Yumsters! (2007)

*Notes:*

* *The page was written based mainly on the Russian version. English bonus names may be inaccurate.*
* *Many screenshots on this page were taken on Windows 10, some display graphical issues not present in older systems.*

## The Game

    Yumsters! (Russian: Нямстеры! Люкс, formerly Нямстеры!) is the first game in the Yumsters! series. Its gameplay revolves around the drag-n-drop mechanic and color matching, with a few simple music minigames.

### Story

Yumsters love fruit and music. They clean up gardens from fruit to earn money. They need the money to buy musical instruments for their band, so they can win the Grand Prix in the musical competition.

### Gameplay

#### Basics

Yumsters must clear specified amounts of different fruits, mainly by eating them. The little holes on the playfield spawn fruit. To make a Yumster eat, the player presses and holds his head, pulls him towards a fruit or through multiple fruit of the same color and releases. The Yumster refuses to eat and hides if there’s an obstacle in the way: a decorative object, a fruit of another color, another Yumster, an insect or a fully frozen fruit. If the player makes one Yumster collide with another one while he’s eating, both will hide. An eating Yumster can be still controlled with drag-n-drop, as well as sped up by clicking on his body.

If the playfield is entirely full with fruit and not a single Yumster is eating, the player loses a life and has to restart the level. Extra lives are gained for every 100.000 points.

When a level is complete, it's rated with a gold, silver or bronze star, and can be replayed later.

#### Success Bar

This bar fills up when the gameplay is going well, and drops when no / few Yumsters are eating and they hit obstacles. When it gets completely filled, it gives extra coins and resets.

#### Fruit Freezing

    Fruit gradually freeze into a ball of ice. If not fully frozen, they can be defrosted by the player clicking on them or a Yumster eating them. If a fruit is completely covered in ice, it can be still defrosted by a defrost bonus or a Super Yumster, alternatively it can be destroyed with a bomb or color removing bonus.

#### Pests

There are pests in the form of three different insects: normal beetles, freezing beetles and butterflies. Beetles walk around the playfield and may bump into Yumsters' bodies, the player can click on them to stun them and force them to change direction. Freezing beetles cover fruit in ice, but can be stopped the same way. A butterfly sitting on a fruit blocks Yumsters from eating it, but can be shooed away with a click. All insects can be countered with a spray bonus.

BeetleFreezing BeetleButterfly
#### Collectibles

* Color Remove - Removes all fruit of the same color as the Yumster touching it.
* Double – Doubles every fruit that has been eaten while it’s working.
* Flexibility – Allows the Yumster to bend (not too sharply) after every fruit, and thus change direction. However, it puts a limit on how far he can be stretched after the last fruit (or from his hole if he's not reaching any).
* Recolor – Changes all the fruits to the same color as the Yumster touching it.
* Defrost – Defrosts all the fruit.
* Bomb – Removes fruit in a 2x2 square chosen by the player.
* Speed Up – Doubles the eating speed of the Yumster touching it.
* Spray – Removes all the pests for a while.
* Super Yumster – The Yumster taking this bonus gains the ability to eat any fruits, even completely frozen ones, and his eating speed increases a little. His colors circle and he gets sunglasses.

Color RemoveDoubleFlexibilityRecolorDefrostBombSpeed UpSpraySuper Yumster

#### Concerts

The game's levels are divided between five locations. In the end of each location the player buys an instrument. The game shows three of a kind. The more coins the player has earned the better instrument they’ll buy. The purchase is followed by a concert minigame. The player must click on music notes while they’re passing through the fields, a certain number of notes must be hit in each field in order to fill the bar on the right. The concert minigames are marked with bigger dots / stars on the map, and can be replayed.

**Instruments**

Instruments 1 - DrumsInstruments 2 - SynthesizersInstruments 3 - Double BassesInstruments 4 - Electric GuitarsInstruments 5 - Microphones

### Trophies

There are two types of trophies: the achievements earned during gameplay, and the concert awards.

#### Achievements

For clearing all fruit from the fieldFor completing a level without using the Spray bonusFor completing 5 levels in a row without a fully frozen fruitFor completing 5 levels in a row without Yumsters hitting obstaclesFor 100.000 pointsFor 500.000 pointsFor 1.000.000 pointsFor a 4-fruit comboFor a 6-fruit comboFor a 9-fruit comboFor a 5x stretchingFor a 7x stretchingFor a 9x stretching
#### Concert Trophies

Concert 1Concert 2Concert 3Concert 4Concert 5

### Extra Playthroughs

After winning the final concert, the game doesn't really end. The player is given the option to start over, but now with permanent flexibility for all Yumsters. For as long as they don’t accept this option, they can replay any levels normally, but once they begin the 2nd playthrough there’s no way back. The player's achievements will carry over.

After beating the game twice the player can retry it with a new requirement: the Success bar must be full in order for the fruit to count.

**Playthrough Endings (Russian)**

1st2nd3rd**2nd and 3rd Playthrough Intros (Russian)**

2nd, Flexible Playthrough3rd, Success Bar Playthrough

### Non-Stop Mode

In this additional mode the player can once again play through the levels in consecutive order, but instead of completing specific fruit goals they must fill the bar in the top middle with any fruits. This mode doesn’t include coins, the Success Bar and concerts.

### Music

The game uses dynamic music. The more Yumsters are eating at the same time, the more instruments play and the more complete the music sounds. Day, evening and night each have their own theme. In the concert minigames, the Yumsters substitute musical instruments with their own voices until they start playing them.

#### Arrangements

The main gameplay songs and the concert minigame song got arrangements. They were distributed freely on the Web and as a part of the physical release.

**Daylight Theme**

**Evening Theme**

**Midnight Theme**

**Yumsters Song**

### In-Game Tutorial + Credits (Russian)

Tutorial, Page 1Tutorial, Page 2Tutorial, Page 3Credits

### Production

#### Patch

The game was patched the following month after release. The website of KranX Productions formerly listed news about the patch. The changes were as follows:

* Yumsters don’t hide immediately when the player pulls them towards an obstacle, but keep holding on until the mouse key is released.
* Yumsters can additionally switch holes with the drag-n-drop mechanic.
* Extra playthroughs with different features have been added.

The patched version had “Люкс” added to its Russian title.

#### Physical Release

Although the game has been mainly distributed as shareware, it also got a physical release, with the OST arrangements as a bonus.

Older box cover variantOlder disk variant?
## References

Patch announcement (Russian): https://web.archive.org/web/20080922132156/http://kranx.com/ru/node/523

## Trivia

* You may be able to clean the whole field easily, if the recolor and color removing bonuses are present at the same time, and you quickly pick them up with the same Yumster in that order.
* The 2nd picture in the intro is the only time in the series where Yumsters are depicted with hands.
* In the concert minigame, the yellow Yumster originally played the saxophone.
	+ Ironically, it can be still seen in the 2nd intro picture, played by the green Yumster, while the yellow one is playing the double bass.
* The game was awarded for the best game design at the Russian Game Developers’ Conference in the year of its release.
* The game's OST arrangements are used in the following games in the series, except Evening Theme.
	+ Daylight Theme is used in the loading screen for Yumsters 2! Around the World and during Tasty Way's gameplay.
	+ The beginning of Midnight Theme plays in the ending of Yumsters 2!
	+ Yumsters Song is used in Tasty Way's start screen and menu.
* This is the only game in the series without a trailer.
* The game's initial desktop icon depicted a green Yumster wrapped around a strawberry. It was replaced with an orange Yumster face soon afterwards, which is also used for Yumsters 2! A low-quality screenshot with the downscaled icon was found.

* The game has bootleg mobile ports and a Web Flash copy, where the Yumster sprites, fruit sprites and music are replaced with those from Yumsters 2! Around the World.

### Technical

* The songs for gameplay and concert minigames are split into multiple XM files, which can be played in Windows Media Player and Media Player Classic, but can't be converted.
	+ When the double bass comes in, the synthesizer gets louder at some points because the track for the double bass duplicates those parts.
	+ In the game's installation folder > Data > music > Track02 (concert music) can be found the files miniins06.xm and minivox06.xm, which don't play in the game. This may indicate that originally the band was planned to consist of 6 Yumsters, which would've meant 6 locations and 6 instruments. The "missing" Yumster could've been blue, since Yumsters of all colors except blue form the band. The location could've been the map patch in the bottom middle with three vertical stones. But this is only a theory, as data.bin contains texture files for just 5 instruments, 5 music note colors and 5 locations.
		- minivox06.xm can be heard as a part of the loading screen music, miniins06.xm - in Yumsters Song.
* If attempting to launch the game opens an error window saying “No Direct3D support”, and there are no issues with DirectX, you may be able to fix it by updating your graphics driver. Do not launch the game with any display resolution other than native chosen manually, as it will likely cause the said error. It can't be fixed by reinstallation, or reverting the display resolution back to native and rebooting.

#### Compatibility

* The game may have graphical bugs on modern operating systems. The following have been observed on Windows 10.
	+ In the loading screen the Yumsters’ pupils and the butterfly are missing.
	+ Multiple VFX are missing.
	+ Many issues can be spotted during gameplay.
		- Jagged visuals
		- Misplaced HUD
		- Yumsters’ bodies and often heads are invisible.
		- The slight animation for fruit goes through only a few frames instead of being smooth.
		- Newly awarded achievements aren’t displayed.
		- Butterflies are invisible, albeit they still drop shadows.
		- When completing a level, photos of Yumsters aren’t shown.
		- The animation of jumping coins is missing.
		- When buying a musical instrument, the purchased one disappears when zoomed in.

**Windows 10 bugs**

#### data.bin

* Most of the game's files are kept in the file data.bin in the game's installation folder. It can't be opened with Daemon Tools, UltraISO and Nero Burning ROM. If you open it in WinRAR, you can browse the folders inside and view filenames, but if you try to extract anything you'll be requested to type in a password, which can't be cracked.
	+ Strawberries are called tomatoes in their filenames. Tomatoes are botanically classified as berries. They never appeared in the Yumsters series, likely due to their culinary use where they're considered vegetables.
	+ The Sounds folder contains files referring to 4 kinds of beetles instead of 2, with the other two being deer beetles and rhino beetles. They were never shown or mentioned anywhere.

**Filename finds**

The double basses files refer to the formerly used saxophonesStrawberries referred to as tomatoesFiles suggesting more kinds of beetles