drops them after asking once; they come straight back the next time they're heard with the phrase, so it is a tidy-up, not a ban. A new phrase clears the roster, because a new phrase is a new squad. The in-range SQUAD screen from the main screen is unchanged apart from the button row below.
Fox hunt. HUNT sits between INVITE and ADD on both SQUAD screens and aims HUNT MODE's signal gauge at that SquachWatch. It's the same meter the detector points at a tag: no compass, so you turn your body and walk toward where the needle doesn't drop. Two readings in a row at arm's length and the gauge says CAUGHT! in a green box, Squachy bounces, and the light on the back flashes green so the fox can see it too. The fox needs TRANSMIT on. Hunters need DETECT on, which they have if they can see the SQUAD screen at all. Until this release the scanner recognised a SquachWatch and stopped before the gauge got a look at it, which is why you could never hunt one.
The invite says when it worked. The new member's board now sends a sealed hello the moment it takes the phrase. The inviter's screen shows ADDED and "YETI is in your squad", the new member's shows YOU'RE IN, and both drop back to the main screen on their own after a few seconds. The old ending, a paragraph about what to do if their board didn't say so, only appears now when nothing came back in thirty seconds, and it says that plainly. Proven on two boards this morning.
One name, not two. NICKNAME is gone from Settings. NAME under SQUACHMESH is the whole story: a curated name until somebody types one on the payphone, where the readout shows the curated one dimmed and a SHUFFLE key, the 1 on the keypad or where CLR was on the QWERTY board, steps through the list for anyone who'd rather not type. The two rows dated from before there was a keyboard, and once a name was typed the old one changed something nothing displayed. Nothing changes on the air: a curated name still travels as one byte, a typed one in full.
Two Squachys left alone get up to more. The idle clock used to alternate a dance and rock-paper-scissors forever, with a snowball fight when it snowed; the other thirty-odd emotes only played when somebody pressed a button. Now it draws from the lot, minus the ones that need a reason, sends the pick over SquachMesh the same way a pressed one goes, and both boards act out the same piece with the same coin toss or dice roll. When both boards hold the phrase the lower address starts the pieces and the other joins in, so they can't keep interrupting each other. The last six played stay out of the hat. Pacing is unchanged: first one about half a minute into a visit, then every minute or two, twice as often on synthwave.
The visitor's name is a sticker on his chest. Cream, red band along the top, name in black, pinned to the torso so it bobs, bows and crouches with him. It used to float above his head and take turns with his speech bubble; now he's named for the whole visit, talking or not.
REMOTE UPDATE is on by default. The reasoning: a nudge can only make a board install a signed release newer than the one it runs, with a thirty-second countdown and SKIP, and the only people who can send one already hold your phrase, which is the same trust you give them for messages and the invite. Onboarding a handful of boards is now invite, then UPDATE SQUAD. The switch stays on the SECURITY screen for anyone who wants it off, and a locked board ignores the whole thing regardless. This is also the release that proves the report-back: update one board by hand, UPDATE SQUAD from it, and the others answer by name.
Getting this version: from v1.7.4 or later, UPDATE OVER WIFI, Bluetooth, or a squad member's UPDATE SQUAD. From anything older, the USB flasher.
The actually-useful part
- Added: SQUAD under the SquachMesh menu, a persistent roster with MET counts, INVITE, AWAY and FORGET
- Added: HUNT on both SQUAD screens, a fox hunt with a CAUGHT! banner, Squachy's reaction and a green flash
- Added: ADDED on the inviter's screen when the new member's board answers, and both sides clear themselves
- Added: SHUFFLE on the payphone's name board, keypad and QWERTY
- Changed: one NAME row; NICKNAME removed from Settings
- Changed: the idle set pieces draw from all the unprompted emotes, in sync on both boards
- Changed: the visitor's name is a sticker on his chest, shown for the whole visit
- Changed: REMOTE UPDATE defaults to on
- Changed: taking a new phrase clears the roster
- Fixed: a SquachWatch's advert never reached the watch and hunt gauges